Chef Sergei Annaev serves as a Sodexo chef at the Kupol Gold Mine in the Chukotka region of Russia, situated north of the Arctic Circle just across the Bering Sea from Alaska. He manages daily kitchen operations and oversees food preparation for this remote location, where food and supplies need to be trucked or flown in from hundreds of miles afield.

Chef Annaev is from Turkmenistan, where he trained as a chef and pastry chef. Specializing in corporate food service in the Siberian city of Irkutsk, he’s developed menus and prepared hundreds of daily meals for catering and large-scale sites, focusing on bringing European cuisine to Russian venues.