1. Aircraft Boneyard, USA
The 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group (AMARG), often called The Boneyard
is located near Davis Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona. For
those of you that have never seen it, it's difficult to comprehend the
size of it.
The number of aircraft
stored there and the precision in the way they are parked is
impressive. Another important fact is that they are all capable of being
returned to service if the need ever arises.
AMARG is a
controlled-access site, and is off-limits to anyone not employed there
without the proper clearance. The only access for non-cleared
individuals is via a bus tour which is conducted by the nearby Pima Air
& Space Museum. Bus tours are Monday through Friday only. Both the museum and the Bone Yard are very popular attractions in the Arizona desert. [link1, link2, map]
2. Ship Graveyard, Mauritania
The city of Nouadhibou
is the second largest city in Mauritania and serves as the country's
commercial center. It is famous for being the location of one of the
largest ship graveyard in the world. Hundreds of rusting ships can be
seen all around, in the water, and on beaches.
One of the most commonly
read explanation for that situation is that Mauritanian harbor officers
were taking bribes and allowing ships to be discarded in the harbor and
around the bay. This phenomenon started in the 80's after the
nationalization of the Mauritanian fishing industry, numerous
uneconomical ships were simply abandoned there.
The city of Nouadhibou
is one of the poorest locations in the world. Right over these phantom
beaches there are people living inside the huge merchant boats. [link, map]
3. Train Cemetery, Bolivia
One of the major tourist attractions of southwestern Bolivia is an antique train cemetery. It is located 3 km (1.9 mi) outside Uyuni
and is connected to it by the old train tracks. The town served in the
past as a distribution hub for the trains carrying minerals on their way
to the Pacific Ocean ports.
The train lines were
built by British engineers who arrived near the end of the 19th century
and formed a sizable community in Uyuni. The rail construction started
in 1888 and ended in 1892.
The trains were mostly
used by the mining companies. In the 1940s, the mining industry
collapsed, partly due to the mineral depletion. Many trains were
abandoned thereby producing the train cemetery. There are talks to build
a museum out of the cemetery. [link, map]
4. Vozdvizhenka Aircraft Graveyard, Russia
Littered with at least
18 gutted Tupolev Tu-22M Backfires of the 444th Heavy Bomber Regiment,
Vozdvizhenka air base resembles a post-apocalyptic landscape. Entering
this barren place, located near Ussuriysk in the Primorsky
Krai region of Far East Russia, 60 miles (95 km) north of Vladivostok
and 40 miles (65 km) from the Chinese border, is like taking a step back
in time.
The 444th Regiment was
disbanded in 2009, with some aircraft transferred to the Belaya air
base, and others dismantled (removed engines, equipment, and with holes
cut in the fuselage).
The aircraft carcasses
are awaiting final metal cutting. Currently based at the airfield is the
aviation commandant of Khurba airbase and the 322 Aircraft Repair
Factory. [link1, link2, map]
....
5. Anchor Graveyard, Portugal
Among the dunes of Tavira island,
in Portugal, there’s an impressive anchor graveyard called the
Cemitério das Âncoras. It was built in remembrence of the glorious
tradition of tuna fishing with large nets fixed with these anchors, a
fishing technique already invented by the Phoenicians.
Tavira used to be a
place devoted to the tuna fishing. They built up this anchor graveyard
to remember those who had to quit their occupation when the big fish
abandoned the coasts. [link, map]
6. Soviet Tank Graveyard, Afghanistan
On the outskirts of Kabul,
Afghanistan there’s a massive collection of abandoned Soviet battle
vehicles left behind after the failure of a massive eastern bloc
military occupation of the country in the 1970’s and 1980’s.
The Soviets left in a
hurry and couldn’t be bothered to find a way to get broken-down tanks
back home, so now they sit, partially stripped and covered in graffiti.
Afghanistan has few
recycling facilities, so this cemetery of tanks will likely remain where
it is for many more years as a reminder of the Russian invasion. [link, map]
7. Submarine Graveyard, Russia
The area around Nezametnaya Cove,
close to the town of Gadzhiyevo, in Murmansk Oblast on the Kola
Peninsula, is a cemetery where is located a lot of old Russian
submarines. After serving their duty underwater, the submarines were
brought to this restricted-access zone in the 1970s and then forgotten.
Locals said that some of
the old submarines were used for target practice in military exercises
and often sunk, an employment of the old “out of sight, out of mind”
strategy. Others were simply left in the bay to rust and rot, floating
to the surface like so many whale carcasses. [link, map]
8. Moynaq Ship Graveyard, Uzbekistan
Moynaq is a
city in northern Karakalpakstan in western Uzbekistan. Home to only a
few thousand residents at most, Moynoq's population has been declining
precipitously since the 1980s due to the recession of the Aral Sea.
Once a bustling fishing
community and Uzbekistan's only port city with tens of thousands of
residents, Moynoq is now a shadow of its former self, dozens of
kilometers from the rapidly receding shoreline of the Aral Sea.
For travellers the main
reason to visit Moynaq is to see the ship graveyard, a collection of
rusting hulks that were once the town’s fishing fleet. It’s an image
that perfectly illustrates the disaster - once proud vessels beached in a
sandy desert.
Unfortunately there
aren’t many left, as scrap metal companies made short work of them
before the tourism authorities forbade it. In
one final kick for a local population already downed, the money didn’t
go to the people who owned the boats; it was divided up between the
scrap companies and government officials. [link1, link2, map]
9. Taxi Graveyard, China
Thousands of scrapped taxis are abandoned in a yard in the center of Chongqing,
China. Traffic congestion and pollution have worsened dramatically in
Chinese cities because the country's long-running economic expansion has
allowed increasing numbers of consumers to make big-ticket purchases
such as cars, which means many no longer have to rely on taxis or public
transportation. [link]
10. Phone Booth Graveyard, UK
This phone booth graveyard is located between Ripon and Thirsk, near the village of Carlton Miniott, UK. There are located hundreds of disused telephone booths.
Decommissioned old red
booths are systematically replaced by new modern booths, and deposited
in one site near this English village.
