GEOPOLITICAL FLUKE

Pyramiden owes its very existence to a sort of geopolitical fluke. It is located on the Svalbard archipelago, an island chain about 1,200 miles (2,000 kilometers) north of Scandinavia. Situated as it is, north of the Arctic Circle, in the summer, the sun never sets, and in the winter, it never rises.

Until a century ago, the archipelago was unclaimed territory. Fur hunters and whalers from several nations made outposts there. After coal deposits were discovered in the 1890s, interest in the islands intensified. In 1920, a conference of countries ratified the Svalbard Treaty, granting sovereignty to Norway but stipulating that all signatories retained rights to fishing, hunting, and mineral resources.

In 1926, Norway established Longyearbyen, today the most populous town in Svalbard with 2,000 permanent residents and the world’s northernmost settlement. Ten years later, the Soviet Union purchased coal mining rights in Pyramiden, named for the huge, pyramid-shaped mountain that rises up from the valley behind it.

At first, Pyramiden was a rather sleepy place, with almost no permanent residents. After the war, the place began to come to life. The Soviets built dozens of structures, including a clinic, a culture center, a cafeteria, and apartment buildings — all in typical proletarian style.

By the 1980s, the town numbered 1,000 residents, and the buildings acquired nicknames. The unmarried male workers lived in “London”; families lived in “Paris”; and the temporary workers lived in “Gostinka” (“hotel” in Russian), which was not really a hotel but rather a dormitory.

Pyramiden residents lived in unique conditions; not only was it one of the most remote, isolated places in the world, but it was also under strict Communist rule. There were no private kitchens in the apartments; there was only the communal dining facility, a feature familiar to kibbutzniks. And the residents had to comport themselves with model Communist behavior.

SOCIALIST PARADISE

It  wasn’t easy to persuade people to settle in a place where darkness reigns supreme three months of the year, and even in the summer, temperatures just about scrape zero degrees — from the bottom. Therefore, Pyramiden residents received all kinds of enticements that aroused envy from their comrades in the less frozen parts of Lenin’s “socialist paradise.” There was a library, a gym, a large auditorium with rows of seats upholstered in red (of course). There was even a heated pool, and someone somehow schlepped a large Krasnyi Oktrabr (Red October) piano to the culture building.

The pride of Pyramiden was a vast natural lawn that served as a playground and the town’s sports field. This landscaping project was much more complicated than you might think. The arid tundra won’t support plant growth.

To overcome this problem, the Soviets shipped in tons of Ukrainian soil and spread it out in the center of the town. The plan succeeded beyond their wildest expectations. The polar bears must have rubbed their eyes at the sight of a lush, grassy lawn surrounded by sunflowers and other non-native plants.

The residents also used this imported dirt in greenhouses, where they raised tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, and other vegetables. They also raised flocks that supplied them with their own meat and chicken. Combined with the unlimited supply of coal from the nearby mine, the town became virtually food and energy independent.

Aside from Pyramiden’s homegrown prosperity, Moscow had a vested interest in showering the tiny settlement with all kinds of extras. Because this small Soviet foothold was in an area technically part of the West, where visitors could enter without a visa, the town was designated a Soviet Potemkin village, offering a window display on the success of Communism.

In addition to the propaganda value, the Soviets also extracted military and intelligence benefits from their little Arctic outpost. That is why Pyramiden continued to exist, even though its coal mine was never profitable.

“For the Soviet Union, holding on to this place gave them a showy accomplishment, and it also served as a cover up for other activities, it seems,” says a polar researcher who now lives in Longyearbyen, but remembers Pyramiden in its glory days.

When a BBC reporter visited Svalbard 20 years ago, he asked one of the local Norwegians what brought him to live in such a frozen and remote place.

“Someone has to live here,” the other man shrugged. “And if we weren’t here, the Russians would take over the whole island, or the French — or even you.”

The Norwegians took their sovereignty seriously, but so did the Russians and the polar bears.

DARKNESS AND CHAOS

Despite all the Kremlin’s investments in Pyramiden, life there was never easy.

The cheerful green lawn couldn’t dispel the constant cold, darkness, and loneliness. People felt dwarfed by the massive Nordenskiöldbreen glacier rising up on one side of town and the looming pyramid-shaped peak on the other. Many residents suffered from depression and asked to be transferred elsewhere.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the feelings of dejection only grew. The supplies from Moscow stopped coming, and the meager salaries were paid very late, if at all. A new sense of uncertainty pervaded the darkness.

Still, a few hundred hardy people continued to hold on, either because they had no choice, or because they were hoping for better days.

