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Thursday, May 07, 2009

Underground Cities and Bunkers: Living Down Below


"QUANTUM SHOT" #565
Link - article by M. Christian and Avi Abrams



Deep Calls to Deep...

Ever since Tolkien's Mines of Moria, and perhaps the haunting, grandiose structures of Gormenghast, the vast underground spaces has intrigued and thrilled readers, movie-goers and urban explorers (see our article Abandoned Tunnels and Vast Underground Spaces)

This time we'll highlight a few subterranean (or built into a mountain) cities and huge bunkers - but we have a feeling that our feeble spotlight of information is not going to sweep away the murky mysteries surrounding these sites. There is a vast expanse of tunnels to explore, and you never know what may greet you at the next turn...


Vault in Pyatigorsk, Caucasus, image credit: Dana

Why people would want to live down below is not a surprise to anyone. After all, when Mr. and Mrs. Neanderthal tut-tutted about the sorry state of the neighborhood, what with all those Homo Sapiens moving in and all, they did it around a nice warm fire – in a cave. What is surprising is that even though early man lived in caves for a very, very long times we’ve pretty much abandoned having granite floors and ceilings, homes hewn – or simply found – inside stern mountains...

In, under, or around the mountain - the city must be built!

One town that bridges below ground and above ground is the charming Spanish city of Setenil De Las Bodegas in Andalucia. While a lot of the elegant town is above ground, many of it is also tucked in a wandering network of caves under its sheltering cliffs. Because Setenil De Las Bodegas has been a living city for centuries it also lacks the dust and decay that sometimes haunts a lot of ancient underground settlements.



Here is an aerial video of Setenil De Las Bodegas, showing its incredible location. Also see more images and info.



(image credit: José Luis Sánchez Mesa)

Check out the balcony on the upper left (in the image below) - it does not have much of a view, does it? -


(image credit: Juan Antonio Patiño Méndez)


Elegant Cappadocia

If you want to talk about an almost mystical kingdom that lived as much under the ground as on it then you have to talk about the Cappadocians. So in tune were these ancient Turks (who were there long before there was a Turkey, actually) with the earth that they carved entire towns and cities into natural outcroppings. What's more, they did it elegantly, in a flowing... well, natural fashion. Sure, time has ruined a lot of their work, but still today you can see hints of their craftsmanship and geological architectural skill in the cities and tunnels that survive.


Goreme Valley, Cappadocia, photos by Derrick Pereira

More images and a travelogue here

What’s also fascinating about underground cities is how they can hide, right under out feet, for centuries. Another Turkish underground city was discovered in 1972 when a local farmer noticed his water supply was going somewhere it shouldn’t – that somewhere turning out to be a massive underground city, called Özkonak, that – at it’s height – could have been home to (wait for it) over 60,000 people. Yes, you may whistle.


(image credit: Tatjana)


"Industrial Honeycombing"

There’s not enough space here to go into every ancient underground city – mainly because, like with Özkonak, some of them have no doubt yet to be found – especially if we decide to be generous and stretch the definition of what a city might be. After all, sometimes underground chambers and tunnels never planned to be cities have become makeshift ones, like with the catacombs of Paris and the Resistance during the Second World War.

Here is one of Cold War "underground cities" - a nuclear bunker in Burlington. Appropriately-named "City of Ember" exploration website has a haunting account of penetrating this secret subterranean city, and BBC has an interesting article about it.


(images copyright: Dan Brown)

"The bunker featured an exact replica of the telephone exchange of it's time. The entire nations phone lines could have run through this system." -


(image copyright: Dan Brown)

Australia's "Down Under" name is definitely justified: lots of caves there, but also man-made underground spaces... The Cave Clan, which logo looks like Coca-Cola (check it out) finds weird catacombs, that may scare an occasional tourist and attract droves of urban explorers... There are lots of creepy tunnels and chambers, some with very appropriate names -

"Abandon All Hope" Tunnel, Tasmania, for example:


(image credit: Azenis)

It gets even fuzzier if you include man-made underground structures and not just cities carved by hand into stone. If you use that definition the world is honeycombed by modern underground cities, especially in congested cities like Tokyo, Singapore, London, and New York.

