The Haunting Beauty of Post-Soviet Decay
Joshua Foust on Feb 25 2008 at 5:27 pm | Filed under: Foreign affairs
One place I always wanted to see but didn’t get around to when I was in Kazakhstan was the ruins of the Aral Sea. I know a ship graveyard a hundred kilometers from the nearest water sounds like a strange sight to see, but we can write that off as me doing my best Tom Bissell impersonation.
Far be it for me to limit myself to Kazakhstan, however: the FSU has more to offer than a dried ocean of poisonous sand. On what might as well be the other side of the universe, on the Kamchatka Peninsula (way north of Vladivostok and Sakhalin, for reference), there is a graveyard of dead ships being crushed in the frozen ocean.
There is no grander point to be made here, at least not from me. But watching an Empire decay, just as its new leaders try to revive it (despite the embarrassing realization that it can’t sell good planes to save its life).
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The View From the Bluff: Lance’s Economic and Finance Blog
All other comments aside (ahem), these are fantastic photos. It’s like an Edward Hopper dream having all those industrial artifacts encapsulated by nature’s hoary fist.