Frozen assets: Sergey Maximishin’s captivating photos of Siberia

Siberia is known as one of the coldest and most inhospitable places on earth. In this series of images, photojournalist Sergey Maximishin, who has twice won the World Press Photo Award, provides a lyrical insight into the lives of inhabitants of this mysterious land. While his photos portray the region’s extreme weather conditions and the sense of bleakness that comes with such icy temperatures, they also challenge some of the stereotypes associated with Siberia. The territory, which spans nine timezones, may be desolate but its culture is rich and complex.

We see a woman selling frozen fish at a night-time market; we see children playing on vast expanses of icy land or abandoned playgrounds; and we see men bathing in the winter sea. All of this is contrasted with images of men at work in the glowing furnaces of metallurgical plants. The photos, taken between 2002 and 2010, cover the vast expanse of Asian Russia, including key cities such as Yekaterinburg, Magnitogorsk and Vladivostok. Maximishin even braved the Oymyakon Valley, in the northeastern corner of Siberia, the coldest inhabited place on the planet. A selection of his photos was published in Siberia: In the Eyes of Russian Photographers, released in late 2013.