Relics of old and the ruins of the recent past

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We humans are explorers by nature. The quest for discovery, both old and new, is part of what separates us from rest of the animal kingdom. Since the world we live in has been largely mapped and plotted, we urban adventurers turn our sights toward the relics of old and the ruins of the recent past. If you find beauty in urban decay, in the crumbling and abandoned places of yesteryear, you’ll want to read on.

Abandoned Submarine Base, Ukraine
In a bay on the northern shores of the Black Sea, the Soviet army maintained an elaborate submarine base throughout much of the Cold War. Now a museum, this abandoned submarine base in the town of Balaklava, Ukraine is often explored by locals and tourists alike. During the war, Soviet submarines were constructed elsewhere, transported to this base by rail, then deployed into the Black Sea and beyond for covert underwater operations. The tunnels of the submarine base reached far and deep into the mountain above, providing enough room for many submarines and their crew up through the end of the Cold War.

Russian Brain Research Facility
This is possibly the weirdest, grossest series of abandoned places photography we’ve ever seen. The photos are obviously not for the faint of heart, and we’ve chosen some of the mildest ones. Entering an abandoned Russian brain research facility complete with brains and eyeballs in jars and partially disassembled animal skulls is quite brave, but we’re glad they did it.

Abandoned British Sea Forts
During the Second World War, the British Royal Navy constructed a series of sea forts for an advanced line of defense against inbound air raids and potential sea invasions from the Axis powers. The Maunsell Sea Forts still stand today, silent and abandoned a few meters above the North Sea. One, however, remains inhabited, now a nation of its own referred to as the Principality of Sealand. These sea forts are a favorite of maritime explorers, a lonely collection of stilted fortresses not far off the coast of eastern England.

City Hall Subway Station, NYC
Under the busy streets of New York City rests a perfectly preserved monument to that city’s transportation history. The City Hall Subway Station was first constructed over 100 years ago, a part of New York’s earliest underground transport network. It was shut down in 1945, where it lay dormant and untouched until a one night public exhibition on the station’s centennial. NYCSubway.org and photographer Fred Guenther have documented this event with a great collection of photos, showing this amazing abandoned place in all its pristine, untouched glory.

Gunkanjima, Japan
Hashima Island, commonly called Gunkanjima (meaning “Battleship Island”) is one among 505 uninhabited islands in the Nagasaki Prefecture about 15 kilometers from Nagasaki itself. The island was populated from 1887 to 1974 as a coal mining facility.
Mitsubishi bought the island in 1890 and began the project, the aim of which was retrieving coal from the bottom of the sea. They built Japan’s first large concrete building, a block of apartments in 1916 to accommodate their burgeoning ranks of workers (many of whom were forcibly recruited labourers from other parts of Asia), and to protect against typhoon destruction.
As petroleum replaced coal in Japan in the 1960s, coal mines began shutting down all over the country, and Hashima’s mines were no exception. Mitsubishi officially announced the closing of the mine in 1974, and today it is empty and bare, which is why it’s called the Ghost Island. Travel to Hashima was re-opened on April 22, 2009 after more than 20 years of closure.

Pripyat, Ukraine – Chernobyl Ground Zero
t’s difficult to find a greater metaphor for the rise and fall of the Soviet Union than Pripyat, Ukraine. In a span of sixteen years, the population of Pripyat grew from zero to 50,000 and back down to zero, following the greatest nuclear power disaster in human history. Pripyat was billed as an atomic city, built into the forests south of Kiev in 1970 to house the families of workers at the Chernobyl nuclear facility. After the the Chernobyl failure, the city was abandoned, where it lays empty and closely guarded by police. The only heartbeat remaining in the city of Pripyat is the rustly click measured by visiting Geiger counters.

The Ruins of Detroit
In the United States, few cities have felt the burn of urban decay more than Detroit. To capture its slow fade into history, photographers Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre explored some of Detroit’s dying landmarks for their photo series The Ruins of Detroit. As the industrial revolution came to a close and race riots crippled a once bustling city, many buildings throughout Detroit fell into disrepair and eventual abandonment. Today, visitors to Detroit can experience two sides of the city– the revitalized, re-invested downtown area, and the high-rises and industrial complexes which crumble around it.

Ryugyung Hotel, Pyongyang, North Korea
The Ryugyung Hotel in Pyongyang, North Korea is one of the 20th century’s greatest architectural failures. Initially designed as a beacon of progress and power for this misunderstood peninsula nation, the Ryugyung Hotel was unable to sustain construction when the North Korean government simply ran out of money. Ground was broken in 1987, construction was halted in 1992, and the pyramid-style spire sat dormant and empty for sixteen years. Not a window or an interior fixture graced this skeleton of concrete and metal, it stood only as a reminder what could-have-been for Pyongyang, but instead resulted in failure. Fortunately, the Ryugyung hotel may not be abandoned much longer, as construction resumed in 2008 and the building now has windows and a nearly-completed exterior. Due to the secrecy of the North Korean government, however, it is hard to say if the updates are merely cosmetic or reach further inside this lonely building.

Staten Island Boat Graveyard
This collection of rusting, disused abandoned boats lies off the shore of Staten Island, New York. Salt water has caused the boats to decay more rapidly than they would otherwise, and nearly all of them are a reddish-brown that contrasts beautifully with the blue of the sky and water. This “boat graveyard” is currently being cleaned up so the space can be used for something new.

Tugboat Graveyard, New York
Tugboats have long been thought of as stout, powerful vessels of nautical hope. Not the ones in this neglected port of little engines that couldn’t. Located on New York City’s Staten Island, this creepy postindustrial landscape is chock-full of rusting hulks: forsaken tugboats, forlorn rescue vessels, defunct dredging barges, and old ferries, each scuttled in the early 20th century, when traffic bustled in New York Harbor