The Russian winter tends to be romanticised, but it doesn’t feel much like a Christmas card when you’re actually there. SIMON ROBERTS captures its astringent beauty for our photo essay, and talks about it to ALEXANDRA LENNOX
Arctic Russia is cold, harsh, strange and vast—it stretches nearly halfway round the world, from Finland to Alaska. If you want to photograph it at its coldest, you have to be quick. “During the winter months”, Simon Roberts says, “it’s perpetual dusk and by 4 o’clock it’s pitch black. I was working in temperatures of minus 25 to minus 40, which left little time to take the pictures as it was difficult to expose my hands for long.”
Pictured: Monchegorsk, Murmansk Region, North-West Russia “The snowy fields around Monchegorsk disguise the fact that it is one of the most polluted towns in Russia,” says Simon Roberts. The church pictured in the foreground was built just a year ago and is surrounded by dachas (traditional Russian country homes), a retreat for the rich and poor alike. Since the demise of communism, the church has enjoyed a revival.
