#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. From the time Norilsk received city status until the mid-1960s, all city government structures were located in another building – on Sevastopolskaya street, 7. It was Sevastopolskaya that was both the official and cultural heart of Norilsk. And on Leninsky prospect, between one of the last Stalin-era buildings – the building of the Gornyak restaurant – and one of the first Hrushchev-era buildings – the building of the Severyanka store – a summer market like this was set up on polar day.
In 1963, construction began on Leninsky prospect for a new administrative building for Norilsk executive committee. The design for the new building – the ‘gray house’, as Norilsk residents later nicknamed it – belonged to the architect Ekab Trushinsh. This is not his most beautiful work, but nothing could be done – at that time there was a fight against architectural excesses. The builders handed over the administrative building in 1964: they raised the flag of the RSFSR over it and settled the executive committee of the city council of deputies, the city committees of the party and the Komsomol there.
On the entrance group, now demolished and rebuilt, various art panels changed over the decades. First, these were portraits of Lenin and Marx – the communism ideologists. Then – a panel with an image of a worker and an astronaut with the inscription Years of Great Achievements. Later – Lenin’s profile, but alone. For the longest time, the entrance group was overshadowed by a bas-relief with a symbolic image of the Soviet coat of arms with a sickle and hammer. In Soviet times, the upper part of the city executive committee facade was decorated with the RSFSR coat of arms, later it was replaced by the symbol of Norilsk.
In Norilsk, there is another administrative building built according to a similar project. In 1971, at the junction of Talnahskaya and Begichev streets, the office of the Zapolyaregaz administration, the predecessor of Norilskgazprom, was built. It was an exact copy of the city executive committee hall, and in old photographs, until Norilskgazprom got a three-story extension, they are easy to confuse.
In the 1980s, Norilsk architects developed a project for an extension for the city executive committee hall. They wanted to build its second building in the courtyard, behind the main building. It would have been a diamond-shaped structure with a large conference hall inside. They were supposed to be connected by a transition gallery. But the project was never implemented.
The history of the panel located on the end of the house next to the Norilsk administration – on Leninsky prospect, 24 – is also interesting. At first, an ordinary Soviet poster with the slogan The People and the Party are United! was placed there. In 1974, there was a mosaic composition on this end wall under the same slogan. Its authors were the artists Nikolay Loy, Lado Surmava and Alexander Shulzhinsky. Half a million multi-colored tiles were needed to make the mosaic, which was almost 200 square meters in size. It depicted young workers and native northerners. In the 1990s, the inscription on the mosaic was changed. Instead of The People and the Party are United! they wrote The People are United! In addition, the image of the party card that the heroes of the mosaic were holding was removed, and today they hold nothing in their hands. Today, this mosaic is most often hidden under banners with social advertising.
In the History Spot’s previous publication, we told about why houses on Komsomolskaya street were built at an angle.
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Text: Svetlana Ferapontova, Photo: Norilsk residents and the Nornickel Polar Division’s archives, Denis Kozhevnikov
