Under Stalin’s rule, the Gulag labour camps were built in northern Russia to exile political opponents and industrialize the Arctic. Yet after the death of the dictator, many inhabitants stayed and continue to live there to this day, in spite of the unrelenting climate. Ksenia Okhapkina looks at the strict order governing everyday life in one of these small industrial towns. With artful compositions and a minimum of dialogue, her award-winning essay uncovers the mechanisms of indoctrination, subtly capturing the pervasiveness of ideology in the most benign-looking situations. Whether at ballet class or in cadet school, girls and boys learn about discipline and patriotism, slowly being moulded into resources to be used by the state. The prison gates opened many decades ago, but can citizens ever be free in a system that takes control of their mindset from an early age, generation after generation? Charlotte Selb

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