I'm guessing most of us on the forum are familiar with the Chernobyl Disaster that occurred in 1986, in present-day Ukraine? Well, I've recently learned about a "ghost town" that resembles Pripyat in architecture and atmosphere, but is located in Poland and - thankfully - there is no deadly radiation there, it's just an abandoned village. The village is called Pstrąże; before 1992, it used to be teeming with life. Back in the time of the People's Republic of Poland, Pstrąże belonged to the Red Army. It was a base for the soldiers as well as a home for their families. After the collapse of the Soviet-controlled regime in Poland and the dissolution of the Soviet Union that followed, the village was handed back into (now independent) Polish administration and the Red Army moved out along with Pstrąże's inhabitants. Spoiler However, the village was never repopulated or modernized. Instead, it was selected as another training ground for the Polish armed forces. Nowadays Pstrąże is very much a ghost town, destroyed by time and military exercises. There are signs placed around it, warning trespassers that access is forbidden and claiming that entering the area may result in serious injury or death - but some people have went there and met no one; no security, no army. It's almost completely abandoned, though it still may be risky to go there in case there does happen to be a military exercise during that time. Anyway, here are two pretty cool videos about Pstrąże I found on YT: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OSZNTT29Ks http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRCfvYiTgqc
I'd love to, but I don't live in Poland anymore - remember? I plan to move back to Poland after university, which is going to take a few more years and even then who knows what will be left of the village in that time.
Looks really neat, looks like it would be fun to have an airsoft/paintball little battle in. Disregarding the whole "chance of actually being shot" part.
I love how tar paper on the roofs is still intact. In addition one of the videos has parts from the Chernobyl horror flick mixed in. Nice touch.
I found a relatively new video from Pstrąże. Parts of it are intentionally filmed in a slightly humorous way, so it might seem a bit weird to those who don't know Polish. It takes a while for them to actually get to the town, but they discover some interesting things on the way there (e.g. ruins of German buildings from WWII). They actually have to wait for the sounds of shots to die out before heading in as there may have been a military exercise taking place there just before their arrival. They also find out that: not just the Polish Armed Forces but firemen train in Pstrąże as well, staircases of some buildings were blown up to stop people getting onto the roof and they discover two phrases on the exterior wall of one of the buildings that were quite accurately written using sniper rifle shots. A little fact that they say near the end (which is pretty much common knowledge in Poland, but might be interesting for those who don't know) is that the Soviet (and later Russian) Army was stationed in multiple parts of Poland even several years after the dissolution of the USSR. Anyway, without further ado, I give you the video: [YOUTUBE]?v=OHZKJ8WTISI[/YOUTUBE]
