MOSCOW, June 13. /TASS Correspondent Georgy Povetkin/. The Russian Arctic has been reporting growing numbers of visiting tourists. One of the northernmost cities in the world - Norilsk - welcomed about 12,000 guests in 2022 - three times more than in 2019. Those who come there, as the locals say - from the mainland, want to see the Putorana Plateau lakes and canyons, to taste venison and stroganina, to see how the North's low-numbered indigenous peoples live. Not only scenic views attract tourists. Unique production facilities are equally strong attractions. Here is a story about what facilities guests may visit.
Anhydrite Mine
Mining in Norilsk may be either surface or subsurface. Visitors may visit an example of subsurface mining at the country's only training ground in the Anhydrite mine, where the mineral (anhydrous calcium sulfate) is extracted. The mineral is used to fill the tunnels.
A ticket costs from 6,000 rubles ($73). Group reservations are required, and visitors must be between 18 and 60 years old. They must have no medical restrictions for going underground, like claustrophobia, or blood pressure problems.
The mine is about 300 m deep. Visitors go about 60-80 m down - the depth equal to the height of a 20-storey building. Noteworthy, there are no elevators, special rail transport or buses to the training ground. Tourists walk all the way along underground labyrinths. Buses and rail transport do serve underground to take miners to their place of work in the Talnakh coast mines, senior instructor Artem Muravyov said.
"They go by rail, then buses take people to their place of work. We here will take a walk," he told us.
Before the "descent" visitors are instructed, and then they undergo a transformation into miners of minerals. The equipment weighs about 10 kg - a special self-rescuer, a flashlight, boots, overalls. When dressed, every visitor looks line either a ghost hunter or a scientist, saving the planet from a terrible epidemic.
On the way to the training center, we can see a few tunnels. For those unskilled, getting lost would be very easy. The instructor shares a trick - if a fresh air stream blows into the face, then you are on the right track. If it abruptly changes the direction, it may be a sign of an accident, mostly of fire. "The mine in fact is safe in terms of mountain pressure, and the rock strength here is good," he assured us.
After a while, we get used to the enclosed space. Here, by the way, there are no walls, or floor and a ceiling, only sides, soil and roof. "Miners always wish to each other a strong roof," he said.
The training center presents a huge loading and delivery vehicle. Its wheels reach the height of a person, and the bucket is big enough to carry four people. This giant weighs almost 40 tons, but the operator drives easily along underground highways, demonstrating its work. The car carries number 10, and next to it is the autograph of hockey player Pavel Bure.
The drilling rig would be the cherry on the cake. Visitors here can see how it is managed, and they will be invited to the cabin to drill their first borehole (a cylindrical hole of 75 mm in diameter, drilled in rocks).
Bear Creek
Norilsk is surrounded by mountains on several sides. The mountains can be seen from almost everywhere - from a hotel window or while walking around the city. Hence the desire to climb at least one of them. Well, after the adventures experienced underground, why not climb to the top.
The Zapolyarny quarry, or, as it is called here, Bear Creek, is located on the Rudnaya Mountain. It could be the best choice. The Panarctic Star tour operator has been formalizing permissions to take tourists to the operating mine, where safety rules are tough. Hopefully, tours will be available shortly. The Norilsk Nickel Company has also confirmed to us they were preparing to offer tours to Bear Creek.
The route to the top, as a rule, by a shift bus (which takes workers), runs along the local Arctic serpentine road, which resembles strongly similar southern serpentine roads, though the air temperature outside the bus here is a few dozen degrees lower. Maximum excitement can be reached in great weather - to see from the top the scenic view of the city and the quarry.
Freezing winds and blizzards are not uncommon for those places, said the Zapolyarny mine's Director General Vladimir Zaitsev. At the very top there are two houses for workers. The locals can remember a couple times when winds have almost blew them away. "When it starts blowing, we simply are unable to change the shifts, and the workers have to wait for the blizzard to calm down," he said.
As tourists climb up about half of the mountain, they will make the first stop - a pad from where they can see a colorful view of the city, the Schmidt Mountain, the remains of a narrow-gauge railway, a copper plant, the Lama Mountains. At some distance, at the very horizon line are the Putorana Plateau spurs, which most tourists coming to the Taimyr Peninsula plan to visit.
After a brief rest, the bus continues to slowly climb up. The passengers will see lines of dump trucks. "The maximum load capacity as of today has the 130th - BelAZ," says Nikolay Zhigulin, adviser to Bear Creek's director general. BelAZ is that very giant with wheels higher than a person.
