KRASNOYARSK, April 12. /TASS/. The number of visitors to Norilsk in 2022 was more than 12,000, while in 2019 - 3,900, the city's Mayor Dmitry Karasyev told the Arctic Tourism Week.

The growing number of visitors may be explained also by a new tourist-recreational cluster in Norilsk and on the Taymyr Peninsula.

Norilsk is one of the northernmost cities in the world. Its population is 180,000.

"We can see higher numbers of visitors. While in 2019 the number of visitors was 3,900, in 2022 the number reached more than 12,000," the mayor said. "It is a very big growth."

The growing numbers of visiting tourists may be explained by a new Arctic tourist and recreational cluster in the Krasnoyarsk Region's north. The cluster includes polar settlements - Norilsk, Dudinka, Khatanga, Dixon, remote and small settlements on the Taymyr Peninsula, the Putorana Plateau and the local Arctic coast. The cluster will offer a variety of tourism forms: cultural and educational, event-based, industrial, ethnographic, ecological, cruises, adventures, and extreme tourism. The Norilsk Development Agency's Director Maxim Mironov stressed the cluster's authors had focused on the environmental factor "not to harm the fragile Arctic nature."

"The Arctic tourism and recreation cluster, which is very important for us, has appeared <...> We are promoting it everywhere, it is our cherry on top, and more and more people will learn about it in the near future both in Russia and far beyond. Already now we can see many foreigners who come to visit this cluster, and, since the tourist infrastructures are developing, these numbers will be growing every year," the mayor said.

Long-term projects

Norilsk's authorities together with Norilsk Nickel and the Norilsk Development Agency have been working on a number of long-term projects to keep the sector develop further on. Specialists have been working on a project of Norilsk's visit center, which will be located in downtown Norilsk, and which will offer "high-quality consultations on a particular tourist product." The project is due by the end of this (2023) or early next year (2023), and the visit center will be commissioned in mid-2024, the mayor said.

Norilsk is about to become a city with the longest tourist staircase. Presently, the longest staircase is in Krasnoyarsk - the staircase of 1.2 km was opened on the Torgashinsky Ridge, one of the popular destinations, in 2021. Norilsk plans a staircase of 5.6 km on the Schmidt Mountain - from where the city's construction began in 1921. Guests may see there remains of coal mines, a narrow-gauge railway, and coal transporting trolleys. From the mountain top tourists will see the scenic view of the Norilsk valley and the Putorana Plateau spurs - the Kharayelakh Mountains. The construction is planned in three stages, the mayor said. "There will be closed viewing platforms that can function both in winter and in summer, with appropriate lighting. It is an ambitious project, and we realize it is difficult, especially in our northern conditions. And taken the steep angle of the Schmidt Mountain, but nonetheless, pre-design solutions show that it can be implemented," he added.

The city also plans the "most modern Arctic museum." "I am confident that the project will attract tourists - nature lovers, as well as [fans of] contemporary art, Arctic art. The museum, of course, will become one of the cherries on top," the mayor said.

New hotels and warm bus shelters

Not so long ago, the city opened the first private hotel with 25 rooms and a Georgian cuisine restaurant for 100 seats. The construction continued for two years, and the total investments exceeded 100 million rubles ($1.2 million). Russia's Deputy Minister for the Development of the Far East and Arctic Pavel Volkov stressed the city lacks accommodation facilities.

"Of course, [in order] to develop tourism, to welcome foreigners here and Russians, to have them visit the famous Putorana Plateau, we have to offer some accommodation [to them], the service quality should correspond to the level of Norilsk," the mayor said, adding another hotel would open in the city within a year or so. It will solve the accommodation problem.

The deputy minister noted that the Arctic Hectare program also contributes to the development of tourism. "We can see, it [the program] is very actively contributing to this in the Arctic region, to building various tourism facilities there," he said.

The city pays special attention to development of transport infrastructures. Norilsk buys tourist buses, urban transport and builds warm bus shelters.

About forum

The Arctic Tourism Week inter-regional forum is running in Norilsk on April 9-13 as an event under Russia's chairmanship in the Arctic Council in 2021-2023.