Do desert dwellers dream of wild Yakut horses?
How residents of the northern village of Kuzomen are fighting the encroachment of sand dunes, feral horses, and "wild" tourists.
Sands can be seen from the windows of the houses; the nearest highway is 15 kilometers away, off-road. Stray horses run along the streets, and the wooden crosses of village cemeteries loom over the dunes. This could be a beautiful backdrop for a Tarkovsky film that was never made, but in reality, this is what everyday life looks like in the ancient Pomor village of Kuzomen in the south of the Murmansk region. We explain how a desert emerged in the Far North and what life is like for people there without government support.
Author: Natasha Lozinskaya. Photo by the author.
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"Everyone told us - you are sandmen!"
Lyudmila Bogdanova's weather-beaten wooden house is firmly embedded in the high bank of the Varzuga River. It's the very center of Kuzomen, a village in the Tersky District of the Murmansk Region. 84-year-old Aunt Lyusya has a resonant voice and an equally resonant, infectious laugh.
"When we were growing up here, there was sand everywhere," Aunt Lyusya says. "We didn't have a single blade of grass! They even told us, 'When you spread grass and dry it for the cattle, shake it high so the seeds fly—and maybe some grass will grow.'"
This is how 80 years ago, residents fought the desertification of Kuzomeni on their own. According to old-timers, they only grew potatoes in their gardens because nothing else would grow in the sand.
"Everyone kept telling us, 'You're sandy people! We don't want to join you!' But we thought we were fine. We ran around barefoot everywhere, from May until October—the sand was scorching hot. And there were no mosquitoes," Aunt Lyusya recalls.
Restoring greenery in Kuzomen began back in the 1920s, when the first wild pine trees were planted. This wasn't done for aesthetics, but to stop the movement and spread of sand, which had engulfed vegetable gardens and the river, causing it to dry up. Gradually, protecting the Varzuga River became the primary concern of everyone involved with Kuzomen and the Kuzomen desert.
In the 70s, mass tree plantings began in the village—residents themselves brought tree saplings from the opposite bank of the river and planted them along the streets and in their plots.
"We'd plant a small birch tree, or a rowan tree," Aunt Lyusya recalls. "And that's what everyone did. We'd bring in raspberries, and now they've grown so big over the years that we can't get them out; they just keep climbing."
Kuzomen is now lush with greenery, the riverbank is covered with lush grass, and marigolds are in full bloom in the yards. However, tree saplings have a hard time taking root in the Kuzomen sands.
Since the last century, many agronomists, foresters, and researchers have been working on restoring vegetation and stabilizing the sands around Kuzomen. A key figure in recent years was Gennady Vishnyakov, a district forester and PhD in agricultural sciences who settled in Kuzomen in 1986. Residents say it was thanks to Vishnyakov that the village was repatriated in 2014. installed permanent electricityBefore this, houses were heated with wood, diesel generators, or "sat by oil lamps." Vishnyakov wrote petitions to various authorities, even the president, and ultimately succeeded in getting Kuzomen connected to the power line. But most importantly, he made numerous attempts to restore the forest and stabilize the sand.
In the 2010s, Gennady Vishnyakov, co-authored with dendrologist Leriy Kazakov, wrote the book "Kuzomen Sands at the Beginning of the 21st Century." It notes that "with the collapse of the Soviet Union, centralized funding for reclamation work ceased completely." Since 2015, he has been involved in landscaping on the Kuzomen sands The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) suspended its work in 2019 due to lack of funding, and later left Russia altogether after being declared an undesirable organization. Former director of the WWF Barents branch, Oleg Sutkaitis, says the Kuzomen sands need further stabilization:
"We did everything we could at the time. But this needs to be addressed seriously: constantly maintaining the existing plantings, managing mortality, and replenishing them. This needs to be a genuine sand stabilization program, designed for several years, but right now I don't even know if anyone can continue this work on a serious basis."
Gennady Vishnyakov died in October 2023.
How the "Spruce Cape" turned into sand
Kuzomeni officially has a population of 84, but its permanent population is far fewer. The village can only be reached from the main road running from Umba to Varzuga by foot or by SUV. On the side of the village, battered cars sit forlornly, stuck in the sand, their appearance unknown.
