Cape Schmidt sits at the northeastern most corner of Siberia, a place that is by definition remote. But even by that measure, this former Soviet airbase is particularly desolate, a place so devoid of light and color that every photo Andrey Shapran made there appears to be black and white.
The haunting images in Cape North reveal a forgotten place where snowdrifts cover abandoned military equipment and buildings crumble from age and neglect. You can almost feel the cold, and the desolation. “There isn’t a living soul around,” Shapran says.
The Soviets built the base at Cape Schmidt in 1954. It was all but abandoned with the end of the Cold War, and largely forgotten after a particularly brutal winter forced the evacuation of more than 1,000 people from the region in 1998. The base now serves as an airport for the nearby community of Cape Schmidt. Although Russia says it has reestablished its military presence there, it remained rather a mess when Shapran visited last year.
He visited in November, 2015, enduring a 3.5-hour helicopter ride from Anadyr to photograph the polar bear migration through nearby Ryrkaypiy. To his disappointment, the bears were late, so he decided to explore the base. “There is plenty of luck and coincidence in a photographer’s work,” Shapran says, “especially here in the north.”
Shapran endured piercing wind and the constant fear of bumping into a polar bear during his three weeks there. The short window of daylight, just six hours long when he arrived, gave way to total darkness by the time he returned home in December, leaving the desolate landscape behind.
