The Antigua docked at Pyramiden in the evening and Sascha, the guide to Pyramiden came on board. He was slender, mid-thirties, with shoulder length black hair that needed a wash. He gave a brief history of the town, without cracking a smile.
Pyramiden is a Russian ghost town of the north. It was founded by the Swedes to mine coal from the pyramidal shaped mountain in 1910. In 1927 they sold it to the Soviet Union. The town, on the Billefjorden, was officially closed in 1998 but about 20 people continue to live there, running a small tourist business.
When Sascha was done talking, someone offered him a drink.
“I don’t drink,” he said in a strong Russian accent. “I smoke weeeeeed.” We all laughed. Sascha continued with his deadpan look, eyes wide.
Our guide to PyramidenThe night before, Antigua had docked in Berentsberg, a still active Russian coal mining town (owned by the Russian mining company Arktikugol, which also owns Pyramiden). The school in Berentsberg is solid yellow brick, painted with images of whales and bears and a great gray owl in blues and reds and purple. But despite the cheerfulness of these drawings, the place was decidedly depressing, with buildings falling down and workers, who sign on for two year stints, passing without a glance or a smile. So I wasn’t prepared for how alive Pyramiden would feel.
The next day Sascha greeted us wearing a Russian cap and a long, formal coat. His rifle slung over his shoulder, he looked like a guard outside of the royal palace. He began the tour of the of the once wealthy community by telling us that “It was a privilege to live here.” He showed us the northernmost empty swimming pool, and the cultural center complete with a stage and the northernmost out of tune grand piano. Outside stood the northernmost statue to the grandfather, Lenin. The wide, open central walkway of the town was known as the Champs Elysee, and the apartment reserved for women was known as Paris. Now only two women live in town, and Sascha lives “like a monk.” Above the town hovered the wooden frame that houses the rails of the coal mining cars. It snaked high up the mountain. On the face of the pyramidal mountain someone had placed wooden planks spelling out Peace on Earth.
Kittiwake hotelLike many abandoned places, wildlife has moved in. What was once yellow brick apartments was now a Kittiwake hotel. On every window ledge the white gulls had constructed mud and grass nests where they sat brooding over their eggs. The constant calls of the gulls sounded like Italian mothers sitting at a balcony chatting with each other. From time to time there would be a silence, followed soon by a great uproar.
A short walk brought us to some healthy looking reindeer. “This is special grass,” Sascha explained. When Pyramiden was in its heyday rich soil was brought in by ship from the Ukraine. “Big ship, Ukraine to Pyramiden,” he repeated to emphasize the absurdity of this. It isn’t special grass, it’s really just grass, but it doesn’t belong in this landscape. It did thrive, however, and for a time there was a farm, complete with cows and chickens. The grass is still growing green and the reindeer love it.
Coal mine on Pyramiden mountainFurther on a fox crept across the above-ground pipes, then turned and stared at us. Nearby, a line of charred wood made me wonder if this could be the remains of what was burned during the Second World War. The town was abandoned and destroyed as the Nazis approached. In 1946, Russians returned, building what we now toured, all proof that communism works.
Until Berentsberg and Pyramiden I was living with one image of the north, one filled with icebergs and snow covered mountains and fantastic wildlife. From time to time we’d pass a wooden trappers hut, which told the story of subsistence hunting on this land, a life spare and hard that is easily romanticized (for the best of such narratives, read Christiane Ritter's A Woman in the Polar Night). I was imagining a peaceful land as well, not one touched by war. Pyramiden re-sculpted my view of the north into something less pristine, less peaceful. Pyramiden might be a ghost town, but the story it tells brought to life the complexity of this Arctic landscape.