If you ask a lively saleswoman at a local store what's known about the sands around Kuzomen, she'll offer to tell you all the known theories "for a couple of bottles of cognac." According to the official and most widespread theory, the northern desert formed between the river and the shore of the White Sea at the beginning of the last century due to massive deforestation. It's believed that the village's name derives from a fusion of Karelian and Sami words meaning "spruce cape." The "spruce" toponym clearly indicates that Kuzomen once had a forest.
"But there's no confirmation of this," says Elena Zaborshchikova, director of the local club, dismissing the generally accepted opinion. "Most likely, there was a seabed here, because seashells are found at a depth of 6-7 meters in wells. And the name 'Spruce Cape' seems incorrect to me, because pine trees grow along the shore, and spruce wasn't used in construction. In short, even scientists are still debating among themselves."
According to Kazakov and Vishnyakov, the formation of the Kuzomen "desert" can be explained as follows: "vortex currents and strong winds on light sandy soils led to the formation of shifting sands under the influence of overgrazing, logging, and forest fires." They note that similar sand formations are common along the White Sea coast, but not all of them grow to the size of the Kuzomen desert—800 hectares on the right bank of the Varzuga River.
Incidentally, the Kuzomen sands can't really be called a desert. According to Vishnyakov and Kazakov, the total precipitation and humidity here exceed those typical of true deserts, and the summer temperature doesn't rise above 30 degrees Celsius (unlike in true deserts, where daytime temperatures reach 40-45 degrees Celsius).
Although travelers camping in Kuzomeni during the peak summer season may feel as if they are in the Sahara: the day is scorching hot, fueled by the hot sand, and at night the temperature drops sharply below +10.
“The rescue of drowning people is the work of the drowning people themselves”
Starting from the point where the river makes a sharp turn and heads north, a steep sandy bank stretches. It's scary to stand on—you're liable to collapse into the water at any moment. Two Kuzomen bathhouses have already been lost to the river, and residents of the houses along the riverside live in anticipation that the river will one day claim their land and buildings.
“This never happened before. As children, we used to ride down the gentle sandy slope of the shore,” says local resident Lyubov.
According to Vishnyakov, the bank has become steep due to changes in the course and depth of the Varzuga, which is receiving sand from the Kuzomen desert. To prevent landslides, the bank needs to be comprehensively reinforced—not only with greenery but also with engineering structures, and the riverbed needs to be cleared of sand and deepened.
"They're not fortifying the shore at all," Lyubov fumes. "Look at the 'mountains' in the forest beyond Kuzomenya: the money was allocated. They brought the stone there, laundered the money, and that's how it's all been left."
The stones, which outrage all locals no matter who you ask, have been lying in a neat pile in the forest in front of the desert since 2019. Yuri Kalinin, the owner of a private road construction company in Umba, was responsible for the bank stabilization work and personally delivered the stones in his car.
"I quit all my work, hauled this rock over a hundred kilometers, and through sand, no less," Yuri says. "We completed all the work we planned, but we didn't get the money until six months later. And then everything went silent. And about a year later, the Ministry of Natural Resources approached me—they'd decided to reinforce it again. I said, 'No, guys, I've had enough of this!'"
The contractor at the time was the Pechenga local environmental education public organization "Ecocenter." They didn't proceed beyond preparing materials for shore reinforcement. Ecocenter did not respond to a journalist's request for comment.
Almost on the very outskirts of the village, on a steep bank, stands the house of pensioner Viktor Teltsov. He moved to Kuzomen from Kandalaksha 13 years ago because, as an avid fisherman and hunter, he really liked it here. He says the bank wasn't so eroded before.
"We're making our own cribs to secure the bank; I haul stones in my truck. Going to the administration—it's all a waste of time! The deputies show up and say, 'We'll save you all now, just vote for us.' And that's the end of it. A drowning man's salvation depends on the drowning man himself. It's a classic!"
According to Viktor's son, Vitaly, the cribs stood for several years, but were recently washed away by ice drift. "We're losing 3 meters of bank every year. It used to be 30-40 meters from the water, and kids could ride their bikes, but now it's hard to walk," he says.
The Teltsovs' neighbors, who lost their bathhouse, have reinforced the shore with sandbags.
