#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. In June 1971, the city newspaper wrote: “Urban Planners – this is the conventional name of the future movie, which will be dedicated to the problems of modern architecture and urban planning. Young spouses-architects are in the center of the film. The actress for the main character role has not yet been found, and the main male character – the architect Kalmykov – will be played by the artist of the Tallinn Russian Drama Theater Anatoly Solonitsyn”.
The hero of the film – architect Dmitry Kalmykov, played by Anatoly Solonitsyn – dreamed of a completely new type of housing for northerners – houses under a glass dome, houses-complexes, houses-pyramids.
Its prototype was the Norilsk architect Alexander Shipkov, whom the director met in Leningrad. Many episodes were filmed against the background of the architect’s projects: Sergey Gerasimov took Shipkov’s stretchers to the shooting directly from the Architectural Institute. The hero’s monologues were taken from the correspondence with Shipkov, as well as from his dissertation.
The movie was partially filmed in Norilsk. To Love a Man is also remembered here by the fact that the filmmakers did not confine themselves, as before, to northern nature or postcard views of the city. Especially for filming at the Zub mountain, a cottage-house was built, which the Norilsk residents called the Red Hat for the color of the roof.
After the filmmakers finished the work, the house became a local landmark: the townspeople went to take pictures against its background. After filming, the Stroymehanizatsiya trust was placed in it. Unfortunately, the house did not last long: in the mid-1970s it burned down.
In the last issue of the History spot photo project, we told about Norilsk housewives who switched from firewood to electricity.
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Text: Svetlana Samohina, Photo: Nornickel Polar Division archive