The observation deck at the quarry's top is the final point. It is so high that the sun appears here after the polar night a week earlier than in Norilsk. From the quarry's top, the giant dump trucks are barely seen. The quarry's height and strings of roads make the head spin. "If we bring into one line all the roads in the quarry, it will be a little longer than 30 km," he said.
At the top, it is a must to try the legendary pre-cooked dishes - the food is packed in special self-heating bags that do not require flame. A pack may contain, for example, porridge with meat or noodles.
Railway Museum
History lovers can visit the Museum of the Norilsk Railway. The road is one of the most unusual objects of railway transport on a global scale. It is a circled "island" railway network, the largest departmental railway in the former USSR. The length is 333 km.
It kept the status of the northernmost railway between the late 1940s and 2010, until a line was built on the Yamal Peninsula. The railway's former chief Alexander Bakharev and other railway enthusiasts opened the museum in 2013, said locomotive driver Roman Popov. He has been working on the Norilsk Railway for more than 30 years.
He returned from Moscow not long ago, as he could not stay there. The North wouldn't let him go, he told us - even despite the difficult conditions in which people have to work sometimes. Those who work at the railroad do not have the advantage of so-called allowances, which people receive when they do not go to work in severe frosts or snowstorms - goods must be transported between enterprises or from the port of Dudinka uninterruptedly. Roman told us how his colleagues could not start moving for a day and a half due to heavy snow drifts.
"This winter is quite harsh, December and January - frosts minus 45-50, and then from February - blizzards. Now, it's getting calmer," said the driver, and clearly he took that for granted.
Working at railways is quite harsh everywhere, but here it is the work for people with high endurance. In good weather, it takes trains three hours to cover the distance to seemingly neighboring Dudinka. Trains move at an average speed of 50 km/h. The reason is the same - the permafrost, ice lenses, ice lakes - they all can "sink," hence the low speed of trains.
The museum has a large collection of exhibits. Those are samples of rails of different times, wheel pairs of narrow-gauge wagons used between Norilsk and Valek. Visitors will see installations, showing the workplace of a station attendant in the mid-20th century, and a train driver workplace.
The former railway station, which remains abandoned since the passenger transportation was stopped in the late 1990s, is very popular with newlyweds. The main attraction for them is the interior, which is similar to the Baroque style.
"It is a great location for retro images, given that this is an industrial city, and this style is extremely rare in interiors here. Black-and-white photos of newlyweds are always very beautiful," said our guide, local historian Ekaterina Kaverina.
Diesel and electric locomotives that once worked on the Norilsk Railway are exhibited in the open air next to the station building. As if waiting to start - they hope passenger traffic will be resumed. One of the exhibits is the so-called "red handcar." Back in the old times that was a VIP transport for management of the enterprises operating there. Additionally, there are electric locomotives of the early 1980s, which ran between Norilsk and Dudinka.
Though now the railway is used mainly for industrial purposes and cargo transportation, Roman is confident time will come when it will connect Norilsk with Novy Urengoy. "Even if it takes 10 or 20 years, but anyway we will get connected, no doubt," he said.
Greenhouse plant
An atypical place for Norilsk, which welcomes tourists - a greenhouse complex - is a green island in an endless snowy desert. The ticket cost is from 3,000 rubles ($36). This sightseeing is one of the simplest - just sign up for it with your tour operator.
Ekaterina Kaverina told us for the first time plants untypical for high latitudes were mentioned back in the 1930s, when geologists planted radishes, onions, parsley, dill on the roof of the first house in Norilsk. That "bed" gave a very good harvest in summer.
As the city was growing, there appeared a state farm with cows and goats, but in the late 1990s it became unprofitable and was closed.
Nowadays, the green oasis - the Severtehnosklad greenhouses - where grow up to 30,000 product units per month - lettuce, onion, dill, parsley, sorrel and even cilantro and basil. The greenhouses demonstrate to visitors the entire growing process - from peat cassettes to huge tables where products are grown to needed stages. The plant's general director and agriculture expert Elena Serikova said the company planned to grow tomatoes and cucumbers - to produce a complete vegetable set. Her dream is to offer to people in Norilsk berries, namely - fragrant and sweet strawberries.
The tour was organized as an event of Russia's chairing the Arctic Council - the leading intergovernmental forum on cooperation in the Arctic.