Introduction : We’ve had recently an abandoned railway in Abkhazia, abandoned as a result of USSR collapse when new “independent” republics couldn’t maintain the complicated and high-cost USSR legacy objects. But this one was abandoned long before the USSR collapse, it was doomed to be abandoned from the beginning. It was built by a personal Stalin’s order in the middle of nowhere - deep inside Northern Siberia between Salekhard city and Igarka town. It was not connected with any other Russian Federal Railway System and the purpose of it still is not very clear, so as a senseless toy it way abandoned pretty soon and now rusts accessible only with a helicopter.

It was one of the most ambitious projects of the Stalin era, known as the "railway of bones". At least 10 people a day died during the four years of its construction, but unlike most of Uncle Joe's grand designs it was never completed and now sits unfinished in the tundra, an icy road to nowhere.

Yet today officials are considering restarting work on the vast railway that Stalin hoped would run inside the Arctic Circle, initially from the north Siberian town of Salekhard to the port of Igarka. Work was abandoned in 1953, shortly after the dictator's death, yet its usefulness appeals to Moscow today.

The Kremlin, which sees its global influence resting on its abundance of natural resources, may have the railway finished to link the bountiful gas fields and metal mines of Arctic Siberia with Europe. Sergei Ivanov, deputy head of Russia's massive state rail company, said recently they were considering extending the railway to the nickel-rich town of Norilsk, responsible for 2% of Russia's GDP. A local engineer told the Guardian last week that he has been instructed to revisit the plans for the railway, considered to be technically excellent.

Renewed interest in the project comes as an exhibition in its memory opens in Moscow, at the Sakharov Museum, named after the Soviet-era dissident. Ludmila Vesilovskaya, curator of the exhibition, said it was designed to show that prison labour was a vital part of the Soviet economy and that its purpose was often not as "senseless as the many myths about the Stalin era try to show".

The decision to begin work on "Projects 503 and 501" was announced in January 1949. Stalin wanted to improve access to the Bering Strait, then the easiest route to the Soviet Union's new main adversary, the US. "We must take the north in hand", he is reported to have said, adding that "labour power and resources will be no problem".

In fact, work on the 750-mile railway had already begun in April 1947, heading in two directions, project 503 west from Igarka, and project 501 east from the town of Salekhard. "At the peak of activity in 1951, 85,000 prisoners were working on it," said Oleg Prikhodko, a researcher in Salekhard. "The climate was awful, the winters terribly severe." The walls of the barracks in which the prisoners lived were "very thin" and it was "difficult to understand how they survived in 50 below zero".

Ms Vesilovskaya said there were no exact figures available for the number of prisoners who died making the 435 miles of railway that was completed. A report from one of the directorates for January 1951 showed they lost about 1% of their prisoners, she said. "Each had 30,000 to 50,000 workers, so that's at least 300 dead a month."

Among the survivors was Lazar Shereshevsky, 79, arrested in the army in 1944. He was part of a troupe of 200 entertainers who travelled along the railway construction site, staging operas for the labourers. "The main causes of death were working accidents, disease and illness," he said, adding that scurvy was a major killer, as were disputes between criminal groups in the camps that the guards did little to prevent.

"The main thing was to build quickly and effectively," he said, adding that work was impossible during winter.

Actual labour was confined to the six warmer months of the year. "The work was hard, but the hardest thing were the mosquitoes - myriads of them that covered everything", he said. He added that in the 24-hour daylight of the polar zone they "ate us all day long".

Ms Vesilovskaya said she hopes her Moscow exhibition will explain to the younger generation that a vital part of Russian history is disappearing. "There is a danger we will lose, with these last buildings and camps, part of our historical memory," she said.

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La mano del desierto (the hand of the desert) is not actually abandoned as most of the things you can find in this blog...It's a piece of art, and it's hard to tell if a piece of art is ever abandoned.

