 Designed dam height—200 m;

 Design head—184 m;

 Installed capacity—14 000 MW (with 14 units) or 20 000 MW (with 20 units);

 Reservoir area—9 400 km²;

 Total reservoir volume—409.4 km³;

 Useful volume (to regulate flow and ensure stable generation)—101 km³;

 Reservoir length—1 200 km.

It should be noted that the total length of the Nizhnyaya Tunguska River is 2 989 km (almost 3 000 km). The river’s basin area is 473 000 km², which is larger than the territory of Germany. The total area of Evenkia is 767 600 km², exceeding the area of France. The population of the Evenk Autonomous Okrug is almost 17 000 people; no more than 10 000 of them would be subject to relocation.

 

 

 

As examples, we can cite three large hydroelectric power plants built on permafrost:

 The Kolyma HPP, with an installed capacity of 900 MW. It features a rockfill dam 130 m high with an impervious core. The HPP’s turbine hall is located at a depth of 28 m.

 The Vilyui HPP has a capacity of 680 MW. It has a rockfill dam 75 m high. The impervious element includes a loam screen.

 The Kureika HPP, located 128 km north of Turukhansk, has a capacity of 600 MW and a design head of 57 m. The power engineers’ settlement of Svetlogorsk is home to just over 1 000 people, including families and children. This HPP was built to serve the Norilsk Copper Nickel Combine (NMNC) and the entire Norilsk area. The combine became a private enterprise and is now known as PJSC “MMC Norilsk Nickel,” or simply “Norilsk Nickel.”

 

Half a century of operation demonstrates that Russian designers and builders are well versed in constructing HPPs in the Arctic climate. The Norilsk Nickel case is important because, like its predecessors, its management has experience in organising large construction projects in hardtoreach regions. According to the plan, construction of Phase 1 of the large Chernogorsk Mining and Processing Plant (MPP) at the Chernogorsk deposit is due to be completed by the end of 2026. In early summer, the first concentrate was shipped to Murmansk, to a plant owned by Norilsk Nickel.

 

 

Norilsk Nickel’s logistics model is based on the fact that the Dudinka port on the Yenisei River was built in Soviet times. The Yenisei is a major transport artery: goods are delivered along it from Krasnoyarsk and other cities in southern Siberia, which are connected to the Russian railway network. The Dudinka port is capable of accommodating sea vessels, and during the 4month river navigation period, cargo is delivered there via the Northern Sea Route (NSR). It should also be noted that Dudinka is the administrative centre of the Taymyr Autonomous District. The second key element of the logistics system is the Dudinka–Norilsk–Talnakh railway. The industrial railway network reaches every settlement, mine, and airport. Alykel Airport, located between Dudinka and Norilsk, enables yearround delivery of construction workers and equipment installers working on a rotational basis. Greater Norilsk has a population of 175 000, but the current Russian government considers the Soviet approach to be a mistake, favouring the rotational work method instead. However, owing to the approach, Norilsk Nickel maintains its own construction industry in Norilsk.

Before moving on to the Evenk HPP and GHD, it is worth noting that Norilsk Nickel is one of the world’s largest copper producers, and this is exactly what data centres need. Copper is used in the control systems of hydroelectric plants, and it is a key material for data centres: it is employed in cables, busbars, cooling systems, and power distribution networks. From the perspective of potential investors’ costs, local production of these items—possibly with some automation elements—in Norilsk or Turukhansk could look attractive. This decision would reduce transportation costs, shorten delivery times, and decrease both projects’ dependence on external supplies.

Based on the Norilsk Nickel example, the construction of the Evenk HPP will require a base port. Fortunately, the Igarka river port on the Yenisei can also accommodate sea vessels, although it needs to be upgraded to handle large tonnage and oversized cargo. Igarka is located on the same right bank as Dudinka, 279 km upstream. Like Dudinka, Igarka can be reached by deepdraught sea vessels. Igarka lies on the edge of the tundra, so it has no local forest resources, but in the past, sea timber carriers regularly called there. The settlement of Igarka in Turukhansk District has a population of 4 300. Timber products are still manufactured there. Timber is delivered to Igarka by barges travelling downstream along the Yenisei and its tributaries. Before the ban on log rafting, rafts were delivered straight to Igarka from all the surrounding rivers flowing into the Yenisei, including the Nizhnyaya Tunguska.

