As a curious little girl growing up in Tiksi, a small Russian town on the Arctic coast, Evgenia Arbugaeva’s window to the rest of the world was television. She couldn’t get enough of the wildlife programs that flickered across her screen, and watching explorer Jacques Cousteau became her inspiration. Her dreams were filled with journeys to Asia and Africa.

As she grew up, her natural creativity and her thirst for adventure began to find a home in photography, which she studied for a short time in New York City. Her time away, however, drew her not to the African savanna or the Ganges of her childhood fantasies but instead back to the far north, where she now uses a camera