Who doesn't love hanging around ghost towns in one of the most northern points of the world? Ahah totally my vibe. So, this ghost town is called Pyramiden, and is right in the middle of the Svalbard islands (the place where no one is born and no one dies because it's so cold there the boddies would be preserved forever!). This place has been on my bucketlist for so long... and plus, is one of the best places in the world to see the Northern Lights, since the sky is very clear (Imagine the few people that live there!).
Pyramiden was founded by Sweden in 1910 and sold to the Soviet Union
in 1927. In the 1980s, the mining community had a population of more
than 1,000. It is named after the pyramid-shaped mountain of the same
name nearby. Pyramiden is now mostly visited by seagulls, polar foxes
and, not infrequently, polar bears. Tourists visit too – by boat in the summertime and by snowmobile in the wintertime – to experience this surreal place.
So, why is it a ghost town? The Russian state-owned mining company Trust Arktikugol closed the
mine in Pyramiden on 1 April 1998 after 53 years of continuous
operation. The falling price of coal, the difficulty and cost of
extracting coal from the mountain and the Russian air disaster at
Operafjellet which claimed 141 lives all contributed to the decision.
How to visit:
You can sleep overnight in the Pyramiden hotel, and you can go by boat in summer or snowmobile in winter. I think you don't need to worry about crowded times for you pictures here ahah!
You can sleep overnight in the Pyramiden hotel, and you can go by boat in summer or snowmobile in winter. I think you don't need to worry about crowded times for you pictures here ahah!
Check out the tours:
Happy journeys in Svalbard!
