Industrial coal fields by the river Vorkuta were discovered in 1930 by geologist Georgy Chernov. Georgy was the son of another geologist, Alexander Chernov, who promoted the development of the Pechoracoal basin, which included the Vorkuta fields. With this discovery the coal mining industry started in the Komi ASSR. At the time only the southern parts of the field were included in the Komi ASSR. The northern part, including Vorkuta, belonged to the Nenets Autonomous Okrug of Arkhangelsk Oblast. In 1931 a geologist settlement was established by the coal field, with most of the workers being inmates of the Ukhta-Pechora Camp of GULAG.
Forced labour camp
The origins of the town of Vorkuta are associated with Vorkutlag, one of the most notorious forced labour camps of the Gulag, which was established in 1932 with the start of mining. It was the largest of the Gulag camps in European Russia and served as the administrative centre for a large number of smaller camps and subcamps, among them Kotlas, Pechora, and Izhma. The Vorkuta uprising, a major rebellion by the camp inmates, occurred in 1953. In 1941, Vorkuta and the labour camp system based around it were connected to the rest of the world by a prisoner-built rail line linking Konosha, Kotlas, and the camps of Inta. Town status was granted to Vorkuta on November 26, 1943.
By the early 21st century many mines had closed as problems with the high costs of operation plagued the mine operators. At one time during the late 1980s and 1990s there were labor actions in the area by miners who had not been paid for a year.
Climate
Vorkuta has a subarctic climate with short cool summers and very cold and snowy winters. The average February temperature is about, and in July it is about. The polar day in Vorkuta lasts from 30 May to 14 July, the polar night lasts from 17 December to 27 December.
Vorkuta and the crumbling permafrost
"Vorkuta lies on the edge of Russia's permafrost boundary, and some scientists predict that continued warming could advance that border hundreds of miles northward, weakening the earth beneath the vast infrastructure built during the days of the Soviet Union's industrialization of the Arctic."
The town is served by Vorkuta Airport. During the Cold War, an Arctic Control Group forward staging base for strategic bombers was located at Vorkuta Sovetsky. One of the largest coal mine disasters in Russia occurred at Vorkuta coal mine on 28 February 2016, when leaking methane gas ignited and killed 32 people, including 26 trapped miners who had been stranded by a similar explosion 3 days prior that had killed four miners. The Vorkutlag was the location of the mission "Vorkuta" in in which main character Alex Mason escaped the camp with the assistance of Viktor Reznov. Vorkuta has a location on the Russia map of Unturned named after it, a railway car storage named Vorkuta Junction. Vorkuta, and the Prison are the setting of Heather Morris' historical fiction Novel Cilka's Journey.
