69 thoughts on “Another Trip to Kadikchan”

  1. first

    suffer in your jocks yet again

    the chick in the pin up (at picture 34?) looks like Brittany spears.

    I miss the USSR

    the world needs another bad guy.

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    • This industrial city is located in Magadan region (oblast) which is in the far eastern location in Russian Federation. Magadan is one of the least populous districts, only 182,000 inhabitants in area of 461,400 km².

      After the collapse of USSR (actually few years before that) many heavy industrial government backed companies collapsed because of a lack of institutional support and investment. Magadan regions economy is centred on mining especially gold, silver and other non-ferrous metals. When people found themself un-employed there was no reason anymore to stay in some towns.

      One of these towns is Kadychan.

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  2. photo #48, the book on the right with the blue lettering for the title – can you translate the title? it looks like a science fiction novel.

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  3. It seems like I’ve seen some of these pics before in an older post — I guess maybe it was the same town?
    Does anyone know approximately how many “ghost towns” there are now in the Russian Federation? It seems like there are many posts with pics from them, but I don’t have a sense of the true size of the phenomenon.

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  4. Kadykchan was a industrial tin mining town. When the economy collapsed in the early 90s the government was not able to support the place. Winter time temps dip down to -70 or so. There was a “accident” that destroyed the towns central boiler, knocking out hot water and heat for everyone. Most people left inside of two weeks, with some but not much government help. The world bank loaned money that amounted to about 2000 grand to each person to buy a flat elsewhere in Russia. Of course even in that time period it was about impossible to buy a flat for that due to inflation.

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  5. Reminds me a lot of Припять, but then it could also be City 17 from Half-Life 2 computer game. Very strange, but in some way beautiful pictures!

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  6. Wow.. that is a bit spooky. Good pics – and thanks for the explanations LiraNuna & Mr Obama…

    Can anyone say what the graffiti on the door and the pic above says?

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  7. The stuff on the doors says “Dont enter, or Ill kill you”
    and “If you enter you will be accountable for everything”

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  8. I love this site. I love these pics, so haunting. There was a photo of a beautiful, old house deep in the forest. Now I can’t find it. could u put a search function on here or where on the site are the pics of the abandoned old houses?

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  9. According to Wikipedia (dutch and russian version), the town is still not completely deserted. In 2007 there were 287, in 2008 256 people still living there. I wonder how, considering what I see on these photos…
    There is also a website of Kadykchan at http://kadykchan.ru

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  10. Looks like the town from the sniper extraction mission in COD4. Must be soul-crushingly depressing to actually live there!

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  11. перемены зависят от нас – это правда, но город призрак все-таки это очень страшно…

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  12. I feel very sad that such a beautiful city has been abandoned as a Ghost city. It can be preserved as a city of joy for the future generation and to promote tourism. So that coming generation will learn to preserve the nature to save the World from such more distaster.Russian glory has faded after disintegration. But Russia will regain its previous strength very soon. Lets hope for the best. Long leave Indo-Russian friendship.
    Santanu

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  13. Surprisingly, those ‘Full Metal Jacket’ scenes were filmed in an abandoned industrial slum in London. But these pictures reminded me of that part of the film as well.

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  14. I notice in Picture #19 that there are Olympic Rings on top of the building. Was the city involved in some part of a winter olympics?

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  15. does anyone know if traveling and photographing this place for an extended period might be dangerous ?
    I am a photojournalist from Australia, and was considering going to Kadykchan to take pictures around the town.
    My equipment is expensive and i thought as many people are poor, would I become a target ?
    To those who’ve been there: would you consider it dangerous in any way ?

    appreciated
    derek

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  16. I don’t think this city can become a tourist center. However, I think it can be used for filming post-apocalyptic movies, like “The road”, or other science fiction. Yes, they could come from all over the world for filming, because this is the biggest abandoned area in the world, unique of its kind. In this case, destruction will serve for creation.

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  17. Super shots! Did u took those photographic films from the picture above? What were shoot in them? I am very curios about those, so, thank you in advance for your replay.

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  18. they can use it for training soldiers or cops though I have no idea how long it takes to get there…must have sucked for all those people to leave …

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  19. Když jsem vidÄ›l ty fotografie, tak na mÄ› pÅ™iÅ¡el tak nÄ›jak smutek ale i vzpomínka na dřívÄ›jší dobu. NÄ›kdy si říkám, jestli dřív nebylo lépe…

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  20. seems to be a great metaphor for Russia itself….a dead idea from an evil empire….the fate is the same for the whole country

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  21. I love these kind of pictures. But it would be very interresting to see them compared with pictures from when the town was “alive”

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  22. Hi, i´m a spanish photographer and i´ll interesting in information about how i can make a trip to this city and if a need a license of any tipe from the russian autorithies to enter in this city or if was an a travel agency that take care of the journey.

    Thanks for all.

    Reply

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