The final collapse came in 1996. Just a few moments before landing at the tiny airport in Longyearbyen, Flight 2801 from Moscow to Svalbard crashed with 141 passengers en route to Pyramiden. All the passengers were killed, among them children and relatives of coal mine workers.

The tragedy shocked the residents of Pyramiden. The magnitude was compounded by the murky circumstances surrounding it. The families of the victims sued the mining company, which had organized the flight. The mining company sued the airline, which in turn sued subcontractors for the plane’s substandard condition. Amid the bickering over amounts of compensation, morale in Pyramiden reached a nadir.

Boris Yeltsin won that year’s presidential election, but the Russian economy soon crashed, and the state’s resources were grabbed up by oligarchs and criminal groups. It was total chaos in the former superpower. Under such conditions, who really cared what was happening in a remote Soviet colony that found itself more isolated and disconnected than ever?

If that weren’t enough, Pyramiden also had other, more local problems.

PEOPLE OR SHADOWS?

Output at Pyramiden’s coal mine, the settlement’s economic base, began to slacken after the layers of coal near the surface had been maxed out. The miners were forced to search for deeper veins of coal inside the mountain. There were strange mishaps and work accidents. In the endless wintertime darkness, it was hard to distinguish between a person and a shadow. The slightest mistake could lead to a catastrophe.

Rumors circulated that the town’s parent company had run out of money and decided to close down either Pyramiden or Barentsburg, another Russian colony about 160 kilometers (100 miles) south.

In any case, a deep sense of unease gripped the handful of remaining settlers. In the winter of 1998, they gradually started to leave, and the exodus picked up steam as the weeks passed. First the families left, followed by the single men. They were ferried out in helicopters and on ships during pauses in the stormy weather, which meant that the exodus was sometimes sudden, on very short notice.

“It all happened very fast,” relates Hein Bjerck, a Norwegian researcher whose younger years were spent in Longyearbyen. “I remember a handful of people in the town square asking me to take their picture before they left. Too bad I didn’t keep the picture.”

Toward the end of 1998, just before the first ice appeared, the last lump of coal was mined from the depths of the mine in Pyramiden. A few hours later, the last group of permanent residents departed.

“The town simply disappeared,” Bjerck marvels. “Only the buildings and the silence remained.”

TERNS FOR THE WORSE

With the sudden departure of the last residents, Pyramiden became the northernmost ghost town in the world, a flinty memento of life in the twilight of the Soviet empire. Because of the difficulty involved in getting there, damage from tourism and vandals took years to accumulate.

In 2006, Bjerck and two friends spent a week there, documenting the sights. The contrast between the abandoned buildings and the stark scenery on all sides, and the haunting silence in a place that shows signs of having had vibrant life, makes spending time in Pyramiden a very strange experience.

North of the Arctic Circle, natural deterioration happens more slowly. Ivy does not climb the walls of buildings, and trees won’t grow through the sidewalks. But the terns have discovered that the windowsills are excellent nesting spots, and today, their squawks fill the air. Curious polar bears also wander in from time to time, so if you decide to visit Pyramiden, make sure you bring a high-powered rifle.

Remarkably, one of the hardiest things in Pyramiden is the grassy lawn. Year after year, when the snow melts, the stalks of grass poke through again, spreading a bright green swath over the dismal gray tundra.

LONE RESIDENT

If the thought of living in a ghost town appeals to you, you can join Alexander Romanovsky, a musician and tour guide, who has been living at least part time in Pyramiden since 2012. He is not the only one who does it, and he claims that the “official” population of the town is six.

It’s hard to know how accurate this is. The town is still owned by the Russian coal company Arktikugol, which forbids any entry to abandoned buildings. How exactly the company enforces this in a town a few hundred kilometers from the North Pole is unclear.

Even hundreds of years down the line, experts claim, Pyramiden will remain a time capsule, a well-preserved monument of life at the sunset of the Communist era.

To get to Pyramiden, ask your travel agent to book you passage on a ship that sails there directly, or fly into the Norwegian town of Longyearbyen and ride a snowmobile. Upon arrival, visitors can stay at the local hotel, which was renovated and opened for tourist visits — as long as they give advance notice.

During your stay, you can tour the abandoned apartments, and browse at what remains of the public library, packed with crumbling Soviet volumes. You may also wonder what is really hiding in the coal mine whose ugly maw gapes on the slope of the mountain. Many secrets of the place have never been deciphered.

What happened in Pyramiden stays in Pyramiden.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1020)