#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. But in the 1960s, the active construction of panel houses began. Those houses were erected by industrial methods in a matter of months, and they satisfied the housing hunger in Norilsk.
Residents of the villages were also resettled in new buildings. Families from unfurnished dirty barracks moved into separate, albeit small-sized, apartments. But then a paradox happened: the more families left, the more other ones re-populated in the old settlements.
New residents expanded, moved from other villages. And someone did not want to live in the city at all, because in the villages it was possible to start a subsidiary farm and even keep chickens and pigs.
The executive committee decided to no longer register tenants in the barracks, but this did not help. So the authorities found another way out: new apartments were given to all residents of the closed village at once, and the Norilsk combine helped transport everyone at the same time. After that, the village was burned by firefighters.
In 1967 alone, about ten villages were burned: Kirpichny, Zaozerny, Stroiteley, TsUS, BOF, Round Lake and the village of Zub-gora.
In the History Spot’s previous publication, we told that at first most of the Norilsk people lived in small villages around Norilsk.
Follow us on Telegram, VKontakte.
Text: Svetlana Ferapontova, Photo: Nornickel Polar Branch archive