Pyramiden

Pyramiden is a Soviet mining town at the head of Billefjorden, abandoned almost overnight in 1998 and preserved by the cold as a ghost town of the Soviet era. The northernmost statue of Lenin looks across a central square to the Nordenskiöld Glacier on the far side of the fjord. Visitors walk with a guide past the cultural palace with its grand piano, the swimming pool, the canteen and the empty apartment blocks, while seabirds nest in the window frames. A small hotel has reopened. The town is reached by boat from Longyearbyen in summer, a trip that passes the glacier front, or by snowmobile in late winter.