MOSCOW, October 2. /TASS Correspondent Nikolay Kochetkov/. Andrey Zvyagintsev's film Leviathan was released in 2014. It is about how a Russian from a far-away settlement fights officials. The film, rich in views of a village on the edge of nowhere with run-down Soviet heritage, was a notable event, and Teriberka, where the film was shot, became known across the globe. It is a pristine northern, wild, harsh and lost-in-time village on the Barents Sea with sandy and stone beaches, inaccessible cliffs and breathtaking views.
The back of beyond
Getting to Teriberka is not easier than it was 10 years ago. The village is just 120 km from Murmansk, but traveling to the Barents Sea may be a real challenge, especially in winter, when snow hides roads in a matter of hours. Every year, dozens of cars get stuck in the snow struggling to drive to Teriberka. In 2013, Zvyagintsev's team went to shoot the film to that back of beyond, to where nobody would want to travel, and returning from where would be a challenge.
"In the early 2000s, when I worked with television, I came to shoot Teriberka. The amount of litter there was fantastic, it was everywhere. Huge mountains of empty crab claws. People used to throw waste into the street right from windows. The place was very expressive - a true back of beyond," said Svetlana Soldatova, running the Murmansk Region's Film Production Support Center. "We know other films that made different territories recognizable, but Leviathan is probably one of the best. It has everything: it was an answer to the request of that time, and Teriberka became a symbol, on one hand, of incredible northern beauty, and, on the other, - of the struggle a little man leads for his rights. People started visiting the village to see whether everything shown in the film was true."
Teriberka is a settlement in the Murmansk Region's Kola District. Its history goes back to the 18th century. In the early 20th century, the village was known for cod and shark fishing, mostly by Norwegians who had their trading post and shop there. In the late 1920s, the first Soviet collective farm was organized, and 10 years later the village's left-bank part - Lodeynoye - developed ship repair shops and a fish processing plant. The decline began in the 1960s when the administrative center moved to the city of Severomorsk. The fish factory and the collective farm, along with a fur farm, were closed.
"Zvyagintsev showed on the screen what he saw in Teriberka. Back in the 2010s, there were no hotels, no accommodation. Just the locals, some of them were even marginalized at times. The crew had to bring catering from Moscow. Nowadays, of course, everything in Teriberka is different. It has emerged into an interesting conglomerate of some shabby Soviet past and of modern trends. Quite a respectable place, a little wild, because it is still being upgraded, but anyway there's a clear huge step towards people who want to see the Arctic with their own eyes," Soldatova said.
Teriberka's new life
The curiosity to see an ancient village on the Barents Sea has brought Irina Rybina, an office staff from the Russian capital, so far that she changed the booming Moscow life for Teriberka's ascetic silence. She bought an apartment and moved to the village. Two-room apartments in the end of nowhere cost an arm and a let. Prices are quite comparable with housing costs in central Russia.
"I've bought an apartment for 5 million rubles ($54,000). By local standards, I must have been stupid, because all the young people here dream of moving to St. Petersburg or at least to Murmansk. As for me, after so many years of rush and traffic jams, I've gained what I wanted - absolute peace and unity with nature," she said.
Irina visited Teriberka for the first time in 2020, when the pandemic hit the world and stopped traveling abroad. By that time, Zvyagintsev's film was almost forgotten, yet it was an impetus for the village development.
"Sure, I've seen Leviathan. It was after the film (was released), that madly scenic pictures from Teriberka were appearing on social networks. We decided to go see everything, but couldn't figure out how to get there from Murmansk, because the bus ran only every other day, transfer or car rental were expensive, and I took a different option, which predetermined my future life," she recalled.
To get to Teriberka, Irina bought a car, changing an office chair for a car seat. She still lived in Moscow, every year spending a few months by the Barents Sea.
"At a certain point, I decided to stay where my soul was. I sold all the cars and now I serve transfers in the Murmansk Region, including trips to Teriberka, and I plan to become a tourist guide," she said.
The number of people wishing to see the Kola Arctic's beauty is growing from year to year. According to official data, the number of visitors to the region has more than doubled since 2015 - to 669,000. An average check and the money tourists spend on food, accommodation and sightseeing have increased accordingly.
In 2023, it was almost 15 billion rubles ($161 million). "Apparently, every year, more and more people are coming. Right now, every third apartment in Teriberka is rented. Some people from other regions would buy real estate to invest money, and some people in the village have realized they may lend apartments and leave. Nowadays, a lot of neighbors know nothing about each other," Irina smiled.
A film setting in the middle of nowhere
Filmmakers have become fans of Teriberka. Leviathan has opened the route for many filmmakers who believed it was expensive and troublesome to make films anywhere further than in Moscow or St. Petersburg. "It was terra incognita, but Zvyagintsev has proved films can be made anywhere. Professionals were also attracted by techniques that can be performed in the North only. For example, the soft diffused light and long shadows at a polar-day night when the sun would not set. Cinematographers have realized they may shoot anything here - from dramas and fantasy to music videos and commercials," Svetlana said.
Over recent four years, the Murmansk Region has been a developing actively film production region: the authorities have created a support center, started training professionals, and introduced a rebate system (where the region's budget reimburses for part of production costs). As many as 89 films have been shot, and the companies' costs have reached 170 million rubles ($1.8 million), to leave alone music videos and commercials.
"This year, six teams have shot commercials for big Russian brands. For shorts, the Teriberka is just paradise. A ready-made pavilion, where nature has done everything to test human strength. A lot more film and video content has been shot in the Murmansk Region, but the most important change is that many more locals have been involved in this industry. In one of the last full-length feature films, shot in Teriberka, about 30% of cast on the set were residents of the Murmansk Region," she stressed.
Nowadays, Teriberka remains harsh, though no longer lost in time. Having become, in fact, a Mecca for tourists from all over the world and the most popular film set in the Arctic, the village is gaining new life, being an example to other remote settlements in the Russian North.
Hotels, restaurants, tourist routes have appeared there. Teriberka's attractions are the nature and inaccessibility. The cinematic image is different from real life and cannot leave unmoved any visitor. The place is growing into something very dear.
As of early 2024, only 522 people lived in the village, but numbers of people wishing to see Teriberka and even to move there from big cities are only growing. No wonder, the locals say, recalling a common phrase, which was also mentioned in Leviathan: Moscow is a big though very cramped city.