THE ABANDONED FARM AT SPITSBERGEN
This is the abandoned farm in Pyramiden, a deserted Russian mine village in the far North. The town and farm were abandoned in 1998.
Dutch explorers Willem Barents and Jacob van Heemskerck discovered Svalbard in June 1596. In 1910 the Swedes discovered coal in the mountains on main island Spitsbergen. The settlement was named Pyramiden, after the pyramid shaped mountain close by. At first, Pyramiden was a sleepy place, with hardly any residents at all. But after the Second World War, the Soviets allocated more money to the town.
Food
Food supplies that were shipped to Pyramiden every year made it a settlement in abundance. Also, they focused on own production of milk, meat, eggs and vegetables. Fish was also on the menu. All food was free of charge from 1958. This farm and slaughterhouse was built in 1972. A large greenhouse was built in 1985. In the 1980s the share of women and children grew, more than 1,000 people lived in Pyramiden.
Pyramiden was abandoned in 1998. The residents never returned, and today the town still stands much as it was when the last men departed. The photos of the abandoned farm were taken in 2018 during my Spitsbergen trip. See more locations from this Island at the North Pole here.
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