The Most Depressing Soviet Cities

0:02 Welcome to Magnitogorsk, Russia,

0:04 one of the most depressing places to ever exist.

0:08 Today, it ranks among the worst polluted cities in the world.

0:12 Industrial runoff has poisoned the soil and its rivers,

0:15 and in 1997 it was declared an ecological disaster area.

0:21 Arsenic, a chemical so toxic it has been used in biological warfare is up

0:25 to 21 times more present in the ground here today than is healthy for humans.

0:31 The city is dark and dingy and suffocated by smog,

0:36 but Magnitogorsk isn't even the worst of its kind in Russia.

0:40 Above it are two more cities,

0:43 the Arctic Gulag settlements of Norilsk and Vorkuta.

0:48 The Soviets built these monuments to misery in a fever of industrialization,

0:53 trying to catch up with the West and beat them to the top.

0:58 In doing so, they created hells on Earth.

1:03 These are the Soviet Union's most depressing cities.

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2:48 the Soviet Union’s most depressing cities

2:51 were created in its drive to industrialise.

2:55 For centuries, Russia was thought to be an industrially backward nation.

2:59 In 1913, a year before the First World War broke out,

3:03 Russia's industrial output stood at a mere 4.8%

3:07 of the United States' when accounting for population size.

3:11 Most Russians were stuck plowing fields with oxen instead

3:15 of assembling the tractors that could have been replacing them.

3:19 This was a problem because according to Soviet doctrine,

3:22 industrially backward nations became economically enslaved

3:26 to their more advanced capitalist overlords.

3:30 So when Stalin took charge of the Soviet Union in the late 1920s,

3:34 he became obsessed with modernizing the country.

3:37 He began implementing a plan he hoped

3:39 would industrialize the nation within five years.

3:43 Between 1928 and 1933.

3:46 It was dubbed very simply as the five-year plan.

3:50 It hoped to double or in some sectors more than triple, industrial capacity.

3:56 However, Russia at the time simply did not have

3:59 the industrial centers required to facilitate such a massive leap forward.

4:04 So Soviet planners decided in many cases to simply build them from scratch,

4:11 and that's where cities like Magnitogorsk come into being.

4:15 Built in Russia's stark hinterlands,

4:17 the site was selected due to its proximity to an enormous iron deposit.

4:23 Located beneath the Ural Mountain Range,

4:25 this collection of metal was so significant,

4:28 it registered as a magnetic anomaly.

4:31 Compasses and watches in the area would cease

4:33 to work correctly due to its magnetic field.

4:37 The site's remote location was also chosen to keep

4:40 it safe in the event of a war breaking out.

4:43 The Communist Party was aware that most of their existing industry

4:47 was concentrated in the west

4:49 of the country bordering European capitalist nations.

4:53 Placing new developments far from the reach of the USSR's

4:57 enemies made it more difficult for them to cripple her.

5:01 But this was the first problem that made Magnitogorsk so depressing.

5:06 It was in the middle of nowhere.

5:09 Railway connections were so poor that visiting officials decided to take

5:14 their chances with the USSR's less than stellar aviation safety record,

5:18 fly into a nearby aerodrome and cover the rest of the distance by car.

5:24 Then there was the fact that the city basically didn't exist yet.

5:27 Instead of proper homes, rail cars were provided to workers

5:31 at the Magnitogorsk metallurgical plant for the first

5:35 few years of its existence while the real accommodations were being built.

5:40 Mind you, it wasn't too comfortable for management either.

5:44 Party functionaries ordered to the site by the state,

5:47 quote, greeted the relocation notice as a personal tragedy.

5:51 It was difficult, even pitiful to forsake the comfort of one's

5:56 own apartment in the busy and well-known city and for what?

6:00 To settle God knows where in the middle of some deserted mountain of the steppe.

6:05 These bureaucrats were accustomed to the comforts of the big city.

6:09 The cinema, the theater, the opera.

6:12 Magnitogorsk was a cultural black hole in comparison.

6:17 Now their primary source of entertainment would be the frequent fist

6:21 fights between forced laborers at the charming prison colony next door.

6:26 In fact, the streets of Magnitogorsk were so dangerous in the first few years

6:30 of its history that women were afraid to leave their rail cars at night.

6:35 The local newspaper reported frequent quote "incidents"

6:39 including but not limited to ax murders,

6:42 shootings, petty heists and rail car break-ins.

6:47 As a result, the average stay for a worker was around 82 days.

6:52 If you could leave, at least for a little, you did.

6:56 Its lack of appeal coupled with a general lack of laborers meant that many

7:01 of the workers in towns like Magnitogorsk

7:04 were those forcefully pressed into the labor pool.

