Polar Bears In A Ghost Town

In the 1930s the Soviet Union built a meteorological station on Kolyuchin Island, near the Arctic Circle. The station and the few buildings next to it were abandoned in 1992 after the USSR went belly up, leaving the place to wildlife – especially the polar bears.

Recently tech entrepreneur-turned-photographer Dmitry Kokh visited the island and captured some striking images of the bears just hanging out in the derelict buildings as if they owned the place (which they do).

“As we were waiting for the weather, we noticed a movement in the window of the abandoned station,” Kokh told ExplorersWeb. “This was strange. I grabbed the binoculars, and to my amusement, I saw a polar bear in the house. And then another one, and another …”

Kokh took pictures. Because the images are practically close-ups, many people assumed he’d got perilously close to the big carnivores. “I thought that sent the wrong message. A human should not walk with the bears, for the good of both. So I decided to make it clear how exactly I produced these images.”

He used a drone, but not just any drone – a custom-built job with special low-noise propellers that he could fly, from a safe distance, to approximate the zig-zag motion of a low-flying gull that wouldn’t spook the faunae. It worked. His photos depict polar bears looking positively relaxed, but they also provide an eerie window into what the post-human world might look like. It won’t be too bad.

Check them all out at Kohk’s website: www.dmitrykokh.com/polar-bears.

Photo credit: Dmitry Kokh