"We spend our summers doing things like piling rocks and hauling sandbags," says club manager Elena Zaborshchikova. "Since 2019, when they started allocating funds, everyone was really hoping this would stop, but five years have passed, and the river is getting closer and closer."
The long sandbanks that grow here and there in the middle of the river are called "corgis" by locals. The corgis grow larger from time to time, and the river becomes increasingly shallower.
In August 2024 years https://www.izakayasushilounge.com Information has emerged in the public procurement system that 58,8 million rubles will be allocated for dredging the Varzuga River, and "the selection of a supplier has been completed." The client was the Ministry of Natural Resources, Environment, and Fisheries of the Murmansk Region. In 2008, the same ministry financed peat digging and the construction of protective structures on the Kuzomen sands, but, as Vishnyakov writes, the work procedures were significantly violated, so these efforts were of little use.
"The humpback salmon are coming again"
With the development of domestic tourism in Russia, Kuzomen has become a kind of "second Teriberka" – a popular hub for travelers to the North. Besides its simple beauty, Kuzomen is a renowned fishing pilgrimage site.
Local resident Lyubov, whose house is on the main street, says:
"What happens here? Pink salmon only come in once every four years—it's a nightmare! Next year we'll be howling! In June, the mouth of the river is absolutely teeming with them, and they'll be packed with people. The pink salmon fishermen will come again and trample everything. Last year, there weren't any pink salmon, but someone posted online that they were there, and people came in droves—a ton! There were people everywhere; the store couldn't keep up with the supplies."
Lyubov complains that not all visitors behave respectfully – many pitch tents on the shore where trees are planted, leaving behind trash: “Somewhere trees are broken, last year they even lit fires and burned part of the plantings.”
Oleg Sutkaitis, who occasionally visits Kuzomen "privately," also speaks out about the negative impact tourism has on the sands:
"The ecosystem in Kuzomen is very fragile, very vulnerable. People come there, bring ATVs, and despite warning signs, ride through the forest, the sand, and even through the plantings. It's great when people can experience northern nature, but it's important that this experience doesn't harm those same natural resources."
Kuzomen isn't prepared for the massive influx of visitors: there are no public toilets (at best, tourists build their own on the seashore), and there are no trash bins. The only thing is that guesthouses are springing up in the village every year like mushrooms after rain. Rates at these hotels start at 4000 rubles per night for a bed in a shared house. Many of the hotel owners are fellow visitors who, having visited Kuzomen once, decided to move here and build a business around tourism.
Dmitry Babenko, tour guide in the Murmansk region and author channel "Resorts of the Kola Region" claims that fishermen and tourists are not the same thing:
"Kuzomen doesn't live off tourism; they live off the fishermen. These are people who come not to fish for sport, but to catch enough fish to sell locally. All salmon fishing here is licensed, and it's all a bit of a gray area; we could even call it light poaching."
Varzuga is inhabited by different species of fish at different times of the year, and a fishing license is required to catch them. Therefore, both recreational and commercial anglers come here during specific fishing seasons. However, local residents—those who have lived here for a long time and can compare the situation with previous years—claim that the Varzuga fish stock has significantly declined due to this "light poaching."
Yuri Agafonov moved to Kuzomen from the Tver region to help his friend, the same Vishnyakov, build a house, and he stayed here.
"There used to be plenty of fish. I cast a rod from the shore a couple of times and caught some," Yuri says, looking out the open window at the Varzuga River spilling below. "I brought some home, fried them, and ate them. There were salmon, pink salmon, perch, roach, brown trout, flounder, and White Sea herring. But now there's nothing. Seals used to swim here, and beluga whales would come here with their calves—it was so beautiful! The last time we saw them was last year."
In addition to poaching, the shallowing of the river mouth has also negatively impacted the fish population, as a result of which fish (as well as seals and beluga whales) have stopped entering the Varzuga.
Wild but cute
Amidst the houses and hotels under construction, against the backdrop of endless sand dunes, restless Yakut horses wander around Kuzomen in search of greenery.
"You know, they act like some kind of thugs! Sometimes they just break down fences with their hooves. If they need to get somewhere, they'll definitely get there," says Elena Zaborshchikova.
