tartu kgb cells

KGB Cells Museum – Tartu, Estonia

In the center of the Estonian city of Tartu stands an unassuming building that once held a dark secret. During the first Soviet occupation of the country between 1940 and 1954, the basement was home to the KGB. Operating covertly … Read More

Kadykchan ghost town

Kadykchan – Abandoned Soviet Mining Town

Kadykchan is located at the eastern extremity of Russia in the Kolyma region of Siberia, an area renowned for the harshness of the climate. This part of Siberia is known for something else too, the devastating brutality of its Gulags. … Read More

Lithuania_Plokstine_missile_base_1

Plokstine Missile Base – Dark Tourism In Lithuania

Plokstine missile base was an important underground military base in the Soviet Union. It is now an excellent Cold War Museum and a must-see visit for dark tourists in the area. Situated near Plokščiai village, north of Plungė, Lithuania, the … Read More

White_Sea–Baltic_Canal dark tourists

Traveling the White Sea Canal – A Waterway Built on Blood

The White Sea-Baltic Canal in northwest Russia has a dark history. It was one of the first large construction projects, fully conducted by the forced labor of gulag inmates. Stalin’s Five Year Plan and tyrannical push to prove that Russia … Read More

Museum_of_PRL Krakow,_Poland

Visiting the Muzeum Czar PRL – Warsaw, Poland

The Museum of Life Under Communism (known as Muzeam Czar PRL) in Warsaw, Poland is a wonderful (albeit small) collection of artifacts that aim to depict just that; what life was like for the average citizen in the pro-communist People’s … Read More

Nikolay_Klyuev_prison

Tomsk Memorial Museum – Former NKVD Prison

The Tomsk memorial museum is housed within a former NKVD (Stalin’s secret police and a forerunner to the KGB) headquarters and prison and is a stark and gloomy place to visit. Which is not surprising considering the unspeakable horrors that … Read More

Balaklava_base

Balaklava Submarine Base, Crimea’s Secret Soviet Sub Complex

Balaklava is a very interesting destination for those that like their dark tourism to be infused with top-level Cold War secrecy. This once unassuming fishing village based in Crimea, Ukraine became the location for a large secret Soviet submarine base … Read More

Pyramiden_Svalbard tours featured

A Tour to Pyramiden: Soviet Ghost Town in Svalbard

Nestled in the harsh, icy midst of Svalbard, above Norway’s arctic circle, is a remote abandoned ghost town like no other. To walk among the empty streets of Pyramiden is to step back in time. This former mining town permeates … Read More

novaya zemlya test site

Novaya Zemlya Nuclear Test Site [Dark Tourism Russia]

Visiting the site of the world’s largest nuclear bomb detonation is clearly a destination for a dark tourist. However, only the really committed need apply. The little known Arctic archipelago of Novaya Zemlya isn’t the easiest place to get to. … Read More

Leon_Trotsky_House Mexico_City

Leon Trotsky Museum [House and Murder Site]

The former Trotsky home in Mexico City, now a museum, remains much as it was on the day that the revolutionary was murdered. In fact, the room where a man named Ramón Mercader smashed an ice axe into Trotsky’s skull … Read More