From a mine to a nuclear icebreaker: 10 PHOTOS of hard labor

Photographer Slava Stepanov traveled from the remote Arctic village of Tiksi to the pink lakes of Altai, capturing the people who create, with their own hands, light, heat and metal for this vast country.

1. ‘RES’ is the main electric grid enterprise of Novosibirsk Region.  

Slava Stepanov
Slava Stepanov

2. Barentsburg Mine. The world's northernmost coal mine.  

Slava Stepanov
Slava Stepanov

3. Tiksi, an airport beyond the Arctic Circle.  

Slava Stepanov
Slava Stepanov

4. Nazarovsky Coal Mine, Krasnoyarsk Krai.  

Slava Stepanov
Slava Stepanov

5. Bursol, Altai Krai. Salt mining in a pink lake.  

Slava Stepanov
Slava Stepanov

6. Chayanda (oil and gas condensate) field in Yakutia.  

Slava Stepanov
Slava Stepanov

7. ‘Amurstal’, a metallurgical plant in Komsomolsk-on-Amur.  

Slava Stepanov
Slava Stepanov

8. The nuclear icebreaker ‘Sibir’ plowing the northern seas.  

Slava Stepanov
Slava Stepanov

9. ‘Metrovagonmash’, a subway train factory,Moscow Region.  

Slava Stepanov
Slava Stepanov

10. Construction of an MS-21 aircraft in Irkutsk. 

Slava Stepanov
Slava Stepanov