Schoolchildren Develop Virtual Tour of Porogi Settlement and Historic Hydroelectric Plant
Students at the IT-Kub (IT Cube) digital education center in Satka have created a 3D replica of Porogi, a settlement that is home to a cultural heritage site – an early 20th-century hydroelectric power station.
This year, the Ural Industrial Biennial’s art residency in the Southern Urals brought together not only professional artists but also local schoolchildren. The students had an opportunity to contribute to preserving cultural heritage by developing a virtual tour of Porogi based on a 3D model of the settlement.
Porogi is a small settlement known for the Porogi Hydroelectric Power Station, a unique historic industrial complex and one of the oldest of its kind. Built in 1910 to a design by Boris Bakhmetyev, a prominent hydraulic engineer and professor, the 21-meter-high, 125-meter-long gravity dam stands between the slopes of the Chulkova and Uara mountain ranges. The site is scenic and attracts tourists.
Built on Archives and Memories
The virtual tour was preceded by painstaking fieldwork. The young developers visited the settlement, photographed surviving houses, met with residents and staff at the local history museum, and studied archival materials. The project involved an entire team – Artem Kulyasov, Timur Sitdkov, Alexei Podkopaev and Ekaterina Inzhevatova. They collected stories and memories and, most importantly, learned what the settlement looked like decades ago and who lived there. Residents shared childhood memories of the period when the Porogi Hydroelectric Power Station was still operating and supplying the settlement with electricity.
The virtual tour lets users see the metallurgical plant, the hydroelectric station and other historic sites. The students recreated not only buildings that still exist but also “ghost buildings” that have disappeared in the real world.
To explore Porogi virtually, users simply need to download a dedicated mobile app to their phones. The application developed by the aspiring programmers is already being used by tour guides and visitors to the Satka district.
A New Model for Restoring Cultural Heritage
This is a local example of engaging a younger generation in preserving historical memory and cultural heritage. The Ural Industrial Biennial’s art residency went beyond art and even current educational trends, offering a tool for promoting industrial heritage and domestic tourism.
For the Satka district, the approach is particularly relevant as the tourism area around Porogi continues to develop. The POROGI&I glamping site is already welcoming visitors, and one of its goals is to draw attention to the Porogi Hydroelectric Power Station as a historic landmark. A virtual tour cannot, of course, solve the problem of preserving the hydroelectric plant itself, but it can sustain interest in the site and turn a vanished historical environment into part of a modern tourism offering.
The model itself – restoring local heritage through the efforts of students, IT professionals, museums and local residents – is universal and could be replicated in other cities and countries.
From Virtual Tours to Digital Archives
Virtual tours and 3D replicas are a popular field and often become part of larger tourism projects. The mobile tour of Porogi, however, stands out because it was created by teenagers with the help of local residents and local-history experts.
The project’s biggest potential lies in replicating the model in other municipalities. Russia has a vast number of historic buildings, industrial structures and small settlements that could be digitally reconstructed as project work for IT clubs and specialized university departments.
Experts see a further opportunity in moving from individual mobile tours to comprehensive digital archives of entire territories. At the next stage, such materials could be used not only for tourism and education but also to support planned restoration work.
