ST. PETERSBURG, December 13. /TASS/. First 16 houses under Norilsk's renovation program will be built by 2025, Mayor Dmitry Karasev said at the Arctic: Present and Future 12th international forum.
"Under this program, before 2025 we will build 16 apartment blocks, and before 2035 - about 80 apartment blocks of different heights. <…> This year, under this project we have pulled down seven apartment blocks. We have been renovating the city. The locations will be used for new six-floor apartment blocks with elevators. Those would be comfortable apartments with interior decoration," he said.
People living in outdated houses will be moved into new apartments. Norilsk has 859 apartment blocks, where 30% have been under close control because of deformations, landslides and affected structures.
The complex plan for Norilsk's social and economic development to 2035 plans investments of 120.1 billion rubles ($1.9 billion), where 24 billion rubles ($377 million) will come from the federal budget, 14.8 billion rubles ($232 million) will come from the Krasnoyarsk Region's budget, and Nornickel will invest 81.3 billion rubles ($1/3 billion). Before 2035, the city will build about 100 apartment blocks of 400,000 square meters, and several social facilities.
Norilsk is among the world's northernmost cities. The population is 180,000, where 26% are employed with Nornickel. Most houses in the city were built in the 1940s-1950s, and in 1960s-1990s.
The 12th international forum Arctic: Present and Future took place in St. Petersburg on December 8 and 9. In 2022, Russia marks the 90th anniversary of the Northern Sea Route, the 85th anniversary of the world's first drifting scientific station, North Pole-1, and the 15th anniversary of the high-latitude Arctic deep-water expedition (2007). Special activities on the forum's agenda were devoted to these events. The forum's organizer was the Association of Polar Explorers, supported by the Federation Council, the State Duma, the Ministry for Development of the Far East and Arctic, the Foreign Ministry and other authorities. Nornickel was the event's general partner. TASS was the general information partner.