Arrival in Pyramida
In 1998 Russia gave the 3,000 inhabitants of Pyramida three hours to evacuate the place. Ever since this city at the tip of the northern hemisphere lies empty and frozen in time. It is a fascinating soviet vestige preserved by arctic temperatures.
Russia bought this coal rich territory at the beginning of the XX century and dug the black material there until the mines were exhausted.
The URSS built a “communist paradise” complex where a “perfect society” could thrive and grow. It was important that such places were seen from the borders of the western world. Strategically this place was a window for the west to appreciate the wonders of Soviet world, otherwise closed to westerners during the iron curtain days.
I grew up in a communist sort of bubble in the western world. I always heard about communist paradises and believed in them until the other face of the coin showed up sometimes at the start of the Perestroika. I may say that this was one of the most dramatic shocks I ever went through.
However, I remain fascinated with the goodness of those paradises ever since. I guess that to bring back a childhood broken dream I would like to see such paradise really existing the way children believe things, only with the bright side and with no dark side to it.
I have met along the years many ex-USSR people with whom I usually share the most fascinating conversations.
Working as guides, accountants or reporters, they have backgrounds that would make dream any westerner. They definitely fascinate me.
From astrophysics specialists to Middle Age Persian manuscripts deciphering scholars through biologists specialized in white leopards at the lake Baikal or classic ballet dancers, Soviet times scholars were many and extremely prepared.
A friend used to say: “they pay me much more by doing arithmetic’s in an NGO than by deciphering secret defense codes”. When communist regimes fell people gained back the freedom of thinking different and movement. As a side effect, the great schooling of soviet times was gone. There was no money for such eccentricities any longer.
Communist regimes are to me the executioners of socialism. By becoming totalitarian rarities ruining the freedom of millions of people and by keeping standards of double economic and political moral they annihilated the road for societies to be equalitarian and altruist. There should be more examples like Uruguay and his president Mujica. Unfortunately, those are the exceptions. Or places that do not use socialist as a term in their governing systems, but where equality and revolutionary rights are the norm like Sweden and Norway.
But lets go back to Pyramida, the frozen paradise. When you arrive with a boat after four hours of sail along the western glaciers of Svalbard, the city is suddenly visible as a mirage in the middle of the ice. Blue gives place to a colorful set of innocent looking buildings that give the impression of a cinematographic set up for a fantasy film.
The energy of thousands of workers who dwelled there remained frozen in midair. Footballs scattered in an indoor field, music sheets half page, the kitchen where the last baking oven stayed switched on all stand still and have an unfinished story to tell.
The cries of the albatross can be heard like those of children among the empty buildings where they nest. They are the guardians of the place and their presence gives the chills. It is easy to believe in ghosts when they screech between the windows of the male and female residences. The occasional white bear visits time to time the place looking for some human delicacy.
A Russian guide with lots of sense of humor tells visitors stories about the place while carrying a gun. He rushes people around and it does not take me long before I stray away.
There are few permanent dwellers in Pyramida who take care of the preservation of the place. Nowadays there is an open cafeteria and a gift shop.
Back in Longyearbyen there are complaints about those commercial initiatives. I am not sure about it being a great idea either. Yet, Pyramida is slowly crumbling. I believe that to leave the place to nature would be just fair. As a touristic spot nevertheless it is an opportunity that must call for many economic interests. And the fascination of this spot frozen in time is inevitably a magnet for tourism.
This place brings me back to my childhood images where they told me stories of coal miners being violin players or astronauts. I never saw such thing happening. Moreover, I don’t think it ever happened. Rather in the contrary, musicians and astrophysicists become nowadays accountants.
To visit Pyramida as an obsolete treasure of the soviet past has a spicy adventurous taste. It is cool to go there.
I however could not stop thinking on the greatness of all those that learned such things as in the western world we rarely find. They were plenty in the other side of the iron curtain.
While in Pyramida I thought of money. Because wealth goes where power decides.
I do not believe in good and evil powers. Yet, I believe that people on their own interests can do lot of harm to systems. Blended the good sides of different kinds of regimes, humanity and even nature may profit from the experience. Perhaps a coal miner who sings opera would be possible like it would be possible that a head of state travels by metro.
A model city like Pyramida would have been an interesting place not at the far end of the Arctic where nature belongs. This was just a show off with the aim of getting charcoal out of the earth. Perhaps it would be a hit in the heart of Congo or in the slums of Manila.
Mainly because in those places there is no room for show off but emergencies to solve that could well do with a model city to try to overcome them. Or even with model states.
