Monday, May 23, 2011

Pyramiden

78°14'0.46"N - 15°36'11.02"E
Breakfast. We are in Billefjorden, close to the abandoned Russian settlement Pyramiden. We will go there today, if we find a way to get there. The fjord is full of ice and we will probably have to walk over it.

A ghost town in the middle of the Arctic. The Russians had a coal mine here from the seventies. In the middle of the nineties, Arktikugol, the company that ran the settlement, decided to shut it down and over 1000 people were evacuated in 4 days time. People literally put their spoons down at the dinner table and left. It is a complete self-supporting society: with its own powerplant, swimming pool, people's house, you name it.
It has a very sad aura.

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