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Ice-sculpturing decorated Arkhangelsk

Sparkling ice sculptures decorated the central square of Arkhangelsk, as the best sculptors of Arkhangelsk and St. Petersburg showed their skills in a recent festival competition. See our photo slide show of the sculptures.

Location

“Be blessed, the route to Arctic” was the topic for the eleven professional sculptors who was asked to interpret this theme at the Arkhangelsk festival.

- My work reflects the essence of human-nature relationship in the Arctic, within which a man is showing his best qualities facing the nature, said Victor Shaveryn from St Peterburg while showing his composition called “Tenderness”.

It portrays a reindeer bending to a child, protecting him from the arctic wind.

Difficult material
According to the sculptors, ice is one of the most difficult materials to work with, but this is not the only difficulty they had to face. Unusually warm weather in December made the building process harder. The sculptors hope that the upcoming frosts will allow the citizens to enjoy the ice beauty as long as possible.

The first place in the competition took a citizen of Arkhangelsk Rashid Sagadeev with “Arctic diligence”. which is a carved image of the Arctic Circle. The second place was taken by Konstantin Selsky with his contribution “The Polar star”, while Sergey Potashev and Denis Makarov won the third place with their “Arctic gambit” which is an ice chess board.

Ice Cathedral
The other participants in the competition were Dmitry Glebezdov and Victor Gogolin with their sculpture “Polar guard” – an image of the polar ice host – a polar bear. Aleksey Ivontsin participated with the composition “Through the polar ice”, Denis Kovaltsov with his sculpture “A Chukchi waiting for the dawn near a tent”, and Michael Kostrov and Viktor Seryhin with their “Arctic Waltz”.

Konstantin Selsky was also the architect of the Ice Cathedral – the main symbol of the festival. The Assumption Cathedral, situated on the embankment was taken as a prototype. The building material was collected in advance. The sculptors needed about 700 ice blocks, each of which weighs around 100 kg. As a result there appeared a marvelous cathedral, which in the opening day became multicolored with the help of laser lights.

Text: Ksenia Kipurova