In February 1985, a new health resort of the Norilsk combine – Lake Beloye – took in first vacationers. 15 years earlier, in November 1969, the government had decided to increase the sanitary services for miners and metallurgists. The Norilsk Mining and Metallurgical Combine was allocated a plot in the central zone of the Soviet Union. It could accept 500-700 people.
The place for the construction was chosen in the Shatursky district of the Moscow region, near the Beloye lake. The pine-deciduous forest was intended for the rest of those Norilsk residents who felt sick in the humid and hot climate of the Sochi Zapolyarye resort.
In 1971, the architects of Mosgrazhdanproekt came to Norilsk to present their project, which was chosen at a specially organized competition. In 1974, the first residential buildings for staff were built on the Beloye lake, and in 1979, the construction of the sanatorium itself began on the north-western shore of the lake.
The Norilsk residents had been going on vacation to the Moscow region for 20 years. In February 2004, the sanatorium was sold to the Moscow government.
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Text: Svetlana Samokhina, Photo: Nornickel Polar Division archive
