Pyramiden: soviet glory

AIRVŪZ STAFF NOTE : Top AirVuz contributor Enrico Pescantini brings us this fascinating drone video of an abandoned coal mining settlement in Norway's Svalbard Archipelago, roughly halfway between the Norwegian mainland and the North Pole. It's called Pyramiden, and it's located on the main island of Spitsbergen. The settlement was originally controlled by Sweden before being sold to the USSR in the 1920's. The adjoining coal mine was closed in 1998, at which time the town was completely abandoned. The town now has a handful of permanent residents.

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Pyramiden is an abandoned ghost town in Svalbard, and still a russian territory in the norwegian archipelago. Founded in 1910 by swedish miners and bought by russia in 1927, in the decades between the 60s and the 80s represented the glory and the utopia of a fully functioning communism society, in the extreme conditions of the arctic, with more than 2,000 people living there Its economy was based on coal mining - like all Svalbard - and the support from the soviet regime, it saw its decline after the fall of the soviet union in early 90s. Abandoned completely at the beginning of 2000, it is now an open air museum of soviet art and architecture, and also the northernmost ghost town in the world.

Music: Катюша / Katyusha, a traditional soviet song composed in 1938