MURMANSK, September 1. /TASS/. One of the oldest mines in the Murmansk Region, Kaula-Kotselvaara, decommissioned in 2023, will become a museum, where expositions will be organized inside a real mine, Deputy Director of the Pechenga District's Second School Center for Social Projects Marina Kosheleva told TASS after the Gastro Industry Fest business program.
"It was only a year ago that nobody could believe we would go into the mine, would go there and make a museum out of it," she said. "Now we have builders and specialists who have been implementing the design project. We are working on the first stage - the museum, the office building, and the mine."
The Second School Center, she continued, together with counterparts, has been turning Nickel's industrial heritage into a point of attraction and growth. On Metallurgov Square, where the Gastro Industry Fest was held, there are 42 pieces of equipment that have been lifted from the mine. "You can read on the signs that this, for example, is not just a trolley - it is a trolley that transported a certain number of tons of ore, which then were turned into nickel, and the latter used to be in our everyday objects," she explained.
A strategic session, dubbed From Industrial Boom to Creative Miracle, was part of the festival's business program. The discussion participants - from federal producers to local architects of change - have proved that the future of Arctic single-industry towns is based not on denying the industrial past, but on re-viewing it. "We do realize that the Pechenga District's industry is our past, present and future. Therefore, we decided to view the industry from a different angle, in terms of tourism, to package it into a new product," she continued. She voiced certain tourist sites, including the Kola Superdeep Borehole, the Shpil (Spire) 555 ecology-industrial route, audio tours, and festivals. She also announced plans to create joint tourist routes with the Kirovsky ski resort.
About the mine and the festival
The Nickel town is located in the Murmansk Region's Pechenga District, seven km from the border with Norway and about 200 km northwest of Murmansk. In 2020, the Norilsk Nickel Company, having assets in the district, stopped the smelter in Nickel - it had been the company's oldest production facility. The Kaula-Kotselvaara mine's mothballing began in 2023 due to depleted ore reserves and unprofitable further production. The present plan is to transform the mine into a modern industrial tourism facility.
The Gastro Industry Fest has been held in the town of Nickel in summer since 2021. It is a merger of industrial landscapes and entertainment, of gastronomic experiments of Arctic cuisine and the harsh northern flavor. Every year about 10,000 people attend the event. The festival's organizers are the Second School Center for Social Projects, supported by the Norilsk Nickel Company and the Pechenga Municipal District's administration.