#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. He was imprisoned in 1936, for his school passion for Trotskyism. He was sentenced to 10 years in labor camp, and transferred to Norillag. Here he worked in an experimental metallurgical shop, then in the design department, and later became the combine’s dispatcher.
At the same time, Lunyov was a talented and intelligent person, he was friends with the future writer, but at that time also a convict Sergey Snegov.
In Norilsk, Victor Lunyov wrote a poetic fairy tale about the North for his little daughter Alyona – on standard postcards. And his comrade in misfortune, an unknown camp artist, accompanied the self-made book with drawings.
“From the father – a letter to Alyona about the brave postman, the Taimyr peninsula and the snowstorm. Read to the holes!”- this is how this unusual book begins.
In that touching letter, Victor Lunyov tells his daughter about the beauties of the North, the difficulties of working in the Arctic and the difficult path that this message will take when sent to her.
Victor was in Norillag until 1942. When he was released, he continued to work as the chief dispatcher of the Norilsk combine, but then left due to problems with his lung. During the second wave of repressions, in 1950, he was again arrested and imprisoned for four years.
Lunyov’s daughter, to whom the book was addressed, became a doctor of philological sciences, a major specialist in semantics.
The book survived, and today it was released in a reprint edition.
In the History Spot’s previous publication, we told that the first film was shown in Norilsk in the mid-1930s.
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Text: Svetlana Ferapontova, Photo: Nornickel Polar Branch archive
