Ghost Town at the End of Earth
BIZARRE tourist attraction or eerie ghost town? This town at “the end of earth” - which has only one permanent resident - is both.
THIS could well be the weirdest attraction on earth!
Located on the archipelago of Svalbard, Norway, on the Arctic Ocean island of Spitsbergen, only 1300km from the north Pole, this abandoned town, called Pyramiden (named after the nearby pyramid-shaped mountain) is an deserted Sovient coal mining outpost.
What makes it so interesting is how eerie it looks - a town at the "end of earth".
The town is still owned by the Russian mining company Trust Arktikugol, and those keen to visit can. Pyramiden is accessible by boat or snowmobile from Longyearbyen, either as part of a guided tour or independently.
The only permanent resident of Pyramiden is a Russian tour guide who has a pet fox for company, however a small number of temporary residents now live in Pyramiden also, to maintain what has now become a bizarre tourist attraction.
In fact, because of growing tourist numbers the Tulip Hotel in Pyramiden reopened in 2013, so those wanting to spend a night among nothing can do so. No renovations are planned for the hotel.
Curious travellers are not restricted when it comes to visiting times, however no buildings can be entered without prior permission.
The "town" was founded in 1910 by Sweden and then sold to the USSR in 1927. The mining outpost was then aboned in 1998.
