An industrial city founded in 1935 as a slave labor camp, the Siberian city of Norilsk in Russia is the northernmost major city in Russia and the city with the world's biggest nickel and palladium producer facilities. The Norilsk mining-metallurgic complexes are sitting near the largest nickel-copper-palladium deposits on Earth. Mining and smelting of nickel, copper, cobalt, platinum and palladium are the major industries. The enormous factories and mines surround the city:
Due to the intense mining, the city is one of the ten most polluted cities in the world, with not a single living tree within 48 km of the nickel smelter Nadezhda ("The Hope"). This picture below shows the enormous nickel smelters in this factory.
This Nadezhda factory is the biggest factory in the surrounding area of Norilsk. But there are three more of these giant factories closer to the city of Norisk. Like this one near a huge mine, this one, this factory at the Northern part of the city, and a factory near the city centre. Together these factories ,combined with the mining that is taking place near the city, make Norilsk one of the most polluted places on earth and your life expectancy will dropp by ten years if you live here. Norilsk also has an extremely harsh climate. Average temperature is approximately −10 degrees Celsius, and temperatures as low as −58 degrees have been recorded. The city is covered with snow for about 250-270 days a year, with snow storms for about 110-130 days. The polar night lasts from December through mid-January, so that Norilsk inhabitants do not see the sun at all for about six weeks. And when you get sick from the pollute air, or the harsh climate you will end up in this depressing hospital, standing in the middle of nowhere:
So Norilsk is defenitely not a place to visit for a tourist trip, except if you like industrial landscapes.
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