A blogger described a Russian city where there are 40 days without sun. Sounds creepy and exotic at the same time. Where does something like that even happen in Russia and how do people actually live there in the darkness?
# Translation
It's true, and we're talking about cities in Russia's Far North - first and foremost Norilsk and Murmansk. Norilsk is located beyond the Arctic Circle, and it really does experience polar night, when the sun doesn't appear above the horizon for roughly two months (roughly from November to January). Murmansk goes through something similar, though the period is a bit shorter. It sounds scary in theory only - in reality, people have adapted to this kind of schedule over several generations.
Living in darkness is totally real, you just need some proper organization. People turn on the lights at home and at work like everywhere else, just in a more intense way. It's psychologically tough only the first time around - after that your body gets used to it, your brain stops freaking out from the constant twilight. The locals even joke about it. Then in summer they get the polar day - the opposite, where the sun never sets at all, and that also takes some getting used to.
The main real problem isn't the darkness but the cold and isolation. If you're heading up north, you need to go with a good supply of vitamins (especially D), warm clothes, and psychological readiness. But people live there, work, raise kids, and somehow don't degrade. You just have to understand that it's genuinely northern conditions, not some kind of anomaly.
Not quite - 40 days isn't really an accurate figure for most northern cities. In Norilsk, the polar night lasts roughly two months, but that doesn't mean total darkness: even during the polar night there are twilight hours, the moon shines, and the sky isn't black like in space. Now, in really far northern settlements like Barrow, Alaska, or our Arctic research stations, yeah, there can be almost round-the-clock darkness. But in Russian cities, people just live their lives - they turn on the lights, stick to a routine with vitamin D supplements, and get used to it. Bloggers tend to dramatize things for effect, so the "spooky exotic" stuff looks way more mundane in reality.
Log into answer.
