Ural stalemate

A settlement Horpia in the remote part of the Sverdlovsk region is commonly called the Ural stalemate by people. One of the Gulag camps — Ivdellag — was located in this area once.

After the breakup of the USSR the colony was closed and people began to leave this place, and the thousand settlement began to fall into a decline.

Only 27 inhabitants, pensioners remain in the settlement There is no cell communication, and the settlement lives without the electricity for half a year.

Winter is severe in Horpia — -40°C. Wood stove is the main kind of heating in the settlement. Now the abandoned neighbour houses are used as the firewood.

As local people say: «The zones died together with the Soviet state, which bred them».