What’s it like to grow up underneath the aurora borealis, on the shores of the Arctic Ocean? Photographer Evgenia Arbugaeva describes leaving—and returning to—Tiksi, a Siberian coastal town that during her childhood slowly became a ghost town in the wake of the Soviet collapse. That experience led her to find beauty in unexpected places—riding reindeer with nomadic herders and watching Arctic storms in isolated weather stations.

For more information on this episode, visit natgeo.com/overheard.

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See Evgenia’s photos in National Geographic, which include stories of the lucrative “tusk rush” on woolly mammoth bones that have emerged from Russian permafrost as well as the murky world of butterfly trading in Indonesia.

Evgenia’s lens also focuses on the wild whimsy of her frigid hometown, Tiksi. See more photos on Instagram @evgenia_arbugaeva and @natgeo.

Also explore:

Learn how a gigantic offshore oil rig could radically alter the Arctic environment.

Listen to a Nat Geo photographer explain in a previous Overheard episode how climate change’s impact on the Arctic is threatening the way of life for Alaskan Natives.  

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