At a distance, Teriberka offers breathtaking views of rolling hills and the Barents sea untouched by the contradictions of Russia’s market economy. The nearer the approach, the more all appears abandoned and in various stages of decay. Old houses and what appear as schools and offices are rotting while occupied homes are in latter stages of deterioration: walls and roofs caving in exposing internal structures of buildings like bones of a carcass. A dock lies littered with skeletons of sunken ships. Amidst welcoming remarks by Teriberka mayor Valeri Yarantsev and windy ditch-filled dirt roads alongside a string of ghost houses, the town appeared tragic and poetic, like a modern-day Hollywood movie set such as the thriller Shutter Island with megastar Leonardo DiCaprio. Teriberka resides on the edge of modernity while aiming to be a twenty-first century off-loading site for the postponed Shtokman natural gas field. It is located along the Barents Sea with a history as a fishing village spanning hundreds of years.