Elena Chernyshova

Elena Chernyshova has decided to use Photography to tell what happens in the world through a documentary approach. The ?Days of Night ? Nights of Day? series shows us how life is in Norilsk, a city that can only be reached by airways and waterways only when navigation is possible. This town is in fact connected by a single road and a railway line to the port of Doudinka which opens the routes to Murmansk and Arkhangelsk allowing a contact with civilization. During the summer, from June to September, the Yenisei River opens its routes creating a connection between Norilsk and Krasnoyarsk that at the time of Stalin led to the Gulag and was therefore known as the ?road of death?. The city and its metallurgical and mining industries were in fact built in 1936 by Gulag prisoners who worked in inhuman conditions of extreme cold and hunger. For twenty years there were 500,000 prisoners who worked in Norilsk and thousands of them lost their lives. With the closure of the Norillag corrective labor camp the prisoners left the city and the government had to find a solution to encourage workers to leave for the north. The government offered wages four times higher than in the other regions of the country and it promised an apartment after 15-20 years of service. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Northern development program was abandoned and, lacking financial advantages, Norilsk lost its appeal. The city became the main center of the Norilsk Nickel company, world leader in the production of nickel and palladium, which today produces 2% of Russia?s gross domestic product.

The photographic reportage made by the artist, is animated by the desire to investigate the man capacity of adaptation in conditions of isolation, ecological disasters and extreme climate. Norilsk is one of the ten most polluted cities in the world because of its industries. Every year 2 million tons of gas (mainly sulfur dioxide but also nitrogen oxide, carbon and phenol) are released into the atmosphere causing the death of the fragile tundra vegetation within a radius of 30 km from the city. This ecological disaster affects not only the environment but also the health of the population as life expectancy is 10 years lower than in other Russian cities, the risk of cancer is twice as high and respiratory diseases are daily occurrence. A study has shown that 21.6% of deaths and 37% of infant deaths are caused by air quality. The life of the population in these areas is particularly hard and characterized by intense cold, average temperatures below zero, cold winds, gray skies and polluted air. The coldest period lasts 280 days a year and more than 130 days are characterized by snow storms. Temperatures range from a maximum of -10 ° and a minimum of -55 ° in winter, a period in which for two months the city is swallowed up by the polar night and the sun never reaches the horizon. For this reason the citizens of Norilsk suffer from the so-called ?polar night syndrome? which causes anxiety, nervousness, sleepiness or insomnia. In many cases the psychological debasement and the lack of new stimuli causes depression. With ?Days of Night ? Nights of Day? Elena Chernyshova finished third in 2014 at the World Press Photo in the ?Daily Life? category and her work has been published in major magazines such as the National Geographic France, Geo, 6 Mois , Stern, Le Figaro, Le Monde, Days Japan, Neon, Courier International, The Temps, Politiken, Sunday Times, A / R magazine, the Internazionale and many others.