The high-tech research base in the coldest place on Earth has drawn comparisons to Star Wars

A video of Russia’s revamped, futuristic-looking Vostok Station in Antarctica has gone viral, with its elevated complex drawing comparisons to a sci-fi spaceship and a video game fortress.

Russia’s only operational inland Antarctic research station, Vostok, is around 3,500 meters above sea level and 1,400-1,500 km from the coast, in the planet’s notorious ‘Pole of Cold’. It holds the world record for the lowest directly measured air temperature – a bone-chilling -89.2 C (-128.6 F), recorded on July 21, 1983.

Footage posted on X on Saturday – which shows the station’s exterior painted in blue and the colors of the Russian flag, almost entirely cloaked in snow and frost – received over a million views in just two days before spreading to Instagram and Facebook.

“This place looks like it’s straight out of a sci-fi game! Just imagine: working there at a temperature of -89 C.…