People flock to 'Mecca of metallurgy'
Source: Agencies |
March 1, 2011, Tuesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
LUNG-BLACKENING pollution and Arctic isolation have not stopped Russian mining giant Norilsk -Nickel from attracting graduates to work in its mines.
Norilsk enjoys only a few weeks of summer and hardly sees the sun from November to February, when temperatures regularly fall to minus 40 degrees Celsius.
But once in Norilsk, which is four time zones away from Moscow, new hires have a hard time leaving. Many stay on to open businesses and raise families, transforming the former Gulag town into a thriving city of 210,000.
The company accounts for 38 percent of the world's palladium and 22 percent of nickel production.
Money lures graduates to leave the "mainland" - the local term for the rest of Russia - and come to work in mines more than a kilometer beneath the earth's surface.
Sergei Gorbachev, the director of Taimyrsky, Russia's deepest mine, said the average monthly salary at Taimyrsky mine stood at 74,000 roubles (US$2,530) in 2010 - more than three times Russia's average salary of 20,500 roubles.
Night can last in Norilsk from late November to early February. Young people hang out at German pubs sipping beer at 10 euros (US$13.8)a glass, and go bowling at a local club, which greets visitors with an aquarium of iguanas.
Rough conditions do not deter newly minted miners from top schools like the St Petersburg Institute of Mines, headed by an ally of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, from working at plants and pits that operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, year after year.
Leonid Krupnov, head of the technical department at Norilsk's Nadezhda plant, which produces semi-finished nickel and copper, said after graduating in St Petersburg he had moved to what he called the "Mecca of metallurgy."
"If you want become a real -specialist, it is the right place," said Krupnov.
The high salaries date to the -second half of the 20th century, when the Soviet Union encouraged -relocation by paying enough to travel, then a big luxury.
"Back then people had a flat, a country house, a car and could afford to fly to Moscow to have a beer on weekends," said Elena, a guide at a local museum.
Now they hardly need to make the four-hour journey to Moscow to enjoy urban luxuries. Restaurants serve ravioli with red caviar and venison steaks. Expensive sport-utility vehicles drive along the streets and plays at the local theater sell out.
Norilsk enjoys only a few weeks of summer and hardly sees the sun from November to February, when temperatures regularly fall to minus 40 degrees Celsius.
But once in Norilsk, which is four time zones away from Moscow, new hires have a hard time leaving. Many stay on to open businesses and raise families, transforming the former Gulag town into a thriving city of 210,000.
The company accounts for 38 percent of the world's palladium and 22 percent of nickel production.
Money lures graduates to leave the "mainland" - the local term for the rest of Russia - and come to work in mines more than a kilometer beneath the earth's surface.
Sergei Gorbachev, the director of Taimyrsky, Russia's deepest mine, said the average monthly salary at Taimyrsky mine stood at 74,000 roubles (US$2,530) in 2010 - more than three times Russia's average salary of 20,500 roubles.
Night can last in Norilsk from late November to early February. Young people hang out at German pubs sipping beer at 10 euros (US$13.8)a glass, and go bowling at a local club, which greets visitors with an aquarium of iguanas.
Rough conditions do not deter newly minted miners from top schools like the St Petersburg Institute of Mines, headed by an ally of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, from working at plants and pits that operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, year after year.
Leonid Krupnov, head of the technical department at Norilsk's Nadezhda plant, which produces semi-finished nickel and copper, said after graduating in St Petersburg he had moved to what he called the "Mecca of metallurgy."
"If you want become a real -specialist, it is the right place," said Krupnov.
The high salaries date to the -second half of the 20th century, when the Soviet Union encouraged -relocation by paying enough to travel, then a big luxury.
"Back then people had a flat, a country house, a car and could afford to fly to Moscow to have a beer on weekends," said Elena, a guide at a local museum.
Now they hardly need to make the four-hour journey to Moscow to enjoy urban luxuries. Restaurants serve ravioli with red caviar and venison steaks. Expensive sport-utility vehicles drive along the streets and plays at the local theater sell out.
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