In 1937, buildings were razed to the ground and most of the townspeople were murdered. During the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s, Belchite became the site of one of the most brutal battles of the conflict. Filled with exquisite churches and a lively square, this town has been reduced to bombed out remnants of buildings and hollow facades. Hiding in the northeast corner of Spain approximately 40 kilometers from Zaragosa, Belchite was once a beautiful medieval village. From the desolate reaches of the Arctic Circle to the arid Spanish plains, here are five ghost towns worth a visit. However, there are plenty of places waiting to show you their secrets. In Europe, well-known ghost towns include Pripyat, Ukraine (of Chernobyl infamy) and Pompeii, Italy (of Mt. Ghost towns offer something special – a captivating historical account of a place once filled with bustling businesses, families and life which often times, tragically, cease to exist. "It's a very peaceful, harmonious place," he says.Every town, village and city has a story. Pavel Arkharov, the 26-year-old photography student who helps Sasha welcome the tourists when they disembark, says he doesn't find the deserted town depressing. #Glimpses soviet ghost town norwegian isle generator#This summer eight Russians were employed at Pyramiden to look after the hotel, the electric generator and the coal-fired water system, as well as two guides. In 2007, one of the empty buildings was reconverted into a hotel featuring 24 rooms and lots of woodwork and vodka. With more and more tourists visiting Spitzberg over the last few years, time-warped Pyramiden has become a popular curiosity in the Arctic Circle world of mountains, fjords and glaciers. Now in the harsh winter months when the sun fails to rise, even Sasha leaves.īut in March he happily returns. In 1998, the company announced its closure and the city was abandoned by its residents. Upstairs a few children's books have been left in the library while in another smaller room a piano, drum-kit and accordion are accumulating dust.īut the 90s were killer years for Pyramiden with the Soviet Union starting to come apart at the seams, the mine becoming less profitable and Moscow unable at times to pay the wages. The 300-seat cinema almost looks as if it were used yesterday, as does the basketball court, still clearly outlined. Giving a glimpse of life as it typically was in the Soviet Union is a bust of Lenin placed outside the sports and cultural centre.īlack-and-white photos of football and hockey matches and chess tournaments hang in the entrance hall, taking visitors back in time. Some 1,200 Russians then lived in Pyramiden, which boasted several four-storey buildings, a hospital, schools, a football ground, and even a farm with cows and chickens. Sasha, working his fourth season here hundreds of kilometres north of the Arctic Circle, says the residents thrived in the 70s and 80s before the USSR began to unravel. The rails used by the funicular to ferry miners up to the entrance on the mountain face, and by trailers to haul the coal down, are still visible, while the wharf remains littered with ageing piles of bricks, gravel and rusted metal parts. so mining really began in earnest in 1956," in the Cold War years when Nikita Khrushchev ran the Soviet empire, he added. "The first settlers came in 1936 but were evacuated by British forces at the beginning of the Second World War. The Soviets bought the then-small coalmine in 1927 from Swedes, says the guardian whose hammer-and-sickle engraved chapka smacks of the now defunct Communist-era USSR. "We haven't seen one since May but you never know," says the 33-year-old. Why is he armed? In case of polar bears, until recently the town's only inhabitants, he tells the group.
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