In January of 1949 Stalin gathered the special conference, in which Beria and Frenkel (the chief of the main board of camps of railroad building) took place as well. It was decided - to replace the main port of the Northern Sea Route of Ob to Igarka on the river Yenisey and to start building the railroad from Ob to Yenisey - Salekhard-Igarka with the perspective of its continuation to the East. "To start" then was understood in real sense of it: on the 29th of January of 1949 the Governmental revision was established, and already in February of the same year the deputy of the minister, the general-colonel V.V.Chernyshov went to the town Salekhard to inspect the course of building work.

""What could we do? - the former chief engineer of the western sector of the building A.D.Zhighin recalls. - Frosts were strong in Salekhard, snow higher than the waist, but who cares!? It was said, "to build the road", it meant "to build!" Our researching group went to the edge of the settlement, found in tundra the proper ground about 1,5 kilometers, and fixed the table "The ground of the future station Salekhard". We demonstrated these "achievements" to high chiefs. But they liked!"

Basic work on the route started later. Working manpower, materials and equipment was delivered along winter road to remote points. What a high aim and what low means - to send thousand people to camps, having turned them to slaves of the attractive idea. Rather big amount of equipment, mechanisms, building materials would not have given such high tempos of building without big concentration of working manpower. The chief of the building A.D.Zhighin presented the figure of people, delivered from the North after liquidation of building - 100 thousand of people. The building was well provided with people resources with Stalin's knowledge.

It was hard to build the road. Big amount of sand was swallowed by swamps, unexpected floods washed and ruined the ready road. Only complete persistence of workers could help to move the building forward. To stimulate the active work of convicts, the chief of the building the colonel V.A.Barabanov input the system of reckoning: for one who carries out the day norm on 115% - to count it as for two days, on 125% - as for three days. Some convicts owing to such system could decrease the time of their imprisonment on 1,5-2 years. Of course, hard work in severe conditions was not possible to do for all people, some of them fell ill and died. The common mischief for everybody was mosquitoes, midges, horseflies and other bloodsucking insects. In summer there was no rescue from it. There were cases of suicide of sentries even. But constantly appearing technical problems for leaders of the building were worse than mosquitoes. After war there was not enough amount of rails. They had to bring ruined remains of rails from battlefront railroads. They were cut in special shops to one-meter pieces and welded to ten-meters rails.