Pyotr Lomako believed in the future of Norilsk and did not disregard the Norilsk Combine while being a minister until 1986. That was the longest tenure in the ministerial post marked by the Guinness Book of Records.
On a regular business trip, the minister visited the Komsomolsky mine and the Nickel plant. The main metallurgical enterprise celebrated its 30th anniversary in 1972.
The jubilee year of the Nickel plant began with a breakdown in the smelter, which affected the work of all the main combine enterprises. The reason was a grand reconstruction, complicated by unplanned emergency stops of equipment and difficulties associated with the development of new technologies. But the plant specialists managed the situation and that challenge was awarded by the Red Banner of the USSR Ministers Council in the first quarter of the year.
The minister visited the second Talnah mine – Komsomolsky, commissioned in March 1971, and the Octyabrsky under construction.
The director of the Norilsk Mining and Metallurgical Combine Nikolay Mashyanov – the successor of Vladimir Dolgih and the predecessor of Boris Kolesnikov – accompanied the distinguished guest through the territory of the industrial region. According to the tradition of those years, Pyotr Lomako was taken to the Valek sanatorium, where he was met by the legendary doctor Pavlina Bespalova.
Text: Varvara Sosnovskaya, Photo: Nornickel Polar Branch archive
