#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. Buyers could choose the goods themselves and go with them to the checkout. This is no surprise now, but earlier all the goods were only on the other side of the counters. In Norilsk, such departments appeared at the same time as in the capital cities.
The first self-service department – a bread department – appeared in a small store in the Old town back in 1956. By 1963, all bakery departments in Norilsk stores switched to self-service. In 1967, grocery store No. 6 on Sevastopolskaya street and the Posuda (eng.: Cookware) store on Octyabrskaya square were transferred to the new trading method. They were followed by Sayany, Polyarny, Svyatoslav and Yaroslavna… Access to goods for city residents was a novelty at that time. It is clear that there were also dishonest buyers who tried to ‘forget’ to pay for the goods. In Norilsktorg (the Norilsk trade department. – editor) there was even a special expenditure item: For Buyers’ Forgetfulness. In the 1970s, the first universal stores appeared in Norilsk.
This is what self-service department stores began to be called – an analogue of today’s supermarkets. Ordinary stores were also converted into supermarkets, for example, ordinary grocery store No. 17 on Leningradskaya street became supermarket No. 5.
In 1948, the first industrial goods store in the new part of the city opened on Octyabrskaya square. In early 1949, a grocery store opened nearby. At first, the stores were nameless, and the signs simply announced: Manufactured Goods and Food Products. In the 1950s, the stores merged into one and were called Grocery-and-Gastronomy and Meat-and-Fish. And finally, in the 1960s, they became the Moscow grocery store and the Posuda hardware store.
Among the first manufactured goods stores, the Posuda store also switched to the new form of trade – self-service. Shelves and racks became available to customers who walked around the sales floors and chose the goods they needed themselves. Before that, the method of trade was more complicated. All the goods were behind the counters, and each department had its own queue. And the seller did not sell the goods there, but only weighed, packed and wrote a paper cheque. With those checks, you had to go to the checkout to pay, where you also had to stand in a line. Therefore, it took several hours to do all the shopping.
The Yenisey store was one of the first to switch its departments to self-service. It opened in 1953 as Deli No. 1 and was at that time the largest grocery store in the city, and even in the entire region. In 1964, after reconstruction, Deli No. 1 got its own name – Yenisey. And in 1976, after another update of the interiors and equipment, the deli received the status of a supermarket. Yenisey was awarded the Challenge Red Banner of the Norilsk trade department 18 times in a row, and in 1982 it won the regional competition of trade enterprises.
For many years, our country celebrated the birthday of the revolution leader, Lenin. Numerous gifts to the Motherland were prepared for April 22, and Norilsk was no exception. In different years, the commissioning of a variety of facilities was timed to coincide with this day. In 1974, such a gift was the No. 1 supermarket on Metallurgov square. It was originally conceived and designed as a model of self-service. Guests of the city were brought there and its photographs were shown in newspapers and magazines as the most advanced trading site.
On April 30, 1981, on the first floor of the new building on Talnahskaya street, 30, the No. 3 supermarket opened – the largest self-service grocery store in the city. The second wing of this building housed Household Goods. The main difference between the supermarket and its predecessors was the almost complete mechanization of the sellers’ work. The most modern store at that time was equipped with pneumatic lifts, which fed products into the hall, and electric cars, which delivered them. The supermarket was distinguished by its considerable size – 3,506 square meters – and the range of food products. In 1988, general secretary (the state head) Mikhail Gorbachev visited the most modern supermarket. They say that imported chickens were urgently brought into the store especially for him. And Gorbachev, having looked at the shelves and marveled at the abundance, asked the Norilsk residents if this was just a show?
In the History Sport’s previous publication, we talked about the Norilsk museum.
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Text: Svetlana Ferapontova, Photo: Olga Zaderyaka, Nornickel Polar Division’s and Norilsk residents’ archives