The Snow Village is a unique complex in more ways than one. Built entirely out of snow and ice, it has been erected every winter for nine years straight in the vicinity of Kirovsk, a city located next to the Khibiny Mountains in Russia’s Murmansk Region in the Arctic Circle, adjacent to northern Scandinavia.
Building such a large-scale compound (it totals about 25,800 square feet) out of artificial snow and ice is no mean feat, and this year’s relatively warm winter made the builders’ work even more difficult. Nevertheless, these men and women proved to be up for the job.
Each year the architects of the Snow Village chose a different theme for their creation, and this time it’s 'Russia as a Brand'.
Approximately 18,000 people visited the Snow Village last year. As head of the Snow Village tourist center, Vladimir Komyagin told RIA Novosti that this year the number of visitors is expected to be "record-breaking".
Interestingly enough, the Snow Village’s growing fame may create additional problems for the service staff as an influx of visitors causes the temperature inside the snow buildings to rise.
"We’re monitoring the situation and are trying to determine our maximum capacity. We receive about 1,500 visitors a day, tops; any more than that and servicing (the buildings) becomes problematic. Sometimes I want to ask the locals not to visit the Snow Village during the New Year’s Eve holidays so that people from more distant regions could visit it," Komyagin joked.
