The new equipment will allow fishermen to quickly deliver everything necessary for the winter hunting and fishing season from Dudinka to remote communities including fuel, food, and spare parts for snowmobiles, and then bring back to the city the products resulting from hunting and fishing - fish and deer meat to be supplied to the trading networks of Dudinka and Norilsk.
Image credit: Norilsk Nickel
“This equipment was purchased at the request of our communities. All of them are engaged in traditional economic activities. They are hunters and fishermen. Their hunting and fishing points are located far from the regional center - the city of Dudinka. Therefore, this equipment is extremely necessary for them,” said Anfisa Nikiforova, head of the department for work with indigenous peoples of the North of the Polar Branch of Norilsk Nickel and First Vice President of the Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North in the Krasnoyarsk Territory.
Snowmobiles will be given not only to communities but also to remote Taimyr villages. Two vehicles will go to Ust-Avam and Volochanka at the end of November and will be used for the needs of the population to deliver mail brought by helicopters to the villagers, transport patients to ambulance flights, and even conduct search operations for those who have lost their way in the tundra.
Earlier, Norilsk Nickel, doing so also in preparation for the hunting and fishing winter season, allocated funds for the purchase and delivery of a Sever airboat for the Agapa indigenous community.
Since 2020, Norilsk Nickel has been implementing a five-year program to support the indigenous peoples of Taimyr funding 2 billion rubles for this purpose. In 2021, this amount was increased by 100 million rubles. The program includes 42 projects aimed at protecting the original habitat and supporting the traditional activities of the indigenous peoples of the North, including the construction of housing, new first aid stations, purchase of special equipment, support for educational projects, construction of cultural centers, etc. Within the framework of the program in Taimyr, the delivery of building materials for the construction of housing and social infrastructure of the settlements has already started. The first students from among the Taimyr youth, with the support of the company, completed a year of study at the Polar State University (PSU). In September, a new recruitment of students at PSU was completed and the company paid for their travel to and from the place of their study, accommodation, and scholarship. In addition, under the support program, seven young Taimyr residents left without parental care received keys to apartments in Dudinka. In the Avam tundra, a study of the reindeer capacity of pastures for the development of reindeer husbandry was carried out.
The coordinating council led by Nikolai Utkin, Senior Vice President of the company and Head of its Norilsk Division has been operating since May 2021. Its task is to jointly implement the program to support the indigenous peoples of Taimyr. In total, 107 communities are registered on the peninsula, and 20 of them, conducting traditional activities in the territory of the Norilo-Pyasinskaya water system basin, are members of the council.
Vladimir Malakhov, Rough&Polished
