Today, it is difficult to imagine Chukotka as a place where tens of thousands of people once lived and worked in cities that had schools, hospitals, cinemas, apartment buildings and even a nuclear power plant. The region is now one of the least populated parts of Russia, and many of the settlements built during the Soviet period have disappeared. To understand where those towns came from, it is worth going back to the 1950s and 1960s.
Before the large-scale industrial development, life in Chukotka looked very different. Much of the local population depended on reindeer herding, fishing, hunting and marine hunting. Settlements were small, distances were enormous and there were almost no proper roads. In 1930, the Chukotka National Okrug was established, and the Soviet government gradually began searching the region for mineral resources. Gold, tin, tungsten, coal and other deposits turned Chukotka into one of the most important resource-producing areas of the Soviet Far East.
After the war, construction accelerated. During the 1950s and especially the 1960s, mines, processing plants, power stations, transmission lines, airfields and roads appeared across the region. Settlements were built next to deposits, and some eventually grew into towns. Gold mining became one of the main drivers of this expansion. Workers arrived from all over the Soviet Union, geologists and miners first, then builders and engineers as the settlements grew, and eventually electricians, doctors and teachers to keep the towns actually running. Many came quite deliberately because the Far North offered higher earnings through northern bonuses and regional allowances. For some, the plan was to work there for several years, save enough for an apartment, a car or another major purchase, and then return to the mainland. Others stayed for decades.
The population grew remarkably quickly. There were about 47,000 people in Chukotka in 1959, more than 100,000 by 1970, almost 140,000 in 1979 and roughly 164,000 by 1989. At the same time, an entire urban infrastructure appeared in the tundra: apartment buildings and schools first, then hospitals and shops, and eventually clubs and libraries as the towns matured. In 1970, the Orbita satellite station began operating in Bilibino, allowing residents to receive Central Television broadcasts. Four years later, the first reactor of the Bilibino Nuclear Power Plant started operating. It was the first nuclear power plant built beyond the Arctic Circle.
Bilibino was only one example. Iultin grew around a tin and tungsten deposit in one of the most remote parts of Chukotka. Thousands of people lived there, with a school, shops, a club, a canteen and municipal services. Other settlements depended on supplies brought in by aircraft, ships, truck convoys and winter roads. Even something as ordinary as fresh bread depended on a huge logistical system. Fuel, equipment and food had to travel enormous distances simply to keep a small Soviet settlement functioning.
By the late 1970s, Chukotka had developed a surprisingly complete social infrastructure, with dozens of schools, libraries and clubs, plus children's institutions, cinemas, sports facilities and Houses of Culture scattered across its towns. Modern industry existed alongside reindeer herding and traditional marine hunting. The region also had strategic military importance because Chukotka lies directly across the Bering Strait from Alaska. Airfields, border posts and military facilities were built during the Cold War. The result was an unusual combination: outside the window were tundra and permafrost, while inside the settlement there could be central heating, a television, a school, a cinema and an ordinary Soviet apartment.
The system reached its peak in the 1970s and 1980s. By then, mining was connected to a much larger network of energy production, transportation, supply and housing. But maintaining this world was extremely expensive. Almost everything had to be brought in from far away, and the state had to maintain roads, airports, power plants, enterprises and social infrastructure in places where only a few thousand people might live. Many settlements depended almost entirely on a single mine, and as long as that mine worked, the settlement had a reason to exist at all.
After 1991, that system began to collapse. Central funding and supplies were disrupted, enterprises closed or sharply reduced production, and in 1992 tin and tungsten mining in Chukotka came to an end. For settlements built around those deposits, the consequences were severe. When a mine closed, the main employer disappeared, and with it went the shop, the canteen, the heating system, transport and most of what had made the settlement livable in the first place. Iultin eventually became completely deserted and was removed from the list of settlements in 1998. There were many similar stories across Chukotka.
People began leaving for the mainland. From roughly 164,000 residents at the end of the Soviet period, the population fell to around 54,000 by the beginning of the 2000s. Apartment blocks in small settlements emptied, schools and enterprises closed, and places that had taken decades to build could disappear within just a few years. The problem was not simply that factories had closed. The economic model that had made it possible to maintain expensive infrastructure in such remote locations had disappeared as well.
Today, Chukotka has around 48,000 residents. Most of the population is concentrated in a small number of towns and settlements, while the economy is again heavily connected with mineral extraction. Gold and silver mining remain important, alongside coal and gas, while fishing, reindeer herding and traditional activities continue as well. Chukotka did not disappear, and it is not one enormous ghost region. Its scale simply became very different from what it had been during the final decades of the Soviet Union.
The Soviet development of Chukotka was an attempt to create an industrial and urban world in a place where nature made every kilometer of road, every kilowatt of electricity and every shipment of food unusually expensive. Cities were built in the tundra, a nuclear power plant was launched beyond the Arctic Circle, roads and airfields were constructed, and people arrived from across the Soviet Union to work there. Some of that world survived the collapse of the USSR. Some settlements lasted only as long as the nearby mine remained open.
Today, the abandoned towns are perhaps the clearest reminder of what happened, showing just how far the Soviet state was willing to extend ordinary urban life into one of the most remote environments on Earth, and how quickly that life could disappear once the system supporting it was gone.
