Why Russians celebrate monsters

Nobody knows how long people live in Dzerzhinsk – life expectancy statistics for the Russian city, 250 miles east of Moscow, aren’t released to the public. In the days of the Soviet Union, it was closed to outsiders and left off official maps, but those in neighbouring Nizhny Novgorod joked that residents must have purple skin and second heads because of the emissions from its secretive chemical weapons plants. In recent years, however, it has gained notoriety as one of the most polluted places on the planet, with a study after the fall of the Iron Curtain reporting locals usually died in their mid-forties.

‘You can make more money here than anywhere else,’ Andrei, a local part-time taxi driver in his early twenties explained as we sped down the snow-lined highway towards the city last winter. ‘Engineers and factory workers earn the most, but everyone’s salary is better as a result.’