Children in Norilsk were surrounded with special care in order to compensate them for their life in the North. For weakened children, sanatorium kindergartens worked: the first one was built at the Tooth mountain. Getting tanned in a photoarium – an analogue of today’s tanning salons – was obligatory for northern children. Those who did not leave for the Taezhny pioneer camp for the summer rested in local camps. The first of those was opened in 1940 on lake Lama, later – at the Valyok dispensary and at schools.
They also tried to diversify children’s leisure. When the city pool started working in 1959, the Norilsk kids were carried there by a special bus called Cheerful Dolphin.
Most of the yards had sandpits and rocking chairs. And on Komsomolskaya street in the early 1960s, a real carousel with deer and horses appeared in summer – the predecessor of the later swings and trampolines on Metallurgov square.
Read other materials of our photo project in the History spot section.
Text: Svetlana Samokhina, Photo: Nornickel Polar Branch archive
