#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. Surprisingly, Norilsk residents remember not only the chic Norilsk restaurants, but also those small food outlets with no less trepidation and nostalgia.
In Soviet times, small snack bars were in demand in Norilsk: now they would be called fast food establishments. During the Soviet years, more than 20 different Pelmennaya, Kotletnaya, Buterbrodnaya and Bulbyanaya worked in our city. The most famous of them were located in the courts of honor on the odd side of Leninsky prospect – Varenichnaya and Pirozhkovaya. At first, they were built as typical light pavilions and, accordingly, worked only in the summer. But later they decided to make them year-round, and in the 1980s, capital one-story buildings stood in the place of the pavilions, which still exist today.
Pirozhkovaya and Varenichnaya appeared on Leninsky prospect in 1967-1968. Similar snack bars grew up behind them and on neighboring streets. For example, employees of all the surrounding offices ran for the delicious chebureks that were baked in the pavilion on Bohdan Hmelnitsky street, next to the bathhouse. Nearby, on Lomonosov street, there was Buterbrodnaya, on Zavenyagin street – Kotletnaya, which later became Sosisochnaya. Some of those snack bars raised the markup category, hired waiters and grew into cafes. Thus, Plovnaya grew into Dastarkhan, and Shashlychnaya became the Vostochnoye cafe.
Snack bars became most widespread in the 1980s. At that time, the USSR Ministry of Trade systematized the catering points: “…Specialized snack bar – depending on the range of products sold, snack bars may have the following specialization: shashlik, cutlet, sausage, sandwich (shot glass), pelmeni (varenik), cheburek, pie, pancake, donut. In the Union republics, snack bars with national cuisine are allowed: Bulbyanaya, Lagmannaya, Khinkalnaya, Kupatnaya, Mantnaya, Zakarpatskaya Kolyba (the names are made from national food names – editor) and others”. And almost all of these variations of snack bars were in Norilsk! They came from home kitchens that operated on the first floors of residential buildings in almost every courtyard. And, having received their specialization, they, of course, attracted more visitors. They were lifesavers for schoolchildren and students who dropped in after classes and lectures, for bachelors and Norilsk residents just hanging out on their days off.
Most of the eateries were for lovers of Siberian homemade food: three Pelmennayas, Mantnaya and the cafe Sibirskiye Pelmeni. The latter opened in 1969 on Ordzhonikidze street. The typical pavilion stood until the mid-1980s, and then the political education house construction began, now it’s the city culture center.
In addition, Norilsk had Belyashnaya, Blinnaya, Bulbyanaya, Boulionnaya, Buterbrodnaya, Varenicheskaya, Kupatnaya, Sosisochnaya, Plovnaya, Hitchinnaya, Shashlychnaya, two Pirozhkovayas and Cheburechnayas and even a Pizzeria, which was amazing for 1985.
This pavilion on Leninsky prospect is also well known to Norilsk residents, although it was only partly a snack bar. On New Year’s Eve, 1970, a beer hall opened there. The interior was simple, but not devoid of originality: there were wooden barrels instead of chairs, tables were made from tree cuts. The signature dish, of course, was the products of the Norilsk brewery, everything else was more of an appetizer than a meal. Dried fish was a must on the menu: bream, roach, sabrefish. For the main course, simple second courses were served: meatballs, cutlets, sausages. But the most ‘beer’ snack was considered to be lula kebab, which, by the way, was cooked very tasty in the beer hall. In the early 1980s, the beer hall was renovated and its orientation was changed. The signature dish there became Tabacco Chickens, which became the name of the new cafe.
In History Spot’s previous issues, we already talked about Norilsk restaurants, which were the city’s calling cards, and before that worked as canteens.
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Text: Svetlana Ferapontova, Photo: Olga Zaderyaka, Norilsk residents and Nornickel’s Polar Branch’s archives
