Instagram Influencers Are Flocking to This Polluted Dump Site to Take Photos

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Красивое озеро, жаль, что химическое)

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Some people will do anything to take the perfect Instagram photo–and that includes traveling to a polluted waste site. According to the Moscow Times, Instagram influencers are taking photos at a bright blue pond in Novosibirsk, Russia, to capture the perfect beach image. Named the “Novosibirsk Maldives,” the body of water attributes its stunning shade of blue to waste from a nearby coal plant. The Russian Maldives is so popular that it has its own Instagram page.

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The Siberian Generating Company owns the power plant and says the water is not poisonous but cautions people from swimming.

In a post on the Russian social media site VK.com, the company explains that calcium salts and other metal oxides gives the water a bright blue color.

“If it were not for the combination of these reasons, there would be no such visual effect,” they write.

The post explains that the dump isn’t toxic, but you shouldn’t exactly be hanging around either.

“The dump is NOT poisonous: blue gulls do not fly there, and plants do not die. The radiation background is normal there: two INDEPENDENT laboratories concluded this. But you can not swim in the ash dump. The water in it has a high alkaline environment. This is due to the fact that calcium salts and other metal oxides are dissolved in it. Skin contact with such water may cause an allergic reaction!”

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Still, people are flocking to the site to get that perfect IG photo. Thankfully, people don’t seem to be going for swims, according to the photos on Instagram.

One local woman, Irina, visited the site but told Mashable she would never, ever go for a swim in the water.

“The whole periodic table is in [there],” she said.

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