Pyramiden: De-mining town to ghost town

As if an unforeseen catastrophe had occurred instantaneously, the small town of Pyramiden still has signs of human activity that took place there for a few years.

DSC2545   by Jerrold  

Pyramiden has nothing to do with a pyramid and less of Egypt. This is located in the archipelago of Svalbard in the cold Norway. However, this area belonged to the former Soviet Union in 1927. It began as founded by the Swedes in 1910, then become a major coal mining center. The island is home to the abandoned city is named Spitsbergen and is just 620 miles from the North Pole.

DSC2399 by Jerrold  

The history of this ghost town is usually very similar to other mining camps. Once the appeal is over, employers and employees retire, leaving their buildings and memories intact in the eyes confused and nostalgic visitors. The hasty departure of its inhabitants remains as tangible footprint in every corner of the city, where you can still see the highly ordered glasses in bars, intact books in the library and children's drawings adorn the walls of their school .

Pyramiden was built as an ideal village, where they lacked the necessary infrastructure and institutions. It was for others, a self-sufficient village based on the social model of the now defunct Soviet Union.

DSC2464 by Jerrold

The food was free, and the village had a greenhouse where they grew their vegetables and also available with large livestock farms. The sports and entertainment complex were also present. If life disappeared elsewhere in the world, Pyramiden not notice and could have continued with their lives and developing normally.

The only people responsible for extracting coal and nothing else. However, this does not last forever. On 10 January 1998, the Soviet company owner Arktikugol Trust, decided that the project went no further and that they should leave town immediately. And so it happened, the notice was given only a couple of hours notice, and residents and workers withdrew from the land that for many years became his home.

Finally, we will now there is a project which seeks to upgrade the area, making it a tourist destination for curious travelers who arrived will find a city that apparently stopped in time.