The construction of the first five-storey panel house on Leningradskaya street started in 1961. The experimental house was built of precast concrete by the industrial method. In 1962, the Reinforced Concrete Products Plant produced panels for four such houses.
Local reinforced concrete products were used in Norilsk long before the appearance of the house with a snowflake. In the 40s at the brick-and-block factory there was a workshop for the production of such materials for industrial facilities and housing.
The plant of reinforced concrete products near the Zoob Mount was launched in early 1956. Since then, it has provided precast concrete for all construction sites of the plant, including Dudinka, Khatanga and Snezhnogorsk. At the same time, the central laboratory for building materials appeared, which played a large role in the development of the Norilsk construction industry. All technologies were first tested in a laboratory way. The raw material base of the Norilsk industrial region made it possible to produce almost all building materials on the spot. The city was built of local brick and reinforced concrete.
The first panel house with a snowflake, meaning that it was built on stilts, lost its historical mark at the beginning of the XXI century. In 2003, during the repair, the end face of the five-storey building on Leningradskaya, 3, with a snowflake and the construction start date – “1961” was painted over. It took the good will of a Norilsk citizen to return the city’s memorial panel two years ago. A famous Norilsk photographer and publisher Alexander Kharitonov, at his own expense, restored the nearly lost history autograph.
Text: Varvara Sosnovskaya, Photo: Norilsknickel Polar Branch archive
