Black tourism: traveling through the darkest pages of history

Recently, the so-called black tourism has been of increasing interest to travelers. Having had enough of the usual sights, people tend to get to places with a bad reputation. The sphere of interests of such tourists includes battlefields, concentration camps and other places where catastrophes took place that claimed thousands of human lives. The first apostle of the black tourist was the Briton Yanni Yuta, who devoted more than a dozen years to traveling to the darkest corners of the planet.

Here are 10 main destinations from Yanni Utah's list that every black tourist considers it his duty to visit.

(10 photos in total)

Source: dnpmag.com

Okpo Land

The popular Okpo Land Park, located on the southern tip of South Korea, has been closed after two fatal roller coaster crashes. Now it is a place of pilgrimage for black tourists from many countries of the world.

Belchite

This ghost village became the site of fierce fighting between the soldiers of General Franco and the Spanish Republican Army. A new settlement was built a few years later — right next to the ruins of Belchite, which remained standing as a monument to the bloody conflict.

Eyjafjallajokull

The volcano with an unpronounceable name can be visited during a day trip from Reykjavik. The tour also includes a walking tour right up to the crater.

Fukushima

The Japanese government plans to turn the accident site into a new tourist monument. Not the best solution from the point of view of morality, which, however, will be able to attract additional funds to clean the surrounding area from radiation contamination.

Oradour-sur-Glane

In June 1944, after the invasion of Normandy, Oradour-sur-Glane was blocked by a battalion of the German army: according to rumors, one of the highest SS leaders was held captive in this village. Hundreds of residents of the city were killed, the survivors fled and never returned. Charles de Gaulle announced that Oradour-sur-Glane would never be rebuilt and would remain a permanent memorial to the atrocities that occurred during the German occupation.

Hiroshima

The Hiroshima Memorial Park is dedicated to the memory of tens of thousands of people who died. A special visitor center, A-Bomb Dome, has been built here, located directly in the epicenter of the exploded bomb. People from all over the world come here to pay tribute to the victims and send a few paper cranes to float on a specially built reservoir.

New Orleans

Hurricane Katrina, which hit the city in 2005, gave rise to an unexpectedly new direction of tourism. Special tours are designed for people who are interested in just such tragedies. For a very reasonable fee, anyone could be within the Lower Ninth Ward quarter, the most affected by the hurricane.

Costa Concordia

The tragic wreck of the Costa Concordia off the coast of Tuscany has once again demonstrated how shallow a person is compared to the water element. The most famous liner disaster since the Titanic has captured the minds of thousands of people. Tourists flock to Tuscany just to get exclusive pictures. Locals in pursuit of profit offered visitors a boat ride to the remains of the ship — for a special price.

Auschwitz

The Auschwitz concentration camp has turned into a terrible Holocaust museum. Thousands of visitors flock here from all over the world to see the evidence of the tragedy that has played out. The rooms are filled with personal belongings of the dead people, but the house of the camp commandant, who lived just a few dozen meters from the gas chambers, is of particular interest to tourists.

Cambodia

They come to this country not only for recreation. There are several genocide museums located here at once, which are of interest to many black tourists. Choeng Ek, located just a dozen kilometers from the capital, Phnom Penh, offers everyone to enjoy the terrible spectacle of mass graves made during the reign of Pol Pot.