Sovietworld: Abandoned Arctic outpost reborn as retro tourist attraction

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Sovietworld

An abandoned Soviet mining town on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard is enjoying new life as a "Soviet-style" retro tourist attraction.

Reviving the past

Sasha Romanovskiy looks as welcoming as a hotel manager can with a rifle strapped to his shoulder in case of polar bear attacks.

The 34-year-old St Petersburg native is one of eight staff trying to revitalise an abandoned Soviet coal mining town named Pyramiden barely 1,300 kilometres from the North Pole.

Its crumbling public halls, fading Soviet monuments and large statue of Lenin could easily place you in Siberia.

But the most peculiar part of this tourist venture is that it's actually in Norway.

"The law is Norwegian, so Pyramiden is not Russian territory," Mr Romanovskiy explains.

"It's just the private property of a Russian State coal mining company."

We're standing in the most northerly part of the world that's been permanently settled, the high Arctic archipelago of Svalbard.

In the early 20th century it was a no-man's land where whalers, miners and explorers from dozens of countries came seeking fortune and fame in a freezing and essentially lawless territory.

In 1925 Norway took formal possession of the islands under the international Svalbard Treaty that allowed existing commercial operations to continue with visa free travel.

The Soviet Union quickly seized the opportunity to gain a foothold in capitalist Europe and purchased the Swedish coal mine Pyramiden, named after the pyramid-shaped mountain behind it.

It eventually became a bizarre anomaly — a thriving Soviet community in a NATO country.

"In the 1980s, 1,200 people lived here," Mr Romanovskiy tells me.

"There was a hospital, a school, kindergarten, culture house, swimming pool, canteen, animal farm, greenhouse and many other things like a bakery and hairdresser."

But the breakup of the USSR in 1991 amid the collapse of Russia's economy quickly spelled the end of this model outpost.

"First they took the children. In 1993 the school closed down. Then the adults started to go home because of the financial situation. The last people left Pyramiden in 2000," Mr Romanovskiy says.

Frozen ghost town

Most of Pyramiden now resembles a ghost town. Parts look like they were abandoned overnight, with scattered files and empty vodka bottles gathering dust on cluttered desks.

Rich Arctic tourists have helped themselves to whatever valuables were left.

"Unfortunately there was plenty of vandalism here," Mr Romanovskiy says.

"So tourists were coming on snowmobiles or private sailboats and breaking in, hunting for souvenirs. For example, we had two grand pianos. Now we only have one because one was stolen."

To protect the heritage and try to turn a profit, the Russian coal mining company Arktikugol reopened the town's hotel in 2013, marketing it on the website goarctica.com as a retro experience.

"Have you ever been to the USSR?" it asks. "Welcome to our Arctic time machine."

Business has been surprisingly brisk, with grey nomads increasingly joined by young adventure travellers, all congregating in the bar each night to sample different vodkas and watch archival films of the town in its heyday.

"I was told that Soviet things are popular among hipsters in Europe," Mr Romanovskiy says with surprise.

"I wear a belt to carry my VHF radio and it's got a Soviet hammer and sickle. Tourists tell me it would be very fashionable in Europe, you can sell it to hipsters for big money."

Hotel rooms renovated or 'Soviet'

The main problem for the hotel is climate change, evidenced by the Nordenskiold glacier across the bay that has retreated two kilometres in as many decades.

"During the winter season people come here by snowmobiles. The fjord is frozen. But this winter the fjord did not get frozen and we had a pretty low season," Mr Romanovskiy says.

The summer season was better with three small cruise boats a day stopping at the old coal loading dock.

Most visitors wander round the ruins for a few hours before hopping back on the boats. Those who stay have the choice of renovated or "Soviet Style" rooms overlooking the main street named "the 60th Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution".

Mr Romanovskiy says the hotel is still doing what the town did in the Cold War.

"Pyramiden has never been closed for foreigners. If anybody wanted to visit it was not a problem. It was the way to show that Russians are not angry," he says.

Topics: travel-and-tourism, russian-federation, norway

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