#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. When the combine was transferred to the NKVD, Mahotkin was already considered an old-timer here and showed the new authorities lakes and rivers from a bird’s eye view.
In 1936, he made a record flight on the Krasnoyarsk – Dudinka line, covering a distance of 2 400 kilometers along the Krasnoyarsk – Dudinka route and back to Igarka in one flying day. In 1937 Mahotkin was the first to fly from Krasnoyarsk to Norilsk.
In 1940, the pilot was arrested and sentenced to 10 years for ‘anti-Soviet propaganda’ – he spoke well of a foreign aircraft. So Mahotkin again ended up in the Arctic and became a ‘reluctant Norilsk citizen’. He flew on the Norilsk combine geological service’s planes, was the enrichment plant crushing shop’s repairmen foreman. He was released only in 1951, rehabilitated in 1956 ‘for lack of corpus delicti’.
In the History Spot’s previous publication, we told about the feature film Thirst over the Stream: the movie drama was filmed in Talnah, which was under construction.
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Text: Svetlana Ferapontova, Photo: Nornickel Polar Branch archive
