The abandoned village of Pyramid on Spitsbergen. Pyramid - a village in Russia Pyramid Svalbard

Svalbard is a place where the modern Norwegian way of life and the Soviet way of life coexist. There are three Russian villages on the territory of the archipelago, one of which is active - Barentsburg, and the rest have the status of “mothballed/abandoned”.

I want to tell you about one of them. We will talk about the legendary coal village of Pyramid. “Ghost town”, “the northernmost coal mine in the world”, “a fragment of the Soviet system in the Arctic”, “northern frontier” - no matter what they call this place, which has been lost in time and gives foreigners who come here the opportunity to feel like they are in the Soviet Union, and the residents of the CIS - to plunge into the past, from which they barely had time to wean themselves.

Why Pyramid?

Everything is very simple - the village is located at the foot of a pyramid-shaped mountain. The Norwegians call it in their own way Pyramiden, but this name was given to it by the Swedes, who were the first to begin coal mining activities here. With a very strong desire and the necessary equipment, you can climb to the top of the Pyramid and look at the village and the mine from above, which goes deep into this mountain, but you must have a guide with a gun with you, because due to the proximity of the Pyramid to Billefjord, where seals live , the likelihood of meeting a polar bear here increases sharply.

The same mountain thanks to which the village received its name

History of the Pyramid

In 1910, the Swedish company Spetsbergens Svenska Kolfalt received permission to mine coal in the archipelago, and a year later equipped a mine for this purpose. It must be said that geologically this is not the easiest place to mine coal. The mine is located in a hard-to-reach place at an altitude of half a kilometer, which makes this type of work very complex and energy-intensive. In this regard, 16 years later, in 1927, a Swedish company sells the territory of the village of Pyramid along with everything that is on it. In 1931, the Soviet state trust Arktikugol became the owner of this 47 sq. km site. From this year until now, it is the only Russian company that conducts business activities in the Norwegian archipelago of Spitsbergen.

The Soviet Union decided not to use the Swedish mine, but, with its usual scope, began to build its own. In 1941, having managed to rebuild the mine itself and the infrastructure around it in the village, all residents were removed from the village due to the outbreak of World War II in the Soviet Union. During the evacuation, the coal warehouse and all equipment were destroyed by the inhabitants of the Pyramid.

After 1946, life in the Pyramid begins to resume. For these purposes, 609 polar explorers were brought here, and already in 1947 the first street appeared here, which started from the port and led to the village. The Soviet Union spared no expense in reviving the Pyramid; everything was done on a grand scale. Multi-storey buildings were built here for families, women and men (in the best Soviet traditions, men lived separately from women). The women's house was called "Paris", and the men's house was called "London". A library, a hospital, greenhouses, a large sports complex with a swimming pool with heated sea water, a hotel, a dining room with 200 seats, a livestock farm and many other industrial and technical buildings. Pyramid was the northernmost village in the Spitsbergen archipelago and the closest to the North Pole. And if you also take into account that this territory is located in permafrost, then you can imagine how much effort had to be made in order to erect all these buildings.

Coal mining was in full swing and already in the 1950s about 70 thousand tons of coal were mined. In order to increase production, in 1956 the second Severnaya mine was opened, from which, according to the project, 235 thousand tons of coal could be extracted per year.

By 1980, the population here numbered more than 1000 people. The village is gaining incredible popularity due to the high level of salaries. Literally everyone in the Soviet Union knows that if you work in the Arctic, you can earn enough to buy a new apartment in a very short time, so the competition for jobs is simply crazy. You can get a job in the coal village of Pyramid only through great connections through good friends.

However, the process of collapse of the Soviet Union will have an extremely negative impact on the Pyramid. By that time, coal as a mineral will greatly depreciate in the market. And the costs of maintaining such a distant territory will no longer be affordable for the Soviet government, so the number of miners and their families is gradually decreasing. Transporting coal to the continent becomes very expensive, so they decide to store its entire supply locally, in the village. The condition of the mines requires major repairs, especially after endogenous (underground) fires that have not yet been extinguished. However, the Pyramid is trying to “survive” for another 7 long years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. But in 1997, a decision was made to close the mines and mothball the entire village.

In March 1998, the last ton of coal was produced from the Severnaya mine, and now this legendary trailer, filled to the brim, stands at the entrance to the village. During operation, this mine produced 8.8 million tons of coal, which accounted for 57% of the total volume of the entire mine. Due to the closure of the mines, all its inhabitants were taken to the continent or to Barentsburg.

