After two months, I started to… panic that the sun would never come back.”
Russian photographer Elena Chernyshova explores what it’s like to live in a city 400 km north of the Arctic Circle.
Taken over seven months in 2012 to 2013 as part of her Days of Night / Nights of Day project, Russian photographer Elena Chernyshova’s images reveal what it’s like to live in one of the world’s most isolated cities. In Norilsk, winter lasts nine months – and during the polar night the sun doesn’t rise for two months.
Located 400 km (249 miles) north of the Arctic Circle, Norilsk is one of the coldest cities on Earth. The average temperature in winter is -30C, and it can dip below -55C.
Inhabitants of Norilsk crave greenery during the nine-month winter, turning their apartments into oases.
People in Norilsk go ice swimming even on days when the air feels like -40C – warming up in spots heated with steam from the power plant.
There is a solarium in most buildings. “People go quite often, it isn’t a luxury.”
Norilsk was designed in the 1930s by architects imprisoned in Stalin’s camps, and built by gulag prisoners. The earliest buildings are Stalinist in style.
Anna Vasilievna Bigus, 88 when photographed by Chernyshova, was sent to the gulag in Norilsk at the age of 19, spending a decade there. She stayed in the city after she came out, because she’d lost all contact with her family.
Norilsk has several buildings that were never completed, after funding ran out. They are nicknamed ‘ghost buildings’
Pre-fabricated apartments – called ‘Gostinka’ – were built as temporary dwellings in the 1960s – but many are still inhabited today.
Rich deposits were discovered in the area at the start of the 20th Century – just outside Norilsk is the biggest metallurgical and mines complex in the world.
Norilsk is one of the most polluted cities in the world. Acid rain has caused vegetation in areas surrounding the city to die.
Despite the hardship of life in Norilsk, says Chernyshova, “people are so friendly and so joyful”.
Where is Norilsk?
Norilsk is a city located on the Krasnoyarsk Krai in Russia. The city is located on the banks of the Yenisei River on the Taymir Peninsula. The city has a population of 175,365 [2] as of 2010 and is the northernmost city in the world with a population of over 100,000, and is one of the three major cities in the frozen territory with Yakutsk and Vorkuta.
Norilsk was founded in 1935 and received city status in 1953. The city has been a closed city since 2001. In 2005, the city of Talnakh merged with Norilsk. Norilsk has the largest nickel-copper-palladium deposits in the world. Mining company Norilsk Nickel is the principal employer in the Norilsk region.
Norilsk Alykel and Valek airports serve the city. Cargo transportation is carried out by ships on the Arctic Ocean or Yenisei River. There are local highways in Norilsk with connection to Alykel Airport and Dudinka port, and freight rail services between Norilsk and Dudinka port, and the city does not have any road or rail transport to other Russian cities.
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