Russians and Ukrainians live together in a remote, freezing and “almost communist” Arctic village | Photogallery

In winter, Barentsburg does not see sunlight; and in summer, it never sets, transforming a season into an endless day. Planted on one of the islands in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, in the Arctic Circle, the small village, built by Russia on the island of Spitsbergen to serve coal mining workers, is today home to around 400 inhabitants. The population has a characteristic that makes it, in the situation of extreme geographic isolation in which it finds itself and in the context of the war between Russia and Ukraine, a very particular place: half are of Russian nationality and the other are Ukrainian.

When Swiss Mario Heller, photographer for Panos Pictures, decided to visit the Arctic island in February 2023, the war had already been going on for a year. He contacted the company that explores coal on the island of Spitsbergen, Arktiugol, and obtained the logistical support that made his trip possible, but imposing one condition: “They were against political coverage” of the situation in the small town, he told P3, from Berlin, where he lives. “And I honestly had no interest in covering the story from that perspective either. There are already a lot of reports about Barentsburg from this angle.”

The project Arctic Dreams, which results from Heller’s two-week stay in the Arctic village, is still about its population. “The 400 people who live there have little to do with the war,” he observes. “Young Russians mostly work in the tourism industry and went to Barentsburg in search of adventure. Some of them also sought to avoid conscription in Russia. The people of Ukraine come mainly from the eastern part of the country. For them, Barentsburg is an escape from the war that, in that area, truly began in 2014.”

Tensions between Russians and Ukrainians on the island rose at the start of the war, in 2022. “Some people who were critical of the Russian invasion, around 30 or 40, ended up having to leave. I think they were silenced, that the government agency [russa que gere a ilha] tried to stop them.” In 2023, when he visited, the situation remained tense. “One of the protagonists of the project, Barbara, who worked at the museum, says that each conversation was, then, like walking through a minefield. I think this really illustrates how difficult it must be.”

Still, everyone knows everyone in Barentsburg. “The community is very small. It is not completely united, there are small clans. In such a cold place, coexistence and human warmth are very important.” And it was this heat that he experienced during his stay. “I made a lot of friends. From the second or third day onwards, I was invited consecutively to visit their homes, to go to the cinema or whatever. It’s very easy to form bonds because people are very open.”

In the small town, whose main economic activity is tourism – and which, since the pandemic and the outbreak of war in Ukraine, has been experiencing a period of deficit – there is a kind of “communism”, says Heller. “All apartments are practically the same. They are all furnished in the same way and it is not possible to buy more things. And it works well because people don’t care much about that, about things, in general. There is only one supermarket, supplied by a Russian chain every few months, and everyone has access to the same food, drink, etc.” There are salary differences, he emphasizes, but they are not reflected in consumption “because there is nowhere to consume differently”. And everything they consume is directly debited from their salary, electronically. “I found it interesting to see the concept in practice.”

In the city, there are all types of equipment, he says. “It is a city that has a large cultural center, a theater and a cinema, a museum, a hotel, a modern and huge hospital, a sports center”, he lists. “It’s a luxurious place, compared to other Russian Arctic mining towns, where only men live and where the scenery can be quite depressing.” In Barentsburg there are numerous families with children who attend school, a characteristic that the photographer considers “quite unique”.

Arctic Dreams is, for the photographer, a project about the dreams that led all the inhabitants to that remote place in the Arctic. And about the fact that your stay seems, from a distance, like a personal dream. “The place touched my heart. I felt that there is, for everyone who lives there, the desire to fulfill a dream.”