I found that the internet has just discovered an unlikely place that has a story that must be told, as the most depressing city in the world. Could you ever guess if you haven’t seen the title of this video? We are referring to none other than the city of Norilsk. Yes, there might be a lot of subjective factors that could cause a city to be described as depressing or the most depressing. That's why you shouldn't take it too personally if your favorite place is dubbed the most depressing town or city in the world. But really, what makes Norilsk the most depressing city in the world? Let me start this by telling a bit about Norilsk.
Where is Norilsk?
Norilsk Norilsk, is a city in the Krasnoyarsk Krai region of Russia. The city is located some 186 miles (or 300 kilometers) north of the Arctic Circle and 1,491 miles (or 2,400 kilometers) of the North Pole. The city in the south of the western Taymyr Peninsula is also around 55 miles (or 90 kilometers) east of Yenisey River and 932 miles (or 1,500 kilometers) north of Krasnoyarsk.
With its last known population of more than 180,000, it is the second most populous city inside the Arctic Circle. This city in the largest country in the world occupies an area of 10 square miles (or 23.16 square kilometers). It’s 40 miles (or 64 kilometers) away from the port city of Dudinka. It’s the most depressing city in the world.
Norilsk in the Past
What most people would readily know about this city, which seems to be a distant land from the main world, is that it was founded less than 100 years ago. However, it all started back for Norilsk in the 1840s back then when Alexander von Middendorff, a zoologist and explorer of Baltic German and Estonian extraction found a local coal deposit on the land not far from the Putorana Mountains. As of 1860, coal deposits were being called Norilsk and became synonymous with the location of the city. That was how the area got its name.
Nevertheless, it wasn’t founded before 1935/36 when USSR constructed a huge extraction complex in the same Putorana Mountains using nearly 500,000 forced laborers. These laborers almost made up of Gulag prisoners, worked for almost 20 years in permafrost. Imagine that! Working in a permanently frozen land which was not a suitable condition for such work, or any kind of physical work for that matter! Consequently, 18,000 construction workers died in horrible conditions. We can infer from this the depressing condition of this city didn’t just start today. It has been a depressing place all through its existence, only that the world had not focused on Norilsk until recent developments.
Norilsk Today
Following the fall of the Soviet Union, the city became the leading producer of nickel and palladium in the world. Today, the city is the location of the biggest copper-nickel palladium deposits known on the planet. What is more, a fifth of the world’s nickel is derived from the city. This valuable element that is resistant to corrosion is so crucial that more than half of the total global palladium is used in jewelry and car exhausts.
This is the business of almost everyone in the city. Okay, let’s say at least 60 percent of the population. As everyone was somehow connected to this business, it has become the major source of employment and a good income for households in and for the city. Unfortunately, this kind of business that is too unkind to the environment is enough to make living in the city depressing.
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