Norilsk is the northernmost city of its size on Earth, sitting well above the Arctic Circle on the Taimyr Peninsula, and it is not connected by road to the rest of Russia. Everything arrives by air, by river and sea through Dudinka, or by the railway that runs down to the port. The city, around 140,000 people, and its neighbour Talnakh, about 59,000, exist for one reason: a spectacularly rich deposit of nickel, copper and palladium found beneath the tundra.
That makes any ride here a local one, a short run on the roads within the mining and industrial district, with Talnakh the most obvious destination. Fuel and food are in the city, and the roads in town are straight, broad and surfaced, though frost heaves can be rough. Wind howls across open ground, and snow can arrive in any month of the year. The summer season, a few weeks around July, brings a midnight sun, with light all through the night, and then the long polar night follows in winter, when darkness lasts for weeks and temperatures fall far below freezing. Foreign visitors need special permission to enter the area, so check rules in advance.
The history of Norilsk is dark. The city was founded in the 1930s as a forced-labour camp complex, and thousands of prisoners built the first mines, smelters and housing. The camp system closed in the 1950s, but the industry stayed, and today the city is among the most polluted in the world, with smelter smoke streaking the horizon. It is, strangely, also a place with a proud, close-knit community, and the Soviet-era architecture in the centre has a strict, handsome geometry, with buildings arranged to shelter streets from the wind.
The nature around is bleak and magnificent. The Putorana Plateau, a vast flat-topped mountain range with deep lakes and countless waterfalls, lies to the east and is a UNESCO World Heritage site, reachable mainly by helicopter or boat. The tundra blooms briefly in July, with dwarf birch, cloudberries and reindeer moss, and reindeer herds move across the land. Arctic foxes, snowy owls and wild reindeer are the wildlife.
Do not treat this as a casual stop. Dress for extreme cold even in summer, drink hot drinks, watch for ice on the roads and keep a close eye on weather alerts.