Sever by Sergey Karpov

Issue 161

The North (Sever) is being a persistently conquered territory, yet it continues to resist. This is a zone of eternal cold and a donor of natural resources. The largest wave of northern expeditions in Russia occurred in the first quarter of the 20th century. Around the discovered deposits, new cities and towns were built. Since then, their lifespan has been depending on ores and coal production. In this study, the North is defined as the territories beyond the Arctic Circle. It includes big cities, such as Murmansk or Vorkuta, small settlements, and natural landscapes — tundra, lakes, swamps, etc.

In the North, people seek to hide from the reality of industrial cities. They immerse themselves in their own worlds, constructing new senses and symbols for their locations. The objectives of this study were to reveal how these worlds are organized, why people create them in reality or in imagination, and what else the image of the North can be besides the stereotype of the raw material colony.

Thru the expeditions above Arctic Circle we have see how the northern residents create personal utopias, such as the recreation of the myth of Hyperborea in Kovdor (Murmansk region), the appeal to the magical world of northern childhood in Vorkuta, or the sacralization of scientific practices in Apatity. These utopias influence the development of local communities and also urban branding, usually initiated by local administrations.

I'm working on this ongoing project as a part of the research collective 'Pole' which studies imagination and utopias it creates.

Sergey Karpov (he/him) since 2022 lives in Tbilisi, Georgia and works in post-soviet countries.
sergeykarpov.com/ | @sergeykarpovcom