A woman sits by her window which is adorned with a number of hanging pots and other pot plants. During the long winter months, resident of Norilsk find that they're completely lacking the presence of living plants and many cultivate small scale gardens which are nice to look at and detract from the industrial environment outside.

The city of Norilsk, in the far north of Russia's Krasnoyarsk region, was founded in the 1920s and today has a population of just over 175,000. In its early years it served as the centre of Norillag (or the Norilsk Corrective Labour Camp) but was given town status in 1953 as the Gulag system was slowly winding down. Today the city is largely dependent on MMC Norilsk Nickel, the world's leading producer of Nickel and palladium and Norilsk's main employer. In 2001, the city was closed to all non-Russians, except for citizens of Belarus.