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

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

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

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

Moynaq Ship Graveyard Uzbekistan 2

Moynaq: Desert Ships and the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan

The Aral Sea was once the fourth-largest lake in the world. As recently as 1960 this vast inland sea situated on the border between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, had a thriving fishing industry supplying the Soviet Union with a sixth of … Read More

KGB Museum Riga [Dark Tourism in Latvia]

Like many dark tourism destinations, when you initially arrive at the location it is difficult to connect what you see in front of you, with the human suffering that took place there. That definitely applies to the former KGB headquarters … Read More