A photographer spotted polar bears that had taken over Abandoned buildings.

A Russian photographer has taken a captivating set of pictures displaying polar bears living in the deserted structures of a weather station on an island located between Russia and Alaska.

In September 2021, Dmitry Kokh went on a trip through the islands in the Chukchi Sea, an Arctic Ocean inlet that lies between Russia and Alaska.

Kokh writes about a far and remote part of the Russian Arctic that is not easy to reach but impossible to forget. They sailed their yacht 1,200 miles along the coast and experienced untouched scenery, forgotten villages, various wildlife, and seas full of life.

Unique photos of polar bears that you will only see once in a lifetime.

Kokh went on a trip to take photos of polar bears. He planned to visit Wrangel Island, which is well-known for having a lot of polar bears. Unfortunately, the island was empty of polar bears in 2021 because of the extremely cold summer.

Kokh says that when they passed near the northern coast of Chukotka on Kolyuchin Island, they noticed some activity in some windows of an abandoned building. When they got closer, they saw that it was a bunch of bears!

The photographer claims that polar bears have never been seen inside the old weather station on the island. It was built in the 1930s and left in the early 1990s.

Kokh took close-up pictures of polar bears in and near some old buildings. The bears sometimes looked out the windows at Kokh when they saw him.

Kolyuchin Island used to be a paradise for polar bears, but now it is empty and deserted.

Kolyuchin Island is located 6.8 miles (11km) north of Russia’s Chukotka Peninsula. It is a tiny tundra-covered island that is 2.8 miles (4.5km) long and 0.93 miles (1.5km) wide.

About nine months out of the year, the sea around Kolyuchin Island is frozen. There are no homes or people living on the island today, however archaeologists have found signs that it was inhabited 1,500 years ago.

In 1934, scientists from the Soviet Union constructed a station of the Northern Sea Route on this island, which operated until 1992. Afterward, the island was left vacant.

Kokh’s photo of a polar bear leaning out of a broken window won the “Best Image of Wildlife in an Anthropogenic Environment” prize at a 2021 photography contest run by National Geographic.

The polar bears on the island are now enjoying having all the land and old settlements to themselves.