Speaking about New York, National Geographic site has a neat chart of underground infrastructure (make sure to click through to the to-scale version)


Wieliczka Salt Mine

Putting aside the questions of what is or isn’t a real underground city there’s one that has to be mentioned. Yes, it’s ancient, but it was also a living subterranean community up until very recently.

What’s also odd about it was that it was carved not from stone but from salt. Started sometime in the 13th century (again, you can whistle), the Wieliczka Salt Mine in Poland has been in almost continuous operation until 2007. Stretching over 300 kilometers long, it goes as deep as 327 meters. Okay, that’s impressive, but what’s really staggering is that the mine was home to generations of workers and their families, who transformed their simple mine into a cathedral of brilliant and awe-inspiring art.


(images via)

Seems like these mines also had a rich and turbulent history, as witnessed by these paintings:


(images via)

Purely a labor of love, the miners carved the salt into statues, a chandelier, and even into a chapel. But that’s not all: the mine also features a movie theater, an underground lake, a café … all the amenities of life on the surface but rather deep in the living earth.


Chapel deep underground, photo by Cédric Puisney

Abandoned Limestone Quarries, located in Maastricht, Netherlands, also display "works of art" and signs of habitation. They are being explored by Marco Cauberg and his team:




As with narrow houses we talked about before, as the population rises and living space shrinks, its looking more and more likely that many people will be living as their great, great, great ancestors did: below the ground – though at least this time when we complain about the neighbors it’ll be by the light of something much more sophisticated than a roaring fire.

CONTINUE TO "ABANDONED TUNNELS and VAST UNDERGROUND SPACES"! ->

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COMMENTS:

4 Comments:

Blogger markb120 said...

Some more for your collection:

In Guilin, China.

Somewhere in Vietnam.

___  
Anonymous Television Voyeur said...

Imagine living in one of those bunkers.

___  
Anonymous casper said...

And another one, slept in the hotel years ago

http://www.tunisia.com/tunisia/travel/tunisia-travel-guides/southern-tunisia/matmata

___  
Anonymous Vlad said...

Inside looks pretty chill..why we don't have such here..

___  

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  • Again in Saigon, what is it about Vietnam and extreme wiring?Seismic activity plus lack of planning. In Japan you have also a lot of wires, but they are at least better planned.
    Read more

  • Apparently in Bangkok a telephone pole couldn't fall over if it wanted to.
    Read more

  • actually the "Prehistoric wiring" sample
    was done properly, just brush off the cobwebs and it is very tidy indeed!
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  • oh Nicolai Tesla, we done you wrong.
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  • They don't have a choice in Bangkok. City is on a swamp, so they can't dig vaults.
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  • Any background/sources to the chip that is connected via little red wires?
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  • I wish we did... received it in email... even TinEye does not pick it up yet.
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  • Does the sender have any info on it?
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  • No, the only bit of info is that it came somewhere from Russia... as might be expected :)
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  • That snake looks a bit like a western hognose to me. But it's really hard to identify when you can only one eye.
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  • you think thats bad plumbing! check this out:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkmJXRejY18
    Read more

  • You guys found that fox video that I've been looking for! The fox is truly one beautiful creature...
    Read more

  • The keep teasing us with the e-ink watch but the only one that ever went into general production was a half inch thick and all it could do was make the dial color either white or black.
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  • I am impressed, I know I should not be given that i have worked on a similar, blog post but you were able to find some real good germs.
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  • Fantastic clocks, especially the one thats half missing(the second one) I will have to make one like that!

