Pyramiden

Pyramiden is a tourist attraction on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard. It is an abandoned Soviet coal mining village. Pyramiden was founded by Sweden in 1910 and sold to the Soviet Union in 1927. It was closed in 1998 and has been abandoned since then, with most of the infrastructure and buildings still standing. Much of what was left behind is preserved thanks to Price. The town's hotel was rebuilt and reopened in 2013 after efforts to make it into a tourist destination began in 2007. During the summer, there are six caretakers on the premises.

Sweden founded Pyramiden in 1910, but it was sold to the Soviet Union in 1927. It is named after the pyramid-shaped mountain adjacent to the town, which is located at the foot of Mount Billefjorden on the island of Spitsbergen. Longyearbyen, Svalbard's capital, is 50 kilometers (31 miles) to the south, Barentsburg is 100 kilometers (62 miles) to the southwest, and Ny-lesund, a tiny research community, is 100 kilometers (62 miles) to the west. The population was largely Ukrainian during the Soviet era, consisting of Donbass miners and Volyn laborers.

The historic settlement remains deserted and virtually unaltered as of 2007. The structures' interiors have mainly remained unchanged since the town was abandoned. Aleksandr Romanovsky was the first person to return to Pyramiden in 2012. He was accompanied by five other people. Romanovsky, a musician and tour guide in the village, refers to himself as "the world's most northern guy." On the 100th anniversary of Soviet cinema, the world's northernmost film festival was hosted in Pyramiden on August 27, 2019.

Pyramiden is our Arctic time travel back to the Soviet Union, a land surrounded by spectacular natural landscapes with mountains and valleys, with a rich historical history, and after being restored in 1998. You will have a one-of-a-kind opportunity to immerse yourself in the atmosphere of the Soviet era, visit well-preserved buildings from that era, hear stories from the past and present, and even attend a movie screening at the northernmost historic cinema past the original refurbished cinema-service providers. Anyone who has spent at least a few hours at Pyramiden can appreciate its unique qualities. Today, the "frozen in time" town has reopened as a tourist destination, complete with a charming hotel and restaurant that keeps the original Soviet design. In 1995 and 2018, King Harald V and Queen Sonja paid a visit to Pyramiden and took a break at the café. With a long history, along with inherent beauty, Pyramiden deserves to be on the list of the most beautiful historical sites in Svalbard and Jan Mayen.

Location: the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard.