#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR.
Komsomolskaya square, according to the first general plans, should have looked completely different. There were simply no plans to build either the Lenin Cinema building or the Palace of Culture on it. But there should have been the main entrance to Komsomolsky park on the mountain, and it should have been framed by two technical school buildings. There were proposals to erect another monument to Lenin on the square, and to turn the lake, on which the boys rafted in the summer, into a city pond.
As a result, in 1958, the Palace of Culture began to be built on the square. The building has an unusual foundation. Its back part stands on a rocky foundation, and the front part rests on piles on permafrost and a filled-in karst lake. The experience of such a double foundation was new for the city. The project author and the architects’ group leader was Lydia Minenko, the designer was Vitold Nepokoychitsky. The Palace of Culture became a gift for the Norilsk combine’s 30th anniversary, which was celebrated in 1965.
The 1950s were the most cinematically abundant time in the history of Norilsk. In addition to the main cinemas on Komsomolskaya square – Rodina and Pobeda – there were film theaters in the villages.
The culmination of the film industry in Norilsk was the opening of the first wide-screen cinema on April 30, 1960, on Komsomolskaya square. At that time, going to the cinema for Norilsk residents was a real window to the world. By the way, at first they wanted to call the cinema Mir (eng.: World). But since that year the country widely celebrated the revolution leader’s 90th birth anniversary, the wide-screen cinema was named after Lenin.
The building was designed by architect Jakob Trušiņš. True, he imagined it differently. For example, the cinema was supposed to have two side wings, and they wanted to decorate the façade with a monumental sculptural group, which, by the way, they even managed to make. But in the fight against architectural excesses, the cinema lost its spacious foyer, buffet, and façade decor was greatly simplified. Architect Nepokoichitsky later called this “planed” building one of the most unsuccessful, and proposed to take away Lenin’s name from it and give it to the Palace of Culture. Nevertheless, this cinema was the first wide-screen in the city. It had two large cinema halls, where 1 200 people could simultaneously experience the “most important of the arts”.
The first film in the lower, wide-screen hall was Kochubey with Nikolay Rybnikov in the title role. In the upper hall with a regular screen, the top-selling 1960 three-part film Virgin Soil Upturned was shown. In the first year of operation, the new cinema set an absolute record for attendance – its sessions were attended four million times. That is, every resident of Norilsk, including infants, went to the cinema at least 30 times during the year. Since May 2000, the Norilsk Museum has been operating in the building of the former Lenin cinema.
The current theater building is the third in its history: the first was located in the Old Town, the second at – the end of Sevastopolskaya street. There, on Norilsk broadway, the theater was located for more than 30 years. And all those years it was said that the construction of a new temple of Melpomene was about to begin. Back in the early 1960s, when Dzerzhinsky street was born, it was called Teatralny proezd eng.: Theatre passage), because it merged into the square, where, according to plans, a theater was to grow on one side or the other. As a result, the street was given the name of Iron Felix (Dzerzhinsky. – editor), and the theater was finally built – but a quarter of a century later.
The long-awaited start is documented in detail: on April 2, 1983, at 11 o’clock, a rally began on the square in honor of the construction start. The combine’s construction department’s head, Valery Karavaev, placed a commemorative medal under the first pile. The design of the building for 600 seats was carried out by the Norilskproekt team. They got the order with a fight. The specialized design institute Giprotheater asked for a lot of money and a completion time of about three years. The Norilsk residents had no experience in designing theaters, but there was a group of young architects led by Anatoly Chernyshov. They completed the project in a year and a half. The state commission accepted the theater with an “excellent” rating on December 31, 1986. The first performance was given on January 8, 1987. It was Special Purpose – a play about Avraamy Zavenyagin. The first spectators were the theater builders and designers.
Metallurgists square has long been a stumbling block for architects. There was a lot of debate in the city planning community about what this new community center should be like. They wanted to place a whole complex of cultural and sports facilities on the square: a new drama theater (in one of the options), a cinema, a museum, a house of pioneers, a swimming pool… They announced competitions, proposed projects, broke spears, but not a single one of the proposed projects satisfied the architectural community and authorities and, apparently, that’s why it was never implemented.
For ten years, while the debate was going on, Metallurgists square stood empty. In 1975, they began leveling the construction site there. Construction began on a new cinema, even a super cinema. Two years later, it became a gift for the anniversary of the October Revolution; large-format equipment was installed in it – for 70 mm film. Before the cinema opening, a competition was announced for the best name; Norilsk residents came up with 80 options, including Metallurgist, Aurora, Star. But the round date obliged – this is how the ideological 60 Years of October appeared, or, as the townspeople later simplified it, Six-Zero.
The wide-format cinema could simultaneously accommodate up to 800 spectators. The interiors of the new cultural center were designed by designers from Norilsk art and production workshops, including the famous Norilsk artist and architect Boris Paley. The first films on the new cinema’s posters were Soldiers of Freedom, Red Requiem and The Mysterious Kidnapping. In 2003, after a long renovation, the cinema was renamed Cinema-ART Hall.
In the History Spot’s previous publication, we talked about the most beautiful and significant buildings in Norilsk.
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Text: Svetlana Ferapontova, Photo: Nornickel Polar Branch archive
