#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. The city’s cafes and restaurants won all-Union competitions, even got awards at the exhibition of achievements of the national economy. People came to Norilsk for the rich polar supplies and high service culture. That is why it is the public catering establishments that still evoke nostalgia among the native Norilsk residents.
In 1951, on the eve of the October holidays (the 1917 October revolution anniversary – editor), canteen No. 4 opened. As can be judged by the number, it was not the very first one in Norilsk, but it was the first in its new part – in Gorstroy. All of its predecessors were located in the Old town or at enterprises. The canteen was located on the first floor of a residential building with the address of Pionerskaya street, 11. It was in great demand, especially since a deli operated in the yard, where there were always high-quality semi-finished products, dough, and pastries. The unnamed canteen No. 4 worked until the 1970s, and then got its own name – Zharki (the name of the Red Book tundra flowers – editor). This name has survived to this day.
The first real restaurant in the city is considered to be the famous Taimyr. It opened on Leninsky prospect in February 1954. But even before it, there were catering outlets in Norilsk with a claim to restaurant service. In general, the first restaurant in Norilsk was conceived and even laid down before the war – on the corner of Octyabrskaya and Zavodskaya streets. But the construction was frozen, and then repurposed: as a result, the famous DITR appeared there. True, it had a chic buffet – the future cafe Ugolyok (Eng.: a small piece of coal). In the late 1940s, the first Norilsk canteen on Gornaya street offered high-quality service. More precisely, it was a canteen during the day, and from six in the evening until two in the morning it became a restaurant. The first Norilsk waitresses even worked there. And a restaurant near the station was also designed and operated, although not for long. It was also the predecessor of the city restaurant Taimyr, because the station building opened in the fall of 1953.
And yet, Taimyr was the first real, full-fledged restaurant. It opened in February 1954 on the first floor of a Stalin-era residential building on Leninsky prospect, 12. “Curtains, chandeliers, buffets, chairs covered with covers, paintings in carved frames, tables with snow-white tablecloths – all this gives the restaurant a beautiful look. The menu here is varied. There are more than 17 cold appetizers alone”, the city newspaper wrote a month after its opening. You can hear recollections that Taimyr was also a canteen at first, but one of the first newspaper articles contains the following complaints: when visitors asked to have lunch quickly so as to fit it into the break, the waitresses answered: “This is not a canteen, they will serve you quickly there, but here is a restaurant”.
But Taimyr’s neighbor Lama really was a canteen at first. It opened on the first floor of a residential building, then still on Stalin avenue, 6, as canteen No. 32. But what a canteen it was! Its interior was not inferior to the Taimyr restaurant’s – high ceilings, columns, stucco, parquet flooring, wavy streams of curtains. There were no waiters yet, there was a counter with serving on trays. But the visitors were in jackets and shoes, bread on plates – under starched napkins, and in the hall there was fashionable, light duralumin furniture. In 1963, the canteen received the status of a cafe and its own name – Lama (the name of the unique lake on Putorana plateau – editor).
In 1967, Lama opened after reconstruction as a restaurant and amazed the imagination of all Norilsk residents. One of its two halls was given over to the first bar in the city! Two bar counters, high ottomans, soft chairs, a fireplace. Coming to the bar Lama, ordering a Bloody Mary cocktail – it was something unheard of! It is not surprising that the restaurant soon became a favorite place of Norilsk’s golden youth. While fathers went to a banquet in Taimyr, sons took their girls to Lama. The number of seats in the restaurant decreased – up to 150 people, but it was real chic and shine. Lama became fashionable, bright, democratic and showed off.
Taimyr and Lama received the main guests of Norilsk and were the main calling cards of the city among catering establishments. But other cafes and restaurants also matched them. We will tell about them in the next History Spot publication.
In the previous publication we wrote about the first Norilsk schools.
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Text: Svetlana Ferapontova, Photo: Olga Zaderyaka, Norilsk residents and the Nornickel Polar branch’s archives
