“As if from another planet,” the Russian made a film about the Arctic for five years. Why did this trip change his life?

Director Kruglov spoke about the difficulties of traveling to the Arctic

A documentary film “Into the Arctic” has been released in Russia. Its author, photographer and traveler Leonid Kruglov, together with a team of cameramen, accompanied sailors and scientists on expeditions to the Russian North for five years. In his painting, he showed the Arctic as mysterious, mystical and even alien, with its ice palaces, centuries—old historical artifacts and amazing inhabitants – polar bears, walruses, narwhals and people. Correspondent of “Lenta.” went to the premiere of the film in Moscow and found out from the director why, having once visited In the Arctic, you leave a piece of your soul there forever.

– “The tape.“: What is the Arctic like? What makes it different from other parts of the planet?

Kruglov: It seemed to me that the Arctic was something white and monotonous, ice, snow and polar bears. I did not expect that there is such a diverse nature.

At first I thought that Franz Josef Land was the coolest thing. They managed to make incredible shots of table mountains, glaciers, walrus rookeries, bird markets. I was particularly surprised by Cape Flora, which looks like a green cliff in the middle of the Arctic ice. Once a year, it blooms for two to three weeks, because many birds nest there, which fertilize the ground with their droppings, and bring seeds and microorganisms on their paws.

Then I found myself in the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago. She’s brutal, weird. For some reason, the glaciers there are striped like tigers, and icebergs form absolutely fantastic shapes, resembling floating palaces. A little further away there are lands even closer to the North Pole, for example, Ushakov Island. This is an ice pancake about the height of a four- to five-story house. Along its edges there are cliffs of turquoise walls, which have their own drawing, similar to a panel. Walruses are swimming against the background of all this.

Materials on the topic:

“It’s a different world here”A Russian follows wild reindeer every year. What does he find in these travels?October 16, 2023

“I was only thinking about staying alive.”The Russian risked his life for the sake of polar bear pictures. Why would he do that?November 27, 2023

Russians were the first in the world to conquer the North Pole on motorcycles.What surprises them about their journey?December 16, 2023

I thought that nothing would surpass it for sure, and then I got to Severny Island on Novaya Zemlya

Researchers visit there quite often, so I didn’t expect to see anything special. It turned out that the local ice is something beyond and amazing. We worked for a long time near the Vera Glacier, which the polar explorer Georgy Sedov named after his wife. When we flew over its edge, we found ourselves in a huge field that looked like a clutch of dinosaur eggs. We saw round structures made of ice with a diameter of 10-20 meters, split from above, as if someone was about to hatch out of there.

— When you look at the picture, you really get the feeling that you are on another planet. Did you have that feeling?

Perhaps you can’t think of a better association. By the way, when we asked artificial intelligence for help and suggested that it depict the Arctic, it created paintings as if from another planet. Periodically, he even drew space objects among the ice, rockets, and unearthly life forms. That is, artificial intelligence also perceives the Arctic as something alien.

The more surprising is that it is not just on our planet, but on the territory of our country. Russia owns the largest part of the world’s Arctic in terms of size.

If we look at the map, we will see that a huge part of our territory, the facade of the country, faces not China or Europe, but the Arctic

This is both an incredible pride and a significant responsibility. After all, what do we know about the Arctic at the moment? Not so much.

Walrus Rookery

— Have they been talking more and more about the importance of the Arctic in recent years? What is the reason for this?

Interest in We have always had the Arctic. It was largely based on the Soviet past and the achievements of that time. Another thing is that there are not so many large-scale projects that could really shake up society. In the 1990s, there were difficulties, including in The Arctic, so attention to the region has faded. Now the Arctic renaissance is coming.

We slept for a long time, not really realizing that we have the largest country in the world with incredible travel opportunities. And now we are rediscovering Russia

Leonid Kruglov is a film director, photographer, and traveler

The logistical difficulties of traveling to Europe have increased, so now is the time to talk about Russia. Sophisticated people understand that all the most interesting things are in the most inaccessible places, and the Arctic is the most difficult thing that can only be in organizing travel on our planet.

— You have traveled all over the world and visited many exotic countries: from Ethiopia and India to Brazil and Papua New Guinea. At what point did you realize that it was the Arctic that attracted you?

I realized this while working on my previous film, The Great Northern Way. It tells the story of the discoverer Semyon Dezhnev, who, together with a small group of travelers in the XVII century, went towards the sun and eventually reached the Bering Strait in one human life.

When the explorers moved East on wooden tussocks, they kept their eyes on the North all the time. People saw that the birds fly away in that direction, and then return with their cubs. So, they understood, it was possible to winter in the ice. This knowledge was superimposed on the ancient myths of the local peoples, and so many legends were born about a certain new land, the Arctic. These medieval stories inspired me to make a film about the Arctic and show what really happens there.

