廃墟となった都市と廃墟となった場所
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00:00These cities were once home to millions, but are now abandoned in a state of disrepair and decay.
00:07What are the stories behind these deserted places?
00:10Well, today we'll be finding out.
00:12Join me as we take a look at 15 Cities Left Abandoned.
00:17Number 15. Tianducheng, China
00:20For every achievement in infrastructure China has, there are a few failed attempts that would rather be forgot about.
00:27One of them being Tianducheng.
00:30Also called the Sky City, construction of Tianducheng started in 2007 with the goal of essentially recreating the city of Paris.
00:38Everything was carefully curated, including the period-correct architecture,
00:43and there's even a 354-foot-tall Eiffel Tower in the middle of the city square,
00:47a replica from the famous Fountain of the Luxembourg Gardens, and even a French-themed amusement park.
00:53Tianducheng would deliver a bit of European taste and culture without citizens having to leave China.
00:59The city was built to accommodate more than 10,000 residents, but as of today, it hasn't even come close to hitting that mark.
01:06The city is generally abandoned, although it's still home to about 2,000 people, all of whom allegedly work at the aforementioned theme park.
01:14But why didn't people flock to this French-themed city?
01:17It all came down to poor planning.
01:19Tianducheng is built in the middle of a rural area without an easy way for people to get there.
01:24It's all but cut off from the bustling metropolitan areas.
01:27The only visitors to Tianducheng these days are the occasional newly-wedded Francophiles and tourists looking for an ironic attraction.
01:40While American Western films depicting the Wild West are certainly a fun way to forget about your troubles,
01:47they also offer cinephiles a brief glimpse of life from that era.
01:51And while lone gunslingers with shady pasts may have been written up by Hollywood execs,
01:56the West was still 100% real, and the town of Ruby, Arizona is a shining example of that.
02:02Ruby was founded as a mining town back in the 1870s and was a place that many people hoped to find their fortune,
02:08mining for copper, zinc, lead, and silver, and if they were lucky, gold.
02:13And while it may sound silly, when Ruby opened its post office in 1910, that's when people really started to settle down there.
02:20But the town earned some notoriety over the years as the home to three ghastly double homicides, the Ruby Murders.
02:28Bandits came to town and murdered the locals on three separate occasions, which sparked one of the largest manhunts in the American Southwest.
02:35Those events were enough to slowly drive out the 1,200 residents of Ruby, and the town was officially abandoned in 1940.
02:42But Ruby's story doesn't end there, because although it's been abandoned by people,
02:47the mines are home to almost 100,000 Mexican free-tailed bats,
02:52and people come from far and wide every summer to watch these creatures of the night rush from the mine shafts and take to the sky.
02:59Number 13. Whittenham, Australia
03:03The United States wasn't the only place that had miners and panhandlers looking for something shiny amidst the dirt.
03:10Western Australia was also full of mining towns back in the day, with Whittenham being one of the more popular places to start digging.
03:18Whittenham was founded in 1946 because the nearby gorge was chock full of blue asbestos,
03:23which was an important raw material in the early 20th century for building.
03:27And in just ten years' time, the town became the largest in the region.
03:31But as we now know, asbestos isn't something we want to be breathing in, especially in an enclosed area like a mine.
03:38So as health concerns over asbestos exposure grew, the demand fell into a steep decline.
03:43The blue asbestos mine in Whittenham closed in 1966,
03:47and many of the town's residents left in hopes of finding less life-threatening work elsewhere,
03:52with the town itself officially closing in 2007.
03:55Since then, the Australian government has limited access to the once booming town, and has even removed it from all official maps.
04:03But many of the structures are still there, and as of November 2021, two residents remain,
04:08while the local indigenous population has continuously petitioned to the Australian government to have the locale remediated.
04:19The town of Varosha in Cyprus was once so popular that many of the Golden Age Hollywood elite would come to visit.
