Barentsburg is a strange place. The once grand mining town sits on an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, midway between Scandinavia and the North Pole. It’s part of Norway but occupied by Russia and mined by Ukrainians. During the winter there is no sunlight and the temperature hovers around zero. There are more polar bears than people, and very little to do.
All of which made it a place Léo Delafontaine wanted to visit. The photographer has long been interested in small places with unusual histories. He’s spent the last two years documenting the isolated town the world seems to have forgotten for Arktikugol.
The town sits on Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago commercially open to other countries. The Russian Arctic Coal Trust has been mining there since 1932, and Barentsburg in its heyday “embodied the Soviet ideal,” according to Delafontaine. Everything was free for the workers, there was full employment and no hierarchy. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, investment, like the population, dwindled.
Delafontaine documents what remains: Stark, snowy landscapes and about 400 people—mostly Ukranians, with a few Armenians and Tajiks—at work, at home and in the few public buildings. He explored all but the mine, which was off-limits. “I think it was because they didn't want me to take pictures in an old and dangerous mine. Unfortunately, there are still deadly accidents in there,” he says. Still, he managed to sneak a glimpse of the entrance and get a few shots of instructional and motivational posters in the classroom where recruits learn about safety.
The photographer didn’t have much else to shoot during his repeated trips to the town and the surrounding region, as Barentsburg offers few distractions. There is a restaurant and a bar, but it accepts only Norwegian kroners. Miners are paid in rubles, but they can use them only in the supermarket and canteen. Most people are too tired after work to socialize, so they spend their days at their jobs and at home. There's nothing to do outside the village, and venturing beyond the outskirts requires carrying a rifle for protection against polar bears. To get off the island, people must take a snowmobile ride overland or a ferry across the water to the nearest airport. No one wants to stay very long.
“People stay a few years and leave without regrets. Barentsburg is just a step for them, nothing more,” Delafontaine says. “They just want to earn the money they deserve during their contract; that's it.”
Recently, Russia has taken a newfound interest in Barentsburg because of its strategic location in the Arctic. The state-owned mining company is developing the town as a tourist destination, impractical as that may be. Delafontaine feels Barentsburg represents the expansionist vision of the Russian government. “It's a small town lost in the middle of nowhere but it has always shown the true face of Russia,” he says.
