by Terrence Aym

Created on: December 04, 2009   Last Updated: March 24, 2010

Like most Americans you're probably aware of the many ghost towns scattered throughout the American Southwest. While some famous ghost towns like Calico in the southwestern California high desert or Tombstone in Arizona have become profitable tourist centers, most are just forgotten monuments to a bygone era where the money ran out, the whiskey ran dry and the people's spirits ran cold.

But did you know there are ghost cities that span the globe? These cities are the shattered dreams of master planners.

In most cases the reasons the population left are obvious. A good example is the Ukrainian city of Pripyat. Located close to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, creeping radiation motivated the people of this mid-sized city to flee for their lives in 1986.

Other ghostly cities abound. Perhaps the most poignant in recent history is the city of Kadykchan. Another man-made disaster preceded its abandonment. Unlike Pripyat, however, radiation was not the culprit. The people of Kadykchan were besieged by a silent, numbing enemy: the terrible, unrelenting cold of the Siberian winter.

Kadykchan in Russian means "death valley." Unlike the famous Death Valley in Southern California, this death valley refers to the deaths of the inhabitants and the mass evacuation that followed. Now this lonely, forsaken city squats forlornly on the Russian tundra empty and abandoned. Autos still sit parked inside garages. Deserted apartment buildings' floors are littered with children's toys; furniture is decaying. School rooms are stacked with moldering books.

Built as a mining city in the 1970s, the city is located in the river basin of Ayan-Urya of the Russian Federation Magadan district. According to official Russian census statistics, Kadykchan's population in 1986 was just over 10,000. By 2006 that number had dwindled to a paltry 800 and today the city stands empty with the rugged wilderness rapidly encroaching upon it.

During an especially bad Siberian winter all the plumbing throughout the city froze and burst. The heating failed and trucks could not make it into the town with food and supplies. Very quickly people began to freeze to death. Others slowly starved. As the emergency spread the Russian military arrived. They evacuated the survivors and buried the dead. Left behind was an empty city and the ghosts of those who didn't survive long enough to escape their freezing doom.

Now only bitter winds whistle through the high rises. Calendars, years out of date, hang askew on filthy shop wall. Posters advertise goods that rot on collapsing shelves. Tellingly, the city's main cinema has a bust of Lenin by the entrance. The bust is pockmarked with bullet holes - a testament and an angry statement by some residents expressing their heartfelt opinion of the former Soviet system's "efficiency" and lack of engineering prowess.

A Tragic Photo Diary of Kadykchan, the Phantom City

Learn more about this author, Terrence Aym.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.