Plane crash on Spitsbergen

Another factor in favor of closing the village was the largest air disaster on Spitsbergen, when in 1996 a Russian Vnukovo Airlines TU-154 plane, operating a charter flight Moscow-Longyearbyen, crashed into Mount Opera. There were 141 people on board - mostly miners for the Pyramid and Barentsburg mines and their families. All crew members and passengers were killed. The cause of the plane crash was the inexperience of the pilots who made this flight. The fact is that after the collapse of the USSR, there were constant delays in the payment of salaries, and the crew of the flight that usually flew to Spitsbergen refused to work. Therefore, they hired completely new pilots who did not know the terrain near Longyearbyen airport. This led to a disaster that is still considered the largest in terms of the number of victims in the entire history of Norway. In memory of this sad event, a wooden church was erected in the village of Barentsburg, which is open around the clock.

The pyramid in our time

The village stood in a mothballed state for 11 long years, when the Russian authorities decided to revive life in this distant land. The fact is that the “ghost town” became a desired destination for many Norwegian tourists who wanted to “touch” the Soviet Union, which they had only read about in books. In 2009, a decision was made to “re-open” the Tulip Hotel so that visiting tourists would have a place to stay overnight. The hotel opens a full-fledged restaurant-bar. The entire interior has been preserved in the classic Soviet style; they decided not to modify it. By 2016, some of the hotel rooms were renovated, and the second part was left as is, because Norwegians and other foreigners are ready to shell out a large sum for the opportunity to spend a night in a “Soviet room” (in 2018, a room in the “Soviet” style cost 100 euros per night, and refurbished – 120 euros).

The same goes for the restaurant menu - all the names have been preserved from Soviet canteens. Here you will find the Gorbachev omelette, the Student cutlet, Russian pancakes with caviar, and Ukrainian borscht with sour cream. All products are transported from another Russian village on Spitsbergen - Barentsburg. They also accept orders for overnight stays at the hotel or group tours to the Pyramid. During the polar summer (from late March to early October), up to 20 service personnel can live in the village - these are cooks, guides, cleaners, waiters, the head of the village, and stokers who heat all the buildings with coal reserves. In winter, about 3 stokers remain in Pyramid, and since no one goes to the village during the polar winter, a supply of food for these workers is left in the fall.

Communication in the Pyramid

My impressions of the Pyramid

We spent 3 days and 2 nights in the Pyramid, and my impressions were very mixed. On the one hand, this is a unique place, which has no analogues in the world, where you can feel forgotten by everyone on the edge of the earth. On the other hand, if you are a socially active person, then the Pyramid will be a real torture, since a limited circle of people (with whom it is not always possible to make friends) and a complete lack of communication will make staying in the village almost unbearable. Therefore, everyone decides for himself whether he could live in complete isolation or not. But the fact that this place will not leave you indifferent is one hundred percent. Therefore, if you have such an opportunity, then visit this “ghost town” at the end of the earth while it is still in the form in which it was left.

The pyramid is located 120 km north of Longyearbyen, Norway, and was the world's northernmost coal mine. The prefix “the northernmost” here can be substituted for everything: “the northernmost monument to Lenin” or “the northernmost swimming pool in the world” and so on, whatever your imagination allows. In 1998, coal mining ended and the village was mothballed. In the 1980s, up to 1000 people lived in the village; when Lebedev visited this place in the 2000s, only a crazy German lived here. Due to the special status of Spitsbergen (any state could conduct economic activity there), the Soviet Union tried to make this village a real showcase of communism; the Norwegians were jealous of how luxuriously a citizen of the USSR lived. It was a real paradise, getting here was considered real luck.

The pyramid is located in a picturesque location at the foot of a mountain, similar in shape to a real pyramid overlooking the Nordenskiöld glacier. During the difficult crisis years of the conservation of the village, when no one remained in the Pyramid for the winter, vandals ruled here. The Norwegians came on snowmobiles and took away everything that could be taken away. For example, in the Kroa bar in Longyearbyen there is a bust of Lenin, it is just from the Pyramid. The city could have become another ghost town, like Pripyat in Ukraine, but we came to our senses in time and are now trying to breathe new life into the city through tourism.

And now a little history.
There is constant debate about who was the first to discover this polar archipelago. The Pomors of Spitsbergen have been known as "Grumant" since the 15th century; at the entrance to the harbors, the Russians left wooden crosses with the names of those who erected them. The Pomors left traces of settlements, there is no doubt - they were the first to engage in fishing on the distant island of Spitsbergen. Radiocarbon dating of the objects shows that they are much earlier in time than the Viking journeys to these lands. The Norwegians, of course, claim the opposite. Allegedly, the Pomors arrived much later and brought with them old utensils and used centuries-old logs in the construction of houses, so radiocarbon analysis does not count :) Ours claim that the Vikings only sailed to Bear Island, which they called “Svalbard,” i.e. cold earth in Norwegian. The question is quite political.