04:26The likes of Liz Taylor, Raquel Welch, and Brigitte Bardot all paid a visit in their heyday,
04:31but now Varosha is a total ghost town.
04:34It was one of the hottest tourist destinations in the world in the early 1970s,
04:39but when Cyprus was invaded by Turkey in 1974,
04:43the residents of Varosha began to flee in droves as fighting grew closer and closer to their home.
04:48But while the town's original residents were all gone, the Turkish military maintained control since then.
04:54Now Varosha is fenced off, a shell of its former glory,
04:58and no one but military and UN personnel can cross the line.
05:01Attempts have been made to broker a deal to try and not restore and make Varosha livable again,
05:07but as you can see, nothing has changed.
05:09Empty high-rises sit alone on the beach and have been untouched for nearly five decades,
05:14slowly giving way to Mother Nature.
05:22The country of Turkmenistan unfortunately has a tumultuous history,
05:26with many of its innocent citizens falling victim to forces well out of their control.
05:30A former Soviet Union country, under the control of the horrific President Soparmuriy Agniyazov,
05:36Ashgabat was built in the hopes of creating a new prosperous era for Turkmenistan.
05:41A golden era for the country, if you will.
05:44And so construction of Ashgabat began in 1991.
05:47Gaudy, record-breaking buildings were erected to show off Soviet ingenuity to the world,
05:53mostly the U.S.
05:54And in the end, 543 buildings were all made out of luxury materials,
05:59and the newfound city was even home to the world's largest Ferris wheel.
06:02Meanwhile, though, in the rest of the country, life expectancy was at an all-time low.
06:07Today, Ashgabat is referred to as the City of the Dead, because it appears to be so empty.
06:13The majority of residents live just outside of city limits,
06:16and much of the city has no access to electricity or clean water.
06:20It's a very strange city that is made mostly of marble,
06:23but the fancy facade hides many dark secrets,
06:26and while it may be open to tourists, most of them will leave with a bad taste in their mouth.
06:36Krakow is an old town that sits right in the arch of the giant boot that is Italy.
06:41The city actually dates back to well before 1060,
06:44and it's seen its fair share of armed conflict since then.
06:48Cruel monarchs, armies, and poor political ideologies have all done their damage here.
06:53And while man-made strife certainly made life tough for the citizens of Krakow,
06:58it was geological disasters that made things even worse.
07:01Things eventually got so bad, people began to leave in droves by the late 1800s.
07:07Earthquakes, floods, and mudslides all plagued Krakow to a point where living there was no longer safe.
07:14And by 1963, just 1,800 people remained,
07:17until they were forced to leave Krakow for their own safety to the newly built town below.
07:22The structures and streets are all still there,
07:25and Krakow has actually become a hotspot for not just tourists, but big-budget films as well,
07:30with productions like Quantum of Solace and The Passion of the Christ
07:33taking full advantage of the Italian ghost town's authentic feel.
07:43Centralia, Pennsylvania was a quaint and harmless place to live
07:47until a coal fire started underneath the town in 1962.
07:51This is not the type of fire you can just put out,
07:55and so it's been burning to this day, and will most likely rage on for another 250 years.
08:01So what exactly happened here?
08:03Centralia was home to a local landfill, and during an attempt to clean it up all those years ago,
08:08the coal seams under the surface were lit, and residents began to trickle out ever since,
08:13abandoning their homes completely.
08:15Centralia is an absolute mess, and people weren't just afraid of their homes suddenly going up in flames,
08:21but the coal fires also caused sinkholes and carbon monoxide to be released into the air.
08:26Eminent domain was eventually used to take control of the homes of the residents
08:30who choose to stay despite their own safety,
08:33but they all agreed to give their property over to the government once they pass away.
08:37The Pennsylvania government finally condemned Centralia in 1992,
08:42and while Centralia is a ghost town, the highway running through it was given new life
08:46when it was covered in graffiti and art in honor of the people who once lived there.
