10 places abandoned by people

For a variety of reasons — wars, famines, economic crises, climate change — once crowded places where life was in full swing are becoming deserted and useless to anyone. They, like the shadows of the irrevocably departed past, serve as a reminder of the inexorable passage of time and the transience of the present.

Founded more than two thousand years ago, this Chinese ghost town lies on the banks of the Yangtze River. The locals consider it a refuge of the devil and believe that there is a gateway to the underworld here. Two Taoist hermits, Yin and Wang, were the first to settle in this place. Pronounced together, these names mean "King of Darkness"in Chinese. In the era of the Tang Dynasty (VII‑X centuries AD), Fengdu began to be used by Taoists as a place of burial of the dead.

The construction of the "Dam at the three gorges" caused the flooding of the city, only buildings located on the hills remained on the surface, but it became easier to get here by the river, which increased the flow of tourists. In the temple complex, you can see many colorful figures of demons and other evil spirits. The huge statue "The King of Ghosts", listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest stone monument carved from a single solid piece of rock, stands out especially.

The town of Kayakey is located near the Taurus Mountains in southwestern Turkey.

A hundred years ago, about 20 thousand Greeks lived here, but because of the Greek-Turkish political confrontation, this place was abandoned.

The city appeared in the XVIII century, but today its buildings have turned into ruins: houses without roofs are flooded with rain water and blown by all the winds. Local residents from the Greeks, who previously lived peacefully side by side with their Muslim neighbors, were forced to move to their historical homeland to avoid persecution.

About 350 residential buildings and two Orthodox churches have been preserved. Today, Kayakey is an open-air museum included in popular tourist routes.

In the early 90s of the last century, Thailand experienced rapid economic growth, accompanied by a construction boom, when buildings of dozens of floors were erected literally at every step in Bangkok. However, the infamous Asian crisis of 1997 put an end to the period of abundance. One of the victims of the financial collapse was the Sathorn Unique skyscraper, which was only a few months away from completion.

This grandiose 49-storey residential complex stands alone on the banks of the Chaopraya River. It is dangerous to enter it for life, many inter-storey ceilings are dilapidated and threaten to collapse from any careless movement. So you can admire the abandoned building only from the outside. Over the past years, the economic situation in Thailand has improved, new skyscrapers have risen, but the fate of Sathorn Unique remains unclear. And the local population has already called the abandoned hulk a ghost house.

The Romanian town of Covasna played the role of an important center of forestry and woodworking industry. In 1890, a network of railway lines connected the city with other settlements of the country.

Within the framework of the railway network, a unique system of roads was created, along which trains loaded with logs moved down an inclined plane due to the action of gravity, at the same time forcing empty cars to rise. Such a brilliantly thought-out design was implemented here for the first time in the world, and even now exists only in a few places.

Unfortunately, in 1995, a severe storm hit this region, destroying hundreds of hectares of forest and causing irreparable damage to enterprises. Local authorities discussed with investors plans for the rehabilitation of the inclined railway as a tourist attraction, but the economic crisis that broke out in 2008 prevented their implementation.

This island, which lies not far from LaGuardia Airport, has never been loved by New Yorkers, and now it is completely abandoned. In 1880-1930, the Riverside Hospital functioned here, where patients with smallpox, typhus, and leprosy were treated. The famous Typhoid Mary ended her days here. Later, until its closure in 1963, the building was used as a center for the rehabilitation of drug addicts.

Today, the island is a nature reserve. The hospital building with broken windows and a leaky roof is still standing. In 2008, Christopher Payne organized an exhibition of photographs illustrating the current state of the island.

This is the name of a radio station on the territory of the former West Berlin. Its purpose was to intercept radio signals coming from the Soviet side. The hill on top of which stands this brainchild of the Cold War, appeared in 1963 on the site of a Nazi military school, which, after several unsuccessful attempts to demolish, they decided to fill up with the rubble of buildings destroyed during the bombing of the German capital. The new hill was called the Devil's Mountain.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the need for a radio station disappeared and the building fell into disrepair. The building has changed several owners, street artists have painted graffiti on the walls. The future fate of the building has not been determined. Plans are being hatched to set up a luxury restaurant, a hotel and even a museum of espionage here, but none of this has received real outlines to date. Therefore, while local guides take tourists here who are interested in taking a look at this relic of the past.

The island of Montserrat was discovered by Columbus during one of his voyages to the American continent. Due to the activity of the volcano, the territory of this small piece of land is gradually increasing due to rocks ejected from the bowels of the earth during eruptions. But due to volcanic activity, the population was forced to leave the southern part.

In 1995 and 1997, the previously dormant Soufriere Hills volcano erupted with such force that the nearby city of Plymouth was covered with a one-and-a-half-meter layer of lava and ash. As in the Roman city of Pompeii, the city streets, along with buildings and transport, were literally walled up in pyroclastic flows. Most of the residents were evacuated in a timely manner and were not injured, which cannot be said about the almost completely destroyed tourist infrastructure, which is not yet possible to restore.

Once a beautiful castle built in the Neo-Gothic style, now it is only a picturesque ruin. It was erected by representatives of the Lydekerke-Beaufort noble family in the second half of the XIX century and served as their ancestral nest until the Second World War, when the region was occupied by German troops.

After the war, until 1980, it housed a summer camp for orphans, arranged by the Belgian railway company, from which the castle was leased. The maintenance of such a large complex of buildings in the proper form is associated with high costs, and by 1991 the castle was completely abandoned. The destruction was also added by a fire that happened a few years later, after which the owners took out everything of value that was preserved from it.

To date, no one lives here, although there have been several proposals to use the castle as a hotel. The owners of Lydekerke-Beaufort have submitted an official request for demolition, so soon, probably, there will be no ruins left of it.

In 1958, in the city of Waterbury (Connecticut), a certain John Greco arranged a park on a biblical theme. Soon it became very famous, it was visited by more than 40 thousand people annually. Smaller copies of Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Herod's palace, and the nativity scene were recreated here. A 50-foot stainless steel cross could be seen from any corner, and Bible verses could be read on the stones scattered around the territory.

In 1984, the owner of the" Holy Land " temporarily closed access to the public to carry out reconstruction, but died two years later. And the park has not opened its gates to visitors anymore.

Once a popular holiday destination of the Soviet nomenclature, including Stalin himself, Abkhazia, lying on the Black Sea coast, is not experiencing a large influx of tourists today. Traces of economic difficulties are visible everywhere, although even today the railway station in Sukhumi is striking in its rich decoration. Mahogany shelves, elegant marble columns, complex artistic modeling on the walls and ceilings — all in a state of decay and dilapidation, but with some imagination you can imagine the former splendor of the now abandoned building.