Officially, the island was discovered by the Dutch navigator Barents, who was looking for the shortest route from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. The discovery of new islands led to the fact that whaling companies settled here; what’s more, the bowhead whale produced 1.5 tons of baleen and 30 tons of blubber!

The British and Danes were the first to declare their territorial claims to this land. Unlike Western Europeans, our people felt great on Spitsbergen, built camps and spent the winter in harsh conditions. Norwegians actively began to appear at the end of the 19th century, the land was officially recognized as “no man's land” just at this time. The issue of the legal status of the islands was supposed to be resolved in 1914 between Russia, Norway and Sweden, but due to the First World War the issue was returned to only in 1920, the Soviet Union was not invited to the Paris Conference, but the possibility of Russian rights to use natural and other resources before the USSR joined the treaty. The treaty itself recognized sovereignty over the islands for Norway, but the Norwegians pledged not to build military bases and fortifications on the islands, and now the most interesting thing: “citizens of all countries that signed the treaty, along with the Norwegians, have the right of free access to the archipelago for shipping, industrial, and commercial activities.” and commercial transactions on conditions of complete equality.

In other words, the islands actually belong to Norway, but any company or any citizen can live on the island and use its resources. A unique situation!

Ours in 1924, we joined the agreement, bought the land plots managed by the Arktikugol company, its task was simple - to provide the northern part of Russia with coal. Until 1941, two mines operated - in Barentsburg and Grumant, and a third village - Pyramid - was built. Every day the ships departed for Murmansk and Arkhangelsk. During the war, all the workers were evacuated to the north of England, and after the war, in 1946, the first miners and builders arrived, restored two villages in 3 years and completed the Pyramid in 1956.

So, it turns out that we had three settlements, the first is Grumant, which was mothballed in 1961, the miners say that when the coal runs out in other places, they can return here, the explored reserves will last for a long time. The second village is Barentsburg, an active village with the Russian Consulate, a swimming pool, a school and other infrastructure, I will write about it later. The most interesting is the third mine, Pyramid.

My first story will be about him.

And it all started with this issue of the Russian Reporter; in 2009, I read the article “The Archipelago NO WAY” about this place and got excited. I knew I'd get here. Necessarily

Our ship is in the port, the Russians call it the “polar girl”, the port of registration is Tromsø, in the winter it takes athletes to the fjord mountains, in the summer it takes tourists to the Pyramid and Barentsburg.

The most important thing is to be lucky with the weather, then 3 hours of sailing will seem like a pleasant walk. In total, two ships carry it to the Pyramid in the summer.

Barents, the discoverer of the island, wrote this: “The land along which we sailed was hilly and elevated, but they were not mountains, although the hills looked like sharp spiers, so the land was piled on Spitsbergen.”

Northern nature is gorgeous, of course

Guide Vadim talks in Norwegian and English about the animal world and the history of the island. Basically, half of the tourists are from mainland Norway, the rest are a complete hodgepodge of Germans, French, and Americans.

Approaching the Pyramid

Buildings, view from the water

We are greeted by the bus and the tour guide Sasha from St. Petersburg, a colorful character with a “moose” gun. You can’t go without a gun; polar bears are extremely dangerous animals. Interestingly, the killing of a polar bear is investigated by the police; shooting can only be done in self-defense, which still needs to be proven. The role of the police is performed by the governor from Norway or, as he is called here, the Susselman. The punishments and fines here are severe, they say that in times of famine, our people killed deer, and they were with chips, and the Norgs (that’s what the Norwegians are called) immediately flew in by helicopter and tied everyone up. The fines are scary!

Let's take a walk around the village

Today, several people spend the winter on the Pyramid and receive guests at the hotel. Surprisingly, on polar nights in winter there are more guests at the hotel. Traveling by snowmobile from Norwegian Longyearbyen through the archipelago is now very popular. Pyramid is a good transit and overnight point for travelers. In the summer, the staff returns, about 10 people, plus this year Tajiks arrived who are engaged in cutting and recycling scrap metal. Most of “ours” are Ukrainians; the salary in Svalbard will not greatly impress the average Russian.

Near the pier there is a magnificent view of the glacier

At one time they opened a farm here, the experiment was so successful that they exported meat and milk to Longyearbyen.

