Norilsk was founded at the end of the 1920s, but the official date is 1935, when it was expanded as a settlement for the Norilsk mining-metallurgic complex and became the center of the Norillag system of Gulag labor camps.
Norilsk, Taimyr: two famous places in the infamous story of the Gulag. But also the only places, throughout my trips in Russia, where people were not reluctant to speak of the past. The Norilsk museum has a very rich collection of mementos, photograghs and artifacts relating to the Gulag.