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About 7,000 families move out from Norilsk Industrial District since 2011

People, who have worked in the Extreme North for more than 15 years could participate in the program

KRASNOYARSK, June 27. /TASS/. About 7,000 families have been moved since 2011 from the Norilsk Industrial District (the Krasnoyarsk Region’s north) to regions with better climate conditions, Nornickel’s Vice President Dmitry Pristanskov said on Wednesday at presentation of the company’s report on sustainable development.

In 2011, Russia’s Ministry of Regional Development, the Krasnoyarsk Region, the city of Norilsk and the Norilsk Nickel Company (Nornickel) signed an agreement to support families, who wanted to move out from Norilsk and Dudinka (the Taimyr Municipal District’s center). People, who have worked in the Extreme North for more than 15 years could participate in the program. The most preferred destinations have been the Krasnoyarsk, Moscow, Leningrad and Krasnodar Regions.

"Since 2011, jointly with the federal authorities, the Krasnoyarsk Region and with Norilsk, we have been involved in the program to help people to move from the Norilsk Industrial District," he said. "We are to relocate more than 11,000 families, and since 2011 we have moved 7,000 families, where every fourth family chose to stay within the Krasnoyarsk Region."

Investments in the program are over 8 billion rubles ($127 million), he added.

The company also cares for the remaining families. Nornickel’s vice president mentioned the program to upgrade the Alykel airport in Norilsk, to lay an optic fiber line to the peninsula - thus, Norilsk’s residents have a high-speed access to the Internet, he said.

An expert of the Social Sciences Institute Yekaterina Schulman stressed material well-being is not sufficient for people, living in cities. Those who live in mono-industrial cities want to be "involved democratically" in local projects, which make their lives better. "In mono-industrial cities, …. where people, who live there, work at one enterprise, this sort of involvement is of high demand," she said.

Norilsk is among the world’s five northernmost cities with the population of more than 100,000 (170,000 live in Norilsk). The other northernmost cities are Russia’s Murmansk, Norway’s Hammerfest, Anchorage in Alaska and the capital of Finland’s Lapand - Rovaniemi.