At first glance, Pyramiden looks like an idyllic settlement with urban architecture made up of brick and timber apartment blocks. But one thing is missing: the inhabitants.
Pyramiden was founded by Sweden in 1910 and sold to the Soviet Union in 1927. By the 1980s, this mining community had more than 1,000 residents. It takes its name from the nearby pyramid-shaped mountain. The Russian state mining company Trust Arktikugol closed the mine in 1998 after 53 years of continuous operation. Falling coal prices, the difficulty and cost of extracting coal from the mountain, and the Russian plane crash at Operafjellet, which killed 141 people, all contributed heavily to that decision. Pyramiden is now mostly frequented by gulls, Arctic foxes and, fairly often, polar bears. Tourists come too — by boat in summer and snowmobile in winter — to see this surreal place.
Visiting Pyramiden feels like stepping into a time machine. The architecture and buildings are so well preserved that it looks as if everyone left in a hurry when the mine closed. Cups were found left on tables, newspaper clippings still pinned to the walls, skis propped in the corridors. The handsome indoor swimming pool and the meticulously furnished cultural centre both display architecture typical of the Soviet era and bear witness to the settlement's heyday. Pyramiden was once a good place to live, with a close-knit community and facilities including a petrol station, a greenhouse and a cowshed, a school, a nursery, a hotel and a restaurant. At the top of the main street, a statue of Lenin keeps watch over the abandoned town and the magnificent Nordenskiöld glacier.
This ghost town at the foot of Billefjord is now home to eight people who work at the hotel and act as tour guides in summer. During the dark winter months, the population drops by half, to four people responsible for maintaining the buildings and checking the generators. This abandoned mining site is “one of the 10 ghost towns in the world you must visit” according to National Geographic — and there's no doubt about it.
