NOTE: PART 3 IS COMING SOON!
PREFACE
They say that when you gaze long enough into the abyss, it gazes back into you. I gazed into the abyss of Norilsk, and what it showed me has been haunting me to this very day. We are usually told that the most evil of all creatures is the devil. Or maybe some other being according to many different people. But what Norilsk taught me is that man can be the most evil creature. This is a story of my personal account of what went down in Norilsk in the year 1999. Here sitting in my couch in Moscow 23 years later, I write this to share my burden with all of you. I feel that it is my duty to show the extent to which humans can lose their humanity. Here you will see that the so-called ‘villains’ weren’t monsters or any other creature, but rather human beings. Just like you and me.
Part 1: The Opening
My name is Victor Orlov. And no, not the politician. I grew up in the city of Norilsk in Russia. Being a cop by profession, I have always felt a sense of duty to my city, despite it being a polluted mess. Unlike many people who have fond memories of their hometowns, the same is not the case with me. In fact, quite the opposite can be said for my hometown. You see, Norilsk, unlike any typical city, is ABANDONED by society. This is not an exaggeration. It is an abandoned city near in the region of Siberia, inside the Arctic Circle. Its not a surprise that this is one of the most polluted city in the world, which was of importance some decades ago. Now, it has lost its past glory, assuming it had any. There is not a single road that connects Norilsk with the rest of Russia. It is only accessasble by air. Harsh weather and pollution are a thing of norm. You can safely assume that it is a frozen pit. I grew up in a small family. I had my parents and an elder brother whom I lived with in Noilisk from 1971 to 1998. My parents got to divorced in 98 and left the city, both going on their own paths in life. My brother did the same and moved to Austria, as was his lifelong passion to explore the Alps, leaving me in that rotten, decaying city. You might expect a cop to always focus on the task at hand more than personal relations, but the departure of my family in this manner made me feel lonely for the first time in my life. Speaking of now the feeling of loneliness that came with being isolated all of a sudden has faded away. But the dread of being a witness to the most gruesome crimes committed has stayed with me to this day.
It all began one January morning when the quarrels of my parents reached a summit and they wanted to be divorced. Soon, they had left the city, just like my brother. Here in Norilsk, we usually live as big families. Parents, siblings all live under the same roof. A roof that does its best to protect you from the deadly cold of winter. So after the leave of my parents and my only sibling, I was left alone in a house that was way too big for me. Soon I had to move out to live in a much smaller apartment, as I was not able to pay the rent of our current house. It has always bothered me just how casually my family decided to leave me alone in Norilsk to just ‘live in misery’. But they had personal issues of their own. Maybe that can provide an explanation for it. I moved to a small apartment. Just big enough for me to be comfy enough. A bathroom, clean bed and a desk is all I needed to survive the deadly winter. Well, it really does get dangerous at 31 below zero. As much as I convinced myself that everything was alright, I knew getting used to this way of living would take its time. If someone had told about what was to come in the future, I would have laughed it off as a joke. Norilsk did not have a large population. Which meant by dawn, the city looked as if it had no inhabitants. It would look completely deserted. The city was basically a ghost town. There were many abandoned areas in Norilsk, consisting of abandoned apartments, woods and empty streets. They would usually give you an unbelievably unbearable sense of dread after sunset. And the fact that this city was completely saperated for civilisation was just icing on the cake.I still remember always thinking that there was something wrong with the city. Something that we didn’t see. Looking back now, I know what that thought meant. I really believe that people didn’t come out after dark because they were scared of their own city. Or maybe there was something else that they found scary.
Part 2: 11/1/99
A year had passed since I moved into my new apartment. I still had my job as a cop, still freezing my skin off in the cold. Even the summers were colder than we were used to. The people called it ‘the cold warmth’ of the summer. I know its a stupid name. But it makes sense. Just like a year ago, I still wasn’t in a position to leave the city. First, because I was still struggling financially and secondly because it was notoriously difficult to leave or enter the city. As I said: The city is abandoned from the world. It was January the 11th, the year was 1999. And a theft had been reported in the outskirts of the town at 2 in the morning. Given my nature of being a night owl, I was the only one on duty. The details of the theft had been left rather vague. I was told to ‘get it over with ASAP’. So I got in my car and headed towards my destination. I knew my gun was in its holster, so I didnt worry. I didnt remember when I took it out of there. And I didnt know if the cold had jammed it or something. Despite all this, having a gun at my side was relieving for me. The outskirts of the city were an industrial waste. There were some abandoned factories near the area. Upon reaching the crime scene, I saw the resident of the house standing outside. He was a skinny, tall man wearing thin glasses and he gave me a worried look. When I pulled over, he told me that the robber ‘ran away about 20 minuites ago’. The robber had stolen an expensive vass. I got the details, asked him some questions and told him that we would find whoever did this to him. The man was somewhat relieved and went back to his home. I got in my car and drove away.
On my way back, I saw the first glimpse of what was truly wrong with the city;
As I was driving back, my car heater stopped working. So I had to pull over on the abandoned road at 2:30 in the morning to restart it. The last thing you’ll want to do is pull over in such a place at such a time. But the cold was unbearable. As I was working on my heater, I saw the glance of something out in the distance that made me look twice. At first, I thought that due to the cold and the fact that I was very tired, my mind was playing tricks on me. I was ready to accept that explanation until I saw it again: There was a large vehicle moving on an old road deep into the woods about 100 meters away . I could barely make out the shape of a truck moving in the distance. I was in a state of disbelief. In a city where you rarely saw people driving their own cars in broad daylight, I was seeing a truck go into the woods near the outskirts of the city at almost 3 in the morning. Although there was no immediate sign of danger, yet still my heart was beating faster that it had in quite a while. The sudden feeling of awareness made the cold leave my body, and made me lose all my grogginess. There was one thought in my mind: what on earth would a truck be doing here at 3 in the morning. No one could enter or leave the city without a hassle. And bringing in a truck to such a city seemed next to impozzible. So it couldnt have been an outsider. Whoever drove that truck was from Norilsk. But no logical explaination could be found for what it was doing here at this time. The heater started again. The warmth that suddenly filled the cabin did little to calm me down. ‘Who?, Why?, What?, How?’ were the thoughts that were coming at me from all directions. But one thing was clear to me: I had to find out who it was in that truck. I had a million reasons not to chase it down. And another million to just go home and forget that all of this ever happened. But I had to see. I got ready to drive. I wanted to turn off the lights but it would have made it difficult to see. I slowly made my way down the old road that lead deep into the woods. I had never driven on that road. I never had to. I slowed down a bit to not get too close to the truck that was ahead of me. I didnt actually see it on the road because I made sure to wait for a moment before getting on that road. You never know just what you might encounter. The road was long and so was the night. And they both dragged on and on…