A closer look
Building a communist utopia at the edge of the North Pole sounds like a brilliant idea until the coal runs out. Pyramiden was a spectacular Soviet showpiece in the Svalbard archipelago, boasting a heated indoor swimming pool, a library, and the northernmost grand piano in the world. But when the mining stopped being profitable in 1998, Moscow simply pulled the plug. The residents were evacuated so abruptly that the town remains a perfectly preserved, deeply eerie time capsule, complete with potted plants frozen solid in the window sills.
