Elena Chernyshova

© Elena Chernyshova

Some like it cold: while humans have always attempted to flee frozen regions to survive in warmer climes. As global warming alters the seasons and changes our ecosystem, a handful of people are coping in the most extreme negative temperatures.

In Norilsk, Russia, temperatures plummet to -40°C in December and there are 130 days of snowstorms per year. So why did these people settle in such an isolated area, where getting supplies is incredibly tough? Some were sentenced to exile and imprisonment here in Soviet Gulags. Others were drawn by the lure of profit after rare and precious metal deposits were discovered here in the mid-20th century. 

“This is the second-largest city above the Arctic Circle,” explains photographer Elena Chernyshova. “It is a fascinating place where the polar night can last up to 60 days. Psychologically, it’s awful. For an hour or two each day, a sort of light appears and you think that the sun might come out, but it never does. And you end up afraid it’ll never return.” She goes on to describe daily life in this landlocked city, which is only accessible by invitation from a company and with a pass duly signed by the FSB, the Russian secret services: “Norilsk is the most polluted city in Russia. The young people born there did not choose to be there. The workers’ wages are very low and everything is expensive because it all has to be imported”.

Elena Chernyshova trained as an architect before switching to photography, teaching herself the necessary skills. She has travelled the coldest regions of Russia to document the life of the men and women who have learned to live in such hostile conditions. From Norilsk, she takes us to Vyksa where swimming club members take to the icy waters all year round to strengthen their immune systems. At the most northerly point of the legendary North-East Passage, the sailors on MS Fedor Ushakov brave the polar winds and cut through the ice floe to open a channel between Murmansk and Cape Dezhnev. In the Kupol mine in Chukotka, the workers live entirely underground so that they do not have to brave the polar temperatures. Chernyshova’s journey delivers a photographic testimony from the midst of a sublime tumult of ice and darkness, where the unvarying whiteness of the sky blends with the snow-covered lands. She offers us a journey deep into the night and cold.