Norilsk, Siberia. July 2011.

[Nantais]

Last summer I spent some days in Norilsk.
Norilsk is an industrial city, located north of the arctic circle (thus we had 24 hours daylight).
Although it's far from being abandonned, it has this derelict look. Due to the harsh climate, most of the buildings are rather decayed and some are indeed abandonned.
It has some 200,000 people (the largest city north of the arctic circle) and it's officially a forbidden city to foreigners. If you are not Russian, you need special authorizations to enter the city. Needless to say, it's not a very touristic place. Me, the other three tourists who accompanied me and our guide were probably the only international tourists in the city at the time we visited it (and maybe the sole international tourists of the whole year).
Norilsk must be the most fascinating place I've ever visited. It's also very polluted, you could smell (and see) the gaz in the city.




1- Abandonned commieblocks on the way from the airport to Norilsk :

2-

3-

4-

5- Overall view of the city, spot the mosque :

6-

7-

8-

9-

10-

11-

12-

13-

14- This building is still inhabited, but rather in a bad shape as a great part of the city :

15-

16-

17-

18-

19-

20-

21-

22-

23-

 

[Mars Lander]

Is this apt for this site?

 

[Nantais]

I don't know, there are a lot of abandonned structures in this city and the whole city has a somewhat derelict look, even if it's not abandonned. So I figured out it could be good material for this section.
Maybe I should have posted only pics of the abandonned structures. Tell me.

 

[Mars Lander]

I can see in parts what you mean, in general tho its kind of a couple of external shots of something interesting building wise or not (theme park etc.) then shots inside too, some of the shots look kinda like postcards from a cold place if you get what I mean, theres one of a couple walking down the street , another of a gang of blokes maybe upto no good who knows, its not the quality of your shots its the nature of the subject matte. The 6th shot from the bottom if i counted right looks stunning i would love to see more of that and in it.

 

[Nantais]

I wanted to show the different faces of this city. Although I know this forum is dedicated to derelict or abandonned places (and that you actually get this strong feeling of dereliction when entering the city), I also wanted to show the brighter look of some parts of Norilsk, thus the shots which have more a "postcard" look.
It's just to have a more balanced view of the place.

 

[krela]

We recommend 10-15 photos in a report, and a max of 25-30, so 110 is a bit excessive!

This is a site dedicated to dereliction and abandonment and mostly UK based, so 110 photos of random buildings of a city in Russia doesn't quite fit the brief. Thank you for taking the time to share it with us though, it is interesting if not wholly appropriate.

 

[Nantais]

OK, so let me edit the the thread to let only the most appropriate shots.

edit : It's done. Thread reduced to less than 30 pics. I only left pics of abandonned buildings, mostly housing blocks from the 1980's, some of them which were actually never completed.

 

[KingRat]

Looks like Hull, I mean Hell, no hang on, Hull, yes it looks like Hull.

 

[rectory-rat]

I rather like it actually, thanks But then I have a weird and disturbing love of soviet 'architecture'

~RR

 

[KingRat]

I rather like it actually, thanks But then I have a weird and disturbing love of soviet 'architecture'

~RR

You mean prefab concrete boxes?

 

[kehumff]

Looks like Hull, I mean Hell, no hang on, Hull, yes it looks like Hull.

hahahaha i like it,

Seriously though ; I like the atmosphere of the pictures, you can almost smell the poverty, sometimes we forget how lucky we are. Great pics

 

[rectory-rat]

You mean prefab concrete boxes?

Haha...pretty much, yeah When I say 'love', I don't mean it in an 'I wanna live there' kind of way, there's just something about them...

~RR

 

[Mars Lander]

Haha...pretty much, yeah When I say 'love', I don't mean it in an 'I wanna live there' kind of way, there's just something about them...

~RR

Yeah they would make for a brill backdrop for a film or something

 

[chizyramone]

Wow, what a really grim looking place.

Thanks for sharing

 

[flyboys90]

Great photos,thanks for sharing them.

 

[TeeJF]

I'm not sure this is the sort of stuff I want to see in the forum. It doesn't seem overly relavent. Whilst I appreciate it may be down to an individuals interpretation of what I appropriate it doesn't rock my boat I'm afraid. Sorry.

 

[Breesey]

Cool. Must have been an eerie place to go. Did you get any internals?

Edit:

And two other questions, I read it's a pretty polluted place, how did that manifest itself? And may I ask what bought you there?

 

[Nantais]

Yes indeed, it's a very eerie place. It doesn't look like anything I've ever seen.
No I didn't dare to venture into these abandonned blocks. First because it didn't look very safe, and then because I barely stayed three days in Norilsk, and I was busy visiting the rest of the city and some of its amazing factories.

The place is indeed very polluted. You can see and, above all, smell the thick smoke released from the tall chimneys of the numerous factories scattered all over the city. Like you can see on these two pics :

So, depending of the wind, there can be some kind of smog all over Norilsk. But the most fascinating thing in Norilsk is to see a functionning city so up in the North. The living conditions there are very harsh due to the climate. In winter, the temperatures can go down to -60 °C, and I am not talking about the permanent night during the winter months (I was there in summer, so we had the opposite : permanent daylight).
Moreover, the city is very isolated and remote : there is no roads linking Norilsk and the neighbouring city of Dudinka to the rest of Russia. You can only go there by plane or by boat.

I was brought there because I am interested in Siberia. Indeed I am somewhat fascinated by the ideas of remoteness and isolation...
so Siberia is the place to be !

 

[jjandellis]

well as opinions go I thought it was great and the place has a creepiness about it .. better than some of the stuff that comes up on here and I would say that its something very few of us will ever get to see...... Well done and THANKYOU for the time and effort you put into doing a report , definitely appreciated from us.....was it unnerving in anyway ?

 

[Nantais]

Unnerving in what sense ?

It certainly was intimidating to be in this city where English (or French) is virtually unspoken while I don't speak Russian (not yet). Moreover the idea of tourism is like an alien concept in this city. The idea of foreign people wanting to visit their city seemed so weird and hardly understandable to most of the inhabitants of Norilsk.
There is only one hotel in Norilsk and its clientele are mostly business men.

Thanks to all for the nice comments.