The coal mines of Vorkuta, just north of the Arctic Circle, were once vital to Soviet industry. But after the collapse of U.S.S.R., the mines were privatized and some were shut down. Today, the city is surrounded by former mining centers that have become ghost towns, or are sparsely inhabited. The coal mine in Vorkuta's Sovetskiy district was closed in 1996, but some 150 families still live nearby, half an hour by bus from the rest of the city, with no grocery store or pharmacy in their community. The mining town of Yurshor and the settlement of Rudnik, once part of the gulag camp system, have both been abandoned altogether. (Text by Sergei Khazov-Cassia, photos by Petr Shelomovskiy, RFE/RL)
Abandoned Mining Towns Of The Russian Arctic
A view from an abandoned apartment in Vorkuta's Sovetskiy district
A street in Sovetskiy
Inside an abandoned building
A family photo found in an abandoned apartment
Personal belongings scattered inside an empty apartment
Inside a former grocery store
The ruins of a former culture center in Sovetskiy
Lidia Dmitrievna Sholicheva visits the local post office, which once employed 13 people
A boy from the Nenets minority attends a boarding school in Sovetskiy.
Olga Ivanovna Khozyainova at home in Sovetskiy
The roof is leaking in Olga's bathroom.
Icy windows in Olga's apartment
A street in Sovetskiy
Lidia Dmitrievna Sholicheva, a human rights activist, visits one of a few friends who still live in Sovetskiy.
An abandoned apartment
Andrei walks on the outskirts of the former mining settlement.
A decaying roof in the town of Yurshor
An abandoned building in Yurshor
Inside an abandoned building in Yurshor
A memorial to Ukrainian prisoners of the gulag camp system
An abandoned building in the settlement of Rudnik, once part of the gulag prison camp system. Out of 1,500 prisoners who arrived here in 1932, only 54 survived the first winter.
An abandoned building in Rudnik
A view of Rudnik on the banks of the Vorkuta river