7:07 This was the reality for three out of every 10 peasants,

7:12 they had been ripped from their communities,

7:14 their families, their generational homes,

7:16 and placed in cities they had no connection to.

7:20 This method of populating Magnitogorsk engineered

7:24 in the long term, a stagnant society.

7:28 You were there to work for the good of the Union,

7:30 enjoying yourself was secondary.

7:34 Not that there was much about Magnitogorsk to enjoy in the first place.

7:38 It was fundamentally flawed.

7:41 Planners had initially intended for the city's residential districts

7:44 to be located on the western bank of this lake,

7:48 away from the mine and accompanying industry on the Eastern Bank.

7:53 However, since connecting the two sides with a bridge

7:56 and a complex public transportation system was deemed too expensive,

8:00 they just decided to lump them together.

8:04 To make it worse due to a surveying error,

8:07 they placed residential districts downwind from industry,

8:11 ensuring that the city's residents would be choked by factory fumes.

8:17 In the eyes of the Soviet government,

8:19 this conflation of residential and industrial

8:21 zones wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

8:24 In fact, they believed it might aid in creating an ideal socialist city.

8:30 The problem with current cities, as one Soviet economist put it was that quote,

8:35 presently the masses do not live by industry or by region.

8:40 They live non-districted lives.

8:42 They are spaceless, so to speak.

8:45 Cities as they are now do not speak

8:47 to the minds and hearts of the workers and peasants.

8:51 To solve this, Soviet planners wanted

8:53 to build an antithesis to the capitalist city,

8:56 which traditionally grew around a center of capital such as a market square,

9:01 and instead make the animating force behind this new metropolis.

9:07 So Magnitogorsk aimed to be a worker's paradise

9:10 where industry and residents lived side by side.

9:14 It aimed to build communal living facilities, a modern water and sewage system,

9:20 workers clubs, libraries, reading rooms,

9:22 and the most advanced implementation of Soviet architecture to date.

9:27 In reality, by 1937, eight years after its foundation,

9:32 the city still had open air sewage trenches and no permanent hospital.

9:37 This in proximity to industry, had polluted its water system and led

9:42 to frequent disease outbreaks such as malaria, scarlet fever and typhus.

9:48 The urgency of the USSR's industrialization schedule forced

9:52 urban planners to take shortcuts and left very

9:55 little time for them to properly plan around

9:58 the constantly shifting demands of the Soviet state.

10:02 Magnitogorsk, far more than any other city, direly needed diligent,

10:07 patient management and a granular attention to detail due

10:10 to its attempts to closely integrate people and industry,

10:15 but know the city's construction was chaotic,

10:18 lacking in a coherent vision and rife with compromise.

10:23 The city would never live up to the lofty heights set out for it.

10:27 Ironically, in the end, the priority was not the conditions of the worker,

10:31 but instead the USSR's industrial aspirations.

10:35 This meant that throughout its existence,

10:37 in the words of the historian Stephen Kotkin,

10:40 Magnitogorsk was a city attached to a factory

10:45 from which it derived its purpose and form.

10:49 Over the succeeding decades, little would change.

10:52 It was always productivity first, wellbeing second.

10:57 In 1989, a factory representative stated quote, with the existing equipment,

11:03 either you stop production or you destroy the air.

11:07 That's the situation and you have the plan and bonuses to consider.

11:12 That's why the factory violates the directives about reducing pollution.

11:16 The solution is related to reconstruction,

11:19 but that would take far too long and cost far too much.

11:24 As a result, Magnitogorsk ranked as third in the world for carbon monoxide

11:29 output in 2012 and the third most polluted city in Russia in 2015.

11:36 According to local physicians,

11:38 only 1% of newborn children in the city were perfectly healthy,

11:42 and the incidence rate of lung cancer was starting to overwhelm hospitals.

11:48 Magnitogorsk is a dystopia born of lofty Soviet ambitions and poor planning.

11:55 So what could possibly beat this monument to misery?

12:00 Well, that would be the gulag city of Norilsk.

12:03 Between 1935 and 1956,

12:06 275,000 inmates passed through this remote Siberian prison

12:11 at the southern tip of the Taymyr Peninsula.

12:14 During the years of its operation,

12:16 the winter temperatures here averaged around negative 30 degrees Celsius.

12:21 It didn't get much better in the summer

12:23 where temperatures were around 10.5 degrees Celsius.

12:27 The German historian Simon Ertz wrote that for a month and a half every year,

12:32 the sun simply did not come out,

12:34 and that in 1946, doctors at the Norilsk Hospital were reporting higher

12:40 rates of psychological illnesses due

12:42 to the depressing climate and the isolation.

