Abandoned Gulag buildings in Vorkuta, Russia (Рудник, Воркута)

Please read and see more on my website: It was December of 2015 when I hopped on the train bound for Vorkuta in Nizhny Novgorod. I was going to spend a total of two nights in a cozy Russian sleeper train. In Russia, Vorkuta has an infamous reputation: the city is a former Gulag (Soviet labour camp) and almost all of the residents still living there are descendants of inmates, or former inmates themselves. For this reason, Russians tend to avoid trains coming from and going to Vorkuta, a