#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. Energy workers at that time walked around in coal dust, like chimney sweeps, and the entire village was covered with soot flying from the chimneys of the thermal power plant.
From the memoirs of Iosif Shamis:
“One day our artist got into trouble. He depicted the main building of the thermal power plant as it should be in its finished form. On the roof of the building, as required by the drawings, he drew pipes. And since the thermal power plant was depicted as operating, dark clouds of smoke rose from the chimneys. Everyone liked the drawing, and the construction manager decided to show it off to Zavenyagin, who visited the site almost every day. Avraamy Pavlovich unexpectedly made a critical remark: they say that the author clearly did not spare the paint for the smoke. And he added: “Such thick smoke indicates incomplete combustion of coal. If everything is done according to the design, the smoke will be barely visible, as if it were steam and not smoke. Such was the engineering erudition of the Norilskstroy head. But this was a time when the majority believed: the thicker the smoke from the chimneys, the more powerful the breath of socialist industry”.
Coal energy was a very labor-intensive business. Coal mines did not always operate smoothly; fires and explosions occurred in them; sometimes the supply of coal at a thermal power plant was measured in a matter of hours. In addition, the coal still had to be delivered to the thermal power plant; people from other enterprises in Norilsk had to be involved in its unloading and fuel supply.
Coal was brought from the mines on railway platforms and poured into a closed coal warehouse. Then, along five belt conveyors through the coal crusher unit, it entered the bunkers of the main building of the thermal power plant. Working with coal was difficult, dirty and dusty. There were cases where coal hung in the bunkers, and the workers had to hit the walls of the bunker with a sledgehammer, the coal crumbled, and the boilers continued to operate.
The “black” time in the history of the thermal power plant ended when Taimyr gas came to Norilsk. In 1970, the first boiler was switched to blue fuel, and in 1973 the entire station was gasified.
But gasification did not mean a complete abandonment of coal. For more than ten years it was used in parallel with gas. When it got cold outside to minus 35 or below, gas pressure dropped and power engineers switched to burning coal. It was only by the mid-1980s that equipment at gas distribution stations was modernized and coal was completely abandoned”.
In the History Spot photo project’s previous publication, we told that Norilsk Hrushchev-era houses were built to fight an acute housing shortage.
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Text: Svetlana Ferapontova, Photo: Nornickel Polar Branch archive