    There are two more sci-fi sculpture clocks here:
    http://www.marty.com.au/sci-fi-gallery/art-sculpture/7-countdown.html
    which is a self destruct mechanism out of a space ship coveted into a clock
    and
    http://www.marty.com.au/sci-fi-gallery/art-sculpture/11-sci-fi-clock-is-a-time-travellers-best-friend.html
    which is designed or time travellers.
    Read more

  • That SEIKO watch is amazing! It doesn't seem to be an actual product, however. It seems like plausible technology, however. A roll-up flat-screen monitor, in full color, was shown off at SIGGRAPH last year...
    Read more

  • Superbe, especially the vintage ones made by Haruo Suekichi, they remembered me about the movies La cite des enfants perdus (1995), seemed like stuff made out of Jules Verne books.

    And then the alarm clock that you could smack to stop the alarm, I became nostalgic remembering Pink Panther, how she broke her alarm clock in the morning and orTom si Jerry cartoons:-) So long time ago.

    Spendid design. Hard to find them though on the market.
    Read more

  • Wow, wow, and bloody WOW. Many, many thanks for this post!
    Read more

  • not to be uber pedantic or anything, but the one that has math stuff to the numbers has an error...

    the Equation for 9 is given as:

    3(pi-.14) which equals 9.004777960... etc etc.

    try it with calc lolz

    ;)
    Read more

  • It says Matango Tricycle.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matango
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  • The Japanese girl pop band seem to be singing in Korean.
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  • Thanks for linking to the baby mammoth story, Avi!

    If you want to watch the story on TV, the "Waking the Baby Mammoth" documentary will be on the National Geographic Channel tonight at 9 pm.
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  • Yup. they sure as hell aren't singing in Japanese. South Korean me thinks.
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  • Is and old merchandising from a 1963 japanese film, called Matango. Is about a mutant killer mushroms who live in an island and a castaways who arrive there.
    You can see it here.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVyRYjJoZfc
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  • The scariest bridge featured is the Musou Tsuribashi.

    http://www.4to40.com/newsat4/index.asp?id=2440
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  • Love the R1200C on the side of the Smart 4/2
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  • I got a fwd last week of food art. Food art is ... disturbing. Please make it stop. I am 57 years old.

    Chris
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  • i think they grow the watermelons in a container. like how the get the square ones. don't think its a photoshop.
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  • Very cool, although I was a lil' grossed out by the burger/sneaker combo!
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  • cool, but the pig cutting itself was really creepy and disgusting.
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  • The face-shaped watermelon is real. I've seen them in markets in Asia, though their prices are exorbitant.
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  • Great article. Thanks for the information.
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  • Watermelon is very real, and very pricey.

    My favourite is the suicidal pig and the night-time pancakes.
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  • FYI the orange carrying itself is by Balla Tamas - ballatamas.com
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  • Food you could really sink your teeth into.
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  • Those are some ugly cars!
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  • Personally i think that these cars are beautiful, esspecialy the older ones.
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  • Morgan have for a long time been one of my favourite car companies, they have one of the finest heritages around yet are very froward looking for a very small company. The Aero's do look a little cross-eyed but that's fine with me.
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    If they bring them to life, they will destroy company's image.
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  • Enjoy them while they last, they'll be victims of the economy soon enough.
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  • Stunning
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  • whom ever said "these cars are terrible" has no artistic talent no latent abilities and is destined to work the same dead end job for the rest of his life, not because the car is terrible but because you have no appreciation for the work that is put into these pieces of art. also you are not required to like them because there are those of us that still do and have for nearly 80 years.
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  • Whether you think these are beautiful or not is a matter of personal taste. However, facts dictate that, of almost any car, this is the one you buy if you don't want to lose much money. I have a 12 year old Plus 8, bought it new for £35k and I am reliably informed its worth between £25k and £28k now. I can't think of any other car that retains its value so well.
    Read more

  • That video of the "new animal" discovered in Japan is a combination of horrifically fake CG with a clever pulsating rubber toy at the end. Good try tho!
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  • Two more that I have seen in person:
    Restaurant Silbervogel in Hannover, Germany:
    http://maps.google.com/?ll=52.347305,9.70935&t=h
    http://www.planepictures.net/netshow.php?id=683583

    and one in Petrovice, Czech Republic:
    http://maps.google.com/?ll=50.807599,13.980821&t=h
    http://www.planepictures.net/netshow.php?id=823669

    There are hundreds more pictures to be found on planepictures.net but to save their system resources I won't hotlink the exact search.
    Read more

  • what a sad demise to an iconic aircraft..

