#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. The houses of Hantayskaya street were built in Norilsk not long ago – in the early 1990s. However, despite this, it has an interesting four-part history.
In the 1940s, on the site of the modern Hantayka (as the local residents call the Hantayskaya street) there was the fourth camp department of the Norillag, where prisoners lived – the builders of the Copper plant.
The place was cut off and removed from the main residential area. In the 1950s, the Norillag was closed, and at the site of the camp, not a city street appeared at first, but a new village of Severny, which was also called the 70th and 80th quarter in the documents.
In addition to wooden barracks, the village was built up with neat brick two-story buildings left from the camp times. There was also the first Norilsk sausage shop and a military unit belonging to an anti-aircraft missile regiment. With it – vast garages, a military commandant’s office and a military shop, which is still remembered by the old-timers of Norilsk.
In the 1960s, the first Hrushchev’s houses were built on the site of the village. They formed a new street, which in 1968 was named Hantayskaya. At that time the construction of the Ust-Hantayskaya hydroelectric power station was underway, which two years later gave Norilsk the first current.
In 1990, nine-story buildings of the latest, modernized series were erected in that area. However, in 1995, the construction site stopped again. The microdistrict remained unfinished. They did not manage to build the planned swimming pool, pharmacy, savings bank, industrial and food store.
In the last issue of the History spot photo project, we talked about the first streets of Norilsk in the Old Town.
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