08:52Number 8. Pripyat, Ukraine
08:55In 1970, just one year after humanity finally set foot on the moon,
09:00Ukraine wanted to be part of the technological and scientific leap forward the world was witnessing,
09:06so they founded Pripyat.
09:08Pripyat was known as a nuclear city, and would specifically house the thousands of workers
09:13who were employed by the nearby nuclear power plant.
09:16The city had a total of 13,000 apartments, enough schools to accommodate 5,000 children,
09:21two dozen shops and restaurants, a movie theater, a hospital,
09:24everything a city would need to function on its own.
09:27And in the beginning, everything was working according to plan, and all was well within Pripyat.
09:33That is until April 26th, 1986, when the reactor at the Chernobyl power plant blew.
09:39Most people know how the story goes from here.
09:41Toxic radiation was released into the air, and the entire city of Pripyat was evacuated,
09:46and residents relocated to another newly built city, Slavyutich.
09:50Pripyat became a ghost town, and a nuclear exclusion zone,
09:54and while people are officially allowed back in,
09:56it's a shell of its former self with abandoned buildings, rusted playgrounds, and irradiated wildlife.
10:047. Hashima Island, Japan
10:07Also known as Gunkanjimi, or Battleship Island in English,
10:11Hashima Island sits abandoned off the coast of Nagasaki, Japan.
10:15The city was originally developed in 1887 as a massive residency for the people working in the undersea coal mines,
10:22and was once full of enough concrete high-rises to house well over 5,000 people.
10:26There were plenty of community buildings as well, so people would rarely have to leave the island.
10:31They could get their fill of clubs, bars, and restaurants, shops, and communal baths,
10:36and a pachinko parlor, both of which are cultural staples.
10:39The mine operated for nearly a century, but as Japan began to move away from a reliance on coal power,
10:45these types of jobs began to die out, and the mine near Hashima Island closed in 1974.
10:51But no coal and no jobs also meant no more living on this self-sufficient island,
10:56and no one was permitted here until 2009.
10:59And even then, only a small portion of the island is open to the public.
11:02But the abandoned island did become a UNESCO World Heritage Site,
11:06and gives a cool glimpse into the country's history of rapid industrialization
11:10once it opened its borders to outsiders in the late 1800s.
11:156. Ourador-sur-Glane, France
11:19Ourador-sur-Glane was a small but bustling farming village in France
11:23that, generally speaking, only knew peace.
11:26But when World War II reared its ugly head, the village fell under the rule of Germany.
11:31German soldiers were brutal, and unfortunately for the residents of Ourador-sur-Glane,
11:36cared very little for human lives other than their own.
11:39Sadly, on June 10th, 1944, the Nazi SS utterly destroyed the village, killing 642 people.
11:47There were very few survivors left, but they did manage to tell the tale.
11:51Once the war ended, however, the village was never repopulated and left as is,
11:56and remained a sign of the German war crimes against the civilians during the war.
12:01Now, Ourador-sur-Glane has been declared a memorial and a museum.
12:05The abandoned village remains totally preserved in its ruined state,
12:09and every year on June 10th, a ceremony is held to commemorate the 642 lives that were lost at the hands of the SS.
12:16The locale is open to tourists, and walking through the village forces even the coldest of hearts
12:20to reflect on the horrors that humans are capable of.
12:25Number 5. Bodie, California
12:28And here we have yet another mining town.
12:31Bodie, California was a mining town that saw a big uptick in its population in the late 1800s,
12:37with everyone trying to get a piece of the California gold rush.
12:40And the town did alright for about 17 years, and was filled with all sorts of people from far and wide.
12:46But life was tough in the 1800s for anybody,
12:49and the citizens of Bodie were subject to rough winters, diseases,
12:53and plenty of mining accidents that ended in the deaths of too many of the town's inhabitants.
12:58And to top it off, crime was so high that Bodie developed a reputation for being a lawless place.
