#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. The residents of Snezhnogorsk are either workers of the hydroelectric power station or their wives, children, parents. They also have a common product – energy, due to which Norilsk, Dudinka, and Igarka live.
The construction of a hydroelectric power station on Taimyr was first thought about at the same time when they decided to build a city and a plant here. The idea of taming one of the many turbulent rivers of the Arctic seemed to be the key to the riches of the North.
On May 17, 1963, the first builders – eight people – flew to the banks of the Hantaika. They needed to pitch the first tents, start building the first barracks, roll out a snow airfield for the An-2. When spring ‘ate’ that first landing strip, building materials began to be dropped from the air, ‘bombarding’ the bare banks with them. Thus, from scratch, from the first peg, they began to inhabit the Hantaika area.

In 1963, the newborn settlement got its name. However, it did not immediately become Snezhnogorsk (eng.: Snow Mountains). After all, there are cliffs, there are precipices, but there are no actual mountains. The builders came up with the name at a general meeting, right among the tents. Here is how journalist Boris Ivanov described it: “There was no presidium. There was only one task: we’ve been born, what will we call ourselves? And it poured out: Polar Star! Hantaisk! Ilyich’s Spark (in honor of Lenin. – editor)! Snezhgorod (eng.: Snow Town. – editor)! This word made many people shut up, and it inspired others: let us have Snezhnogorsk. Remember the first day, mountains of snow?..” This is a literary version, but indeed, judging by the first documents, the settlement was originally going to be called Snezhgorod, not Snezhnogorsk.

Snezhnogorsk received the official status of an town-type settlement in October 1964, and its chronology has been kept since then. Five years later, a hundred two-story log houses stood on the bank of the Hantaika, the first brick walls were rising, and two bridges were thrown across the river. But all this was achieved with great difficulty, or to be more precise, around the clock, fortunately the polar day allowed it. A repeater was built on the hill – they received television from Igarka. Not only kindergartens were built for children, but also a music school. And during the construction of the main building of the hydroelectric power station, it was considered obligatory to decorate it – both outside and inside. And today, on its above-ground and underground floors, like in the art gallery, you can see amazingly skillful embossing, carving and mosaics.

The construction of the Ust-Hantaiskaya hydroelectric power station lasted seven years. In January 1970, the installation of the first of the seven hydroelectric units of the hydroelectric power station began in the underground part of the station. In April, they began filling the reservoir. And in November, the Hantaika gave industrial current. During these seven years, they laid a temporary channel for the river – a 300-meter construction tunnel. The tunnelers-subway builders really dug it like a subway – just not in the mainland sands and loams, but in the super-strong Hantaika rocks. They built a 65-meter dam with a core of moraine soils, left-bank and right-bank dams with a total length of five kilometers. In the rock, at a depth of 40 meters, they cut out an underground building of the hydroelectric power station with a transport tunnel. The most impressive in its scale is the station’s machine room, which was located below the river bottom.

At the peak of the hydroelectric power station construction in Snezhnogorsk, the population was up to 17 thousand. The settlement was then mostly made of wood. In the 1960s and 1970s, the territory of the temporary settlement of builders was five times larger than the current, permanent settlement of operators.
Now the Snezhnogorsk residents live in another settlement – brick, high-rise, well-appointed. The buildings of the school, kindergarten, hospital are not comparable to the old, wooden ones. At the turn of the century, a swimming pool and a hotel were built. But the spirit of that young Snezhnogorsk, tarpaulin and resinous, can still be felt here – in the purity of the snow, in the elastic pressure of the Hantaika, in the people’s energy.

In the History Spot’s previous issue, we talked about how the construction of the Arctica ice palace opening became an incentive for sports.
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Text: Svetlana Ferapontova, Photo: Olga Zaderyaka, Norilsk residents and Nornickel PD’s archives