The sign on the wall reads: "Protectors of the past, creators of the future."
Photo: Thomas Nilsen / BarentsObserver
Map: Jonas Karlsbakk / BarentsObserver
The northern outlet of the Yenisey River is so wide that you hardly can see land in the horizon.
Photo: Thomas Nilsen / BarentsObserver
Small village on the bank of the Yenisey River.
Photo: Thomas Nilsen / BarentsObserver
Oil terminal on the bank of the Yenisey River.
Photo: Thomas Nilsen / BarentsObserver
Densely cranes at the port of Dudinka by the Yenisey River.
Photo: Thomas Nilsen / BarentsObserver
Dudinka is the main transshipment port for Norilsk-Nickel.
Photo: Thomas Nilsen / BarentsObserver
Dudinka is home to four different groups of indigenous peoples on the Taimyr Peninsula.
Photo: Thomas Nilsen / BarentsObserver
Director Vera Cherkasova is proudly showing the TNK-BP sponsored in-school test equipment for oil-drilling at the Taimyr College in Dudinka.
Photo: Thomas Nilsen / BarentsObserver
Photo: Thomas Nilsen / BarentsObserver
"Dudinka - Town, port, destiny" reads this poster on the wall.
Photo: Thomas Nilsen / BarentsObserver
Officer on duty at check-point control.
Photo: Thomas Nilsen / BarentsObserver
Taimyr Peninsula forms the northernmost part of the Eurasian mainland.
Photo: Thomas Nilsen / BarentsObserver
Memorial of the Norilag system of GULAG labor camps. Prisoners built the railroad across the tundra from Norilsk. The plan was to build railroad all the way to connecting it with the Salkehard railway on the banks of the Ob River. Construction stopped after Stalin died in 1953.
Photo: Thomas Nilsen / BarentsObserver
Around two million tons of air-pollution annualy places Norilsk as the most dirty town in Russia.
Photo: Thomas Nilsen / BarentsObserver
The mosque in Norilsk.
Photo: Thomas Nilsen / BarentsObserver
Main street in Norilsk.
Photo: Thomas Nilsen / BarentsObserver
Pollution from the nickel plant kills nature tens of kilometers away from Norilsk on the tundra of the Taimyr Peninsula.
Photo: Thomas Nilsen / BarentsObserver
Memorial of the Norilag system of GULAG labor camps.
Photo: Thomas Nilsen / BarentsObserver
Lenin statue downtown Norilsk.
Photo: Thomas Nilsen / BarentsObserver
"Ulitsa Nansena" - the street named after Fridtjof Nansen in Norilsk.
Photo: Thomas Nilsen / BarentsObserver
Talnakh is a mining town located some 25 kilometers north of Norilsk.
Photo: Thomas Nilsen / BarentsObserver
Talnakh.
Photo: Thomas Nilsen / BarentsObserver
"Nadezhda" is the youngest of the plants in Norilsk. Nickel converter matte from this plant is shipped to the Severonickel plant in Monchgorsk on the Kola Peninsula where pure nickel is produced.
Photo: Thomas Nilsen / BarentsObserver
The toxic cocktail found in the air includes heavy metals like copper, nickel, cobalt and lead as well as gases like nitrogen and carbon oxides, sulfur dioxide, phenols and hydrogen sulfide.
Photo: Thomas Nilsen / BarentsObserver
"Honourable citizens of Norilsk" on display in the city center.
Photo: Thomas Nilsen / BarentsObserver
Pollutant concentration levels exceed health recommendations, but little information is made available.