# Abandoned Town in Russia's Arctic Circle



## Silverwizard

Last year I was in Russia working on a photographic trip, one of the places we visited was the town of Vorkuta at the far end of the Ural Mountains in Russia's Arctic Circle. It is a 50 hour train journey from Moscow - I'll never complain about the 35 minute train trip to Birmingham ever again! Vorkuta itself is a Gulag town, and is infamous as being one of Stalin's harshest camps. The whole area is flat taiga (tundra), no trees and Vorkuta is surround by coal mines (these were sub-camps to the main Vorkuta Camp) and old Gulag graves - German, Lithuanian, Estonian, Russian. Linking all these places, circling Vorkuta, is a circular very bumpy road, off this road part way around is the abandon town of Promyshlennyy - apparently this translates to *'Industry'* an amazingly apt name.

So to the history of the town of Industry. This is a little sketchy as its been translated from Russian by myself....and my pigeon Russia is pretty rubbish...but the story goes that the town gradually became depopulated following the fall of the Soviet Union, government subsidies to the military (the town or towns in the area I believe were run by the military) were withdrawn and the general population over a number of years drifted to larger more southern towns. Thus becoming a ghost town. This apparently is on going, these towns/cities are expensive to run, with the Russian government promoting a depopulation of such places. Now this I appreciate is very brief but I think covers it in a nutshell. I need to undertake some additional research into the place so will post as and when.

I only have a few images but these should demonstrate the potential of the place, it took us a good few hours negotiating with a taxi driver to take us there (they can't speak English - our Russian was very very basic) so all in all we only had an hour on the site - plus fending off swarms of mosquitoes (they can bite through clothing) and we were told of packs of roaming dogs (which we thankfully didn't see). I do however intend to return later this year, with an interpreter I now know so I am hoping to have a good couple of days at the location.

Below I hope are a few photos (for those interested these were all taken on a Mamiya RZ67 Kodak Ektar 100 rated at 50 - the place certainly lends it self to some fantastic 5" x 4" large format camera shots in black and white). I have also include one shot from the hotel to give a flavour of Vorkuta.








View across Vorkuta...typical mass of tenement blocks....the whole place is generally this appealing, hardly any street lighting at night and I would assume that this how the abandoned town my once have looked.






Gulag graves close by to the town of Industry...it is a custom to honk your horn as you drive by as a mark of respect.






View towards the school building (schools are identified by numbers i.e: school No.8 or No.53). The whole town is spread over a very large area, it contained everything from old sheds, schools, shops, tenement blocks, town hall. The town hall was located about a mile or so away. In an hour you couldn't do much.






Entrance to school.






Corridor, not sure what the sign says, but lots of holes in floor plus the arctic wind howled through. Very spooky indeed.






Typical class room...amazingly sad.






A floor of books, this was about about a foot deep, I've never seen so many books just wasted like this....fantastic!






Old shed and boards, Industry.






Just another view.....






The wide open Taiga around Industry, mosquito infested and blasted by Arctic gales....in the foreground are more Gulag graves and in the distance is one of the coal mines, now in private ownership, but once a sub-camp of the main Vorkuta Gulag.....then head north and you'll find the Kara Sea.


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## Foxylady

Hi Silverwizard,
You need to use a pic hosting site such as Photobucket or Flickr, and insert from there. Link below with instructions for PB, which most people agree is the easiest to use. Look forward to seeing your pics.

[ame]http://www.derelictplaces.co.uk/main/showthread.php?t=6744[/ame]


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## Vintage

Woah that sounds great. Can't wait to see the photo's.


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## TK421

Interesting write up, and looking forward to seeing your photos taken on a very serious camera

Let me know if you are struggling with posting, I may be able to help mate


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## Silverwizard

TK421 said:


> Interesting write up, and looking forward to seeing your photos taken on a very serious camera
> 
> Let me know if you are struggling with posting, I may be able to help mate



Hi....any help would be good....still don't see how to load actual photos!?!?!


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## TK421

OK mate, firstly, are your photos digital or print? If it is the former jolly good, if it is the latter you will need to scan them.

Sign up to a photobucket account, its free and painless, both things are good in life!

When you are in Photobucket, under the big blue 'upload images and videos' button click on 'options' (you only have to do this once, for the first time)

Set your uploading size to 640 x 480, otherwise your photos may be too big and it will really slow down peoples ability to see them, and people will be cross

Now click the 'upload images and videos' button, a box will appear that will allow you to search your computer for the images, find the image(s)

If you want to upload more than one image at a time, press CTRL and click on the photos you want and click OK

The photos will load.

There is a bit of old b*ll*cks about 'sharing and saving and returning to your album', just follow the prompts

Now, here is the important bit! When the photo is in your photobucket gallery hover your mouse over the image, a number of boxes will appear below, you want to click in the box called 'IMG code', copy this code and this is the thing you past into your report - bingo!

Always preview your post in the forum, it allows you to check the report and images before you look like a doofus to the rest of the exploration world, trust me I have done this!

Not sure whether you have a photobucket account or are used to loading photos, so if you are OK with this, my apologies for teaching you how to suck eggs, or even photograph them

Good luck!


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## Silverwizard

Hi thank you all....all sorted.

Only a few like I said, currently planning a return trip later this year.


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## smileysal

That place looks great. Love the colours in the rooms and the art work. Looking forward to seeing more from you. 

Excellent pics mate, I do like this. 

 Sal


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## TK421

Top man, glad to have been of help hopefully. Great shots, of a great looking place, it has a bit od a 'Pripyat' feeling to it, but not quite as trashed. Would like to see more from this place


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## Silverwizard

Guys,

Thanks for all your comments...I've also added a few extra pics I found today...


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## Foxylady

Fabulous pics...fantastic to see a place that few will actually get to visit. There's such an amazing atmosphere about it. 
Excellent, cheers.


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## Cruachan

Silverwizard said:


> Corridor, not sure what the sign says, but lots of holes in floor plus the arctic wind howled through. Very spooky indeed.



OK - as far as I can make it out, the sign says "Polling Station 53", so clearly the school was used, as they are in UK, as a polling station in some election or other.

J


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## wolfism

Beautifully shot, and very melancholy. I don't envy you going exploring with a RZ67 though: they weigh a ton!


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## sqwasher

Very interesting read, backed up with great surreal photos!


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## Labb

I have always hearded a lot of strange things about the Russian Police. Did you really get access to all the sites you were photographing. No problem with the police or other kind of security ? Very nice pictures by the way.


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## Silverwizard

Labb said:


> I have always hearded a lot of strange things about the Russian Police. Did you really get access to all the sites you were photographing. No problem with the police or other kind of security ? Very nice pictures by the way.



Hi,

The town isn't fenced you can wonder around unhindered, it is very remote, 50 hours on the train from Moscow, the buildings are in a poor state of repair as you'd expect but arranging to get there and have someone wait around so you could get back was by far more problematic. I have an interpreter lined up for my next trip to Russia. 

The only problem I had with police was photographing at a railway station where you can still be arrested...just politely advised by a passer by and in the Siberian city of Yakutsk where we got stopped and hand to show our papers but here I think the police were bored and we were a novelty. That novel in fact we got made up to VIPs at the airport...and had loads of people take use out every night and day! 

One of the difficulties is if you don't stay in hotels, who then register you with the local police, you have to every three days report to a police station. we felt the extra cost of hotels was worth the reduction in potential hassle. The Russian people are amazingly helpful we never had any problems at all, in fact the help they provided was absolutely amazing.


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