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
Just over 90 miles north of the Arctic Circle and 40 hours by train from Moscow, sits the once-bustling coal-mining city of Vorkuta, Russia. Built by gulag inmates during Stalin’s big purge in the 1930s, this desolate region on the … Read More
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
During the Cold War, the Soviets couldn’t get enough of blowing up nuclear weapons in northeastern Kazakhstan. The tests were not always with the intent to one day nuke the USA, however. Conducted by the military under the banner of … Read More
Before the start of the Cold War, Vozrozhdeniya Island in the Aral Sea (then a part of the Soviet Union), was an unassuming place. Apart from a few locals working a small fish processing plant, nothing much happened there. That … Read More
I love a good road trip. On one of my travels, I drove from London to Mongolia in a Fiat, I have checked out the entire east coast of Australia over 6 months living out the back of a Holden … Read More
The luxurious Hotel Viru first opened its doors to tourists in Soviet-occupied Tallinn 1972. Run by the infamous Intourist agency (the government department founded by Stalin and partly run by the KGB), it was the only hotel in the city … Read More
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
The collapse of communism and the fall of the Soviet Union suddenly made a lot of public works obsolete. In fact, many of the statues that graced the cities and towns behind the Iron Curtain were downright offensive after the … Read More
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 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
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
The Patarei Sea Fortress in Tallinn was built by Nicholas I in 1840. Originally used as an army barracks, by 1919 the cold, inhospitable site was converted into a Soviet prison. It was used throughout both the Russian and Nazi … Read More
My interest in dark tourism is very much connected to the fact I am an adventure traveler. I like nothing more than going off the beaten track. I also love history. Dark Tourism is a way to combine both in … Read More
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
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
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
On the 16th of October 2006, two Russian men walked along Grosvenor Street, a wealthy area of central London. Their names were Andrei Lugovoy and Dmitry Kovtun and they had been sent to this location under very special circumstances. In … Read More
