#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. We’ll find out how its construction went and see what important objects for Talnah residents look like now.
The first Talnah inhabitants – geologists and builders – lived in tents and small mobile houses. Construction of the permanent settlement began in the spring of 1963. First, the residential buildings and the Yunost (eng.: Youth) club were erected; at the same time, they began to work on the boiler room: the growing Talnah did not have enough energy and heat. The boiler room was launched in the winter of 1964 with major deficiencies: such dust was coming from the coal elevators and conveyors that the air was like carbon paper. Mechanized coal feeding, a crusher, and a coal warehouse were completed during the process. The village itself was covered in coal dust: the path closest to the boiler room was even nicknamed the “black path.” Two years later, the boiler house’s director complained that “due to the rapid growth of construction and settlements, more and more thermal power is required. The productivity of the boiler room is two times less than required”.
Talnah’s energy needs were satisfied only at the end of 1969, when the first stage of TPP-2 was commissioned. In 1973, after the launch of the third power unit, the thermal power station became a combined heat and power plant. That is, it generated not only electricity, but also heat for Talnah and the mines. The old boiler room was mothballed, left just to be on the safe side. The dismantling of its equipment began only in the mid-1980s. Over the years, from the largest structure on the outskirts of the village of Talnah, it gradually became a technological fragment right in the center of the new city of Talnah. At the same time, they began to dismantle the boiler room pipe, but the authorities stopped the process. They planned to build a restaurant on the pipe – Seventh Heaven by name, but things didn’t go further than a beer pavilion under the pipe.
One of the most necessary objects for Talnah was a school, because the children of geologists and builders first studied in a wooden barracks in the village of Geologists. A typical school building No. 25 on Lesnaya street, 16 (later it was renamed Kravets street) was opened on April 1, 1966. The five-story building was rebuilt in record time, and this played a negative role. Difficult coastal soils and the speed of construction led to the fact that in a year, “as a result of errors made during the design and poor control during the construction and acceptance process, the building fell into disrepair and continues to deform”. The school literally split at the seam – the five-story building cracked due to sewage, and in the undamaged part of the building it was so cold that the educational process was in jeopardy. However, the school operated in this state for another eight years: at first, classes were held in only one wing, in 1972, half of the students were transferred to the new school No. 20, and in 1975 the entire institution moved to Pionerskaya street, 4. But school No. 25 had no luck here: years later – some kind of mysticism – the new building also cracked. They say that the heads of the city administration did not tempt fate, deciding not to assign the unlucky number again, and almost all the teachers and students were transferred to the new school No. 48. As for the building on Lesnaya street, 16, it was reconstructed, cutting off the emergency wing, and on February 1, 1978, the House of Pioneers and Schoolchildren was opened there, now it is the Center for Extracurricular Activities.
In 1972, the first Talnah restaurant Krasnye Kamni (eng.: Red Rocks) opened in a standard building on Taimyrskaya street, 5. It was a real Talnah’s “frog-traveler” – in 1976 it moved to Gornyakov street, and then transformed into a cafe of the same name on Cosmonauts street. In this house on Taimyrskaya, 5, after the restaurant there was a dietary canteen, then a children’s store Solnyshko. In modern times – in 2008 – the standard catering building was converted into a sports hall with a boxing ring and a gym. Today there is sports school No. 4 and the administrative center of the Solnyshko stadium.
In the first decades, the most pressing issue in Talnah was transport. The construction of the Norilsk-Talnah highway was completed in July 1963. But then it missed one essential detail – a bridge over the Norilka river. Its construction was completed only in 1965. Until that time, transport traveled on a pontoon bridge in the summer, and on the ice in winter. Well, in the off-season the land road was not operational, it was only possible to get there by air. Despite this, regular bus service began in 1964. Travel by bus No. 16 on the route Norilsk Bus Station – village Talnah cost 45 kopecks. Since 1965, the internal Talnah route were also in operation – between the new village and the village of Geologists – the fare was five kopecks. After the opening of the bridge over Norilka, in November 1966, passenger traffic was launched on the Norilsk – Talnah railway line. But Talnah residents lacked a bus station. They wrote about the problem in the newspaper and complained to the village council, but for ten years passengers had to wait for buses right on the street – on the corner of Stroitelnaya street. Only in 1973 a combined bus station for road and rail transport designed for 200 people was built.
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Text: Svetlana Ferapontova, Photo: Nornickel Polar Branch archive
