Abandoned cities & ghost islands of around the world

[Graham_A_M]

I always have found this sort of stuff brilliantly interesting, just that whole abandoned cities & once populated islands and the like. I thought I'd make a thread from some of my bookmarks to show other people as well.... here some of them are.

http://www.cafeterra.info/2009/01/hashima.html
(scroll down a bit)
^this was a large Japanese mining island owned by Mitsubishi. Its prohibited to visit here, doing so will result in severe punishment. It holds the record for the most populated place ever recorded.

http://gothicteasociety.blogspot.com/2010/01/poveglia.html
http://www.scaryforkids.com/haunted-island/
^ this is a small island just a hop & skip from Venice. From around 1000A.D. it was used as a medical quarantine for plague victims. 100,000's were burned & buried there. Its arguably the most haunted place in the world. Of which became an insane asylum in 1922. Later the surgeon was accused of performing terrible torturous crimes against its "inmates" so he threw himself off that 1200A.D. built clock tower. The locals avoid it like its the plague itself, as they consider it a demon infested hell. Its also incredibly off limits.... and thats *IF* you can find a boatman to take you there... Watch the videos, their very interesting. Google it for more info.

http://englishrussia.com/index.php/2008/12/26/abandoned-missile-launch-site/
^An abandoned Russian missle launch site

This gem is our own. This is in Vancouver! totally cool to see! a 1903 built power station. Very steam punk!
http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2009/02/epic-abandoned-substations-and-power.html

http://englishrussia.com/index.php/2010/11/17/an-abandoned-military-town/#more-25166
^ a once Russian city of 300,000, now a ghost town

http://pripyat.com/en/photo_gallery/pripyat/
^ Pripyat was once a big bustling city, about the size of Saskatoon, but after Chernobyl it was too radiated to live there, so the whole city was forced to pack up and leave. Now you have this decaying corpse of a city thats left to rott. Quite interesting seeing the equipment graveyards of vehicles used in the actual Chernobyl incident, the radiation level of those vehicles are still ungodly high.




http://englishrussia.com/index.php/tag/abandoned/
^ A huge photo blog of this sort of stuff.
(this Englishrussia site is fantastic for this stuff)

This upcoming summer I'll be heading up to Uranium City in the EXTREME NW corner of Sask.

It was once a city of 80,000-100k, just a bustling mecca of a mining town. Then in the 1960's it was discovered that through improvements in Nuclear technology, that the uranium they were mining was now completely useless.
So, the whole town packed up and left, including law enforcement. What few residents that remained were forced to fend for themselves against the vandals & thieves that now roamed the city. Now its pretty much a ghost town much like Pripyat. A trip down to their mines is strictly forbidden, as their safe guards were as primitive as nuclear technology back then. One hour in one of those mines is as much Nuclear exposure as one should take in a whole year.
:eek: Oddly enough there is airline service quite frequently over there.

EDIT: here are a few more. This was once a huge TOP secret Russian submarine base. Its corresponding town was never known by the public. Only in the fall of communism was its whereabouts known.
http://englishrussia.com/index.php/2008/02/29/russian-underground-submarine-base/

An abandoned HUGE Romanian salt mine.
http://planetoddity.com/abandoned-salt-mine-in-romania/
^ quite an interesting culture of people that lived their lives within the confines of that place.

[JAYMEZ]

That gothic one is cool!

[adidas]

cool stuff :thumbsup:

[GQBalla]

the abandoned missle sit pictures say chink 2008.

[frinkprof]

Here's a cool site with tons of photos of abandoned towns, factories, hospitals, etc. Lots in Eastern Europe.

http://www.abandoned-places.com/

The site layout is a little artsy, but just click on the photo galleries on the right hand side of the first page, which will take you to the next page of a couple dozen gallery links.

Definitely worth a look if this sort of thing interests you.

[Jlude]

Went through a bunch of these just a couple days ago, always so interesting.

[Redlyne_jr]

very cool

[Unlaced]

I believe the secret Russian Submarine base was covered on an episode of Cities of the Underworld, very interesting episode to!

[LadyLuck]

http://media.englishrussia.com/second_metro_in_moscow/2.JPG

amazing, but no amount of money could make me step foot into that tunnel!

[v2kai]

russian sub base is wicked

[Graham_A_M]

Originally posted by LadyLuck

amazing, but no amount of money could make me step foot into that tunnel!
lol ^ oh I beg to differ, so you wouldn't walk down 50ft of that tunnel for $10k?. Really, that isn't even creepy in comparison to half the stuff I posted in this thread already.
At the end of the day: its just an un-used subway tunnel. :dunno:
Even Calgary has its own abandoned subway system that lies beneath 8th ave SW, only spiraling outwards from there. Just google it for more info, its been quarantined off since the late 80's. Abandoned due to massive cost overruns.
Today its few subway stations are only visitable through its only entrance via a gateway in city hall somewhere.

[LadyLuck]

^ It may not be creepy to you, but no amount of money can buy me out of my fears. Im sure there's plenty of abandoned tunnels everywhere, but there's a good reason I haven't gone creeping through any of them lol

[EK 2.0]

Originally posted by LadyLuck
^
It may not be creepy to you, but no amount of money can buy me out of my fears. Im sure there's plenty of abandoned tunnels everywhere, but there's a good reason I haven't gone creeping through any of them lol



I'd give it a go with you if you wanted...You know I'm chicken shit...so we could have power in numbers...

But, there are some really cool places in the links provided...



**EDIT**

http://englishrussia.com/images/school_abandoned/1.jpg

It's Justin Timberlake...

[J.M.]

:thumbsup:

[Hash_man]

This is actually a really cool post. I always sort of wonder about these kind of things. Many of those places would be creepy as hell to check out, but kind of cool. Now this one, you could not get me to go to, something about an abandoned mental hospital just gives me the heeby jeebiez http://englishrussia.com/index.php/2010/09/09/abandoned-mental-asylum/#more-17821

[BlackRadon]

I remember watching a show on history channel called under ground history or something like that. Thy showed that underground sub base. It's crazy. I remember because of those HUGE blast doors. Very cool.

I also remember someone post something like this where they would copy the town and place them in video games. I'm pretty sure they were modern warfare games. Also Kool to see.

Awesome thread idea.

**edit** I didn't see that someone already posted that it was covered on that tv show I was talking about...it's late...

[broken_legs]

friend of mine was working in Romania and he ended up getting a ride in a taxi to the abandoned city that supported all of the workers for a nuclear power plant. The plant had been decommissioned cores removed etc... Since the plant was the only reason for the cities existence everything was abandoned. Very very creepy.

EDIT:
And what we used to do in highschool was go to an abandoned mental facility haha

'Padova City' in Kamloops.
http://aspectartsphoto.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Padova-1.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_haxWifjd3nc/SqSDfTXZ8kI/AAAAAAAAACg/sa8t9Zy5zBY/s400/7218_249846955513_542535513_8853732_4046805_n.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_haxWifjd3nc/SqSDHwDBPHI/AAAAAAAAACQ/NYdtUfMmtmo/s400/7218_249846930513_542535513_8853729_1385656_n.jpg





Turns out it's not a city at all but a small town that was used to house tuberculosis patients and it was completely self-sufficient! They grew their own crops, they butchered their own cattle and pigs.. and then they all died. There's a railroad that winds through the center of the town that would bring them supplies but other than the doctors and nurses who lived on-site there was no contact with the outside world.. There came a time where everyone did die (thousands) and instead of plowing the land and re-building, they turned the whole place into a huge mental hospital..
The buildings inside are fascinating, there's a church some big towers, a childrens ward and large houses strewn around for people with money to die comfortably in I suppose.. I've been sneaking around this place for a while now and I've taken some pictures of the pig farm that burned down just on the outskirts and I'm in the process of organizing a little "tour" and taking plenty more.. Pictures pending.

[SKR]

Originally posted by Graham_A_M
This upcoming summer I'll be heading up to Uranium City in the EXTREME NW corner of Sask.

It was once a city of 80,000-100k, ...

I don't think that's right. Anything I have seen on it says it didn't crack 5000 people before the mines closed in the 80s.

[Maxx Mazda]

Cool finds!

[almerick]

Beyond meet in Poveglia?

[Graham_A_M]

Originally posted by SKR


I don't think that's right. Anything I have seen on it says it didn't crack 5000 people before the mines closed in the 80s.
I heard that from (this former) room-mate that went there and took dozens of photos. :dunno: Maybe not 100k like what he said, but judging by the pics Im fairly sure it past 40-50k
that and it closed in the 60's.

http://englishrussia.com/index.php/2010/09/09/abandoned-mental-asylum/#more-17821
^ Yeah I was going to post a bunch more but figured with that direct search link: they'd find it anyway.

Did you see the dental clinic? :nut:
Lesson #1, brush your teeth in Russia so you NEVER have to visit one of those.


EDIT:

Originally posted by BlackRadon


I also remember someone post something like this where they would copy the town and place them in video games. I'm pretty sure they were modern warfare games. Also Kool to see.

Its called
"Shadows of Chernobyl". Yeah they took a very detailed tour taking an asinine amount of pics, then re-created that city in the game. I still have yet to buy it... frick I keep forgetting. :thumbsdow

[ercchry]

here is a bunch of cool Japanese ruins

http://www.michaeljohngrist.com/ruins-gallery/

[.norco.]

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_hVOW2U7K4-M/SgNu0-mw6KI/AAAAAAABAsU/rCnmhyoH4Dw/s800/835038440_3e2786b774.jpg


A similar tunnel system (but build in the 70s) runs underneath downtown core in the city of Calgary, Canada. The LRT (Light Transit System) line was meant to run underground, but the plans were shelved for the financial reasons. There are a few doors in Calgary leading to this explorer's playground, to tunnels wide enough for rush hour traffic.
http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2007/07/abandoned-tunnels.html

[SKR]

Originally posted by Graham_A_M

I heard that from (this former) room-mate that went there and took dozens of photos. :dunno: Maybe not 100k like what he said, but judging by the pics Im fairly sure it past 40-50k
that and it closed in the 60's.

This article was about all I could find, but it says around 5000 people and the last mine closing in 1982.

http://www.thestar.com/News/Ontario/article/249912


Uranium City, in the far northeast corner of Saskatchewan and connected by road in winter across frozen lakes, began as a tented outpost in 1950. Just a few years later, bathed in uranium's glow, it was a thriving hub of 5,000, complete with hotels, department stores, a dance hall, a curling rink and a movie theatre.
...
By the early '80s, though, anti-nuclear sentiment was gaining momentum.
...
Eldorado, operated by the Canadian government, was the biggest mine in the area, and the last to operate. It announced its closure in late 1982, and proceeded to quickly erase itself – buildings razed, shafts capped and filled – taking most of Uranium City with it.
...
"By the end of that summer, I'd say about 3,000 people were gone," Classen recalls.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to go there too. I just think you're going to be disappointed if you're expecting an abandoned city the size of Medicine Hat.

[kvg]

I've been to Buntzen lake tons of times and never knew the power house was there. The waters cold as hell there. Cool thread
http://www.bchydro.com/etc/medialib/internet/images/places/bc_hydro_facilities/buntzen/buntzen_powerhouse2.Par.0001.Image.jpg

[Graham_A_M]

Originally posted by SKR


This article was about all I could find, but it says around 5000 people and the last mine closing in 1982.

http://www.thestar.com/News/Ontario/article/249912



Don't get me wrong, I'd love to go there too. I just think you're going to be disappointed if you're expecting an abandoned city the size of Medicine Hat.

Hmmm... interesting, thanks a lot for the clarification.
Why was my old room-mate so sure of his "facts" ? WTF..... :confused:
Ah well, still would be a cool place to visit over a weekend or whatever.


Here is the lost city of Chernobyl. Quite a move to just walk away from everything here. This definitely was a a decent sized city in its day.
http://englishrussia.com/index.php/2006/09/13/lost-city-of-chernobyl/

[jsn]

Originally posted by Graham_A_M


Here is the lost city of Chernobyl. Quite a move to just walk away from everything here. This definitely was a a decent sized city in its day.
http://englishrussia.com/index.php/2006/09/13/lost-city-of-chernobyl/

chernobyl is probably one of the most famous ones. Those pictures are amazing. Never gets old no matter how many times i've seen them

[JimmyJones]

edit

[Shlade]

This stuff madly facinates me..

All of this abandoned land could get completly rebuilt and make more room for our over populated society!

Really awesome finds Graham!

[Shlade]

Originally posted by .norco.
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_hVOW2U7K4-M/SgNu0-mw6KI/AAAAAAABAsU/rCnmhyoH4Dw/s800/835038440_3e2786b774.jpg


http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2007/07/abandoned-tunnels.html

If there are such entry ways to this imagine how many homeless people live down there!

[garnet]

Originally posted by jsn


chernobyl is probably one of the most famous ones. Those pictures are amazing. Never gets old no matter how many times i've seen them

some of the equipment left behind in the chernobyl aftermath efforts

http://englishrussia.com/images/chernobyl_scrap/1_002.jpg
http://englishrussia.com/images/chernobyl_scrap/1_018.jpg

amazing how in only 20 years time the amount that city has been overgrown already, and has wasted away

[garnet]

my gfather worked for city at that time, and the lrt going above ground, and abandoning the tunnel work done, had less to do with finances, and everything to do with then mayor klein wanting to secure the coming election, which he had promised the term previous to complete the project




Originally posted by .norco.
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_hVOW2U7K4-M/SgNu0-mw6KI/AAAAAAABAsU/rCnmhyoH4Dw/s800/835038440_3e2786b774.jpg

http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2007/07/abandoned-tunnels.html

[Graham_A_M]

^ where in Calgary is that? I dont recognize a single thing.
Perhaps that did have something to do with it, but they were countless millions of dollars over budget ( $10 million or 30% wasn't it?), so its tough to say for sure.


Originally posted by Shlade


If there are such entry ways to this imagine how many homeless people live down there!
Apparently its quite secure, I've never heard of anybody short of a news crew allowed down there. Im sure they knew that could be a HUGE problem, so its very very difficult to get access to there. I think its escorted tours for VIP's only pretty much. Only a very small handful of people know of which doors (and where the hell they are) that grant you access to those tunnels.
I know the only known photos of those tunnels came from that said news crew, thats it.


Here is a video of the aftermath of the pregnant mothers that were exposed to the radiation of the Chernobyl explosion.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvAJ_u3Q0Hw&feature=player_embedded
be warned some of the images are truly grotesque. Yet oddly enough most of the truly tragic stuff isn't even in this video. It gets quite a bit worse from here.
^ The Russian government wanted to conceal the news of the explosion, so nobody was told of what they were fighting, as a result thousands of firefighters & workers were killed due to mass doses of radiation poisoning, case in point the helicopter crew at the start of the video.

Oddly enough the most dangerous aspect of Chernobyl hasn't even been unleashed yet. The reactor still contains enough radioactive material to unleash a fury numerous times of what has already been dealt. The only thing preventing that is a band-aid concrete sarcophagus thats rapidly decaying. Yet even so that said sarcophagus is the most expensive building in Russia by a far margin.
These next few years will prove very interesting.

[Shlade]

^^

Wow thats crazy!

From what ive heard-- Be it true or not pretty sure the Tunnel is under ground threw MacLeoud trail.

Anybody old enough here to confirm? haha

[frinkprof]

The downtown LRT tunnel was accessed by members of the public during the 2001 transit strike. At the time, it could be accessed from the existing CP tunnel (takes the train from the south line to 7th Avenue). No trains during the strike, so going into the tunnel wasn't nearly as dangerous a venture. After that, the tunnel access was walled off with cinder blocks. It can now only be accessed from a manhole access that is in an exclusive area (Aldermen I think) of the underground parkade beneath City Hall.


I'll copy and paste one of my old posts on the subject, from a thread similar to this one about a year ago.


Originally posted by frinkprof
There is a "partial" tunnel built under City Hall that was and is intended for LRT use. I say "partial" because it does not have tracks or a station platform, and is currently not long enough for a full station. This was constructed in the late 70s at the same time as the new City Hall in anticipation when the possibility underground LRT operation was still in play, but preceded full scale construction of the first LRT line to the south. As noted by others earlier, costs escalated, and the above ground option was eventually chosen at the time.

Since LRT first started operation in 1981, there have been provisions along most of 8th Avenue to accommodate future underground LRT operation. This includes appropriate setbacks of towers that have been built in the last few decades, and even spaces provided under some of the towers. For example, there is a space under Banker's Hall that is being used as an auditorium, that is in fact earmarked for future underground LRT use. Also, any utility work that has needed to be done over the years along 8th Avenue and cross streets has been done with underground LRT operation in mind. Utilities have thus been moved/placed strategically to allow this.

The bigger picture of underground LRT operations downtown is currently being mapped out as part of a pre-engineering design study. This study was budgeted in late 2007, but wasn't commissioned until earlier this year. The study will include recommendations and pre-engineering for an 8th Avenue Subway route, as well as the underground downtown routing of the future Southeast LRT. Previous studies, recommendations, and documents have the South and Northwest lines of the LRT using the 8th Avenue Subway and the Southeast LRT being routed underground in a separate tunnel along 10th Avenue and then 2nd Street to Eau Claire. The Northeast and West lines would continue to use the existing 7th Avenue infrastructure. Of course, it is unknown if the current study will recommend this same configuration, or something slightly or altogether different.

Access to the existing unused tunnel under City Hall was apparently easier several years ago. During the 2001 transit strike some people apparently went in to the tunnel from the existing "CP" tunnel (takes the south line in/out of downtown). It has since been walled off with cinderblocks. There is also one or more access points via ladders from City Hall, as that video shows. The entrance to the tunnel can be seen if you're taking the train south, a few moments after you enter the CP tunnel, look to the west and slightly behind you and you will see a small section that branches off from the main tunnel.

As for access to existing, in-use LRT tunnels, I heard that at one point accessing the Cemetery Hill tunnel was relatively easy through some sort of access point somewhere on the ground of the cemetery itself. I have no idea what the current situation with that is, but obviously I wouldn't recommend trying it.

Here's a youtube video of a news story they ran on the tunnel, with a brief tour.

V7YBZvhVwgk

[Graham_A_M]

Sorry, I guess the original link for Proveglia sucked, with videos that didn't work.
Try this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyBtUIuEHTI
^Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EarAzUZH65w&feature=related
2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLFNZ2D_NMk&feature=related
3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQjgp1OTl4M&feature=related
4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftXw3PEZm34&feature=related
5

Man..... I've got a pretty good "stomach" for this sort of thing. But spending a night in the burning fields of that place is something I dont think I could handle. The "soil" there isn't soil, its human ash. For actual soil you have to dig way down deep to find any. The top"soil" just flakes out of your hand when you pick up a handful of it. They said 1/3 Europeans fell victim to that bubonic plague of the mid 1400's. Proveglia was the destination for Italys victims.
http://www.forensicgenealogy.info/images/mystery_place_Poveglia_2012.jpg
Id still LOVE to visit that place, just leave before sun-down. ;)

here is an image gallery
http://cogitz.com/2010/03/22/poveglia-island-of-terror/

http://englishrussia.com/index.php/2010/11/18/abandoned-but-beautiful-churches/#more-24792
^ Incredibly beautiful, now forgotten churches in Europe