13:04It was truly the Wild West over there, and not everyone was happy about it.
13:08But like any bubble in the market, the bubble that was the California gold rush burst,
13:13and by 1882 many of the once prosperous mining companies went belly up.
13:18The once excited people of Bodie began to slowly pack their things and look for an opportunity anywhere but there.
13:24Bodie underwent a few more changes, and by 1940 became a total ghost town,
13:29and the only residents left were broken dreams.
13:32And by the 1960s, the California state park system took ownership of the town,
13:36and turned it into a state historic park.
13:43During Joseph Stalin's reign over the Soviet Union,
13:46his Gulag labor camps developed a reputation for probably being one of the worst places on Earth.
13:52The region was cold and unforgiving to say the least, and serving a sentence there didn't always end well.
13:58But when coal production shot through the roof,
14:00people from all over the country arrived in the region looking for these new high-paying jobs in coal,
14:05and Vorkuta was a small town built to accommodate these new laborers.
14:10But as we all know, the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, and the mines closed down.
14:15And as we see time and time again, the people leave after their jobs do.
14:19Vorkuta was still left intact.
14:22Today there are still 50,000 people living in the city of Vorkuta,
14:25a stark contrast from the one million during the reign of the Soviet Union.
14:29But many of the buildings still lay abandoned.
14:31Things get a bit tricky for the people still left behind,
14:34because while many of them would love to leave the Arctic city,
14:37they can't afford to live elsewhere,
14:39and absolutely no one is willing to buy their homes amongst the sub-zero temperatures.
14:49Back in the early 1900s, Kayaköy was a modest community in Turkey,
14:53mostly full of craftsmen.
14:55But Turkey was also engaged in the Greco-Turkish War,
14:58and in 1923, residents of Kayaköy were forced out of their homes due to the conflict.
15:04But the reasoning behind it is interesting, and by today's standards a very foreign concept.
15:09The two opposing countries agreed to a population exchange,
15:13meaning Greek citizens went over to Turkey and vice versa,
15:16in an attempt to stamp out the region's religious diversity and maintain only one religion.
15:22And just like that, most everyone was forced out of their homes.
15:25Today, there are still about 350 homes and two Greek Orthodox churches from that era still standing,
15:31and still totally empty, and slowly but surely succumbing both to neglect and the elements.
15:41Another ghost town unfortunately brought about by war and conflict can be found in Libya.
15:46Its name is Tawerga, and it was once home to 40,000 people.
15:50In the local language, Tawerga actually translates to the Green Island.
15:55But today, it's anything but.
15:57It's still full of buildings, homes, schools, and everything a town needs to survive and be self-sufficient.
16:03But in 2011, the country found itself in the midst of a very serious and widely televised civil war.
16:09Fighting was incredibly intense, and the town of Tawerga was eventually occupied by a military group
16:15that was fighting against the current leader, Muammar Gaddafi, who had been in power since 1969.
16:20But when the anti-Gaddafi forces showed up to this once booming town,
16:24they forced everyone out, and now only about 250 of the original residents remain,
16:29all of whom are living in tents.
16:37When the Chinese government wanted to increase their gross domestic product,
16:40they came up with the concept of the Kangbashi district of Ordos,
16:44The new district would sit about 18 miles out of the main city.
16:48The roads alone cost $352 million to lay.
16:52The homes in the Kangbashi district took around five years to be completed,
16:56with many being sold.
16:58But there was one thing missing.
17:00The civic amenities like schools, shops, and restaurants weren't even close to being done.
17:05China's Kangbashi district wasn't able to build its own sufficient economy.
17:09It was more of a husk of an idea than an actual community.
17:13While the population is slowly growing, with about 100,000 residents today,
17:17there's still not much to do and nowhere to go within the district.
17:21Perhaps Kangbashi is meant to be a long-term endeavor,
17:24but until then, it's the largest ghost town this world has ever seen.
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