12:46 Indeed, when a New York Times journalist visited Norilsk in 1936,

12:50 he remarked that quote, few but explorers have seen that region

12:54 along the Arctic Ocean above the 62nd parallel,

12:58 the territory could hardly be more isolated if it were on another planet.

13:04 So why on earth would anyone want

13:05 to live here in this godforsaken place voluntarily, let alone build a city?

13:11 Well, like Magnitogorsk,

13:13 its existence was necessitated by the USSR's industrial ambitions.

13:19 Norilsk is an area of incredible rare earth mineral wealth.

13:24 To help extract these minerals,

13:25 a gulag was erected to supplement the local labor force.

13:29 And because the Soviet Union was desperate to increase extraction,

13:33 you as a gulag laborer could lead

13:36 a not insufferable existence by being a productive worker.

13:40 Prisoners here were less likely to die than those in other gulags.

13:46 That's because by 1953, Norilsk supplied 35% of Soviet nickel,

13:51 12% of its copper, 30% of its cobalt, and 90% of its platinum.

13:57 Its strategic importance meant that Soviet leadership had

14:00 a vested interest in keeping workers healthy and productive.

14:05 So relatively speaking, being a prisoner there wasn't too bad.

14:10 Of course, this isn't saying much.

14:12 You were still a slave laborer living in what was effectively Satan's freezer.

14:18 But once the gulag was dismantled in 1956,

14:21 there were plenty of workers and a large industrial base left behind.

14:26 It would've been a shame to let that go

14:28 to waste and leave all those expensive shiny rocks untouched underground,

14:32 especially because nickel, the most abundant resource in Norilsk,

14:37 was vitally important in arms manufacturing and the nuclear energy industry.

14:42 So important that the CIA found it necessary

14:45 to keep tabs on the USSR's nickel production.

14:50 So a city sprung up out of a gulag.

14:53 Soon after the closure of the prison,

14:55 a local factory began producing prefabricated apartments

14:58 for the newly freed laborers to reside in.

15:01 All these buildings had to be constructed with reinforced

15:04 concrete to weatherproof and insulate them against the hostile climate,

15:09 which is why today if you were to visit Norilsk,

15:12 all you'd see is an ocean of concrete towers.

15:16 Some of these towers have started to sink with the onset of climate change.

15:21 The soil in the region, which is usually in a state of permafrost,

15:24 has started to soften with the rising temperatures.

15:28 And the foundations of these buildings are becoming unstable as a result.

15:34 One of the worst ecological disasters in Arctic

15:37 history occurred in Norilsk for this very reason.

15:41 In May of 2020, a fuel storage tank at a Norilsk

15:45 power plant collapsed due to permafrost thaw and lack of maintenance.

15:49 Around 21,000 tons of diesel oil ran off into the soil and local rivers,

15:56 worsening the already terrible environmental conditions in and around the city.

16:02 During the post gulag period of the Soviet era,

16:04 Norilsk was like Magnitogorsk, a monotown.

16:08 Its primary purpose was resource extraction.

16:12 As a result, all other elements of life and urban development

16:16 played second fiddle to the interests of the city's industrial functions.

16:21 In 1971, a Canadian delegation exploring

16:23 the possibility of Arctic development visited the city.

16:27 Upon their return to Canada they reported that quote,

16:31 there's a terrific amount of pollution in Norilsk.

16:34 In fact, you can hardly breathe there.

16:37 The open pit mining is ugly.

16:40 We'd have to be more careful about how we do things in our Arctic

16:44 and we'd have to have a higher standard of living for the people.

16:47 It is no surprise then that 52 years later,

16:50 it was ranked the 10th most polluted city on the planet.

16:54 Its residents have life expectancies 10 years lower than the average Russian,

16:58 and the rates of cancer and respiratory diseases have skyrocketed.

17:02 This is likely due to the high

17:04 concentration of sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere,

17:07 courtesy of the heavy industry operations active in the city.

17:12 Today, the main industry in town is still mining, the local nickel firm,

17:18 Nornickel is the city's primary employer and still expanding.

17:22 Russia, and more importantly, the world is still hungry for raw

17:26 minerals and Norilsk still has them in abundance.

17:30 The fact that climate change is making cities like

17:33 this more accessible has only made investment pour in further.

17:38 But this means that for the foreseeable future,

17:40 Norilsk will remain a monotown that sacrifices

17:44 comfort and health for industrial productivity.

17:48 The residents at least feel powerless in the face of these vested interests.

17:54 (citizen speaking in Russian) (somber music) (citizen speaking in Russian)

18:27 So there's very little economic incentive to change anything.

18:31 The only real newcomers to the economy have been a Bitcoin

18:36 mining operation who began using Norilsk's relatively cheap energy grid in 2021.

18:42 But I personally doubt they're the vanguard of a burgeoning tech sector.

18:47 As a result, Norilsk today is still an utterly hostile place,

18:51 especially in winter.

18:53 The cityscape is dark and desolate and it just looks like a dystopia.

18:59 Tell me you'd live here in near perpetual darkness where your lungs

19:04 are assaulted by industrial fumes and your water poisoned by diesel,

19:08 surrounded by the dregs of humanity,

19:11 unable to leave a place you were never meant to survive in.

19:15 Where on a dark winter's afternoon with the cold

19:18 biting and the wind trying to unravel your coat,

19:22 the only morsel of light cast across your face on the way home from work

19:26 at the Nickel factory is the soft glow of a Bitcoin sign framed by smokestacks.

19:34 In that moment, you might think you were having a nightmare,

19:38 but no, it's all too real.

19:44 Somehow, Vorkuta manages to be worse.

19:47 Like Norilsk, it's a former gulag city, it sits at roughly the same latitude,

19:52 is subject to similarly hostile conditions

19:55 and is built around resource extraction.

19:58 In this case, coal.

20:00 Vorkuta though doesn't just look like it's dying.

20:03 It actually is.

20:05 In the early 1990s, just after the fall of the Soviet Union,

20:09 the newly formed Russian state coal monopoly Rosogul

20:12 began shuttering all the unprofitable mines in the country.

20:16 By 2009, more than half of the mines around the city had been closed,

20:21 putting thousands out of work.

20:25 This is perhaps why Vorkuta is the most depressing of the three cities,

20:30 because at least the residents of Magnitogorsk and Norilsk can

20:33 find solace in the fact that they're suffering as a purpose,

20:37 that they are tolerating discomfort to build a better life

20:41 through higher than average wages or a stable industrial job.

20:45 But in Vorkuta, you get all of the misery

20:47 of the prior two cities and virtually none of the benefits.

20:51 Vorkuta slowly became a ghost town.

20:55 After the collapse of the Soviet Union,

20:57 people started leaving the city in droves.

21:00 But as the historian Alan Barenberg notes,

21:03 it was only those with money that did so.

21:06 In his words, the cost of moving one's

21:08 family and possessions by rail had increased significantly.

21:13 Perhaps most importantly,

21:14 savings accounts were wiped out by the hyperinflation of the 1990s.

21:19 While the poor state of the economy led to a significant population decline,

21:24 it also prevented a mass exodus from the city.

21:28 So the only way you could leave was by earning enough money,

21:32 but of course you couldn't because you lived in Vorkuta,

21:37 where there was no money.

21:39 This comi-tragedy of a situation trapped many people

21:42 in one of the most depressing cities on Earth,

21:46 and this time it didn't even have a job to offer them.

21:50 In this vacuum, crime exploded.

21:53 In the newly privatized economy of post-Soviet Vorkuta,

21:56 people with the resources or connections to do so quickly set

21:59 about establishing cartels and monopolizing

22:02 what industry and resources were left.

22:06 Imports and exports started being controlled

22:08 by gangs that extracted protection money from businesses.

22:13 Drug use also increased.

22:16 Despite the isolation and thus scarcity and costliness of drugs,

22:20 in 2007, 30% of people in Vorkuta reported taking them.

22:25 For reference, cities in European and Southern

22:28 Russia with supposed drug problems averaged around 18%.

22:33 Because Vorkuta was a monotown built around industry,

22:37 there were barely any social or cultural offerings available.

22:41 To dull the boredom and isolation, people turned to vice.

22:46 As a result of these deficiencies,

22:48 the population fell by 26.6% or 31,000 people between 1989 and 2002.

22:56 For comparison, Norilsk lost 23% in the same time period, but later recovered.

23:02 Magnitogorsk lost only 5%.

23:05 The further decline of the economy was

23:08 prevented in 2003 by the transfer of Vorkuta's

23:11 remaining coal mines to a private steel

23:13 and coal conglomerate who injected investment into the city.

23:17 However, the population has continued to fade away,

23:21 largely because automation has cut the job supply.

23:25 As a result, in 2003, the Russian government sought an $80 million World

23:29 Bank loan to help people leave the city, to cities like Norilsk of all places.

23:36 If you find yourself having to move to Norilsk to pursue a better life,

23:40 something has gone dreadfully wrong.

23:43 One can't help but feel that living

23:45 in Vorkuta today is like living on borrowed time.

23:49 After all, coal is being phased out

23:51 all over the world for more sustainable alternatives,

23:54 and coal is Vorkuta's heart.

23:57 One day and one day soon,

24:00 it'll all be over and the residents of Vorkuta will wake

24:04 up and realize that they were atoms living on a dying cell.

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