Dolgi (Yamal-Nenets)
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Dolgi
Dolga
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Dolgi ( Russian Долгий ; also Dolgoje, Долгое ) is a former settlement on the east bank of the Tas (river) not far from the Arctic Circle . Administratively, the place belongs to the Krasnoselkupski rajon of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug . It developed into a small town between 1949 and 1953 when, on the orders of Josef Stalin, the Arctic Circle Railway , later also called the "Stalin Railway", was built parallel to the coast of the Arctic Ocean . Dolgi was of particular importance in this railway project.
Dolgi has had no permanent residents since around 1960.
Location and strategic importance
On the east bank of the Tas River, in the middle of the West Siberian lowlands , lies the former settlement Dolgi, not far from the Arctic Circle. So far in the north, the Tas is only navigable for a little over four months a year and therefore frozen over or at least covered with ice floes for up to eight months. Dolgi lies like on an "island", a term that is often used in Russian for settlements that are high in the north and cut off from the southern parts of the country, the "mainland". The distances to the nearest settlements are also great: the Taz Gauge Sidorowsk is 90 km further north (the village of Sidorowsk was founded in 1863 and officially abandoned in 2006). The Russian settlement Mangaseja, founded in 1601, lies 10 km north of Sidorovsk . From Dolgi to the east it is 100 km to the Janow Stan weather station . To the west it is 170 km to Urengoy . Only after 48 km to the south is the Krasnoselkup district administrative center , which has a sand runway on which aircraft can land in dry weather. Between these four settlements mentioned, the area is virtually deserted.
Dolgi does not only mean the former settlement. The Dolgi Depot ( Russian Депо Долгий , sometimes referred to in the literature as "Tas-Depot"), a locomotive shed which still has three locomotives today , is also connected to Dolgi . There is also a cluster of houses called Sedelnikowo ( Russian Седельниково ) 6 km south of Dolgi, also on the Tas . From 1951 to 1978, a telegraph line that connected Moscow with Igarka operated the Tas crossing at Sedelnikowo . Thus communication with the outside world was also possible for Dolgi. Exactly at the point of the telegraph crossing, a 1000 meter long railway bridge was to be built over the Tas in a later construction project. In addition to these two settlements (Dolgi and Sedelnikowo) there were at least two Gulag penal camps in the area . These were 1.5 and 5 km from Dolgi, respectively. The settlements and camps are shown on maps.
Dolgi was strategically founded, roughly in the middle of the Stalin Railway. This single-track railway line should have a total length of 1260 km after completion. In order to complete the route quickly, two construction phases were created. Section 501 moved the tracks from Salekhard to the east. Section 503 did the same from Yermakovo to the west. The aim of construction section 503 was to advance to the "island" Dolgi as quickly as possible. Organizationally, the settlement was subordinated to the eastern construction section, i.e. No. 503, since Dolgi was not exactly in the middle of the Stalin Railway, but a little to the east. The people in the Dolgi and Sedelnikowo settlements as well as those in the adjacent prison camps had the task of building the infrastructure for the future Stalin Railway here as “outposts”.
Settlement
Settlement of this previously uninhabited area began on September 4, 1949. There were 900 prisoners, 21 vehicles and supplies from Nowy Port ( Новый Порт ) and Mys Kamenny ( Мыс Каменный ), a Gulag railway construction project on the Yamal that was canceled before completion - Peninsula (construction section no. 502), via which Obbusen and the Tas mouth were brought upstream to this point. Shelters for the "civilians" (this is how the volunteers, who were also known as "free") and barbed wire-fenced storage areas were quickly built. After that, the infrastructure to be created for the Stalin Railway was devoted to. These had reached the following dimensions:
The Dolgi Depot was built. This created the possibility of servicing locomotives. Four locomotives were put on the rails from the banks of the Tas during high water. It is assumed that the locomotives must have left the ships in the immediate vicinity of the depot because large winches can still be found there today. However, the terrain is steep and a gradient of at least 20 meters had to be overcome for almost 100 meters. At Sedelnikowo, however, the rails run right up to the shore. Here, too, the locomotives and wagons could in principle have been set up, and the location still shows evidence of this to this day. In addition, the eastern abutment of the bridge planned for the future was to be built in the immediate vicinity . The rails should have been connected to the bridge via a high embankment. Thus, the rails at bank level would not make any further sense, except that one wanted to lay rails on the ice of the Tas until the bridge was completed in winter. But that didn't happen.
In any case, an 11 km long track already connected this touchdown point near the shore with the Dolgi depot. In addition, 3 km of shunting and sidings were laid and the railway line began to be built over a length of 10 km to the east, towards the construction team of the "503".
