With its bust of Lenin, its palace of culture and its offices of the KGB, Pyramiden is a utopian vestige of the Soviet Unionalthough Russia is holding on to this abandoned mining site in the Arcticwhich has become a strategic priority for the Kremlin.
Russia hopes to become the first military and economic power in that regionfrom the financial income of the northwest passagesea route between Europe and Asia that opens with the retreat of the ice.
At the same time that in the icy waters of the north the Russians have a nuclear icebreaker fleetMoscow keeps one foot in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard (Spitzberg), demilitarized zone well inside the polar circle.
If the sovereignty of Svalvard was attributed to Norway -Currently a member of the NATO-, the Paris treaty of 1920 foresees that all the signatory States – among them the USSR at that time – can dedicate themselves to economic activities in the area.
Since 1931, in the town of barentsburga Russian community extracted coal from the company’s mines Arktikugol. At Pyramiden, activity ceased in 1998 due to lack of performance and the miners left.
At first glance, it is a ghost town. There are no inhabitants except a handful of russians who have a very soviet style hotel Y polar bears with whom one can meet face to face.
But if everything is obsolete, nothing is destroyedfound a photographer from the AFP. The buildings, built to last, are only cracked from decades of harsh winters. The rails of the funicular, which lowered the wagons from the mine, continue on the pyramid-shaped mountain that dominates the town.
In the buildings it is as if the occupants had surreptitiously departedready to return at any time.
in the offices of the managementthe bottles with minerals are lined up in the showcases and the calendars are glued to the walls.
in the offices of the KGBarmored doors, the miners’ tokens are spread out on the tables.
In the classrooms, there are children’s drawings pinned up with thumbtacks and the teacher’s cup is on his platform.
“Pyramiden is as important as (the ghost mining town of) Grumant and Barentsburg. It is not just a place of historical memory. That town is not abandoned, it has been temporarily placed on hold.”Yuri Ugryumov, deputy director of the Russian Arctic and Antarctic Scientific Research Institute in St. Petersburg, told AFP.
In the years 1960-1980, Pyramiden had up to 1,200 Russians. Being sent there was considered a prize for a miner, explains a guide to AFP.
Located on the western side of the Iron Curtainthe village was considered an ideal Soviet city, self-sufficient with its pig farms and important with its palace of culture, a cinema with 300 seats, swimming pool, gym and hospital.
Today, Russia develops tourism and research. Arktikugol launched its tourist company, and glaciologists, hydrologists, and oceanographers carry out scientific studies.
“Here is hope for an interesting future”says Ugryumov, also head of the Russian Arctic expedition in the archipelago.
(By Olivier Morin, AFP)
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Source-www.infobae.com