It is forbidden to die on the archipelago and this is not a joke. If this misfortune does happen to you, the body will be taken to the mainland. This is connected with polar bears that tear up graves. The guides joke that if you want to live forever, move to Spitsbergen, it is forbidden to die here :) The building in which the men lived was called “London”, the building with women was called “Paris”.

The main street of 60 Let October, which led to “Paris,” was called “Champs Elysees,” and besides, there are actually fields here, where from? Several ships with black soil arrived from the USSR to the Pyramid, so you can safely tell foreigners that you are standing on Russian soil :) Previously they were not allowed to walk on the grass, even if you were not a dog or a child

We went to the Palace of Culture, which is in a dilapidated state

Reminded me a bit of Pripyat

Dried plants in pots in the dining room

Mosaic there

Monument to the first lily of the valley that bloomed on the Pyramid

Soviet ghost town Pyramid on the island of Spitsbergen

Walking along the Pyramid, the feeling that “we could have, but again we screwed everything up” does not let go; this feeling always creeps in when you hear stories about some “Russian California” or about “the entry of Crimea into the Ukrainian SSR.”

And here is the northernmost grandfather Lenin, looking at the glacier

Elena Aleksandrovna from Donetsk treats you to candy and bakes buns for 3 euros, cheerfully speaks Russian and accepts any currency. Except for rubles, of course :)

Perhaps the most expensive sugar buns in the world :) But take two! Delicious!!! After a warm conversation, we return to the ship.

Tajiks are at work, they recently hired these guys because they can pay less. I work more, don’t drink.

There is a bar on the ship that serves waffles. After the Pyramid, lunch begins.

By the way, the food is handled by a hired chef, I hope that you will be as lucky as me and you will try a real whale steak! Only three countries refused to sign the agreement on whaling: Japan, Norway and Iceland. The quotas are getting smaller and smaller every year, so don’t miss the chance to try whale in Svalbard.

A count of the animals seen is kept on a special board, that is, in 2 months we saw 6 polar bears. We didn’t see a single one, which is understandable; in the summer they move to the north and northeast.

What else should I add? Norgs are cunning, almost all the land on Spitsbergen has been declared nature reserves, you can’t dig into them, it is forbidden to conduct economic activities in the reserves. They infringe on our people in the sky too, the contract does not say a word about the sky, they are allowed to fly only for work reasons, every flight is literally begged for. This greatly hinders the development of villages, because with the Mi-8 it would be possible to quickly transport tourists from the airport to the Pyramid, but the Norwegians don’t want competition and don’t want us to stay here for a long time. I was told how the locals put obstacles in the way of those who decided to open their own business here, for example, the Italian who built a museum with his enthusiasm, they did not help at all, although it was a useful business. But no, if I were Norwegian, otherwise...

HOW TO GET TO THE PYRAMID?
The most interesting thing is that a charter from Moscow flies to Longyearbyen from Moscow once a month from Arktikugol. Then you don't need any visa (remember, I wrote that this is part of Norway, but with a special status). The average cost of a one-way flight will be 15 thousand rubles.

The tourist option is the simplest: we fly to Longyearbyen and take a boat excursion to the Pyramid. You can stay at a local hotel and return back on the same ship a few days later. Norwegians also go to the pyramid on foot (trekking paths), kayaks, and snowmobiles in winter. If you are a researcher, then you have a chance to go there on a long scientific trip (biologists, glaciologists, etc. are welcome). On my flight from Oslo to Longyearbyen there were several Russian scientists from Murmansk; our Mi-8 helicopter transports them to the Pyramid. You can also get to Pyramid for work; on the Arktikugol website, in the vacancies section, someone is always needed, some kind of steam turbine operator or assistant captain of a small boat, however, they will most likely send you to Barentsburg and the contract is signed for 2 years, if you want to leave earlier, you do not receive vacation pay and pay for your return home yourself. The easiest way is to get a job as a guide for the season, they say there is a very good aura there, very quiet and calm. You can forget about the Internet and take a break from your mobile phone. Why not an ecological holiday?)

There are very few Russians here. Guide Vadim said that I was the third one on their ship this season. One day, two Russian girls from Tyumen pitched a tent right in the port, waiting for a morning excursion on a ship. Of course, the security forbade them to be in the port, they called the ship's workers, who had no choice but to invite the ladies onto the ship :) Most of our tourists, if there are any, are cruisers, or those who already like to climb mountains and ride snowmobiles.

I’ll post more glaciers in the next post so as not to overload this post.

Pyramid is a mothballed Russian village on Spitsbergen. Until 1998, this was the site of the world's northernmost mine.

production coal After many years of work, it was closed due to a combination of circumstances: a fire in the mine and the difficulty of extinguishing it,

default in 1998, small remaining coal reserves, and in connection with all this, restoration work is unprofitable.

