#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. Those were eight two-story houses, in the area of the future Pionerskaya (Bogdan Hmelnitsky street’s former name) and Sevastopolskaya.
Geographically, they were located between the industrial institute and the building of school No. 4 (later the gymnasium, which was recently closed), but neither one nor the other building existed at that time. At that time those areas were called the fifth and ninth quarter. Of course, they have not survived to this day.
The next house under construction number nine was already quite large – three stories. Its first entrance was handed over for settlement in 1942. Its facades overlooked Pionerskaya and Sevastopolskaya streets, and the postal number was 6/5. That house has also already been demolished, in its place there are two nine-story buildings.
By the way, Vladimir Lebedinsky, the author of essays and books about Norilsk, lived in house No. 6/5, and he called it ‘a house with all the inconveniences’. The reason is that at first there, as in the other first houses of the street and the city, there was no water and sewerage, electricity and heating. The kitchens were equipped with charcoal stoves. The apartments were mostly communal, but, at the backdrop of barracks and mobile huts, stone houses were a luxury.
The first streets of Norilsk in the 1940s were a big swamp. There were footbridges along it, which led to the arch, where the inscription Gorstroy (City Construction) proudly flaunted.
Pionerskaya street got its name due to the fact that the House of Pioneers was opened in the basement of its house number three. And when it moved to Komsomolskaya street, Pionerskaya street was renamed after the Ukrainian hetman Hmelnitsky.
As for Sevastopolskaya street, it was named after the heroic defense of the port during the Great Patriotic War, and it still bears this name.
In the last issue of the History Spot photo project we told about how Norilsk met the Great Patriotic War.
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Text: Svetlana Samohina, Photo: Nornickel Polar Division archive
