Udmurtia: abandoned villages attract tourists

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:39

According to official figures, about 300 thousand hectares of land intended for agriculture in Udmurtia are now abandoned.

Once these places were inhabited, people were engaged in agriculture and animal husbandry here, but due to various circumstances, these areas were abandoned. The villagers had to leave their homes, dooming them to inevitable destruction by nature and time. It should be noted that many of these villages still have amazing buildings.

Abandoned places

Andreevtsy - a former village that belonged to the Selty district of Udmurtia. According to the results of the 2012 census, it was stated that there were no inhabitants left in this place at all. True, about 11 abandoned houses and the old church, built in 1910 and transferred in 1941 to storage facilities, have survived. Now it has almost collapsed. Neighboring residents mow hay in the surrounding fields and set up a corral for cows in the summer.

The village of Ganino, once located on the Moya River, practically disappeared already in 1961, only 20 people lived there, and then itand completely deserted. In 1987, it was deregistered as a settlement.

Emelyanovka, a former village in the Glazovsky District, disappeared from topographic maps in the 1960s.

There are such abandoned villages of Udmurtia as Kuznerka, Chunya and many others. Unfortunately, there are more than enough such ghost villages in the republic today.

Tourist interest

A curious consequence of this desolation and abandonment was such a phenomenon as an increased interest in these places of tourists.

Abandoned villages of Udmurtia have recently attracted fans of extreme travel, and there are people who are ready to officially accompany them on this journey. Travel agencies are currently intensively developing this direction of travel.

And if there are those who want to look at abandoned villages or, for example, get to the abandoned territories of former pioneer camps, sanatoriums, personal estates, then you can easily use the services of a guide. There are really enough forgotten objects in the republic: these are not only villages, these are also city buildings of hospitals, schools, hotels, theaters. You can even take a tour of long-unused and abandoned military bases.

In principle, in such unfamiliar places as the abandoned villages of Udmurtia, a tourist can really discover something new, for example, to see interesting ethnic and historical objects. Those who have been here talk about the feeling that the buildings left by people seem to continue to live for some reason.then your own life.

Of course, this is not a journey in the usual sense, but such a trip can help break out of the bondage of gray everyday life and look at another, almost parallel reality. Just do not go there without an experienced guide, because if you are not careful, you can at least end up in the police, and at the most in the hospital. Since many abandoned objects have long been in disrepair, it is better not to make independent attempts to enter there, but to use the services of specialists who will monitor your safety.

Treasure hunting

To some extent, developing in the territories of the abandoned villages of Udmurtia and such a peculiar occupation as treasure hunting. People armed with special equipment really come here and try to find something valuable in the abandoned lands.

Treasure hunters (they are also called "diggers") say that here indeed, though not often, you can find old things that are valued by antique dealers. But mostly people with metal detectors hunt for old coins.

Of course, Udmurtia is not strewn with treasures - it so happened historically that there were no stormy centers of civilization here. Basically, valuables in these parts turned out to be in transit, since these lands were a kind of transit point on trade routes from Europe to Asia. However, in these lands, quite interesting things were indeed found several times.clade. For example, in 2009, a worker during road construction came across a copper chest containing several hundred royal silver coins.

Museum

In 2017, a museum of disappeared and abandoned villages of Udmurtia was opened in one of the villages of the Igrinsky district of the republic. It was equipped in the premises of the former rural library.

This museum has become a repository of various exhibits - things that once belonged to real people who lived in villages that disappeared from the map. Here you can see letters, old photographs, archival documents, clothes, dishes, various household utensils.

At first glance, the museum is no different from the usual local history. But he has a peculiarity: behind every thing there is a real story, the memories of one of the former villagers. These stories can be read here, in the museum library, and you can also listen to them. Especially for this, the room was equipped with a multimedia zone. The museum helps the local population not to lose the memory of their ancestors and their identity with this land.

People who are tired of the hackneyed names of tourist routes, who love the exotic and at the same time are not indifferent to folk culture, as well as just lovers of extreme sports and adventure, can be advised to visit this distinctive region of Russia - Udmurtia. The abandoned villages and villages of this region are not only a sad sight, they can help a modern person find himself in another world and feel the spirit of an ancient ethnic group.