A pair of stocky, squat horses with shaggy, long forelocks and manes lazily munch grass, glancing at the door of the village store. Few tourists can resist the temptation to feed the trusting animals from the palm of their hands. Over time, the horses have learned to take food from bags themselves, without waiting for permission. Those who refuse to give them a treat may be kicked or bitten.
Yakut horses were brought to Kuzomen in the 1980s. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the collective farm was reorganized, and the horses became unneeded and gradually became completely feral.
In 2022, unknown people suddenly came from Kuzomeni Three stallions were taken to the Kaluga regionMany villagers did not approve of this because the transportation rules were violated, and one of those stallions, some time later, perishedThe rest of the herd – four adults and a teenage foal – wander around the village and its surroundings.
"We feed them, and the collective farm feeds them too. What can we do?" says local resident Lyubov. "They eat up so many gardens this fall, they're so destructive, but we still feel sorry for them. They've been with us for 30 years, but they never behaved like this before. We don't even have trash bins on the streets because the horses steal everything."
The horses have the hardest time of year in winter—grass is scarce, and winters in the north are freezing. That's why only five horses from the herd remain—the ones that survived.
Elena Zaborshchikova explains that in the fall, horses destroy plots, eat crops, and trample carrots and potatoes. They specifically wait until August, when the nights become dark, to come to people's gardens.
"People go to bed, the lights go out, and that's it, they're gone. Sometimes you just wake up and you have no garden! Even pensioners, grandmothers in their 70s and 80s—for them, it's a complete tragedy."
Not all pensioners share Elena's opinion. Aunt Lyusya stands near her house on the high bank, squinting in the bright sun, adjusting her beret. Leaning on the gate, she waits for the pair of horses that, like fairytale ghosts—wild yet charming—to appear in different parts of the village.
"I sometimes tell them, 'Come with me,' and they follow me right along the footbridge. There aren't many of them left here, many die. One gave birth right here, by my fence, and died in labor. Another horse had to nurse a baby horse back to health, then another."
Two horses—a gray one and a dark bay—are climbing up the path from the river. Aunt Lyusya pulls out a bag of bread and feeds the horses through the fence. The horses snore contentedly. The brown-eyed bay shakes her head, begging for more.
"I just want them either kept in pens and never allowed to leave, or sent to more comfortable living conditions," Elena suggests. "We don't know what will happen next. But the problem isn't being solved."
More than just a landmark
In July 2024, the governor of the Murmansk region, Andrei Chibis, visited Kuzomen. He also looked at the horses.
"He thought it was just a tourist attraction," says Elena Zaborshchikova. "But when he walked through the village and saw horses starting to race, he was horrified."
Chibis is the first regional governor to reach Kuzomeni during his election campaign across the region's towns and villages. On September 8, 2024, he extended his term as governor, receiving nearly 74% of the vote.
"Currently, our governor doesn't see any tourism potential in the Tersky Coast (a long strip of the southern coast of the Kola Peninsula where Kuzomen is located – author's note)," says Dmitry Babenko. "Perhaps if Teriberka finally explodes, or a new governor considers it a priority, the focus will shift. For now, there's no tourism here as such – no food or accommodations, and tourists won't stay in the houses built for fishermen."
In 2018, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment a meeting was held regarding the creation of the Tersky Bereg National Park. The main motivation behind this was the desire to preserve the Varzuga River ecosystem and limit the influx of visitors. But since then, no one has taken up the idea of creating the park.
"Of course, this could be a significant incentive to control tourists," Oleg Sutkaitis comments. He adds that local residents reacted negatively to the "Tersky Bereg" idea, fearing that the restrictions would affect them too.
Over the past decades, the residents of Kuzomen have become accustomed to solving their own problems: they planted trees and grass, began stabilizing the sand, won the right to electricity, and care for their horses.
Perhaps the residents will be able to secure a first aid station and a good access road in the village. The village hasn't had a paramedic since 2012, and although the first aid station building has already been built, it's still not operational. Therefore, it's best not to get sick in Kuzomen: the nearest ambulance is in Umba, 150 km away, and it won't reach Kuzomen—doctors will have to travel through the sandy sand on a local all-terrain vehicle.
Viktor Teltsov waves his hand towards the steep bank at the edge of the site, beyond which the dark, glittering surface of the Varzuga can be seen, and repeats his “classic” phrase:
– A drowning man must save himself. That's all!
