Earlier this week, the photographer Maria Passer visited some of the ice-covered abandoned buildings of Vorkuta, a dwindling coal-mining city north of the Arctic Circle, in Russia’s Komi Republic. Temperatures in Vorkuta can drop as low as -58 degrees Fahrenheit in the coldest winter months. Fewer than half of the city’s once-active coal mines still operate today, and the ongoing unemployment crisis has driven residents to leave by the thousands, abandoning huge Soviet-era housing blocks to the elements. Every winter, the snow and ice move in, encrusting what used to be people’s living rooms, offices, and bedrooms.
An Ice-Covered Russian Ghost Town
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![Ice crystals completely cover a small chandelier and the ceiling it hangs from.]()
Read moreIce crystals completely cover a chandelier and the ceiling it hangs from. in an abandoned building in Vorkuta, Komi Republic, Russia, on March 1, 2021. #
Maria Passer / Anadolu Agency / Getty -
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![An aerial view of snow- and ice-covered abandoned buildings, with a snow-covered, largely treeless landscape in the background.]()
Read moreAn aerial view of snow- and ice-covered abandoned buildings near Vorkuta, Russia, on March 1, 2021. #
Maria Passer / Anadolu Agency / Getty -
![Two images. At left, ice and snow fill a stairwell, at right, ice crystals encrust everything a former home office.]()
Read moreIce and snow invade a stairwell and living space in an abandoned building in Vorkuta, seen on March 1, 2021. #
Maria Passer / Anadolu Agency / Getty -
![Large chunks of ice hang from the facade of an abandoned building.]()
Read moreIce hangs from deteriorating and abandoned buildings in the Severny region, near Vorkuta. #
Maria Passer / Anadolu Agency / Getty -
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![At left, ice intrudes into a living space, at right, an aerial view of some of the abandoned buildings and an industrial facility.]()
Read moreLeft: Ice takes over a living space. Right: An aerial view of some abandoned buildings and an industrial facility, near Vorkuta. #
Maria Passer / Anadolu Agency / Getty -
![Snow-covered trucks and heavy equipment sit in a parking lot.]()
Read moreAn aerial view of snow-covered trucks and heavy equipment that have been parked for a long time at a construction site in Vorkuta, on March 1, 2021. #
Maria Passer / Anadolu Agency / Getty -
![An interior stairwell is coated in ice.]()
Read moreA stairwell is coated in ice in an abandoned building in the Severny region, near Vorkuta. #
Maria Passer / Anadolu Agency / Getty -
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![The entryway to a snow- and ice-covered building]()
Read moreAn entryway to one of the abandoned buildings in the Sementnozavodsky region. #
Maria Passer / Anadolu Agency / Getty -
![Huge volumes of ice intrude into a bathroom, entering from an open door, the walls and ceiling.]()
Read moreAn interior view of an ice-covered bathroom in an abandoned building in the Sementnozavodsky region, 19 kilometers from the coal-mining town of Vorkuta, photographed on March 1, 2021. #
Maria Passer / Anadolu Agency / Getty
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