Pyramiden
| Pyramiden | |
|---|---|
| Abandoned town | |
| Пирамида (Russian) | |
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 Pyramiden
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| Coordinates: 78°39′22″N 16°19′30″E / 78.65611°N 16.32500°E | |
| Country | Norway |
| Territory | Svalbard |
| Island | Spitsbergen |
| Population (2015) | |
| • Total | 4-15 (winter-summer) |
Pyramiden (meaning "the pyramid" in most Scandinavian languages; called Пирамида, Piramida, in Russian) is a Russian settlement and coal-mining community on the archipelago of Svalbard, Norway. Founded by Sweden in 1910 and sold to the Soviet Union in 1927, Pyramiden was closed in 1998 and has since remained largely abandoned with most of its infrastructure and buildings still in place. Since 2007 there have been efforts to make it a tourist attraction.
Pyramiden was founded by Sweden in 1910 and sold to the Soviet Union in 1927. It lies at the foot of the Billefjorden on the island of Spitsbergen and is named after the pyramid-shaped mountain with the same name adjacent to the town. The nearest settlements are Svalbard's capital, Longyearbyen, some 50 kilometres (31 mi) to the south, Barentsburg approximately 100 kilometres (62 mi) south-west and the small research community of Ny-Ålesund, 100 kilometres (62 mi) to the west.
Owned by the state-owned Russian mining company Arktikugol Trust, which also owns the settlement of Barentsburg, Pyramiden once had over 1,000 inhabitants. On March 31, 1998, the last coal was extracted from the mine and the last permanent resident left by October 10. Until 2007, Pyramiden was practically a ghost town where, within the buildings, things remained largely as they were when the settlement was abandoned in a hurry.
A book has been written about Pyramiden by Norwegian author Kjartan Fløgstad. A recent episode of the History Channel programme Life After People featured Pyramiden. It predicted that due to the low rate of decay in a frigid climate, the abandoned town's major buildings would be visible 500 years from now.
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