    McDonald's in Taupo, New Zealand, has utilised a DC3 for many years now..

    http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/1429030.jpg

    at least they look after the exterior
    Read more

  • Flannery's Restaurant in Penndel, Pennsylvania (a little north of Philadelphia) featured a Lockheed Super Constellation as its cocktail lounge. The place was a landmark for many years until the aircraft was donated to the Air Mobility Museum in Dover, Delaware. More information here:

    http://www.hemmings.com/hmn/stories/2007/09/01/hmn_feature18.html
    Read more

  • You spelt 'Seoul' wrong on your article.
    Read more

  • You spelled "spelled" wrong.

    "spelt", lol.
    Read more

  • You spell "spelt" "spelled"? What language do you speak, some bastard colonial version of the language of southern Great Britian?
    Read more

  • There is one in Saraburi, Thailand.
    Read more

  • Very cool stuff...
    Read more

  • There is also an old Soviet plane, transformed into a bar in Olomouc, Czech Republic - Latka Bar: http://www.virtualtourist.com/travel/Europe/Czech_Republic/Olomoucky_Kraj/Olomouc-401624/Nightlife-Olomouc-BR-1.html
    Read more

  • An even better use for old jumbo jets can be found on the website for the Artificial Reef Society of British Columbia

    http://www.artificialreef.bc.ca/OurReefs/AR-540/index.htm

    Equally interesting, the Discovery Channel tells the story of efforts to deploy the 737-200 as an artificial reef which was, understandably, a logistics nightmare. You can catch it on their MegaBuilders series or read the synopsis here:

    http://www.discoverychannel.co.uk/
    Read more

  • And in Sweden - very close to Stockholm Airport - Arlanda (ARN/ESSA) there`s a retired 747 serving as a hotel !
    Read more

  • Hello! you still can add more conversions... in Aviadores Virtuales Asociados we have found...

    Plane Cafe in Russia
    http://englishrussia.com/?p=1726

    Disco (in Barcelona - Spain)
    http://www.myaviation.net/search/photo_search.php?id=00038734&size=large

    727-Suite
    http://www.costaverde.com/727.html

    There is another disco-plane in Madrid (Spain) but I did not find any photo
    Read more

  • Thank you guys, great tips
    Read more

  • Read more

  • In Holland the former plane of Erich Honecker (East Germany) is transfered into a luxury suite. See: http://www.hotelsuites.nl/suites.php?view=detail&hotel=1894
    Read more

  • That's incredible!! How the hell did they manage to drag a 747 to this spot? I guess it started out pretty cool and then turned into a bit of an eye sore! Did they close it for health and safety reasons? It looks pretty warn out!
    Read more

  • Lol "Naive"-tek
    Read more

  • The "owl-man" looks freakishly like actor Marty Feldman
    Read more

  • Oops, meant the "parrot-man"
    Read more

  • Last picture has caption in finnish, says "Misuse of alcohol? Prohibition officers ordered a steamroller to crush 22 000 full bottles of alcohol in the village of Koba, western India."
    Read more

  • The "battery powered battery charger (batteries not included)" is a joke from 'Worth1000.com'.
    Read more

  • i really enjoy this site - if i'm at home. unfortunately at work i'm behind a corporate firewall/proxy which blocks any traffic from flickr - which is where you host your images (i see your webpage, but not the images).

    you're unfortunately losing a lot of potential traffic, unless you'd consider an alternative - its standard practice these days (and with good reason) for corporates to block access to facebook, flickr, youtube, etc..

    kind regards
    Read more

  • Can you see Picasa-hosted images, like on this page?
    Read more

  • loved the soviet robot, totally looks like an old comunist version of wall-e

    --- or could be backwards?
    Read more


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