#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. Even the first winterers noted that during the long dark winter without a change of activity and impressions, a person is attacked by polar melancholy with insomnia and apathy. And in this situation, cinema became the most important of the arts.
In the early 1930s, when the first builders arrived in Norilsk, cultural and educational activities were expressed in lectures-conversations with light pictures. They began to be held in the fall of 1931, when a club-canteen was built. At the same time, the manager of Norilskstroy organization Yakov Vedernikov telegraphed to the district executive committee of Dudinka: “We need to get a movie!” And by that time, Dudinka already had a cinema station.
In 1936, a new club was built in Norilsk: a regular wooden one with simple benches. On the opening day, they showed the film Circus. This was the only film, and it was shown all winter, and the hall was always overcrowded.
In 1939, a real club was built on Gornaya street – the Miners club (the future Trade Union club) with a hall for 400 seats. The first stationary film installation from the Igarka cinematography department began working there: up to 30 sessions per month!
In 1942, the House of Engineering and Technical Workers – DITR became the main center of culture. At that time, this building was an architectural wonder against the backdrop of wooden barracks where all residents of the Norilsk settlement aspired to get into. The DITR also had a cinema hall for 270 seats. On June 23, 1945, on the day of the Norilsk combine’s tenth anniversary, the premiere of the first film – The Giant of the Arctic (a movie about Norilsk)- took place there. The first screening was held in a full house, and the film was shown several times. And then all the country saw Norilsk, a settlement not yet marked on the map.
The first real cinema in Norilsk, located in a specially designed and planned building, was Rodina, which opened in 1953. It was the second cultural institution – after the scientific and technical library, built in the new area of the city. True, Rodina was not located in a separate building, but on the first floor of a residential building. This was due to an acute housing shortage, because of which social and cultural amenities were built on a residual principle.
The result was impressive: an elegant foyer, high ceilings (over seven meters!), columns with stucco. Two halls, designed for 441 spectators, were then called red and blue. Outside on the corner of the building, along the vertical of the facade, they hung square letters that formed the words ‘Rodina cinema’. Exactly the same kind of letters, but with the words ‘Taimyr restaurant’, were on the corner of the house opposite. These were the first real signs in Norilsk, because other cultural and everyday objects at that time did not have their own names.
The 1950s were the most cinematographically abundant time in the history of Norilsk. In place of the camp departments, settlements appeared, and their clubs became mini-cinemas with the most unexpected names: the Stroitel (eng.: Builder) club, the Zaozerny Settlement’s club, the Motor Transport Office’s club…
And yet, there were still not enough seats for everyone who wanted to become moviegoers. The main movie theater Rodina’s tickets got sold out very quickly. Therefore, on June 1, 1957, the Pobeda cinema opened next to Rodina. The second movie theater on Komsomolskaya square was also designed for 400 seats and had two halls – blue and green.
Three years later, in May 1960, a third cinema opened on the same square in Norilsk – a wide-screen one! Moreover, it was located in a separate building. The 1200-seat cinema was launched into trial operation on May 5, 1960. Interestingly, at first they planned to call it Mir, but before the opening they changed everything: in honor of the 90th anniversary of the Revolution leader, it was named after Lenin.
After three cinemas began operating simultaneously on Komsomolskaya square in Norilsk, they decided to change the audience for one of them: Pobeda became the children’s cinema Pioneer. But, having worked in this status for only five years, the cinema closed completely, and since then its former building has housed the gymnasiums of a sports school.
As time went on, going to the cinema remained one of the favorite forms of recreation for Norilsk residents. A social survey conducted in 1980 showed that going to the cinema shared first place in the leisure rating with reading books and newspapers. Talnah got its own cinema in 1972, and Kayerkan – in 1985, when the Yubileiny cinema was opened for the Norilsk combine’s anniversary.
In Norilsk in 1977, in honor of the Revolution anniversary, a wide-screen supercinema for 800 spectators was opened. The date obliged, and the cinema was called by the indigestible name 60 Years of October. But the townspeople began to call it by their own name – Six-Zero. The interiors of the new cultural center were developed by Norilsk designers, including the famous artist and architect Boris Paley. The first films on the posters were Soldiers of Freedom, Red Requiem and Mysterious Abduction.
In the History Spot’s previous publication, we wrote about the Hrushchev era in the Norilsk construction industry.
Follow us on Telegram, VKontakte.
Text: Svetlana Ferapontova, Photo: Olga Zaderyaka, Norilsk residents and Nornickel’s Polar Division’s archives
