The abandoned ghost village of Al-Madam in the sands of the Emirates

In the desert area south of the city of Al-Madam in the UAE, you can find a small and abandoned complex of houses and a mosque, which locals call the Old Town of Al-Madam and the Ghost Town. It is about 60 km from Dubai City and 50 km from Sharjah. The inhabitants abandoned this place, leaving it to be torn to pieces by the desert, and she soon turned this settlement into a surreal film set for Tarkovsky's films.

A few kilometers south-west of the small town of Al-Madam on the old road from Dubai to Hatta in the middle of the desert is an abandoned settlement. This place was once home to the people of the Al-Qutbi tribe, one of the indigenous peoples in the vicinity of Al-Madam.

For some reason, the residents left their homes about ten years ago. According to legends, people were allegedly forced to leave by the evil spirits of the jinn.

In Arab and Muslim culture, a genie is a supernatural creature from the other world. However, they are not always evil. Everyone knows that it was the genie who helped the poor tailor's son Aladdin defeat the evil sorcerer, gain wealth and become a prince in one of the most popular Arabic fairy tales about the Magic Lamp.

Many people continue to believe that something supernatural happened in Al-Madam. But in fact, the reason for everything is the inhospitable sand of the desert. The architects of the village did not take into account that it is located right in the path of a migrating dune. No matter how hard the new settlers tried to resist the sand, their houses were steadily falling asleep. Sand was everywhere, so it was impossible to live in the village.

The village consisted of two houses of the same type next to each other and a mosque on the outskirts. According to historians, the dwellings were erected in the late 1970s and 1980s as part of a project to provide housing for the indigenous population. There are two rows of identical houses and mosques in the village. Tourists can not only explore the surroundings, but also go to the houses where the personal belongings of the locals have been preserved.

The quality of construction was extremely high, because the houses have been preserved in excellent condition to this day. But they failed to cope with the onslaught of the desert sands.

Room by room, house by house, the sands filled the houses from floor to ceiling. It was sand, not evil spirits, that forced the residents to leave, turning Al-Madam into a ghost town.

Today it is a popular attraction in Dubai for tourists and instagrammers.