Pustozersk museum

nenets autonomous okrug

Pustozersk museum

Vanished town that lies beyond the horizon line

Pustozersk used to be the international trading hub back in 16th century and the northern Russia outpost in Arctic. Beside that it was an outpost of Russia for a long period of time and even some freethinking persons, like famous protopope Avvakum, found an end in this cold and unforgiving place. Not to mention, cursed everything connected with it in the process.

Time went by and in 20th century, the river Pechora totaly lost its navigating purpose for maritime traffic, so last residents left the place, and their wooden homes were taken to the Naryan-Mar, the only capital town of the region. Pustozersk became a tourist place of imagination. Seriously, there is almost nothing left there, so most of the time, you have to keep the image of the once great place in your head. We had been asked to think of how to make Pustozersk great again.

Client: NAO Museum Association

Work: Branding, design, map design

2018 … 2020

A holy place is never empty. Pustozersk is the very important project for me and Natalia. It's like the essence of NAO, that learns to appreciate the minimalism.

Igor Makovsky

ART DIRECTION, DESIGNER

Pustozersk logo stands for rising sun upon the horizon line where the town used to be

Brand capital

What's inside

First Russia town in Arctic
International town, can be found on maps 16, 17, 18 centuries
The lost town in Arctic, like Pompeii
Place of the burning of Archpriest Avvakum
Here was written Avvakum's hagiography
Many prisoners had been kept here
Books say, people lived long here, more than 100 years
Can be called the european city of 19 century
Has special Pustozersk cousine
Wind that blows away all unnecessary

Insights

What people say

Become yourself
Resetting
Retreat
Want to stop time
Winds blew away all unnecessary

Results

What we have

Town of a great history that lies beyond the feet
No disturbing visuals, no noisy streets, no town
The town that both takes away and gives
Meet tundra, sands, wind, snow and your imagination

Task

What to do

Tell about Pustozersk
Find partners for promotion of Pustozersk
Actualize Pustozersk museum

People commonly persive the word "Pustozersk" like the word "pusto", which can be roughly translated to "empty". We had to show people, that the place might look minimalistic, yet it has a great history behind.

Natalia Rybalchenko

BRAND STRATEGIST

Expedition

Together with tourism experts and historicans we had been going on a one-day trip to Pustozersk outpost in the middle of september. We never thought tundra could be so wonderful and colorful like that day. It inspired us for the whole Pustozersk project from now on.

Slogan

We got a scalable and flexible idea that can be used for expanding the association and for communication needs: it sounds succinctly enough for NAO. Horizon is the only thing you see when you get to Pustozersk town. Actually, there were little amount of towns we knew, that could show you such a wonderful landmark, not to speak about the absolute lack of light pollution.

Line of horizon

We placed you see in Pustozersk right on the horizon line. Something still stands, while others, sadly, lie beyond.

Notebook we released where you could follow the horizon line with Pustozersk sights

Logo

There is a set of a pair of logos: some are more sunny and abstract, the other two are more common with the view of a Pustozersk outpost. The second one is more common for the visitors and looks like the last logo museum had been using.

Essence of Pustozersk — the sun, rising upon the horizont

Pustozersk maps

The most useful of all the things we made were the maps, as usual. They're widespread among tourists and has all the information you need to know on how to get to this remote territory. So they made the life of museum staff much more easier.

Pustozersk map as of today

Pustozersk map as of long-long time ago

We liked this design so much, that we use it in designing all the important things, like these three boards right next to the entrance.

Three billboards outside Pustozersk, NAO

Patterns

Two patterns resemble two epochs of Pustozersk life — the past days (red) and the current (blue). These patterns are used for merch mostly.

Illustrations

Set of ascetic illustrations depicting the horizon line concept were made for using in merch. Their first appearance was noted for audio playlists, though.

Pustozersk map as of long-long time ago

Finding a hotel and restaurant partner

Our best achievement is finding a partner among Naryan-Mar entrepreneurs. That was a hotel "Frigate & Natalie" that soonly after had been renamed to "Frigate to Pustozersk". That was a long and pretty successful work, read about it here.

Frigate in Pustozersk in all its beauty

Pustozersk in life

Museum is a very dynamic client, who always needs new ideas and are craving for new activities. That's why we can notice, that the museum brand always moves forward. That's nice to see that our brand can handle all the transformation and update successfully.

Line of horizon concept made it much easier to work with promotion and creating new activities for Pustozersk. In a few words, it became much more simple to describe tourists why would it be useful for them to spend a whole day in the trip to the Pustozersk outpost. Finding a partner among local business helped to put guests in a special hotel and throw delicious evenings with Pustozersk-styled cousine.