Lorino Hot Springs: Soviet Experience of Land Development and Unutilized Opportunities in Chukotka

Abstract

Drawing on archival materials, local periodicals, photographs from the Soviet period, as well as field materials collected in 2023–2025, I examine the principal goals and reasons for the development of the Lorino Hot Springs area in the Chukotskii district of the Chukotka Autonomous Region over a period since the mid-1930s. I argue that the infrastructure built around the thermal springs came to be beneficial in the fields of food and energy security, agriculture and greenhouses, recreation and tourism (a pioneer camp, a sanatorium and a hotel were located in the immediate vicinity of the village). I further discuss various Soviet projects (for example, that of hot water supply for the village of Lorino), which were envisaged but never implemented, as well as the current state and meaning of the hot springs area in the life of the local community.