#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. More than 50 experts, restaurateurs, chefs, scientists and more than a thousand listeners from 43 cities of Russia and three countries took part in the Gastro Forum 2024 at the Siberian Federal University’s Gastronomy Institute site. With the support of the Norilsk Development Agency (NDA), Norilsk residents – entrepreneurs in the service economy – also attended the event.
The SFU’s Gastronomy Institute is the first practice-oriented project in Russia that provides education for specialists in the restaurant business. For two years, the NDA in partnership with the institute, has been conducting training courses in Norilsk and for the third time is organizing off-site training as part of the gastronomic forum program. During this time, more than 300 line personnel, over 100 waiters, chefs and pastry chefs of leading restaurants and cafes in Norilsk have improved their professional competence.
“I have been in the profession for more than ten years. I always dreamed of getting to Krasnoyarsk and this university. During the week, I attended two courses at the same time. That was an advanced chef course and a banquet-buffet course. They were held in the morning and evening shifts. This is a very large flow of information, a large flow of knowledge that I plan to use in my establishment after returning to Norilsk”, said Alexander Skibin, the Polar Star restaurant chef, a participant in the educational program Gastro Forum 2024.
Norilsk residents are waiting not only for new tastes, but also for new event formats. The Norilsk restaurant chef Evgeny Kushnikov has already implemented his idea in the concept of Taimyr Fairy Tales, which formed the basis of a gastronomic dinner with immersive show elements, its premiere is coming soon.
“This year the forum is some kind of cosmic. With cosmic territoriality. People from all over our country, from the south, the north, and the west. Imagine what experience they gave us. If, of course, such development, such pumping of us as leaders had happened 10-12 years ago, then, of course, we would have now been at a completely different level”, Alisa Tarasova, the ProFurshet mobile restaurant owner shared her opinion.
The Norilsk Development Agency team, as part of the Gastro Forum 2024 business program, shared its experience of transforming gastronomy in the Arctic region in a roundtable format with colleagues from Krasnoyarsk, Tyumen and Angarsk, as well as plans for the development of specialized vocational education together with the Norilsk College of Industrial Technologies and Services, with the equal participation of the gastronomy industry’s business representatives.
“The roundtable brought together representatives of secondary vocational education who are interested in close cooperation with the Institute of Gastronomy in the implementation of modern programs. In this work, the Norilsk College of Industrial Technologies and Services became one of the pilot sites. Together we talked about our plans, presented in detail how the new gastrohub site in the college would fit into our project for the development of gastronomy in Norilsk”, said Yulia Gribanova, the NDA deputy director for investments and business environment development.
“We want to make a gastronomic hub in the college, a so-called gastrohub. This is a modern educational space where all the current events of the gastronomy industry will take place. A meeting place for professionals and students, future employers career guidance events for schoolchildren can be organized on this site. So our plans are Napoleonic”, said Yury Pohabov, the Norilsk College of Industrial Technologies and Services director.
The Norilsk Development Agency continues to transform the gastronomy industry, which is one of the key components of the city’s service economy.
“We are seeing changes not only through the growth indicators of the service economy, but also through new manifestations of the special gastronomic culture of Norilsk. This conceals great potential for the territory, which already brings in significant income today. The changes are also obvious to the Norilsk residents themselves. I am especially pleased to hear feedback from city residents when, after visiting cafes and restaurants, they say: “You come and feel like you are in a big city, you feel like you are on the mainland” – this is something that cannot be expressed in numbers”, shared her opinion Oksana Bruyaka, the gastronomy transformation project curator, specialist in the business environment development direction of the Norilsk Development Agency.
The gastronomy industry transformation project is being implemented by the Norilsk Development Agency with the Nornickel company’s support.
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Text: Viсtor Borodin, Photo: NDA
