Dudinkaan old port on the Yenisei

Except for public figures, the names of people in this story have been changed for privacy.

The tenth and last chapter of the Putorana Plateau trip. On this day both groups went together on an excursion to Dudinka.

Dudinka is a very old port on the Yenisei, founded in 1667, long before Norilsk. Many sea routes passed through it and still do. The tour turned out to be mostly about local history.

While we were gathering in the hotel lobby, Lena asked whether I wanted to go to the theatre in the evening. Without a second thought I said “yes”, and we bought tickets straight away. That was the plan for the evening 😅

The road from Norilsk takes two hours. On the way we stopped at memorials, but that’s not very interesting to me, so I’ll skip that part.

The house of crafts and the museum

In the house of crafts, artists work with mammoth tusks, fabrics and beads. Almost all the subjects and ornaments are connected with Taimyr and the peoples who live here: in Dudinka there is a large indigenous population: the Nganasan, Enets, Evenki, Dolgan and Nenets. Each people has its own colours and patterns, and they appear in the works. The artists take part in competitions in Russia and abroad.

Then came the local-history museum and a tour of an hour and a half. The beginning, about the peoples of Taimyr, their way of life and decoration, was interesting to me, though we’d learned a lot about the Nganasan already at the base. But after that it all turned into the history of the exploration of the North in the smallest detail: surnames, fates, who died of what. In the second half I got a bit tired and only half-listened. For those who love the history of the exploration of the North, it will be very interesting. And I realised that I prefer going round museums with ChatGPT: stopping at what interests me and quickly passing the rest.

We also looked at the Yenisei: first from above, from an unofficial viewpoint, and then went down to the water.

A priest and Dikson

On the square by the museum stands a wooden church in the northern style, which looks new. I went in to have a look. On my way out a priest asked where I was from and whether I needed anything explained. We got talking about the tundra, and I told him about the plateau. Probably it shows that I’m not especially religious, but he didn’t comment on it in any way. As a parting gift he gave me a laminated icon of Alexander Nevsky and mentioned that the museum has a gallery we hadn’t been taken to.

I dashed over there. The gallery was showing the exhibition “Don’t Sleep, You’ll Freeze!” by the artist Lyudmila Gessler, mostly her works about Dikson, the northernmost settlement in the world. I really liked the graphic art: you can feel the mood of the far north in it: beautiful views, wooden houses and scrap metal. Some will say it’s depressing, some that it has its own romance. To each their own.

Lunch, fish and “A Dog’s Heart”

We had lunch at the restaurant Siberia. As a vegetarian I was glad that at least some dishes turned up: I had chips and baked mushrooms with cheese. Surprisingly tasty, the mushrooms big, lots of cheese. The others were less lucky: the fish soup seemed bland, the service was slow, and soup was spilled on one of the girls.

Then we dropped into a local fish shop, bought some fish and drove back. We were already late for the theatre. On the way the driver told us about tourists on abandoned-places tours: they walk through abandoned mines and settlements, climb mountains and are very happy. And I thought that maybe I should have picked such a tour: I’d already heard a lot about the peoples of Taimyr, while those routes sound more thrilling. If you’re a person like me, take a look at them. They’re run by the company “Taimyr Stories”.

The theatre was showing “A Dog’s Heart”, a light, good, funny performance. The theatre is beautiful not only outside but inside, and there were lots of people. On the way to the hotel we also dropped into “Zhar-ptitsa” for souvenirs for friends and family. At 5:40 a.m. a car was already waiting to take most of the group to the airport.

I was taken to the airport by the same driver who’d driven us to Dudinka. On the way he asked whether I’d liked Norilsk. I said I had. And as we said goodbye, he said: “Come again, you haven’t been on the abandoned-places tours yet.”

That’s how my trip to the Putorana Plateau ended. And what I took away with me is in a separate story.