I shot this in Norilsk last summer. This city, 1,500 miles from the North Pole, is one of the coldest and most polluted places on Earth. It is a place most photographers dream of going to. Getting there, though, is extremely difficult. The city was closed in Soviet times, then briefly opened, and is now closed again. To gain access you have to get permits from the owner, Norilsk Nickel (or Nornickel as it is now known), which is almost impossible.

I travelled there as part of the Arctic project I did with Kadir van Lohuizen. We divvied up the continent: he covered the western regions, and I, the Russian side, the longest Arctic border. Kadir’s main interest was to show climate change: the evidence is everywhere, especially in the east. I wanted to document how Russia is taking advantage of this situation to explore for gas and oil. I travelled on an ice-breaker from the port of Dudinka to Murmansk, and there was no ice at all. Kadir battled the elements – there is snow in his photographs. There is grass in mine.

I knew Norilsk would feature heavily in the story, because it is a place where you can understand the tragic history of Russia. As the ice melts, signs for gulag barracks keep appearing. It explains why development of the Arctic on the Russian side is so much more advanced than in the west: they had a head start. They knew already where the oil and gas reserves were and how to operate in rough conditions. In winter the temperatures here plummet to -50C.

The city was founded in the late 1930s to meet wartime demand for metal. It was built on the ice by prisoners who were shipped in. The nickel factory you see in the photograph was built first, in 1942, followed by a copper factory and the Nadejda metallurgical complex. The city grew, surrounded by chimneys. When I first travelled there in the 1990s, the pollution was overwhelming. You could not breathe, and barely see. At the time, though, no one cared: it was the last thing anybody thought about.

Thousands of prisoners were shipped to Norilsk. It was a one-way ticket. Nobody knows exactly how many perished

In June 2018, I spent about two weeks there and a local historian showed me round. I commented on how odd it was that there were no trees, but that there was some green. He told me that the green was where the prisoners were buried. There are graveyards everywhere. Thousands and thousands of prisoners were shipped to Norilsk – there are no roads in and out of town – and it was a one-way ticket. Nobody knows exactly how many of them perished.

In the 1990s, people in the town were allowed to put up a memorial sign for the prisoners – Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Jews, Russians – who had died there. In the port city of Magadan, I met some former prisoners who had managed to survive this hell, living in barracks without food or proper clothing, and managed to get out of Norilsk. Listening to their stories was fascinating; it is a miracle they did not die.

The nickel plant was shut down in 2016, after President Putin threatened Norilsk Nickel with big fines if the environmental situation didn’t improve. While it was still in operation, it emitted 350,000 tonnes of sulphur dioxide each year. Business hasn’t suffered though. The company, which is one of the world’s largest producers of palladium, nickel, platinum and copper, has plants all over (in Russia, China, western Europe, South Africa, Australia and more) as well as its own Arctic fleet. The company’s other two plants in Norilsk are still in operation, and ore is now shipped from there to Murmansk; the journey takes four days.

Partly because the factory is now abandoned, fewer people live now in Norilsk than in Soviet times. There is a programme for retired workers to move to the mainland – this city is not a place to retire – and others moved to the company’s other sites.

The centre looks like St Petersburg. There were talented architects among the prisoners – they made it beautiful

What you see here isn’t a river, but an artificial lake, which was used in the metallurgical process. Guards live and work there: you can see one of them on the boat headed towards the structure in the middle of the water (coincidentally, he’s also headed in the direction of the North Pole). I never managed to speak to one of them, but I realised that they work in a 24-hour rotation. Quite what they do is unclear.

The centre of Norilsk looks and feels like Saint Petersburg. This is not because Stalin fantasised about building the most beautiful town in the Arctic Circle. Rather, there were talented architects among the prisoners: they made it beautiful.

The prisoners sent to gulag were often educated people. That’s how the city was built within four years and production in the plant started within two. In fact one of the founders of the city was a prisoner: Nikolay Urvantsev, a geologist and explorer with extensive knowledge of minerals in the region who was sent there from the Karaganda labour camp where he had been held on charges of wrecking and sabotage.

Talking about this aspect of Russian history is important. I don’t think the story of what happened in Stalinist times has been properly told. It is all connected to Russian identity, that sense of pride that comes from knowing how to survive in the north.

• Yuri Kozyrev and Kadir van Lohuizen were granted the Carmignac Photojournalism award to enable their work on the Arctic with support from the Fondation Carmignac. The exhibition of the project, Arctic: New Frontier, is at the Saatchi Gallery, London until 5 May.

Yuri Kozyrev’s CV

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Photograph: Kirill Ovchinnikov

Born: Moscow, 1963.

Trained: Mentored by Valery Arutyunov.

High/low points: “It’s not about photography as a career. I’ve had some good and bad experiences but what is important is not who is taking a picture but the reasons why they are taking a picture and telling a visual story.”

Top tip: “A nice picture is not enough. It’s about your responsibility, your patience, your commitment in these stories. Photography is an incredible language. It’s universal, you can express yourself, you can tell your story visually.”