>sotsgorod/ brigade ernst may/ cities/ magnitogorsk

The small village of Magnetka at the foot of the Ural Mountains would have to change into a city for 200 thousand people in seven years. The village was named after its mountain with 300 million tons of ore, which magnetised any steel object. Americans supervised the building of huge blast furnaces next to a barrage-lake in the Ural River.

A railroad between the Kuznetsky Basin (with the cities Kemerovo and Novo Kuznetsk) and Magnitogorsk transported ore to the East and coal to the West, so blast furnaces could be operated on both sides. Magnitogorsk had traditionally been a banishing place, and it stayed so during the thirties, forties and fifties. Many so-called kulaks worked at Magnitogorsk's building site.

There was a camp quite near the Sotsgorod. The Western engineers sometimes saw the prisoners passing by, but contact was strictly forbidden. During a stroll home at night, Niegeman once tore his coat on the barbed wire that surrounded the camp. It was safest to sew the tear up and not talk about it.

design by the Brigade Ernst May
housing by the Brigade Ernst May
present situation
industrial polution

print: "control p"