“Mothballed,” as opposed to “abandoned,” means that sooner or later people will return to developing the village. And it seems

this time is slowly coming. To revive the Pyramid and turn it into a tourist area, Arktikugol renovated

hotel, partially restored heating and water supply engineering networks, sewerage. The restaurant was opened and started working

new thermal boilers and a diesel station; there are three guest houses for tourists in the port. By the way, quite a few of them are already arriving:

Not only the surviving buildings from Soviet times are interesting, but also the unique location of the Pyramid.

Polar bears often enter the village. There is a known case when a bear snuck into a hotel, found a bar, and drank a couple of beers.

and gobbled up some nuts. They kicked him out with the whole world, threw chairs and sticks at him, but the clubfoot really liked it in the new

warm den. After this incident, the hotel bar offers a “Polar Bear Pack” of two cans of beer and nuts.

Let's now take a closer look...

Look how beautiful it is in the port of Pyramid. This is the view when looking at the port from the mountain:

And if you look at the fjord, against the backdrop of buildings there is a beautiful view of the glacier:

Despite its apparent proximity, the glacier is more than 15 kilometers away. Due to the crystal clear air, the distances are quite

not felt:

There is an area near the port where there is cellular coverage. People come here to call and check the weather forecast on the Internet. For comfort

a booth with a telephone set was installed here (it is, of course, not working, just hanging for ambiance and decoration):

Guests are greeted by smartly dressed guide Alexander. It is he who leads all the tourists who come to the Pyramid and supports them in

the village is in order. I’m wearing a suit, which we always wear during boat trips. If suddenly something

happens to a boat, you can live in water for 48 hours in this robe:

Excursion:

There are paths along the Pyramid, raised one meter from the ground. This was not done for beauty - communications lie under the flooring. IN

During the Soviet period, due to the heat from heating networks, snow and ice did not accumulate on the “boxes” and they were used as sidewalks:

During the polar night, the paths were illuminated with lanterns:

Alas, there is still a lot of work on the Pyramid. If you move a little to the side, you can see the old destroyed communications of the village and the mine.

By the way, the management of Arktikugol will be glad to have volunteers who come to the Pyramid to improve the territory.

Applications must be submitted on the website http://www.goarctica.ru:

Tablets from the past:

The village got its name from the mountain of the same name, the top of which is very similar to a pyramid. We will climb it in

next post:

Previously, this was a dormitory for family employees, and today the building is known as the “House with Seagulls”:

There are whole hordes of them here. Birds perceive walls and windows as ledges in rocks and make their nests here:

Panorama of the village from a quadcopter. In the foreground is a house with seagulls, to the left is a hotel. The alley behind them is former residential

village houses and main street:

View from the ground. The houses on the alley are painted, all the glass is in place, everything inside is left as it was in the 90s. The houses are all closed, on the doors

locks. Some of them can be visited with a guide during an excursion:

The communications of the former mine stretch upward under the clouds - rails for lowering coal and a funicular for employees:

Old Arktikugol billboard. It indicates 79 degrees, although in reality, the Pyramid does not “reach” 79 degrees for about 20 minutes or

about 35 kilometers. The latitude at which the Pyramid stands is 78″40:

Vladimir Ilyich. I suspect this is the most northern Ilyich in the world:

Sports complex. In the next post we will go inside:

Suddenly a scribe came to us. This sign alerted us. Then they explained to us that the scribe came to the village a long time ago: in almost every

there is their lair at home:

In 1910, the Swede Bertil Högbom received permission to mine coal 120 kilometers from the Barentsburg mine in the depths of the mountains on

half a kilometer above sea level. In 1911, construction and equipment of the mine began. This marked the beginning

emergence of the Pyramid:

The road goes beyond the village. There are artificial lakes there - an artificial reservoir from which water is collected for drinking:

The river bed is now dry, but in spring and during rains this entire space is filled with water:

Old water intake:

From here you can clearly see Mount Pyramid:

I’m sure you didn’t immediately guess that the previous photo shows an inverted reflection of a mountain in the water. Lake-reservoir:

These things are called hydro-needles. They artificially froze the ground so that water from the lake did not seep through the soil into

summer period of permafrost thawing:

Now they are not working, but the water is still standing in the reservoir:

The village was built taking into account the experience gained during the construction of Barentsburg and Grumant. According to the Norwegian King

Harald V, who visited the Pyramid in 1995, is “one of the pearls of the entire archipelago.” It's hard to disagree with this: