#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. Nikolay Urvantsev died on February 20, 1985, in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg). His devoted wife, Elizaveta Urvantseva, outlasted him by just a few weeks.
In July 1985, the couple’s ashes were laid to rest in Norilsk, fulfilling their last will.
“Sadly, the memorial established in their honor on Gornaya street got soon destroyed. The country was experiencing tough economic times, and their ashes were kept at the Norilsk Exploration and Development Museum”, recount members of the Taimyr Explorers’ Club.
During his time in Norillag (the Stalin’s era Norilsk forced labor camp. – editor), Urvantsev actively contributed to the museum’s paleontological and geological-mineralogical collections. After his rehabilitation, he returned to Leningrad, where a new chapter in his career began.
An esteemed scientist and engineer of the RSFSR, Urvantsev authored numerous scientific works and maintained a close relationship with the Norilsk museum, providing it with documents, photographs, manuscripts, and personal belongings. He visited his beloved Norilsk many times.
In 1993, to commemorate the centenary of Nikolay Urvantsev’s birth, the couple’s ashes were solemnly reinterred at the city cemetery.
In July 2017, thanks to the initiative of the local Journalists’ Union and the participation of Norilsk residents, supported by the Nornickel company and the city administration, a memorial to Urvantsev was unveiled in the square of the Norilsk Museum.
In 2021, a festive ceremony was held to deface a postage stamp honoring the centenary of the First Norilsk House, with 250 copies issued by the Russian post.
Nikolay Urvantsev’s name has been given to various locations, including an embankment in Norilsk, a street in his hometown Lukoyanov, a cape and a bay on Oleny island in the Kara sea, a rock in the mountains of Queen Maud Land in Antarctica, and a mineral named urvantsevit. Additionally, the Norilsk airport and the NordStar airline’s aircraft bear his name.
Nikolay Urvantsev is remembered as an honorable scientist and the author of multiple scientific works, primarily focusing on Taimyr, the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago, and geological research in the northern Siberian platform.
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Text: Larisa Fedishina, Photo: Severny Gorod MC’s archive
