Russian travel blogger Denis Zabelin has published a list of seven cities in Russia where he claims it is impossible to live. He shared his assessments in a post on his personal blog, Life in Motion, hosted on the Russian content platform Dzen.
Zabelin compiled his personal ranking of the country's worst urban centers for daily living, focusing on severe weather conditions, geographical isolation, high living costs, and failing municipal infrastructure.
Zabelin is a Russian travel writer who documents journeys across remote northern territories. His blog platform, Dzen, is a popular Russian blogging and news recommendation portal originally launched by tech company Yandex.
Severe winters in Norilsk
Norilsk featured prominently on the blogger's list as the northernmost entry, with a population of 150,000 residents. Zabelin stated that the city endures ten months of winter every year.
He explained that blizzards are so severe that local streets have a specific layout designed not out of architectural preference, but to prevent residents from being blown away by powerful winds.
Norilsk is an industrial city located in Krasnoyarsk Krai, situated above the Arctic Circle in Siberia. Known globally for nickel mining operations, it remains one of the world's most isolated cities with no road connections to the rest of Russia.
Extreme cold and high prices in Yakutsk
The second city highlighted on Zabelin's anti-ranking is Yakutsk, where harsh weather combines with rapidly increasing costs. Zabelin noted that prices for goods rise noticeably faster in Yakutsk than in the rest of Russia because the city is effectively cut off from southern road routes during off-season periods due to the lack of a bridge.
He added that summer brings swarms of midges and mosquitoes alongside thick smoke from persistent forest fires. Zabelin described Yakutsk as a former imperial frontier fortress that has grown into a city of nearly 400,000 people, where harsh cold and steep living costs press in on residents simultaneously.
Situated along the Lena River in eastern Siberia, Yakutsk is the capital of the Sakha Republic. Built on continuous permafrost, it is widely recognized as the coldest major city on Earth.
Housing decay in Arkhangelsk
Arkhangelsk occupied the third position on the list. Zabelin pointed out that throughout 2025, local reports regularly documented condemned residential buildings literally falling apart, describing it as a routine news story every few weeks rather than a metaphor.
He also highlighted a gloom that hangs over the city from October through April due to near-constant winter darkness. He emphasized that without the economic presence of its neighboring satellite city, Severodvinsk, it would be unclear what would happen to Arkhangelsk.
Arkhangelsk is a historic maritime port city in northern European Russia located near the White Sea. Nearby Severodvinsk serves as a major industrial center known for naval shipbuilding and submarine maintenance.
Broader regional population decline
Zabelin also included Chita, Omsk, Chelyabinsk, and Vorkuta in his list of unlivable cities. Vorkuta is a declining coal-mining town in the Arctic, while Chelyabinsk, Omsk, and Chita are key industrial and administrative centers across Siberia and the Urals.
Reflecting on these entries, Zabelin concluded that his ranking would not alter reality for the featured locations. He observed that residents there continue to stoke home stoves, walk children to school through deep snowdrifts, save money for housing, and bury parents in local cemeteries rather than in the places they had dreamed of moving to.
The blogger previously released a similar review of seven Russian regions that he described as emptying before our eyes. After analyzing statistics on absolute population loss, Zabelin identified the Republic of Bashkortostan as taking the top position for regional population decline.
Bashkortostan is a major republic located between the Volga River and the Ural Mountains in western Russia.
