#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. In November 1938, just three years after the Norilsk combine’s construction start, Avraamy Zavenyagin signed the order to name the first streets.
The first buildings of the Norilsk settlement formed six city lines.
The local coordinates and landmarks of that time look especially interesting in the document: “Assign the following names to the streets of Norilsk:
• Gornaya street, going from the Ugolny stream to the new camp;
• Zavodskaya street, running from west to east from the new camp to the plant;
• Pyasinskaya street, running along the cliff on the northern and western sides of the new camp, directed to lake Pyasino;
• Melnichenko street, running parallel to the factory canteen in the new camp to the north of it. The street name is assigned in honor of the CO’s shooter Melnichenko, who was killed while capturing the escaped prisoners;
• Ozernaya street – along the school, plaster houses, two semi-detached apartments and two two-story houses;
• Octyabrskaya street, running along the left bank of Medvezhy Creek past the CO (correctional officers’) house;
• name the lake at the foot of the Rudnaya mountain Rudnoye lake.
This order was often quoted in the Soviet period, but all references to the Norilsk camp were erased from there.
Now, of these seven streets, only Octyabrskaya, Zavodskaya and Gornaya have retained their original configuration. The rest turned into groups of scattered and half-collapsed buildings.
In the last issue of History spot photo project, we talked about the magnetic ionospheric station: scientists have been observing the northern lights in Norilsk since 1963.
For other issues of our photo project about the history of the city and the combine, go to the History spot section.
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Text: Svetlana Samohina, Photo: Nornickel Polar Division archive
