The country had understood the importance and value of nickel, which was indispensable in medicine and for military purposes, long before the First World War. However, the Empire did not develop any nickelfields of its own, preferring, with rare exceptions, importing metal. When the Bolsheviks took over the country, they had to start from scratch. The USSR started its own industrial extraction of nickel only in the early 30-s in the Urals. Factories with required infrastructure generally required three years on construction. The exact ammount of time was given to workers in Norilsk. And there was no discount on the extremely harsh conditions of the Far North.

On June 23, 1935 the Council of National Comissars (SNK) defined that the Norilsk Combine must start its work in year 1938. The first workers, who arrived in the Arctic Circle could hardly believe this plan to be possible. Before their eyes opened pristine expanses of deepfrozen soil, holding huge deposits of strategic metals.

There was even no paper plan a year before the start of this huge project. Head of construction Vladimir Matveev, convicted for "wrecking", was sentenced to 15 years of camp imprisonment. Sent to replace him in Norilsk was Avraamiy Zavenyagin, curator of the future Soviet atomic project. His plan was even more ambitious than the previous one: he promised not only in the shortest possible time to bring up a huge production — the Large Steel (Nickel) factory, but also to produce on spot a product of complete cycle — ready nickel. Befor Zavenyagin nobody even dared to think about that it — it was planned to produce semi-finished products (matte and high-grade matte), whereas the pure metals were supposed to be extracted on mainland.

THE EXPERIMENTAL SMALL IRONWORKS

After the first acquaintance with the facilities Zavenyagin realized that even he, who had gained experience with the prisoners at the construction of the Magnitogorsk factory, couldn’t deal with the task here, above the Arctic Circle. The situation could only be saved by the construction of an experienced Small Ironworks. It was faster to build and easier to test all the technology and give the country the first batch of metal. The Moscow headquarters surprisingly approved "plan B": "If there will be metal—we won’t ask why was the lauching of the Large Ironworks was delayed".

Builders started work in October—it was already winter it the Arctic Circle. One of the first Norilsk chroniclers of Norilsk Trofim Garmash described exactly what was happening on stand:

The think-tank of the company was the EMM (the experimental metallurgical manufactury), in charge of which was a women-metallurgist Olga Lukashevich. It was she, who gave Zavenyagin the first, obtained in the laboratory, nickel plate. And  then a piece of pure cobalt as well.

The Nickel Factory prepared its own personnel. The first steel metallurgists were 50 prisoners who had never worked in manufacturing, some of them didn’t know basic literacy.

The first ore was hard to get as well. Miners took care of each piece purposed for melting: before breaking it in the tunnel the workers spread a tarp, so that it was possible to shake every crumb into the bags.

In 1939 the Small Ironworks sent the first commercial batches to the mainland. 95 tonens of high-grade matte and 130 tonnes of matte were taken to Monchegorsk for processing. And at the end of April 1942 a batch of ready electrolyte nickel  went of the Small Ironwerks the assembly line. It was the first "front-line" victory of Norilsk.

THE MAIN CONSTRUCTION SITE

The main construction of the Large Ironworks of Norilsk ran parallel, starting in autumn 1939. Trenches were dug in emergency mode; narrow-gauge railways for trolleys were laid right on the snow, having fires warm up the land; huge lumps of rock were moved by hand. And as the plan for the first year was ready only by 84% it was decieded to work round the clock. The people of Norilsk were rushed by war. 

The development of projects wasn’t much ahed of the constuction. Often the project of the next object was asserted close to a day before its construction. Projection-engineers didn’t rise from their tables with scemes for 20 hours a day. Theor working day began at one in the morning and went on till nine or ten at night.

All the tension of the day — in one episode: engineers prepared the scheme of the nickel powder for a week and nearly lost it in a blink of an eye.

But this story has a happy ending. Kushnyov was brought back to life, the work was restored from drafts. The project was sent for approval in two days.

All phases of construction with no exception were accompanied by heated debates. Almost all known algorithms demanded improvements. It was impossible, for example, to simply pour concrete into the pit under the foundation — it wouldn’t hold in the permafrost. It was put on a kind of cushion of hot air that was is driven into the double-walled timbering of the calorifiers (devices for heating the air).

At the beginning of the war the supplies of equipment and materials from the mainland have become extremely rare. It was only the equipment evacuated to Norilsk enterprises that saved the situation. And to the partial launching of the Large Ironworks occurred in time.

 In February 1942, in the unfinished housing of the Large Ironworks workers started to kindle wood and chark. On the night of  23^rd  to 24^th February the first matte went through the tempel chute.

On the night of  23^rd  to 24^th February the first matte went through the tempel chute.

The war years — the first ones for the Large Ironworks — was a real challenge for its team. In the workplace, which is now considered dangerous, accidents occured: the worst — in the 1944 when 8 people were caugh in a ladle of molten metal. The staff made the organizational conclusions themselves, trying to improve working conditions.

THE STAKHANOVTSI WORK MOVEMENT

After the war, the workers of the Nickel Factory were "stimulated" by numerous socialist competitions and the new threat. Metal is now needed for the "invisible front of the Cold War."

THE SOCIAL REVOLUTION ON NORILSK

In 1953, right after Stalin’s death, Norilsk experienced the largest in its history, prisoners’ rebellion. It was the first sign of new times. 

The factory, which was subordinate to the Interior Ministry, was handed to the Ministry of Metallurgical Industry. Norilsk began to be released from its Gulag-camp past. In 1954, the city underwent a massive rehabilitation of political prisoners and the liquidation of camps. Nevertheless there were mainly criminals left in Norilsk. All this was followed by a decline in production.  A "reload" of the combine began with the forces of Komsomol members.

They started their new lives in Norilsk barraks, with ease (as it is now knows by memories) standing through all sorts of deprivation. Charged with postwar enthusiasm professionals gave the Nickel Factory a second life.

In the second half of the 50s the Nickel Factory began to move from coal to new sources of energy. At first electrofusion replaced waterjacket furnaces in the melting workspace. Afterwards, a gasification manufactory was built; this allowed the company to completely abandon coke.

In the early 60s the Nickel Factory mastered a new capacity: the second and third ore-smelting furnace, the induction furnace for melting scrap nickel and the 75-tonne converter started working. The workers of the factory learned to produce high-purity nickel — nickel "N-zero." And in 1966 Norilsk shipped the first batch of metal for export.

With the discovery and development of the Talnakh deposit the Nickel Factory began to catastrophically lack capacity. All forces were sent to the construction of its younger competitor — the Nadezhdinskiy factory, which, due to the mighty Norilsksnab base, was provided with everything necessary. And so it launched.

Today Nickel Factory — a war veteran, and a honored Komsomol member — goes down in history. Worn by more than half, it’s is ruining the environment and does not cope with the growing needs of the time. 2016 is the year when the oldest nickel company of znorilsk will be closed.