Abandoned Cities

I'm quite interested in all things Russian - more specifically from the times of the USSR. Strange how it was so recent, yet seems so very old. Although it might just be because here in Britain we were actually a bit removed from its looming presence - certainly in Germany the iron curtain feels so much more immediate. I've just been looking at a set of photos of an abandoned Russian city called Kadykchan

I don't know anything about the place but I suppose it's safe to assume it was some mining town or scientific campus and when the money dried up, the people left. It's amazing that Russia is so big that things like this, entire towns, can just lie there forgotten and turning to rust in the endless forest.

10 comments:

worm said...: woah! html went crazy! oh well, I kind of like it; 7 December 2009 at 13:27
Brit said...: Russia is like another planet.; 8 December 2009 at 01:57
worm said...: have you been there Brit? I'd love to go; 8 December 2009 at 02:14
Brit said...: No I haven't, though my wife went to St Petersburg with her mother before it was normal to do so, chasing after a penfriend who, luckily, turned out to exist. My wife's mother is scatty beyond belief, it's a miracle she's survived so long. Could tell you many a tale.; 8 December 2009 at 04:06
Gareth Williams said...: I've been to Russia numerous times as well as some of its more remote neighbours. It really is the weirdest place. Everything is recognisable but it's all just slightly different, sort of at one remove from our experience. I have no desire to go again as you get sick after a while of the corruption - and I don't mean just material corruption. They've got an ultra-cynical way of thinking that is quite corrupted. But you can see how they got there.; 8 December 2009 at 06:07
mahlerman said...: Didn't get as far as Soviet Russia but, back in about 1962 I travelled with a youth orchestra as far as Dresden and Halle, both of which felt very strange, the former still with rubble in the streets from Bomber Harris' big adventure (we were from Coventry), the latter seemingly intact.; 9 December 2009 at 08:40
Gadjo Dilo said...: But that town could still be inhabited, right? The buildings are standing, you never know there might be all sorts of folk still there.; 9 December 2009 at 10:13
worm said...: gadjo - I dont think so, I think when the infrastructure totally ground to a halt then even the real die-hards left - there's certainly no sign of anything living there! But yes, it's easy to picture some die-hard old crone living there who has refused to move and still sits outside on her porch listening to communist marching music on a wind-up gramophone; 9 December 2009 at 10:35
worm said...: mahlerman - I live near coventry and I think on a winters day it has more than a passing resemblance to this russian town!; 9 December 2009 at 10:36
mahlerman said...: Yes, there may be a link there Worm. Kadykchan lost it's tin mines, Coventry diluted and eventually abandoned it's car industry, machine tool plants, and other useful manufacturing a generation ago.
To some eyes Kady has that romantic, wasted look, invested with not a little poetry. From my hazy memories of family picnics in the Warwickshire countryside, you could never say that about Cov; 10 December 2009 at 01:46

ruminant

an undigested mulch of vegetation

Abandoned Cities

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