Silverwizard
Member
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Union, government subsidies to the military (the town or towns in the area I believe were run by the military) were withdrawn and the general population over a number of years drifted to larger more southern towns.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.
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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