“Therefore, we consulted with most of the communities of Taimyr and collected their needs. And the needs sometimes boil down to building a refrigeration unit for storing venison, fish and wild plants, building a club in one of the villages, and supporting folk crafts. These needs belong to the production chain of these communities and actually help them create added value. This is not just help in the form of a gift, but something that can be used for production purposes and be useful,” he explained.
Andrey Bugrov said that the program is designed until 2024, its total funding is two billion rubles, and that it should be continued and expanded further. “We are in direct interaction with the communities,” he said further. “Under the auspices of our Polar Division, a Council of Indigenous Communities was established, which included a large number of communities. And we expect this Council to help coordinate the needs that these communities will have in the future. For communities that are not on the Council, we will have to communicate with them within a two-way pattern to understand what their needs are. One of the last things we did, we built houses in two villages in Ust-Avam and Volochanka. Families moved there, improving their living conditions. Six houses in Volochanka were commissioned in September of this year.”
According to him, the main thing in such work is to prioritize tasks in the assistance provided by Norilsk Nickel, focus on the most pressing needs, and then, as the program develops and meets the needs of communities, expand the range of financial assistance and the coverage of various initiatives.
“I think that development will go in this direction, since the main task is to provide support to indigenous peoples who lead a rather difficult and complex way of life and economic management, being located in hard-to-reach areas. It is important for the company to provide them with protection and support for their traditional way of life,” Andrey Bugrov emphasized in conclusion.
ABOUT THE COMPANY
MMC Norilsk Nickel is a diversified mining and metallurgical company, the world’s largest producer of palladium and high-grade nickel and a major producer of platinum and copper. The company also produces cobalt, rhodium, silver, gold, iridium, ruthenium, selenium, tellurium and other products.
The production units of Norilsk Nickel Group are located at the Norilsk Industrial District, on the Kola Peninsula and Zabaykalsky Krai in Russia as well as in Finland.
MMC Norilsk Nickel shares are listed on the Moscow and on the Saint-Petersburg Stock Exchanges, ADRs are accepted for trading on the Saint-Petersburg Stock Exchange.
Norilsk Nickel fully supports the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The company considers social responsibility and commitment to the principles of sustainable development as one of the pillars of operational efficiency and business development. Nornickel seeks to continuously improve its activities in the areas of environmental protection, human rights, health and safety, environmental impact assessment, and biodiversity preservation. The company spent RUB 221.5 billion on SDG-linked projects in 2021.
Vladimir Malakhov, Rough&Polished
