Siberia from North to East. Part 1 : Norilsk.

[wisla_krakow]

beautiful in its own archaic, ugly, and extremely strange way.
i was a huge fan of your threads last year, so i cannot wait for the rest of this trip!

[Nantais]

Thanks to all for the comments.

Originally Posted by olga

Wow, thanks for an extremely interesting post! I'd love to go on a trip like this some day. Do you speak Russian? When you went by car, did you hire a car with a driver?

No, unfortunately, I don't speak Russian (except from a few basic words and sentences), but from Norilsk to Krasnoyarsk I was accompanied by a guide, fluent in Russian, and by three other tourists, with among them an old Frenchman of Russian origin who was also quite fluent in the language.
Then, from Krasnoyarsk to Vladivostok, I was alone with my few Russian words.

I hope to learn Russian in the next years in order to make my next trips to Russia even more interesting.

Yes, we had a hired car with a driver several times (to go around Norilsk and go from Norilsk to Dudinka), and then from Ienisseisk to Krasnoyarsk, we took the bus.

[animatedmartian]

Seems very representative of what "the workers' city" would look like. What gets me is the lack of trees. The tundra seems so alien!

[Nineties Flava]

Thanks for a view into a world I've never seen before.

[202_Cyclist]

This makes any rustbelt city in the US look like a tropical paradise.

[whatsthepoint13]

It may be depressing, but it's so so cool. Never did I expect to see this on here. I have particular interest in it because I have interest in the cold war. I collect American and Soviet relics of the time and to me it would be very cool to see this place. It looks almost as if the Soviet Union had never ended, with the exception of the decay since then. Thanks for going out so far and showing us something unique!

[big T]

Just checked this and part 2 as well. Very possibly the shittiest places I've seen, at least on this forum, but fascinating nonetheless. I'm certainly glad you posted these, as I doubt I will ever make it there myself.

A few of the buildings look unfinished, which is weird considering the region looks fairly resource rich. Is the town going through a resurgence lately?

Very much looking forward to the rest of the trip!

[xzmattzx]

Nice pictures. This place looks depressing, and that's without piles of old snow or anything like that around.

Why aren't international tourists allowed there? I can understand individual places being blocked off, but a whole town? The Pentagon is an important place, but Arlington is not off-limits to people from other countries. Likewide, the Harrisburg area is not off-limits to tourists even though tourists wouldn't be able to go to Three Mile Island. It seems like Russia still has some reforming to go through, unless I am missing something.

[Nantais]

Originally Posted by animatedmartian

Seems very representative of what "the workers' city" would look like. What gets me is the lack of trees. The tundra seems so alien!

Trust me, seen from the plane, tundra seemed even more alien with all its perfect round lakes. Too bad that I didn't take a pic.

Originally Posted by big T

A few of the buildings look unfinished, which is weird considering the region looks fairly resource rich. Is the town going through a resurgence lately?

Lot of developpements were stopped in the late 1980's with the perestroïka. The unfinished and abandonned commieblocks are a legacy of this period.
I couldn't say if the city is going through a resurgence or not. The population stats I've found on internet seem a bit contradictory.
From what I've seen, there is not really new developpements or new blocks being built, but there are, here and there, some buildings that are renovated (especially in downtown).
One thing is sure, the amount of wealth generated by the local industry is still huge.

Originally Posted by xzmattzx

Why aren't international tourists allowed there? I can understand individual places being blocked off, but a whole town?

International tourists are not totally forbidden in the city (if so, I couldn't have taken these pics), but you have to get some special authorization to get in. Norilsk is, as well as some dozens other cities in ex-USSR, a closed city to foreigners. It's a legacy of the Cold War, generally it's because there are some "secret" plants and military installations in these cities. Since the 1990's, most of these cities have been opened again to foreigners (like Vladivostok in 1992), others remain officially closed.

[destroycreate]

So glad I live in the west when I see these types of threads.

Grim!

[Thundertubs]

Amazing. A while a go I saw one incredible picture of the main square in Norilsk, with the massive smokestacks in the background, and have been fascinated ever since. Incredible tour.

[sabotai]

Very beautiful in a tragic way.

[UrbanImpressionist]

Wow what an incredible story your pics tell! The tragedy of communism is obvious but you can still see glimmers of beauty in the late 1800/early 1900 buildings that Russians were known to be able to create during the Czarist years.

I saw similar dilapidation and poverty in Vyborg going from Helsinki to St. Pete. It's truly appalling! They're very smart and talented people so I'm sure in the next couple decades these cities will see remarkable improvement.

...off to view your Mockba to Beijing pics

[Evergrey]

Clearly this is the most depressing region on Earth.

Brilliant photos... we are lucky to have someone like you on SSP, Nantais.

[Chef]

Wow! I don't even know what to say. An amazing, fascinating, horrible dystopian nightmare.

[jowens]

WOW on so many levels!

Wondering what the life expectancy is in this city................However a early natural death could be a reprieve.

[DLLB]

WOW, a very depressing place.

But thanks so much, these threads are wonderful.

[Kilgore Trout]

This city looks so unnatural, especially with all the buildings built on pylons. It's like the landscape is rejecting human presence.

[stepper77]

I commend you for traveling to such a place and I found the tour incredibly interesting. But, damn, what a terribly dreary city.

[edmontonoilers89]

Awesome pics! Thanks!