 

 

 

The construction of the large and modern Evenk HPP requires transformations that will subsequently support the development of the vast northern region and launch a new phase in the exploitation of its natural resources. For decades, private businesses have been unable to access these resources.

The scale of the task calls for an appropriate management solution. The construction of the Evenk HPP opens up major opportunities—not only for building another railway segment. To address these largescale challenges, it would be advisable to unite the Evenk Autonomous Okrug, the Taymyr Autonomous Okrug, and the Turukhansk District into a separate federal subject, with its capital in Turukhansk. This part of the country was once known as the Turukhansk Territory; today, this name could acquire new meaning. A single centre of responsibility helps eliminate interdepartmental barriers, speeds up approvals, and makes the territory more attractive to major investors.

This is relevant not only for data centre operators. For example, Rosneft has recently postponed the commissioning of an oil terminal in the Yenisei Gulf, not far from Dixon. Other private ports are under development there to varying degrees. Entrepreneurs are drawn by the opportunity to use the Northern Sea Route and by the presence of a standby icebreaker nearby.

 

For the state, the Turukhansk Territory represents a way to manage the complex northern logistics, economy, energy sector, and natural resource use from a single centre. What underpins the local economy and what the people there rely on for their livelihood is, first and foremost, important to them. For Russian and international investors, the existence of the Subject of Federation in this area is a guarantee that the rules will remain stable and that infrastructure will develop in a systematic, rather than piecemeal, way.

 

 

In the previous chapter, we outlined the minimum requirements for implementing the HPP project on the Nizhnyaya Tunguska. We have already noted the role of the Norilsk airport in transporting rotational workers. Systematic development of the regional transport system implies incorporating the largest airport into it and building a new Turukhansk airport. The railway should not only reach the Igarka port—it should cross the existing railway line near Alykel Airport and continue onward to the ports in the Yenisei Gulf. At one end of the railway will be Turukhansk, with a branch line to the Evenk HPP dam and to the settlement for power engineers and data centre staff. The most suitable location for the new Turukhansk airport is where both railway branches converge. This site is 35–40 km from the regional capital. The straightline distance from Turukhansk to Igarka is about 210 km. On the way to Igarka, the railway runs close to the power engineers’ settlement of Svetlogorsk. The same 210 km is the straightline distance from Igarka to Alykel Airport.

 

Ideally, it would be right to extend the Turukhansk Railway further north to reach the ports in the Yenisei Gulf. Ports provide yearround connectivity with the rest of the world, whereas the navigation period at the Dudinka and Igarka ports lasts only four months a year—from June to September. However, it is necessary to take into account that the straightline distance from Alykel Airport to the ports in the Yenisei Gulf is about 490 km, and along the route lie oil and gas fields owned by Rosneft. Gaining access to those ports simultaneously means gaining access to the riches of Taymyr, with its deposits containing the entire periodic table, including the increasingly soughtafter rare earth metals. This would create an opportunity to launch other significant projects.

Whether the Turukhansk Railway should be extended further north after reaching Norilsk is a decision for the Russian government to make. There is, however, another option: licenses for the development of mineral resources in Taymyr could be granted exclusively to those who have invested in extending the railway to the sea ports and, of course, deeper into the peninsula.

 

If the decision to extend this railway towards the ports in the Yenisei Gulf is not made or is postponed to a later date, then a gravel road will need to be built for yearround supply deliveries to the Evenk HPP construction site: from Korotchaevo railway station to the ferry crossing opposite Turukhansk. There is a highway and a new bridge across the Pur River between Korotchaevo and Urengoy. Beyond Urengoy, the road heads in the required direction to the east, but then turns northeast towards the drilling sites. From the future junction to the Yenisei bank opposite Turukhansk is 426 km if the road runs through Krasnoselkup, the district centre of the YamaloNenets Autonomous Okrug. Clearly, a bridge across the Taz River should be built near the winter road route. We will discuss the Yenisei ferry crossing near Turukhansk in another chapter.

 

 

To conclude this chapter: from now on, the settlement for power engineers and data specialists will simply be referred to as “the Town,” leaving the right to name it to the authorities and local residents.

 

 

Furs were a valuable commodity even in Russia back then, not to mention among the European aristocracy. Stoat pelts were particularly prized, despite the fact that only royalty was permitted to wear them. The exploration of Siberia was spearheaded by the most enterprising individuals: teams of Russian fur traders and hunter-tradesmen set off to the region. They established there their own capital: the town of Mangazeya, for a short time deceiving the tsar’s clerks who collected the yasak. They use the fortress of Obdorsk (the city of Salekhard since 1933) as the base. The Obdorsk was founded by the Cossacks in 1595 near the mouth of the Ob River. The ice prevented them from reaching the Frigid Sea (in our days – the Arctic Ocean). While exploring Ob Gulf, they discovered the entrance to Taz Bay. Sailing up the Taz River, in 1601 they founded the settlement from which they launched expeditions along the rivers of Siberia. Later, their European counterparts joined them.

 

 

Mangazeya’s merchants found a river route with a portage to the Turukhan River, which flows into the Yenisei. In 1607, they built a zimovye (hunting post) near its mouth. This became a key stronghold for Russian fur traders and free Cossacks advancing into the vast expanses of Siberia. In 1672, the authorities transferred administrative functions and the collection of yasak to the Turukhansk zimovye, where a fortress had been built. The settlement came to be known colloquially as New Mangazeya.

Even earlier, in 1657, Monk Tikhon arrived in the area with his community. In 1660, he formalised the Holy Trinity Monastery. Tikhon chose a picturesque high hill on the opposite, right bank of the Yenisei, right at the mouth of the Nizhnyaya Tunguska River. From the chapel and cells, one had to descend to the water, but the site never suffered even during the most violent floods. Around the monastery, the village of Monastyrskoe gradually grew. The strategic location of the village attracted the authorities’ attention, and eventually the town of Turukhansk grew there. “New Mangazeya” was abandoned and forgotten. In 1780, the name Turukhansk was officially confirmed. The Arctic fox on the town’s coat of arms appeared during the reign of Catherine II. “Symbols rule the world”: northern Turukhansk has its own way, with the Arctic fox as its guide, and possesses the resilience (symbolised by the crimson background) to follow it.

 

After the capital was moved from Moscow to St. Petersburg, the naval administration began searching for a sea route to the Yenisei. After several attempts, in 1737 Lieutenant D. Ovtsyn and his crew, aboard the boat Ob Pochtalyon (“Ob Mailman”), sailed from Tobolsk on the Ob River to the Yenisei via the Frigid Sea, skirting the Gydan Peninsula. Step by step, this contributed to the formation of the Northern Sea Route as the shortest passage between China/Japan and Europe.

The TransSiberian Railway reached the Yenisei’s upper reaches in 1896. The construction pace outstripped the logistical thinking of the time: the bridge across the Yenisei in Krasnoyarsk was completed only in 1899. Until then, ferries were used, and in winter, rails were laid directly on the river ice. The distance from Krasnoyarsk, which grew up around the Yenisei bridge, to Turukhansk is 1 450 km by water and 1 120 km by air. It is a long journey, and the river features rapids. One might say that the North is governed as if from another planet.

