These mesmerising snaps of Norway's tiny remote town of Longyearbyen make it look like something out of a story book.
But the quaint mining community has one rather bizarre rule - no one is allowed to die here.
Officials in the remote Svalbard islands have declared that terminally-ill residents have to be taken hundreds of miles south to the mainland for their final days - because bodies do not rot due to the extreme cold.
Russian photographer Maria Sahai caught these incredible pictures of the area as she travelled around the world's northernmost settlements with her husband Karim.
Located just 800 miles from the North Pole, Longyearbyen is the administrative center of Norway's Svalbard Archipelago
Surrounded by the Arctic Ocean, in a land where the sun doesn't rise for months and the colorful Northern Lights dance across the sky, it's a settlement surprisingly filled with life
From scientists and doctors to coal miners and artists, the small, close-knit population has created a thriving community to help one another through the harsh conditions of their environment
The photographer behind the snaps, Maria Sahai, grew up on the shores of Sea of Okhotsk, and from childhood has been fascinated by the existence of remote villages in the Arctic
Since 2013 Sahai and her husband Karim have spent time in the world's northernmost settlement creating a powerful reportage about what it means to live in this remote area of the world
Sahai's long-term project is a fascinating reportage that documents life in this remote area
The average temperature at this time of year is around -17C, but it can drop far lower than that (Pictured are wild reindeer foraging for food on the island of Spitsbergen)
The town hit the headlines last month after the its bizarre rules around death were publicised to the world
Recent tests on 11 bodies buried in Longyearbyen revealed that Spanish flu is still found in their bodies
They were buried in 1918 during the worldwide pandemic, which claimed the lives of between 50 million and 100 million
As corpses do not decompose, the diseases people die from do not go away raising fears Spanish Flu could be passed on to anyone who came into contact with the bodies
A Blue Planet II image of a Walrus mother and pup resting on an iceberg in Svalbard
Reviewed by Your Destination
on
March 10, 2018
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