Nevertheless, the sight of this surrealistic giant hand in this very special location, the driest desert of Atacama, in Chile just moves me the same way as abandoned things do.

The artist behind it is the Chilean sculptor Mario Irarrázabal. the hand was constructed at an altitude of 1,100 meters above sea level. The work has a base of iron and cement, and stands 11 meters tall. The sculpture was inaugurated on March 28, 1992.

Mario Irarrázabal also made similar sculptures in Punta del Este, in Uruguay in 1982, in the city of Madrid in 1987, and in Venice 1995.

Note : Hello visitors if you are really interested in searching such abandoned places then do let me know ... got something very unusual place in your list ?? please comment your views under this post .

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One of the more ornate abandoned places in the world this railway station in Abkhazia is a stunning relic from the collapse of the Soviet empire. Soviet era train stations were often overdone marble monuments to the working man and this was no exception.



Abkhazian railways consist of a 185-kilometre (115 mi) main line along the Black Sea coast and a 36 km (22 mi) branch to Tkvarcheli. It connected Russia’s North Caucasus Railway with Georgian railways prior to 1992, however the connection with Georgia was severed as a result of the War in Abkhazia. The railway is administered by the state-run Abkhazskaya Zheleznaya Doroga company. At the beginning of 2008 there was one regular long-distance train Moscow-Sukhumi and occasional freight traffic. The railway system of Abkhazia was isolated in the 1990s due to the blockade imposed by Russia.

The Russian military relies on railroads to deploy heavy weapons and armor to the battlefield. The acute military, strategic and tactical importance of the railroad system in Russia explains the existence of special Railroad Troops whose task is to keep the tracks in order during and in preparation for war and to organize makeshift armor battlefield disembarkment points.

The railway was once a busy passenger route between Abkhazia and Russia and is testament to the former Soviet’s rich past. It now belongs to nature.


In July 2008 Russian troops repaired 54 km of Soviet-built tracks with 20 tunnels and bridges south of the Abkhaz capital Sukhumi to the coastal town of Ochamchire. The railroad was out of use since the early 1990s, a period which witnessed the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Georgia-Abkhaz war. At a colorful official ceremony in Dranda, south of Sukhumi, the commander of the Railroad Troops General Sergei Klimets told journalists that the railroad operation was “purely humanitarian” to help the people of Abkhazia.


At the height of the Russian Empire buildings were grandiose, colorful and inspiring but since the collapse of the USSR some lie abandoned, as with this railway station in Abkhazia, a former Russian territory.



The ornate hallways, seating areas and stairwells are nothing like we’re used to today, which is a shame. If our railway stations looked this good, there would probably be a lot less complaining when the trains are delayed, or cancelled!

In Short : This is an abandoned railway station in Abkhazia, former Russian territory. It stays untouched since the collapse of USSR - the railway connection of Abkhazia and Russia stopped and railway station left out of demand so nature could take over the left-overs of Soviet architecture. In my opinion it reminds somehow the Prince of Persia video game scenes or scenes from the movie of the abandoned civilization after some major disaster.

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Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, is a medium-security prison for men in Atlanta, Georgia. For many years it has been a notorious part of the U.S. federal prison system. It also has a detention center for pre-trial and holdover inmates and a camp for minimum security male inmates. It was primarily used as a detention center for Cuban refugees from the Mariel Boatlift who were ineligible for release into American society. The prison is located in southeast Atlanta at the junction of Boulevard and McDonough Boulevard. Its population as of July 6, 2006 is 1909 in the penitentiary and 554 in the camp.

 



There's an abandoned prison farm in SE Atlanta, hidden in the woods and completely covered by kudzu.










Buildings are so overgrown that they are deeply hidden in trees.
According to Atlanta's "History of the Dept of Corrections" page, the prison farm was operated from 1945 to 1995.




There are rumors of the 290 acres being converted into a park soon. Increased patrols are also occurring so don't park next to the road.

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