Vorkuta Coal Collapse Emptied Apartments

Vorkuta is one of Russia's fastest-dying cities, although it technically ranks fourth among settlements north of the Arctic Circle. Since the 1990s, industrial decline and exhausted coal mines have driven residents away, leaving some apartment complexes with only one or two families. By 2020, unofficial estimates placed its population below 50,000. Its Nenets-derived name means "abounding in bears." It is infamous for the 1953 Vorkuta prisoner uprising that Soviet authorities brutally crushed. Call of Duty: Black Ops later fictionalized the uprising.

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