Polar Bears Take Over Remote Abandoned Soviet Union Research Station

A group of polar bears has turned an abandoned research station into a home.

On Kolyuchin Island, about seven miles off the coast of the Chukotka Peninsula in Russia, a former Soviet Union research station has stood empty since the USSR fell in the 1990s, per CBS News and The Associated Press. Or so it was thought. Photographer Vadim Makhorov captured drone footage of several polar bears wandering in and out of the facility, treating the station’s buildings like their own bear suburb.

Makhorov was on a ship filming Kolyuchin Island while traveling to Wrangel Island in mid-September, when he spotted the bears and started the drone footage. He recently shared the extraordinary videos and photos he captured from the footage in a Facebook post.

“Polar bears love to occupy houses,” Makhorov wrote in the post’s caption. “This happens not only in Kolyuchin. Any polar base with open doors runs the risk of acquiring new furry inhabitants.”

Nearby the research station is a walrus rookery, Makhorov added: “What an interesting neighborhood!”

Clips from Makhorov’s drone footage, shared on Instagram, show a polar bear basking in the sunlight inside the doorway of a home, as well as other bears resting on porches and looking out windows. Aside from the occasional swipe at the drone, the bears in the footage seem unbothered and comfortable in their reclaimed surroundings.

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The photographer shared another clip of the polar bears and highlighted the effects of the area’s warming climate in the caption. The lack of ice is likely what drew the polar bears together, he wrote. Usually solitary animals, polar bears congregate to hide and search for food. When the ice settles again, the large group at the research station is likely to disperse, he added.

In one of Makhorov’s Instagram posts, he shared a snap of a polar bear in the middle of a huge yawn, plus a few more photos of the bears getting sleepy at dusk.

“Polar bears are extremely dangerous predators, but why do they look so cute and friendly in photos?” Makhorov mused.