#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. On the ship Alexander Matrosov there was the vanguard of those six thousand Muscovites and Leningraders who, with vouchers from the Komsomol district committees (in the photo above – seeing off the young enthusiasts at the Kazan station) went to the Far North to build Norilsk.
“Waking up was probably not pleasant: it is snowing, and many are in slippers. Two with guns, I remember, in sneakers. Someone could not part with the dog at home and brought it with him. In Norilsk, there was a rally at the station square, – recalls the first secretary of the city committee of the Komsomol from 1956 to 1958, Pavel Fedirko. – The whole party was settled in a new house – I would probably install a memorial plaque on it now, this is on the corner of Sovetskaya and Komsomolskaya streets. In each room there were libraries, fashionable napkins, curtains, clock. You couldn’t call it a modern interior, but at that time it was cozy.
Of course, there was not enough decent housing for everyone. They settled in Zaozerny, and in Medvezhka, in Ugolny and Krugloye Ozero settlements. The disorder of life knocked out of the saddle many at first. Already in the summer months, it happened when up to five hundred people did not go to work. And in winter? You go into the barracks – the walls are frozen, ice, cold, people are lying on bunks, wrapped up in whatever they could”.
Komsomol members began to actively intervene in production affairs. After the first conference of young builders, Komsomol meetings were held everywhere with agendas typical of that time: “Exemplary order at the Komsomol construction site”, “If you are a Komsomol member, be a consistent fighter for the fulfillment of the honorable task of the party”, “Shame on dependents, truants and demagogues get out of our ranks!”, “Komsomol member, you are responsible for improving the production organization”.
Of those who arrived, a little over a thousand people used to work in construction. In one year, three and a half thousand new settlers became builders, and almost two thirds of them received the fifth, even the sixth category.
From the memoirs of the former secretary of the builders committee Vladimir Biryukov:
“The Norilsk inhabitants will always remember the black blizzard of January 6, 1957. At five paces it was hard to see anything. The movement stopped. The blizzard raged all night, the next day, and two more days in a row. The youth, who saw the whims of the polar winter for the first time, did their best. Struggling with the wind, they cleared access roads, construction sites, did not stop work in rooms closed from the wind.
The following fact is characteristic: Zhenya Frantsuzov’s brigade organized night duty in the village of Zaozerny – fires were not uncommon in such weather. And when the pipe on the roof of the dining room was torn off, the Komsomol members quickly put it in place, repaired it – and all this with a hurricane wind.
The youth brigade of Victor Sokolov did not stop working on the hospital’s infectious disease building construction. But the blizzard frightened some people. These were those who did not really find a place for themselves in the work team, became strangers. There were very few of them, they were not sympathized, they were despised”.
From the memoirs of the Norilsk builders’ foreman, a volunteer in 1956, the Lenin Order holder Evgeny Frantsuzov:
“In April 1957, the first Komsomol conference of builders took place, at which twenty Komsomol organizations – 2 600 Komsomol members – were united under the leadership of the Komsomol committee. The tasks were big. The first and main one was to prevent the flight of young people from Norilsk.
The past winter was difficult, many got used to the work of a builder very hard, the ‘romancers’ cooled down, overflowing with impressions, the summer did not promise much joy. Young families appeared, and housing was bad. Parents agitated young people to return home. On top of that, the whiners who survived the winter raised their heads and carried on intensified propaganda, inciting the weak to leave. The Conference gave a resolute rebuff to such sentiments”.
From the memoirs of Lyudmila Kochergina, a member of the Komsomol Committee of Builders:
“…The second task that the delegates of the first conference of builders set before the Komsomol organization was to organize summer leisure for young people, acquaint them with the Arctic, with the tundra, and make full use of the short summer.
Prior to the arrival of new settlers, tourism was not massive in Norilsk. Visiting enthusiasts of this wonderful sport, experienced tourists Leonid Ivanov, Anatoly Grinberg, Nikolai Veselkov, Anatoly Smirnov organized the first big trips to the tundra”.
In the History Spot’s previous publication, we talked about the first Komsomol chapter in Norilsk.
Follow us on Telegram, VKontakte.
Text: Svetlana Ferapontova, Photo: Nornickel Polar Branch archive
