Life in Russia’s coldest city

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NORILSK, Russia — Blessed with a cornucopia of precious metals buried beneath a desert of snow, but so bereft of sunlight that nights in winter never end, Norilsk, 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle, is a place of brutal extremes. It is Russia’s coldest and most polluted industrial city, and its richest — at least when measured by the value of its vast deposits of palladium, a rare mineral used in cellphones that sells for more than $1,000 an ounce.

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It is also dark. Starting about now, the sun stops rising, leaving Norilsk shrouded in the perpetual night of polar winter. This year that blackout began last Wednesday.

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The cold has spawned a booming freelance taxi business because it is too cold to walk even short distances. Taxis charge a fixed price of 100 rubles (about $1.70) to go anywhere in the city. There are also buses, but it is too cold to wait outside so passengers crowd into nearby shops to shelter until their bus arrives.

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Never a bad moment for a dip in Lake Dolgoye, which is prevented from freezing over by hot water pipes from a power plant and other nearby facilities.

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Girls practicing classic dance at the Norilsk College of Arts. There is plenty of time for indoor activities in Norilsk. Despite the horrendously harsh climate, choking pollution and absence of sunlight from late November until January, many residents are fiercely proud of Norilsk — and their own ability to survive in an environment that even the hardiest of Russians living elsewhere would find intolerable.

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