#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. But the USSR Council of Ministers set a different task: to expand the project to a large sports complex, “a grandiose sports complex, the northernmost in the world.”
Two sites were considered for construction – on 50 Years of October street and in the area of Dolgoye lake. The first option did not fit because of the Central Heating and Power plant proximity: it then worked on coal and belonged to the first class of hazard. Therefore, construction began behind the swimming pool.
The project was typical, and Norilsk architects adapted it to polar conditions. One of them, Mikhail Bitadze, was the gymnastics section founder and he designed, as they say, “for himself”.
The first building – a showroom with a hockey rink and stands for three thousand spectators – was commissioned in 1970, on the Lenin’s centenary.
The hall was then not only the northernmost, but also the first in the region: the Krasnoyarsk skating rink Sokol appeared only five years later.
In the last History Spot’s publication, we spoke about the fact that until the 19th century, Western scientists did not believe in the permafrost existence.
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Text: Svetlana Ferapontova, Photo: Nornickel Polar Division archive