— It took five years to collect materials for the film. Why so much?

Let’s say I want to make a film about South America. At one end there is the Amazon with its pink dolphins, rare animals, and Indians. At the other end there are traces of the Maya, Inca and Aztec civilizations. This kind of work will take more than one year. The same is true with the Russian Arctic, which is the size of an entire continent.

This is a huge and very inaccessible region, I wanted to tell you about it on a large scale. The points where we had to get to are very far from each other. Some were closer to Chukotka, while others were closer to Arkhangelsk and Murmansk. We fought our way to some places with great difficulty for three years in a row and could not get there because the ice and the weather conditions did not let in.

— Working in the Arctic seems to be something completely alien and incredibly difficult, as if superhumans are doing it. But how is it really?

The people I met there are just like everyone else. They are simple, smart and talented individuals who do not have enough stars from the sky. You need to work there for relatively little money, and wait for the next flight for a long time. I know that often people on Arctic ships do not stay long, but go to more monetary places.

Nevertheless, many remain in the Arctic and are engaged in an incredible business: some are looking for rare animals, others are working at polar stations. I managed to witness such an episode: a man stands on an island that he has just discovered, measured, mapped, and simply says: “That’s our job.”

— And what did the Arctic give you personally? What emotions arise when a person, having made titanic efforts, reaches the edge of the earth?

I have an incredible feeling of gratitude for the Arctic. She appears to me in female form, because it is something very fertile, although at the same time tough and harsh. Moreover, the abundance of life contained in these ices affects our entire planet.

The Arctic gives you childishly generous gifts. You know, like an Indian child who doesn’t know the price of gold, offers you a pebble made of pure precious metal. The Arctic has given me a lot of such nuggets

Leonid Kruglov is a film director, photographer, and traveler

She turned to me with a somewhat naive and generous side. But at the same time, I have no illusions. At any moment, the Arctic can turn into a baba yaga and eat anyone – you won’t even have time to blink an eye.

It often happens that you make a lot of effort to get to the right place, and you have at best one day’s work there. And it is at this moment that a hellish storm can happen. In order for the trip to coincide with the weather conditions, you must be very lucky. That’s why my vishlist in the Arctic is still huge, she hasn’t let me go yet.

— How did you formulate the purpose of your project?

I won’t hide it, my projects are based on my own curiosity. I travel all over the world because I’m starting to get excited about certain things. I want to do something new, visit unknown places and tell you about it in an interesting way. It turns out that everything starts with me, and ends with me trying to do something for other people.

— There is an opinion that all achievements and discoveries are due to individuals, proactive and inquisitive.

I completely agree with you. On the one hand, I am an ordinary person, a private person. At the same time, while working on the film, many government organizations, icebreaker crews, and scientists were able to connect to it. This is what we, to put it mildly, lack.

There was a period in our history when private initiative was suppressed for various reasons, but now its time has come. We need to support initiative people, try to help them, and not put sticks in the wheels, then things will go much better in many areas.

In the case of the film, it was exactly like that. My initiative, my suggestions and ideas were supported, although not always with ease. In the end, the painting appeared as the result of a powerful collaboration, and this is a good example for many people.

View of the Northern Lights from the icebreaker

— We have talked a lot about the fact that the Arctic is a difficult and dangerous region. Do you think it will ever open to ordinary tourists?

Who do we call ordinary tourists? Probably, these are people who can get in a car, take a tent and get somewhere on their own, using their relatively modest capabilities. In this sense, a person will not just get into the Arctic, even if he is experienced enough.

Such trips should be connected either with icebreakers (that is, you need to get a job in a team of Arctic explorers), or with yachts, and at the moment we have only two captains who can go hiking with tourists. But it’s still risky enough: you can pay a lot of money, and the ice situation will not allow you to carry out your plans.

The seven—faced idol is an ancient sanctuary of the Nenets. In the film “To the Arctic” there is an episode when the idol’s gaze is turned directly into the camera, and his power is felt through the screen. As one of the viewers wrote, “a persistent and harsh Seven-faced idol, driven into the ground on the sacred island of Vaigach, holds our planet tightly like a nail: it grounds us and lands us.”

I would like to hope that in More and more strongholds will appear in the Arctic and new opportunities for tourism will open up. On the other hand, the fact that it is so difficult to get there now protects the Arctic. As a rule, a large number of people is a problem for nature. I really cherish the episode in the film when Andrei Vylko, the keeper of the Seven-Faced Idol, says that the northern islands were sacred to the Nenets. If the relation to The Arctic will be like some sacred, indestructible place, then welcome.

Источник