You can also take a multi-day guided tour through Spitzbergen Adventures or Grumant Arctic Travel Company. From there, Visit Svalbard says you can reach Pyramiden by boat (in the summer) or snowmobile (in the winter). How to visit: Plan to stay in Longyearbyen, Svalbard's largest city. Spooky photo op: The world’s northernmost statue of Lenin. As for the site today? Rachel Nuwer of Smithsonian Magazine sums it up perfectly: "It was as if several hundred people had abruptly stopped what they were doing and simply walked away." The tragedy slashed morale and the site was fully abandoned in 1998. ![]() The biggest hit came in 1996, when an airplane flying from Moscow to Svalbard crashed en route, killing all 141 passengers on board, many of them Pyramiden residents. (They also built graveyards for both humans and cats, because pet cemeteries are always a good idea.) The coal mines here were never profitable, however. ![]() After WWII, they started spending more money on the enterprise, building hospitals, cafeterias, and houses-all in the block-style fashion typical of Soviet-era architecture. Pyramiden came to prominence in the 1930s, when the Soviets took ownership of the area's coalfields and quickly began mining operations. ![]() Here's the story: The archipelago of Svalbard, located halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole, is home to about 2,145 humans, 1,000 polar bears, and one seriously bone-chilling ghost town: Pyramiden, named for the pyramid-shaped mountain looming nearby.
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