Beyond the Arctic Circle in the permafrost zone is the city of Vorkuta. Its population is small and every year, starting from Soviet times, everything is decreasing. Young people leave these harsh lands, to which the highway was held relatively recently.
General information about the city
Vorkuta, with a population of only 58,000, is located in the Komi Republic. This is the fourth largest city, which is located beyond the Arctic Circle. Only Norwegian Tromso and Russian Norilsk, Murmansk and Severomorsk are larger. It is also the easternmost city in Europe. Here, quite harsh living conditions, winters are long and frosty, often snowstorm, and the climate is subarctic. The frost-free period is not more than 70 days a year. Therefore, almost no crops are grown here, since they do not ripen here.
Located in the Far North in the zone of permafrost, Vorkuta, however, is not a place forgotten by God. There are important enterprises here, such as coal, mechanical, cement plants.
As for culture, from the moment the city was founded, special attention was paid to it. Vorkuta has the only puppet theater in the Komi Republic. There are many libraries, cultural centers, a drama theater and a local history museum.
There are many interesting natural monuments in the vicinity of Vorkuta, for example, the Marble Canyon on Kara, the Buredan and Halmer-U waterfalls.
The name of the city is also interesting. Vorkuta, translated from Nenets, means "a river full of bears." The city stands on the river of the same name. Hence its name.
History of the city
This land has long been famous for its rich coal reserves. Even in tsarist times, scientists found a "fire stone" in the vicinity of Vorkuta. Here, they began to openly mine coal already in the days of the USSR.
In the 1930s, the Soviet government decided to establish a workers' settlement here. In 1940, the settlement was transferred to the Komi Republic. The status of the city of Vorkuta was received in 1943. The population for ten years has grown from 7 to 50 thousand people.
Until the early 1950s, there was a large camp of the Gulag. It contained up to 71 thousand prisoners. Even when the Gulag was reorganized, agencies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs still worked in these parts. Vorkuta remained the place of exile until the 1980s.
The camp here was hectic. In 1953, a major uprising took place. Prisoners awaited amnesty after the death of Stalin, but only a few received it. The strike began, fights. As a result of the uprising, more than two hundred prisoners were killed and wounded.
The demographic situation in the city
Despite the noted population growth, Vorkuta demographers speak of a not very favorable situation in the city. Residents leave their native places in large numbers and strive for a better life in other cities of Russia with a more favorable climate and more stable economic situation. Indeed, people are reluctant to live in Vorkuta, noting that the climate is harsh. The townspeople simply leave their homes, and the apartments are empty, gaping with empty windows. The quickly empty houses are covered with snow, which puts the rest of the house in a difficult position. It gets much colder. Apartments in Vorkuta are not even for sale. They just leave the tenants.
This fate is repeated by most of the northern settlements of Russia. So, at the end of the last century, almost 468 thousand inhabitants lived in Murmansk, now there are only 300 of them. The population of Norilsk also decreased by almost half during this time. In 1989, 115 thousand people lived in Vorkuta, now only 58,000. It is almost like in the 1950s, when the city was just starting to grow.
The natural growth of Vorkuta is positive. However, there is a long and strong migration. Every year, up to three thousand residents leave Vorkuta. The population is steadily declining.
Working in the city
Almost a quarter of the entire population of Vorkuta works at the city-forming enterprise of Vorkutaugol JSC. In total, the average number of employees is 26 thousand people (there are slightly fewer than pensioners - 28 000). Thus, more than 6000 people work at the coal enterprise. At the beginning of the year, their number was 6704 employees, and by the end of the year decreased to 6292.
According to the Vorkuta Employment Center, 660 people are registered in the city. Thus, unemployment is 1.45 percent. There are also 2,000 individual entrepreneurs in the city.
According to the Vorkuta Employment Center, the most prestigious are vacancies in the coal industry of the municipal government. Employees at enterprises in this area receive an average of 70 thousand rubles a month. Workers in medium-sized enterprises receive about 30,000 rubles, while small workers receive even less, only 20,000 rubles.
Pensions in the city averaged 19 thousand rubles. This is despite the fact that in Vorkuta there is a rather high payment for utilities, in particular for heating. The minimum grocery set in the city is estimated at 5200 rubles.
There are only two major hotels in Vorkuta. The price for a room in each is at least two thousand rubles per night.
National composition of the Vorkuta population
The overwhelming majority of those living in the city are Russians. They are 77.7 percent. Almost 10% of the population are Ukrainians. The percentage of Tatars is also quite high, they are 2.9 percent. The indigenous population - Komi-Zyryan - in the city of 1.7%.
Other ethnic groups are represented by Belarusians, Armenians, Chuvashs, Armenians. All of them are less than two percent.
Construction in the area
As the population is constantly falling in Vorkuta, in 2017 not a single square was built. m of new housing. In 2016, several new houses were erected, where residents were relocated in connection with the emergency condition of their previous housing.
In Vorkuta, the population of houses that are half empty is resettled in other houses. It is not uncommon for such a situation when the dwelling looks pretty decent and even painted, but in the courtyard it is a real ruin. Of course, this does not add popularity to the city, and residents want to leave it. Entire quarters are also empty. Some houses in disrepair are long dilapidated.
Indeed, in the conditions of permafrost it is difficult to work.
In Soviet times, residents also massively moved from one bank of the Vorkuta River to the other, because it was on the latter that a coal enterprise and mines were located.