Ten Unique Graveyards
Have
you ever wondered what happens to decommissioned machines and other
similar facilities that people once used? Some of these objects are
being recycled, and many of them are piling up on the so-called Object Graveyards
and there waiting to be completely eaten by the ravages of time. Places
of natural decomposition of such objects can be unusual tourist
destinations and sites to capture amazing photos.
1. Aircraft Bone yard, USA
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The 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group (AMARG), often called The Boneyard
is located near Davis Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona. For
those of you that have never seen it, it's difficult to comprehend the
size of it.
AMARG
is a controlled-access site, and is off-limits to anyone not employed
there without the proper clearance. The only access for non-cleared
individuals is via a bus tour which is conducted by the nearby Pima Air
& Space Museum. Bus tours are Monday through Friday only. Both the museum and the Bone Yard are very popular attractions in the Arizona desert.
2. Ship Graveyard, Mauritania
The city of Nouadhibou
is the second largest city in Mauritania and serves as the country's
commercial center. It is famous for being the location of one of the
largest ship graveyard in the world. Hundreds of rusting ships can be
seen all around, in the water, and on beaches.
One
of the most commonly read explanation for that situation is that
Mauritanian harbor officers were taking bribes and allowing ships to be
discarded in the harbor and around the bay. This phenomenon started in
the 80's after the nationalization of the Mauritanian fishing industry,
numerous uneconomical ships were simply abandoned there.
The
city of Nouadhibou is one of the poorest locations in the world. Right
over these phantom beaches there are people living inside the huge
merchant boats.
3. Train Cemetery, Bolivia
3. Train Cemetery, Bolivia
One of the major tourist attractions of southwestern Bolivia is an antique train cemetery. It is located 3 km (1.9 MI) outside Uyuni
and is connected to it by the old train tracks. The town served in the
past as a distribution hub for the trains carrying minerals on their way
to the Pacific Ocean ports.
The
train lines were built by British engineers who arrived near the end of
the 19th century and formed a sizable community in Uyuni. The rail
construction started in 1888 and ended in 1892.
The
trains were mostly used by the mining companies. In the 1940s, the
mining industry collapsed, partly due to the mineral depletion. Many
trains were abandoned thereby producing the train cemetery. There are
talks to build a museum out of the cemetery.
4. Vozdvizhenka Aircraft Graveyard, Russia
4. Vozdvizhenka Aircraft Graveyard, Russia
Littered
with at least 18 gutted Tupolev Tu-22M Backfires of the 444th Heavy
Bomber Regiment, Vozdvizhenka air base resembles a post-apocalyptic
landscape. Entering this barren place, located near Ussuriysk
in the Primorsky Krai region of Far East Russia, 60 miles (95 km) north
of Vladivostok and 40 miles (65 km) from the Chinese border, is like
taking a step back in time.
The
444th Regiment was disbanded in 2009, with some aircraft transferred to
the Belaya air base, and others dismantled (removed engines, equipment,
and with holes cut in the fuselage).
The
aircraft carcasses are awaiting final metal cutting. Currently based at
the airfield is the aviation commandant of Khurba airbase and the 322
Aircraft Repair Factory.
5. Anchor Graveyard, Portugal
5. Anchor Graveyard, Portugal
Among the dunes of Tavira island,
in Portugal, there’s an impressive anchor graveyard called the
Cemitério das Âncoras. It was built in remembrence of the glorious
tradition of tuna fishing with large nets fixed with these anchors, a
fishing technique already invented by the Phoenicians.
Tavira
used to be a place devoted to the tuna fishing. They built up this
anchor graveyard to remember those who had to quit their occupation when
the big fish abandoned the coasts.
6. Soviet Tank Graveyard, Afghanistan
6. Soviet Tank Graveyard, Afghanistan
On the outskirts of Kabul,
Afghanistan there’s a massive collection of abandoned Soviet battle
vehicles left behind after the failure of a massive eastern bloc
military occupation of the country in the 1970’s and 1980’s.
The
Soviets left in a hurry and couldn’t be bothered to find a way to get
broken-down tanks back home, so now they sit, partially stripped and
covered in graffiti.
Afghanistan
has few recycling facilities, so this cemetery of tanks will likely
remain where it is for many more years as a reminder of the Russian
invasion.
7. Submarine Graveyard, Russia
7. Submarine Graveyard, Russia
The area around Nezametnaya Cove,
close to the town of Gadzhiyevo, in Murmansk Oblast on the Kola
Peninsula, is a cemetery where is located a lot of old Russian
submarines. After serving their duty underwater, the submarines were
brought to this restricted-access zone in the 1970s and then forgotten.
Locals
said that some of the old submarines were used for target practice in
military exercises and often sunk, an employment of the old “out of
sight, out of mind” strategy. Others were simply left in the bay to rust
and rot, floating to the surface like so many whale carcasses.
8. Moynaq Ship Graveyard, Uzbekistan
8. Moynaq Ship Graveyard, Uzbekistan
Moynaq
is a city in northern Karakalpakstan in western Uzbekistan. Home to
only a few thousand residents at most, Moynoq's population has been
declining precipitously since the 1980s due to the recession of the Aral
Sea.
Once
a bustling fishing community and Uzbekistan's only port city with tens
of thousands of residents, Moynoq is now a shadow of its former self,
dozens of kilometers from the rapidly receding shoreline of the Aral
Sea.
For
travellers the main reason to visit Moynaq is to see the ship
graveyard, a collection of rusting hulks that were once the town’s
fishing fleet. It’s an image that perfectly illustrates the disaster -
once proud vessels beached in a sandy desert.
Unfortunately
there aren’t many left, as scrap metal companies made short work of
them before the tourism authorities forbade it. In one final kick for a
local population already downed, the money didn’t go to the people who
owned the boats; it was divided up between the scrap companies and
government officials.
9. Taxi Graveyard, China
Thousands of scrapped taxis are abandoned in a yard in the center of Chongqing,
China. Traffic congestion and pollution have worsened dramatically in
Chinese cities because the country's long-running economic expansion has
allowed increasing numbers of consumers to make big-ticket purchases
such as cars, which means many no longer have to rely on taxis or public
transportation.
10. Phone Booth Graveyard, UK
10. Phone Booth Graveyard, UK
This phone booth graveyard is located between Ripon and Thirsk, near the village of Carlton Miniott, UK. There are located hundreds of disused telephone booths.
Decommissioned
old red booths are systematically replaced by new modern booths, and
deposited in one site near this English village.
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