Norilsk Nickel will begin construction of the new settlement named Tukhard on Taimyr in 2026, Nikolay Utkin, Senior Vice President and head of the Norilsk Division, told TASS.
"This is one of the key developments for us. We assume that we will begin construction in the second quarter of 2026," Utkin said.
According to him, the company does not abandon plans to build a new settlement, despite the difficult economic situation. The project will be launched in full. Tukhard arose spontaneously in the second half of the twentieth century. At that time, representatives of the indigenous peoples of the North settled in temporary housing for workers near the facilities of Norilskgazprom (a subsidiary of MMC Norilsk Nickel), which was due to the proximity to communications and household amenities. The settlement turned out to be in the sanitary protection zone of the enterprise. Currently, about 1,000 people are registered in the village together with reindeer herders (including nomadic reindeer herders), according to a specially conducted population census. There is a small school where kids study from the first to the fourth grades. Children go to Dudinka to receive general secondary education. There is no management company in the village.
Norilsk Nickel is a diversified mining and metallurgical company, the world's largest producer of palladium and high-grade nickel. The company was the first in the Russian Arctic to conduct a procedure for obtaining free, prior and informed consent (SPOS) to participate in the program for the resettlement of residents of the village of Tukhard and its further development.
The consent of the residents of Tukhard to move was given on certain conditions, which include the choice of social and communal infrastructure, as well as requirements for the appearance of the village, infrastructure for the development of reindeer husbandry. One of the important conditions for granting consent to move was the participation of residents in all stages - from design to construction of the settlement.
Alex Shishlo, Editor in Chief of the European Bureau, Rough&Polished
