Photos of Abandoned Russia

Alan Taylor
August 7, 2018
35 Photos
In Focus

Across the vastness of Russia—the world’s largest country, at some 6.6 million square miles—and over the span of its long history, countless houses, factories, churches, villages, military bases, and other structures have been built and then left behind: imperial-era palaces, log cabins of pioneers in the Far East, Christian cathedrals, massive Soviet blocks of concrete, speculative-mining camps, and more. For years now, photographers have traveled across Russia finding and photographing these intriguing ghost towns, empty Soviet factories, toppling houses, and crumbling chapels.

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A drone photo of the collapsing Von Meck Estate in Khruslovka, Venyovsky district, Tula Oblast, south of Moscow, taken on May 27, 2016. Satellite view on Google Maps. #

CC BY-SA Vadim Razumov / Wikipedia

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An abandoned Japanese lighthouse on a rock in the southern part of Sakhalin Island, Russia. Find it on Google Maps. #

Gribov Andrei Aleksandrovich / Shutterstock

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A crumbling concrete elk in an abandoned Soviet pioneer camp #

Valerii Iavtushenko / Shutterstock

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Rusting abandoned port cranes in the town of Dudinka, in the Taymyrsky Dolgano-Nenetsky district of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia #

Rashid Valitov / Shutterstock

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An old house in the country, outside Moscow, on May 10, 2013 #

Okunin / Shutterstock

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Fort Alexander I, one of the fortresses adjacent to Kronstadt, Saint Petersburg, Russia. Satellite view on Google Maps. #

CC BY-SA Godot13 / Wikimedia

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A derelict factory in Saint Petersburg #

Vladimir Mulder / Shutterstock

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An uncompleted, abandoned, and overgrown oil refinery in Leningrad Oblast #

Constantine Vladimirovich / Shutterstock

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A closer view of the uncompleted oil refinery in Leningrad Oblast #

Constantine Vladimirovich / Shutterstock

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A small chapel collapsing beside Lake Ladoga #

OSDG / Shutterstock

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The ruins of an old pulp and paper mill on Sakhalin Island #

Gribov Andrei Aleksandrovich / Shutterstock

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The overgrown ruins of an industrial building in the Voronezh region #

Vladimir Mulder / Shutterstock

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A derelict dock stands in front of a volcanic structure on Atlasova Island, which is part of the Kuril Islands #

Janelle Lugge / Shutterstock

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A seal colony on the shores of the abandoned Tulenyi Island, which is in the Kuril Islands #

Janelle Lugge / Shutterstock

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An old giant dome of a radar antenna, part of a former antiballistic-missile system in Naro-Fominsk. Satellite view on Google Maps. #

Saoirse2013 / Shutterstock

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A drone view of an abandoned building of a former restaurant on top of Mount Akhun in Sochi #

Vadim Fedotov / Shutterstock

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Kalyazin Church, also called the "Flooded Belfry," standing alone in the Uglich Reservoir. This structure is all that remains of the old town of Kalyazin, which was submerged when a dam was built in in 1939. Satellite view on Google Maps. #

Kichigin / Shutterstock

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A destroyed railway bridge in Kholmsk, Sakhalin Oblast #

LyginaKs / Shutterstock

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A building in the ghost town of Alykel, located above the Arctic Circle #

Constantine Vladimirovich / Shutterstock

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An aerial photo of the abandoned, unfinished Khovrino Hospital in Moscow on May 18, 2017 #

A.Savin / Wikimedia

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A decaying house in Kostroma Oblast #

V. Smirnov / Shutterstock

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Abandoned industrial buildings, a legacy of the Soviet Union, in Siberia #

Zagaynova Anna / Shutterstock

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Churches in Paltoga, Vologda Oblast (the former Akulovo village). The wooden church on the right, built in 1733, is now being restored. #

CC BY-SA Кривошеина Мария \ Wikimedia

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The empty Kazan Theotokos Church in Yaropolets #

Cartela / Shutterstock

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The ruins of a five-story panel house in Murmansk on July 5, 2018 #

MariyaYa / Shutterstock

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A shipwreck in Morzhovaya Bay, Kamchatka #

Janelle Lugge / Shutterstock

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A leaning wooden house in Arkhangelsk #

Mikhail Varentsov / Shutterstock

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A ruined, overgrown red-brick bridge in the forest, in Kiritsy, Ryazan Oblast #

Vladimir Mulder / Shutterstock

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An aerial view taken with a drone on October 30, 2017, shows the neglected estate of Grebnevo, east of Moscow #

Andrei Borodulin / AFP / Getty

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The ghost town of Ugolny Ruchei, a former coal-mining site, near Norilsk #

Constantine Vladimirovich / Shutterstock

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The Church of the Nativity in Krokhino, Vologda Oblast. Built on a lakeshore at the end of the 18th century, the church was isolated after rising waters created to improve shipping inundated surrounding villages. The church has been slowly crumbling since. #

CC BY-SA Kemal Kozbaev / Wikimedia

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A decaying industrial building of a Soviet electronics factory in Novovoronezh #

Vladimir Mulder / Shutterstock

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A destroyed center for social and cultural activities for Soviet citizens, captured in early morning fog, in Kotelnich, Kirov Oblast #

Mikhail Starodubov / Shutterstock

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Abandoned ships from the Russian federal fleet sit in the repair-operational base of the Yenisei River Shipping Company in Podtyosovo village, about 217 miles north of Russia's Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, on June 15, 2013 #

Ilya Naymushin / Reuters

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Church of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God in the village of Novinki, in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast #

Pukhov K / Shutterstock

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