The ruined village of Teriberka in northern Russia from the 1960s has been revived by scenes from The Leviathan, which won the 2014 Cannes Film Festival’s best screenplay award.
Teriberka is a village in the Murmansk region (Russia) on the Kola peninsula, located on the Barents coast – part of the Arctic Ocean. The name Teriberka was first mentioned around 1523.
At the end of the 19th century, Teriberka was a bustling shark-fishing seaside town with a church, a lighthouse, and a weather station (the first on the Murmansk coast).
After World War II, the village of Teriberka flourished with shipyards as well as dairy and reindeer farming. Teriberka has become the administrative center of a rapidly developing district, many works are built according to the collective model such as the stadium, the workers’ club in the shipyard; schools, ambulance stations, public hospitals…
The destruction of the village of Teriberka began in the 1960s, when the administrative district was transferred to the town of Severomorsk. A new seaport was also built in the city of Murmansk (120 km away), serving as an anchorage for a large tonnage fleet that often goes offshore fishing. Pictured is an abandoned church.
Due to lack of investment and development, many factories closed and people moved their livestock to new lands. By 2000, the Arctic Ocean coastal village had only nearly 1,000 people left, they lived in old and dilapidated houses, without gas or heating.
In 2014, Teriberka suddenly appeared in the film The Leviathan directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev with a famous Russian cast, which won the award for the best screenplay at the Cannes Film Festival. The beauty of the nature of the North of Russia has made the audience so amazed that many people after watching the film immediately went to Teriberka to enjoy.
The road from Murmansk to Teriberka is always busy with traffic. In the last days of April, the ice melted on the river of the same name of the village, the two sides of the road were still covered with white snow.
Only this region in Russia can see the Watts manufactured in the 1970s in operation.
Speaking to Arctic.ru, Murmansk officials said they are implementing a comprehensive development program including economic and social measures and investment in accommodation and restaurants to serve tourists. Over the past 2 years, Teriberka village has welcomed a large number of tourists from Thailand, Vietnam and China.
Some investors from Russia and Norway also seized the opportunity to build hotels on the Barents coast. “We will treat you with traditional northern dishes such as beetroot soup, grilled salmon with potatoes…”, a restaurant owner shared.
By the window of an apartment building built in the Soviet era, this man would look out every time a tourist came to visit.
Modern facilities have also appeared. Teriberka now has an area for kitesurfing on the snow, scuba diving… Along with that is the Arctic festival scheduled to be held once a year.
If Moscow and St.Petersburg are always busy and magnificent with ancient buildings, this village will bring peace and curiosity. If you have the opportunity to come here, do not forget to bring the national flag because the location of the village is also the place bordering the north pole of the earth.