Between 1949 and 1953, two dozen houses were built in Dolgi. The residents were the civilians, the guards and former prisoners. The settlement had its own communication center (after all, the recently completed telegraph line ran here, which enabled communication with the project managers in Yermakowo (location of the eastern construction section) and Salekhard (location of the western construction section), a school, a kindergarten, a Weather station, library, club, infirmary, bakery and stables for animals. To get to the nearby Dolgi depot, you had to cross a small tributary of the Tas. For this reason, a diesel engine-powered cable winch was installed. Perhaps the electricity was generated here too, because you can still find remnants of wires and lamp sockets in Dolgi. Around 1500 people are said to have lived in Dolgi and the surrounding area.
The time after the construction work on the Stalin Railway was stopped
When the work on the Stalin Railway was stopped in March 1953, only 70 km of rails were missing to the east, but still almost 500 km to the west in order to be able to use the Stalin Railway continuously. Most of the prisoners were transferred to other camps in the summer of 1953. Many civilians, but also some amnesties, stayed. State authority was taken over by the Krasnoselkup Police Department. Those who stayed behind were fishing. The wooden boats and salt barrels used for this can still be found rotting in the forest today. The hull of a large ferry that had brought prisoners here in previous years was used as the cold store. This created a small fish processing industry, which was relocated to Tasowski in 1957 . After that, people gradually left Dolgi. Since 1960 Dolgi ceased to exist as a settlement.
Dolgi today
You enter the village of Dolgi through a rotten, dilapidated gate directly on the Tas. Most of the houses here, as in Sedelnikowo and in the two camp areas, are only ruins. Since youth groups sometimes set up summer camps here on the banks of the Tas, the locomotive shed (the Dolgi depot) was destroyed with chainsaws in 2008 for security reasons. Since then, beams and boards have been lying on top of each other here.
In June 2009 a large Orthodox cross was erected on the banks of the Tas. It was consecrated by the Archbishop of Tobolsk and Tyumen in September of the same year in memory of the suffering and the many deaths that were to be mourned here. The cross bears the inscription “Lord, save and protect the souls of the innocent victims!”.
A gas pipeline now runs through the area. It was moved through the Tas in the immediate vicinity of the planned bridge around 2011. It runs to the east and crosses the former rail line several times.
From the former four locomotives, one locomotive was flown at great expense by helicopter to the Verkhnyaya Pyschma Museum (a town in the Sverdlovsk Oblast ) in autumn 2013 , in order to restore it and exhibit it there.
Most of the year Dolgi lies under a thick blanket of snow. But in the few ice-free months you can guess the commitment with which construction was carried out here. At least 61 railway wagons are still on the tracks, and the high density of scrap metal and machine parts that can be found in the area testifies to this day of the great technical goals that one has on the "island" of Dolgi for the huge but useless Railway project had stuck.
literature
- Norbert Mausolf: The Stalin Railway Trilogy. In search of traces in the Arctic Circle . Books on Demand GmbH, Norderstedt 2011, ISBN 978-3-8423-5398-5 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d "ДОЛГИЙ" - ДОРОГА В НИКУДА - ПОСЁЛОК ДОЛГИЙ ВЧЕРА И СЕГОДНЯ, научно-практической конференции 12 ноября 2011 г., МУНИЦИПАЛЬНОЕ УЧРЕЖДЕНИЕ КУЛЬТУРЫ "КРАСНОСЕЛЬКУПСКИЙ РАЙОННЫЙ КРАЕВЕДЧЕСКИЙ МУЗЕЙ". М.И. Chedorova. - Красноселькуп: Северный край, 2011. - 50 с. Translated: "DOLGI" - THE ROAD TO NOWHERE - THE VILLAGE DOLGI YESTERDAY AND TODAY, Scientific Conference on November 12th, 2011, CITY CULTURE INSTITUTE, in the "KRASNOSELKUPSK DISTRICT MUSEUM". MI Fedorova: Krasnoselkup: Northern Territory, 2011, 50 pages.
- ↑ http://af1461.livejournal.com/131049.html
- ↑ http://photos.wikimapia.org/p/00/02/14/14/82_full.jpeg
- ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original dated June 6, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ http://www.lib.csu.ru/vch/119/012.pdf
- ↑ http://www.memorial.krsk.ru/deu/Dokument/Ariicles/199850303.htm
- ↑ http://transphoto2007.livejournal.com/68463.html
- ↑ http://www.memorial.krsk.ru/Articles/503/17.htm
- ↑ http://img1.liveinternet.ru/images/attach/c/0//48/382/48382299_IMG_1417.JPG
- ↑ http://img1.liveinternet.ru/images/attach/c/0//48/382/48382339_IMG_1421.JPG
- ↑ http://af1461.livejournal.com/131320.html
- ↑ http://b0.imgsrc.ru/f/foto1990/4/19479174PSC.jpg
- ↑ http://www.alltrains.ru/ljphoto/mangazeya2007/mangazeya_2007_3_1.jpg
- ↑ http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/sibir79/24403290/12934/12934_900.jpg
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20161026010237/http://www.panoramio.com/photo/76601302
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20161024025240/http://www.panoramio.com/photo/51369906