 

The fur traders and Cossacks who built the Turukhansk wintering post must have quickly discovered the Nizhnyaya Tunguska River, whose mouth lies opposite the confluence of the Turukhan with the Yenisei. The route upstream along this river leads to the heart of Evenkia. The Evenks began living in settled villages only after the Soviet authorities started establishing reindeerbreeding state farms (sovkhozes). Before that, they lived in the same areas, in the same taiga, in family groups, in their conical dwellings known as dyu. The straightline distance from Turukhansk to the current capital of the Evenks, the settlement of Tura, is 685 km; by river, the distance is considerably greater.

There is a theory that the Evenks were forced deep into the taiga by raids from the Yenisei Kyrgyz. These tribes rampaged along the Yenisei and its tributaries for over a thousand years. Their centre was in the Minusinsk Downs, which has an unusually warm climate for Siberia. At the height of their power, the Yenisei Kyrgyz launched raids over vast areas. In the 8th century, part of the Yenisei Kyrgyz joined a westward campaign and entered Europe with Attila’s Hunnic army—a presence Europe still remembers. The Yenisei Kyrgyz undertook predatory expeditions along the Yenisei, Angara, and their tributaries, travelling by boat. In the 13th century, Genghis Khan’s empire put an end to their dominance and plundering. When Russian fur traders and Cossacks arrived in those lands, the river areas were deserted. Even in the Arctic, Dolgan reindeer herders did not set up their dyu on riverbanks. Incidentally, the term dyu comes from the Evenk language. Some Evenks fled their native taiga towards Mongolia and Manchuria.

 

Russia is home to nearly 40 000 Evenks, while in China there are more than 40 000. The dialects there differ significantly from those of the Evenks in Russia, with many direct and distorted borrowings from Chinese and Russian, respectively. While the Evenks in Russia have their own writing system based on the Cyrillic alphabet, the Chinese Evenks have no native script. In Russia, there is a system for teaching native languages to all peoples, whereas in China, there is not. Evenks in Russia are more widely dispersed, but, like all ethnic groups, they have specific support mechanisms. There is a regulation under which school principals provide premises to organised ethnic groups in the evenings. These groups meet outside school hours to study their languages and cultures and simply to bring children and parents together. Given the small population size and wide dispersion of the people, preserving their language is difficult. The state helps, but the outcome ultimately depends on the communities themselves.

Population censuses show that most Evenks live in Siberia and the Far East. The Evenk National Okrug was established in 1930 as part of the East Siberian Territory, whose capital at the time was Irkutsk. In 1977, it was renamed the Evenk Autonomous Okrug. By then, Evenkia was already part of the Krasnoyarsk Territory. Due to the difficult accessibility and the nomadic lifestyle of reindeer herders, the first census in the Far North was conducted later than in the rest of the country—in the second half of 1939. It allows us to estimate the number of Old Believers and Old Ritualists.

 

 

The total permanent population of the Evenk Autonomous Okrug grew slightly faster, peaking in the same 2002 at 17 647. By 2021, Evenkia’s population had fallen to approximately 13 400. This decline is likely due to the outmigration of nonnative residents—those not born in the local taiga. During the difficult 1990s, several industrial facilities in Evenkia were closed, resulting in a significant loss of jobs. The entire settlement of Noginsk, with over 400 residents who worked at a graphite mine, ceased to exist.

 

Analysis reveals a high degree of adaptability among the local population, both Evenks and Russians, to hardship. Faced with the collapse of reindeerbreeding sovkhozes and a sharp drop in global demand for furs, the Evenks largely preserved their traditional way of life. Reindeerherding families emerged; hunters pursue bears and ungulates, work as guides in the taiga, and take wealthy hunters from around the world on expeditions. Some have found jobs at drilling sites: oil and gas fields have been discovered in southern Evenkia, producing oil, with gravel roads being built to them and equipment and all necessary supplies being delivered to support the drillers.

The human qualities of the Evenks can be summed up in two terms: “Siberian” and “Northerner.” While the “Siberian” identity is becoming blurred today, the “Northerner” remains unchanged. The North is a place where helping one another is a need of the soul. With their numbers so small, the Evenks are on the verge of disappearing as a people. Any major project here must honour their right to stay on their land and keep their way of life. That is not just good policy—it is a matter of fairness.

