It is a place detached from the outside world.
Here nobody is born and nobody dies. There are no cats, trees and traffic lights. People come for a few weeks, and remain for years. This is Longyearbyen, the northernmost city in the world with a population of over a thousand people.
The city has a law prohibiting the die in its territory. Of course, to die anywhere, but here no one can be buried. Because of the permafrost bodies do not decompose and attract predators, particularly polar bears. Therefore, in case of serious illness or injury of a person trafficked by plane or sea to the mainland. To be born here too, no one can. Pregnant women return to the “mainland”.
“This place is so cut off from the rest of the world that all the problems are left behind” – says a Polish photographer Dominik Gesicka (Dominika Gesicka) on the town of Longyearbyen located on the island of Spitsbergen. “The local rhythms of everyday life combined with the sounds of the wild Arctic create the impression that are beyond time and space.”
Longyearbyen – the northernmost city in the world and the administrative center of Svalbard. It has a population of just over 2000 residents.
First of Gesicki visited the Norwegian archipelago in 2015, then he came back here a few times to take photos of the city and its inhabitants who have joined in the project “This is not real life.” “I really liked the fresh Arctic air,’ says Dominic. – I could sit for hours by the open window, covered with a blanket, just to breathe this air.”
This is the land of polar bears. During a recent visit Dominica at six in the morning in the city wandered the she-bear with two cubs. They can stumble, going for a walk, so outside the city people carry weapons for safety.
There are no cats, trees, traffic lights. No amusement Park. In the winter, about four months duration of the polar night, and from mid-April to mid-August – the polar day. Fruits and vegetables in local stores – the deficit. Among the popular dishes stew of reindeer and whale steak.
“Longyearbyen is difficult to think of a better place to live, but some people fall in love with him at first sight. For example, come here for a couple of weeks and stay for five years or longer. But to settle down here are rarely. Sometimes it seems that people are trying something to escape; that this is just a digression. That’s not real life,” says the photographer.
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