Nikolay Bem

The film shows the town situated in the permafrost zone – Mirny (Sakha / Yakutia). In a few years, its fate will be decided. Mirny is situated on the verge of a giant crater –open-air mining of diamonds formerly, one of the world’s biggest, - symbolizing a kind of a human victory upon the nature. Although despite its impressive beauty and size, at the same time it represents the main problem of the town and the main jobplace of its inhabitants. In 2017, there happened a serious accident with several deaths that resulted in the closure of the mine. Since then townspeople and authorities try to find a solution – what to do with the pit? Because there’s still a danger of a giant landslide that could swallow up the town in its whole.Sometime ago Nikolay Lutomsky, a renowned architect from Moscow, conceived a new idea of creating a new type of city – the city of the future “ECOGOROD 2020” (“ECOTOWN 2020”) that would be situated as per the architect’s concept inside the pit. Concrete walls and the new city’s foundation will hold the soil and prevent landslides. The main innovative idea of the project’s author is that the new city will use for heating the warmth of the lower strata of the earth, which will reduce big expenses for heating needed in this area (and used now). This is the solution ensuring the profitability of the project.For the moment, the two possible directions of the future development of the town are completely contradictory – either it will disappear, or it will become one of the most modern cities of the planet. The remoteness of the town from the other populated areas, extreme climate, dependence on the monopolist state corporation – all of it influence the unique character of this place and create a style of social life reminding some fabulous stories of extraterrestrial experiences.