 

 

As noted above, the Evenk Hydroelectric Power Plant (HPP) project entails relocating residents from dwellings located within the reservoir’s inundation zone and clearing forested areas on the territory designated for the reservoir bed. These are standard components of any large HPP project, but in Evenkia they carry special weight: the land is not just terrain—it is the foundation of a people’s identity. That is why resettlement must be handled with care, transparency, and tangible benefits for those affected.

A separate and critical requirement is the establishment of a nature reserve, at minimum in the Nizhnyaya Tunguska River basin. This measure is not included in the original RusHydro design, yet it is essential for ensuring the safety of the power plant, the data centres, and the local community. The reserve would protect the taiga ecosystem, which Evenks depend on for reindeer herding, hunting, and gathering—activities that are not merely economic but deeply cultural.

 

It must be taken into account that HPP personnel and reserve staff will jointly ensure the security of the facilities and the safety of the Settlement’s residents along the outer perimeter. For this reason, the operation of the reserve should be financed from the Evenk HPP funds. Close coordination between the reserve and the security services of all facilities is not just practical—it is a moral commitment to the region and its people. Aerial monitoring of the area must cover the entire reserve territory, tracking both unauthorized persons and the emergence of open fires. This necessitates a reliable communication link between all security structures in the Evenkia Territory.

Organized groups of tourists and hunters may be permitted access to the area under strict regulation. Moreover, guided tours to the dam of the unique HPP should be provided. The guides’ narratives must foster respect for nature and all its inhabitants among visitors—and especially respect for the Evenks’ relationship with their land.

 

 

Key social and environmental safeguards to be formalized in the project framework:

 Fair resettlement protocol: each family receives compensation and assistance in rebuilding their home; relocation is planned well in advance, with input from community representatives.

 Employment guarantees: priority hiring for Evenks and local residents in construction, operation, and reserve management; training programs to build needed skills.

 Cultural support mechanisms: funding for language and cultural activities, recognition of traditional land use rights, and inclusion of elders in advisory roles.

 Fire prevention and taiga stewardship: a dedicated team of local wardens, equipped and paid, with clear responsibilities and authority; integration with HPP security systems.

 Transparent decisionmaking: regular consultations with the community, public reporting on project impacts, and an independent oversight panel.

 

 

The Evenk HPP is more than an energy project—it is an opportunity to rethink how large infrastructure is built in remote, culturally sensitive regions. By combining technical ambition with ethical responsibility, it can deliver reliable power for data centres and other major consumers while respecting the rights and way of life of the Evenks.

Russia’s experience in constructing hydropower plants in the Arctic zone proves that such complex projects are feasible. The challenge now is not engineering alone, but governance: creating a single, accountable authority for the Turukhansk Territory to streamline approvals and ensure consistent policy. It is also about logistics: a new railway and port infrastructure, supported by temporary power from floating nuclear plants during construction, can make the project viable and efficient.

 

From a moral standpoint, the project must put the community first. This means fair compensation, real employment, cultural support, and shared decisionmaking. From an investor’s standpoint, these same measures reduce risk: stable rules, predictable approvals, and local acceptance make longterm returns more reliable.

Finally, the creation of a nature reserve in the Nizhnyaya Tunguska basin is not a cost to be minimized—it is an investment in the region’s future. Protecting the taiga protects the livelihoods of the Evenks, the stability of the reservoir, and the integrity of the entire project.

 

In short, the Evenk HPP can be both powerful and humane—a landmark of northern development that balances energy needs, economic opportunity, and respect for people and nature.

Marks: Alexey Smirnov, Alice AI, data centres, Evenkia, Evenks, Evenk HPP, Turukhansk, Norilsk, Igarka, Nizhnyaya Tunguska

© Alexey Borisovich Smirnov, 2026
novoruss.ru@gmail.com or elenalexey.smirnov@gmail.com