#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. Former Russian presidential candidate Alexander Lebed defeated the incumbent governor Valery Zubov, also thanks to the active support of the Norilsk people.
Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who flew to Norilsk, and singer Lyudmila Zykina, who spoke in support of Zubov, urged not to vote for Lebed.
Sympathy for the future governor was added by the visit to the regional capital of Alain Delon, who urged the inhabitants of the region to vote for Alexander Lebed. It was a reciprocal gesture to the speech of Alla Pugacheva, invited by Zubov’s headquarters.
The first photographs of his four-year-period, from May 1998 to April 2002, were photographs taken during the governor’s official visit to the northern city in October 1998.
In addition to working meetings with the heads of Norilsk, Kayerkan, Talnah, the program included a descent underground at the Octyabrsky mine.
For four years the governor visited Norilsk many times. He came, as the mayor Oleg Budargin recalled, probably twice a month: “Being engaged in business, at the same time, he had a rest from the hustle and bustle of Krasnoyarsk”.
All the visits of Alexander Lebed to celebrate the Metallurgist Day and the City Day, including the anniversary year 2000, when the Norilsk combine celebrated its 65th anniversary, remained in the photo chronicle.
In the fall of 2001, the governor, together with the mayor of Krasnoyarsk, Petr Pimashkov, opened the first fair of Krasnoyarsk farmers’ products in Norilsk.
In April 2002, Alexander Lebed died in a plane crash over the Sayan mountains.
Read other materials of the photo project in the History spot section.
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Text: Varvara Sosnovskaya, Photo: Nornickel Polar Division archive
