The northernmost bust of Lenin has a great panorama view over Pyramiden with the Nordenskiold glacier in the background. With that, only Norwegian and Soviet communities remained on the archipelago. The same year, a Norwegian state-owned company bought Svea coalmine from the Swedes. The Soviet Union bought Pyramiden in 1927 from the Swedes, just like its state company Arktikugol (Arctic coal) bought Barentsburg coal mine further southwest in Isfjorden from the Dutch in 1934. In the 1920s, onshore, that meant coal mining. The 1920 Svalbard Treaty recognizes the sovereignty of Norway over the archipelago, but all signatories were given equal rights to engage in commercial activities on the islands. What could be taken out from beneath the permafrost inside the steep mountain was just a tiny fraction of the coal extracted in the Kuzbass region in southwestern Siberia.ĭigging for coal gave the Soviet Union a foothold on Svalbard. This is a Soviet ghost town on Norway’s Svalbard archipelago that once was inhabited by Russian and Ukrainian coal miners and their families.Īlthough not stated publicly, Kremlin’s main idea with the settlement was not primarily to get coal. High above the coal mines, the towering top of the mountain looks truly like a pyramid. Even more correct would be Пирамида. The inspiration to the name of the town is easy to understand when looking up. Welcome to Pyramiden, or the Pyramid if translated to English. It’s inside your own head the lyrics of Back in the U.S.S.R. plays. No, there ain’t any hidden loudspeakers playing the Beatles. Abandoned twenty years ago, Pyramiden coal-mining town on the northern edge of the world is a preserved display of what the Soviet Union wanted to offer in the Arctic if communism worked. This was once upon a time the world’s northernmost kindergarten and primary school.
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