This is it – this is what I have been looking for.

Murmansk is the largest city in the world north of the Arcitc Circle, but sadly its population is in decline. Currently the 300,000 residents endure 2 full months of darkness every winter. I want to know how a human copes in this sort of environment. What happens to the social structure, the ability to be productive, and what about leisure time? It’s just so ridiculous and sad and charming. Let me say it again; 2 months of darkness.

The photographs above come from Alexander Gronsky, a Russian photographer with an eye for the profound. I am so pleased that he chose to photograph humans living in this conditional state of perpetual night. Our species’ survival depends on the ability to adapt to an endless variety of environments, and the ones at the extremes are so very intriguing. At this point in human history there is nothing keeping 300,000 people on the edge of a frozen continent. Something else must be going on here. Jobs? Family? Masochism? Whatever it is, it’s not working, in 1989 the population was closer to 1/2 million souls.

Murmansk could one day be another soviet skeleton of a city, quietly decaying in the dark.