#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. The director of the Copper plant’s sports and recreation complex Nikolay Gulevsky, after graduating from the University in Kaluga, returned to his hometown Norilsk in 2012: first he got a job at the Nickel plant as an engineering position, and three years later he moved to the Copper plant.
According to Nikolay, he was fond of sports since childhood, opting for cross-country skiing.
“My father went from being a skier to the director of a ski base. Following his example, I became interested in skiing and fell in love with this sport. I took part in competitions, won several times at the city level”, says Nikolay.
The athlete is sure that thanks to cross-country skiing, his character has changed:
“Skiing is a labor-intensive sport that requires long training and great willpower”.
Nikolay regularly won medals, including gold medals in the Norilsk Nickel Olympics. He also won three times in the 50-kilometer marathon dedicated to the Victory Day.
According to the interlocutor, now almost a quarter of all employees of the Copper plant – more than 400 people – participate in various sports competitions, by the way, including the director of the plant, Alexander Leonov, the captain of the chess team. The most massive and popular sports at the plant are athletics, cross-country skiing, mini-football, volleyball and swimming.
Nikolay is especially proud of the achievements of veteran teams, among which the male and female volleyball teams stand out first of all:
“These are people of the old school, who have shown themselves excellently both from the production and sports side. Many of them have worked in Norilsk for many decades. For example, last year the captain of our volleyball team, Natalia Furina, completed her career. She worked at the plant for many years, including as a sports instructor. Natalia possessed an inexhaustible source of energy, charged her teammates for victory and inspired all of us to new deeds”.
Very soon, the athletes of the Copper plant, as well as the rest of the enterprises of the Polar Division, will join the fight in the company’s next Olympics. At the same time, in addition to the Nornickel competitions, the Copper plant will host an internal sports contest, which will celebrate its 70th anniversary this year. Nikolay is sure that this time the plant’s athletes will be among the favorites of the Olympics, and their principal rivals will be Norilsknickelremont enterprise and Nadezhda metallurgical plant, battles with which always arouse keen interest among fans:
“Our plant has developed serious sports traditions that go down in history for many decades. We are proud of our athletes and coaches, the winners of the corporate sports contests”.
“Last year was not easy not only for the Nornickel sports, but also for the city sports in general. Now we are ready to win again. I am sure that one of the high labor efficiency indicators is correctly planned leisure time, and it is gratifying that many employees of the Copper plant devote their free time to sports and healthy recreation life style”, concluded Nikolay Gulevsky.
Text: Mikhail Tuaev, Photo: from the personal archive of Nikolay Gulevsky, Nikolay Shchipko
