WHERE LAND COMES TO AN END.

POSTAL CODE 678830

Chersky, a remote corner of the Siberian Arctic. A place to which only one road goes: Kolyma, the river, a vein of life and death, frozen 7 meters deep in winter, carrying enormous barges like toys on its obscure oceanic waves in the brief summers.A town built on blood and bones of Gulag prisoners, more than 80 years ago.A town that gets swallowed by the Arctic night for many long months each year.A closed town, cut off from the world. A town in soviet times, booming and bustling with life, science, art, the spirit of exploration and of new beginnings. A town where only the stubborn, the crazy, the strong and the lonely survive. Each year fewer and fewer of them. A town that still harbors warmth, colors and art in its steadfast recesses of life. A town where people live in waiting. Chersky, the town where I once left my teenage heart.

The series of photographs in this book focuses on the small fading settlement of Chersky in the far Northeast of Russian Arctic, where I lived as a teenager in 1980s. After almost 30 years, I returned to Chersky in December of 2014 for a visit.

In Russia, the area above the Arctic circle is called simply, Sever. In English, ‘to sever’ means to divide by cutting or slicing, esp. suddenly and forcibly; put an end to; break off. ‘Severe’ means 1. very great; intense (of something bad or undesirable); 2. strict or harsh.

The small fading settlement of Chersky is all that. Located close to Russia’s northern and easter borders, and to the USA, it is still a closed zone, only accessible to those holding a special permit. Getting there is only possible by way of small old airplanes, AH-24s, long out of production.

Chersky was once a wealthy booming town, a pride of the Soviet economy system, a symbol of communist success, a home to zealous youth, eager respondents to the government’s call to conquer the extreme North East frontier of the USSR, a springboard of many Soviet and international North Pole expeditions, a training ground of a generation of remarkable polar pilots, a playing field of geoscientists, biologists and paleontologists, who were digging up prehistoric creatures perfectly preserved by the permafrost, a treasure throve of diamonds and gold, the pride of Soviet gold mining industry, a subject of songs, books and paint-ings…

Chersky’s origins date back to the 1920-ies, when some of the most dreaded and deadly of the Gulag forced labor camps were set up along the Kolyma river. One of them was to become Nizhniye Kresty. The town was later renamed after Jan Chersky, a Polish political prisoner in Siberia turned geographer who organized several expeditions in the surround-ing area in the 1880s.

Today, more than half a century after the last of the Gulag camps was dismantled, life in Chersky continues. The population of the town has dwindled however, the buildings and streets stand in disrepair. Some people live without electricity or running water. For the long winter months the town seems to blend into the darkness of the endless surrounding tundra, with flickers of life clinging to the indoor spaces. Very few people ever come here, and it seems to have fallen off the map for the world outside. My friend Lyudmila, a native Cherchanka, said to me: “Nobody knows we are here. The world doesn’ t know we exist”.

To my family

Photographs, editing, layout, book design, text and translation by Anita Līcis-Ribak

Thank you to the town of Chersky , and to each person I photographed. Thank you to all the stray and domesticated dogs who let me photograph them and

inspired me with their resilience and generosity.

Thank you to Enric Montes, Roman Y ñ an, Alberto Prieto and Salvi Danes for getting me strarted and going.

Thank you to everyone who had the patience to look through the early models of this book and gave me their feedback.

Copyright ©anita līcis-ribak, 2015www.anita-licis-ribak.com