Arktika

A veil of secrecy that enveloped the Russian Arctic during the Soviet era has lifted. As hundreds of thousands of Russians evacuate the north, leaving behind a legacy of environmental destruction and nuclear waste, the story of the Soviet dream of conquering the Arctic—and its cost—can be told.

At the height of their power the Soviet Union had a revolutionary plan for transforming the Arctic. With the help of slave labour, entire cities were built and more than two million people were moved into the North to operate mines and smelters in the cold polar regions.

At the same time, tens of thousands of native hunters and herders were moved off the land and into villages and their children were sent to state run boarding schools. The Soviet campaign mirrored the American and Canadian treatment of indigenous peoples in the North American Arctic.

For most of the past century, this huge social and environmental experiment in the vast Soviet Arctic was hidden away behind a wall of secrecy. On the day the Soviet Union collapsed, Russia had more native peoples, more cities, and more nuclear weapons and military bases north of the Arctic circle than the rest of the world combined. Now, with the help of an emerging human rights and environmental movement in Russia, the story is coming to light.