▲ 6 r/AskReddit
What's the most fascinating abandoned place you've ever learned about?
reddit.comu/drmm444 — 4 days ago
u/drmm444
r/ussr r/truedocumentaries r/Svalbard r/coldwar r/AskReddit r/Documentaries r/greenlandtravel r/greenland r/abandoned r/HistoryDocumentaries
The Town Denmark Erased | Qullissat (2026) [0:10:23]
In 1972, the Danish government ordered every remaining resident of Qullissat — one of Greenland's largest towns — to leave. Within weeks, over 200 houses were demolished. The town didn't fade. It was erased by decision.
This documentary covers the full history: how Qullissat was founded in 1924 as a coal mining settlement on Disko Island, how it grew into a cultural hub with nearly 1,000 residents, and what happened when a distant government decided it should stop existing.
It also covers a 2000 tsunami that struck the already-abandoned ruins decades later — a strange epilogue to a story that had already ended once.
Narration-driven format with reconstructed historical visuals. Runtime ~10 minutes.
u/drmm444 — 4 days ago
I made a short documentary about the people who lived in Pyramiden before its closure in 1998
Pyramiden was once a model Soviet mining town on Norway’s Svalbard archipelago, deep inside the High Arctic.
At its peak, the settlement had apartment buildings, a school, a hospital, a cultural palace, a heated swimming pool, and more than a thousand residents. Families raised children there while miners worked beneath the mountain that gave the town its name.
In 1998, the mine closed and most residents left within months. Much of the settlement remained standing in the Arctic cold, preserving traces of the lives that disappeared from it.
I made a short documentary exploring why the Soviet Union invested so much in this remote town, what everyday life was like, and what happened to the people who had to leave.
This is my own video. I’d be especially interested to hear from anyone who has visited Pyramiden or knows more about its former residents:
u/drmm444 — 9 days ago