Teriberka - a true gem of the North

Teriberka is a true gem of the harsh northern coast, enchanting with its natural beauty and subtle atmosphere of abandonment.

In these photos I tried to capture both. On the one hand: rusting trawlers, overturned cars, an abandoned school, and a faint Pripyat-like vibe.

On the other: the richness of the natural landscape, mesmerizing with its play of cold and gloomy tones.

The peak of Teriberka’s prosperity came in the Soviet era, when the village became a district center - with a brick factory, a fish-processing plant, a cultural center, a pier, and the first hydroelectric power station on the Murmansk coast. But in the 1960s the district center was moved to Severomorsk, and Teriberka’s fishing industry began to decline. Soon the population of five thousand shrank several times over, and today the number of permanent residents barely exceeds five hundred.

For many years, silent wooden houses stood on the shore of the Barents Sea, the northern lights blazed in bright colors on the horizon, and huge whales roamed the waters of the Teriberka bay, passing by the lonely village. Life here had almost come to a standstill until the crew of the cult film «Leviathan» arrived on the coast. They say the director spent a long time looking for a village that visually seemed frozen in time. He traveled through many places in the northern regions of the country and finally found it at the very edge of the earth - on the coast of the Kola Peninsula. And soon after filming wrapped, Teriberka’s tourist era began - which I eventually became a part of as well.