5 abandoned places where time stands still

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Scattered around the world are amazing places where once it was noisy and crowded, and now only by a miracle preserved parts of the buildings remind of the past fun. Old cinemas and ghostly theme parks, abandoned houses overgrown with greenery, and even entire empty cities. These places forgotten by man today fascinate with their meaningfulness and seem to invite you to look into the past, having made a kind of journey through time.

Outdoor cinema in the Sinai Desert

On the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt, in the middle of the desert, there are 700 theater chairs, as if frozen in anticipation of the audience. Built by Frenchman Dine Edel in the late 1990s, this open-air cinema never saw its premiere. On the day the Jurassic Park demonstration was supposed to take place, the generator turned out to be faulty, providing electricity to the strange establishment.

According to unverified reports, local authorities were unhappy with the prospect of opening a cinema, called "The End of the World of Cinema", and did everything to make the generator malfunctioning. Until 2018, tourists rushed here to see and capture the rows of abandoned chairs, but after the Egyptian government closed the area to visits.

Virginia Renaissance Fair in Virginia Woods

When it opened in 1996, the Virginia Renaissance Fair was supposed to create the illusion of a bustling feudal port. The square was an exact copy of the one where in the Middle Ages numerous bards sang and many spectators gathered. The buildings were erected in the style of medieval European architecture, and there was even a sailboat on the pier in a small pond, where performances were held.

Unfortunately, the fair only lasted three years. The swampy terrain and the too long travel time turned out to be too unattractive for the participants of the retro festival. Many of the decorations were subsequently moved from Fredericksburg to Wisconsin, while the structures remained in place, destroyed by winds and swamps. Old locations are gradually overgrown and decaying, and many are rapidly crumbling. Adventurers still seek to sneak past the closed gates, although the old fair is not allowed. The buildings are located in private territory, and dilapidated buildings pose a danger to life.

Houtouwan fishing village in China

The fishing village on Shanxi Island, just 40 miles from Shanghai, was once a common settlement with about 2,000 fishermen and their families. However, in the early 1990s, residents began to move to the mainland in search of new jobs, as the fishing industry could no longer feed their families, and the number of fish in the small bay became less and less.

Today, almost all houses are abandoned, and their walls are covered with ivy and other greenery. If you look into the window of any of the houses, inside you can see the situation as it used to be, when life was in full swing in the settlement. Only furniture and household items have long been dilapidated … Several former villagers earn income from taking excursions to Houtouwan and selling water to tourists.

Yongma Land, a theme park in South Korea

This theme park was built in Seoul in 1980 and has been popular with South Koreans and tourists. But in 2011, interest in the park began to fade, attendance decreased significantly and it became simply unprofitable to maintain this place.

Fans of extreme entertainment can, after paying an entrance ticket of $ 5 (5,000 won), wander through the abandoned alleys and take pictures in front of the old attractions. If you pay the current owner six times the cost of the admission ticket, the owner of the abandoned park will even turn on the lights of the ghost carousel in the evening.

There are many amazing photos to be taken here because Yongma Land remains charming in its destruction. Not a single attraction works here, but the owner of the park can offer visitors simple props for photo shoots.

Abandoned Hue Water Park, Vietnam

Eight kilometers south of the ancient city of Hue in Vietnam, a water park was erected in 2004 at a cost of 70 billion dongo ($ 30 million). Ho Thuy Tien was supposed to be a tourist attraction in the region, but it remains an unfinished project.

Famous for its Buddhist pagodas and famous temples, locals believe this place is not intended to house entertainment. Draped with graffiti and a deserted water park overgrown with forest very quickly surrendered to the power of the elements and, perhaps, will soon be completely destroyed. In 2018, access to the territory was banned and now the guards make sure that curious tourists do not enter the gate. True, this does not stop lovers of abandoned places, and they constantly find new loopholes to get inside and take unique photographs.

Life here once was in full swing, and many vacationers enjoyed their rest in comfortable hotels and sanatoriums, recuperating after working days. But today these stunning places are hidden in the thickets, once cozy rooms are covered with a layer of dust, the walls are gradually crumbling, and the wildlife is gradually reclaiming new areas. Yet these abandoned resorts still retain their charm and amazing atmosphere of seclusion and tranquility.