The Mexican Island of the Dolls

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Dolls with severed limbs, decapitated heads and blank eyes can be seen all over the abandoned Isla de las Muñecas - the Island of the Dolls. The island, created as an artificial agricultural plot or chinampa, in the canals of Xochimilco, south of Mexico City, used to belong to a man called Julián Santana Barrera.

The story goes that Barrera found a little girl drowned under mysterious circumstances while he was not able to save her life. Near her dead body he found a floating doll, possibly belonging to the dead girl. He picked up the doll and hung it to a tree, as a way of showing respect to the spirit of the girl. That's when he started collecting the old broken bodies of dolls from the canals and rubbish tips, and hang them from branches and tree trunks to keep away evil spirits and appease the spirit of a dead girl he had found.

He then started believing that the dolls were possessed by the spirits of dead girls and that they would come to life every night and walk around the island. In 2001, Barrera was found drowned at exactly the same place he discovered the little girl 50 years earlier. Since then, visitors stared going to the island, often bringing their own dolls. The creepy dolls are today the sole inhabitants of Isla de las Muñecas.

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flickr.com/ALEX ARMICH

flickr.com/Damaris Vilvhis

flickr.com/Alejandro De La Cruz

flickr.com/Luis Urquiza

A sunken yacht in Antarctica

From April 7th, 2012 and for about a year, the Brazilian research vessel Mar Sem Fim ("Endless Sea") could be seen under the freezing shallow waters of Maxwell Bay in Antarctica. 

It all started when the 76-ft boat, owned by Brazilian journalist João Lara Mesquita, struck the ice while carrying a crew of four researchers filming a documentary. As the ship began to sink, the crew was rescued by Chilean Navy. For the next months, the ship could be seen from the surface, under 9 meters (30 feet) of water.

A year later, the owner João Lara Mesquita returned to the site to save the ship. The vessel was surfaced using inflated buoys and was then towed back to the shore. After a year covered in sea water, Mar Sem Fim was deemed beyond repair.

SEE ALSO: More abandoned ships and boats around the world // More abandoned underwater places // More abandoned places in Antarctica // LIST OF ALL DESERTED PLACES 

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sometimes-interesting.com

sometimes-interesting.com

sometimes-interesting.com

sometimes-interesting.com

The deserted Giersdorf Church in Poland

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Żeliszów is a small village in south-western Poland, very close to the German borders. In fact, until 1945 and the end of World War II, Żeliszów was in Germany. There, the evangelical Giersdorf (the German name of Żeliszów) church was built between 1796-1797 by the design of self-taught architect Carl Gotthard Langhans, whose best known work is the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, The church was built in an elliptical shape with dimensions of about 20x30 meters. In 1872, by the design of local architect Peter Gansel the bell tower was built out of bolesławiecki sandstone.

The church, which locals called "the Pearl of Żeliszó", survived World War II but was deserted after Żeliszów became a part of Poland and fell in disrepair. Currently, it's undergoing renovations by Your Heritage Foundation (Fundacja Twoje Dziedzictwo) and it's going to be used as a multifunctional arena for cultural events, concerts, films, and photos.

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Tomasz Zuk/twojedziedzictwo.pl

Patryk Kizny/twojedziedzictwo.pl

Wikimedia Commons/Ludwig Schneider

The abandoned Kilchurn Castle in Scotland

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Kilchurn Castle was built around 1450 by Sir Colin Campbell, first Lord of Glenorchy on an island inside Loch Awe, in Argyll and Bute, Scotland. It was a a five storey tower house with a courtyard, defended by an outer wall. 

During the next centuries, the castle was extended and new chambers were built. In 1681, the castle was turned into a modern barracks, capable of housing 200 troops by its then owner, Sir John Campbell of Glenorchy, 1st Earl of Breadalbane. During the 1715 and 1745 Jacobite risings, Kilchurn was used as a government garrison. 

The castle was abandoned in 1760, when it was badly damaged by lightning. The remains of a turret of a tower, are still resting upside-down in the centre of the courtyard. In 1817, the water level fell and since then the castle is connected to the mainland, resting on on a rocky peninsula at the northeastern end of Loch Awe.

Today, Kilchurn Castle is in the care of Historic Scotland and it is open for visits during the summer months. 

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SEE ALSO: More abandoned castles around the world // More abandoned places in the United Kingdom // LIST OF ALL DESERTED PLACES 
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Bernard Blanc/flickr.com

Abandoned Sinai hotels

Between 2001 and 2004, the Munich artist duo Haubitz + Zoche visited the Egyptian Sinai peninsula and took photos of concrete skeletons of abandoned 5-star hotel complexes for their project Sinai Hotels. 

The reasons for the abandoning of these construction projects at resort sites are many and varied, ranging from bad investment and misappropriated state subsidized loans to diminishing tourism as confidence was undermined by the reports of terrorist attacks.

'Sultan’s Palace’, ‘Sindbad’, ‘Sunestra’ and the ‘Magic Life Imperial’ are the names of some of those would be hotels that now remain abandoned against the background of mountain and desert landscapes. 

'Sinai Hotels' won the German Photobook Prize in 2007. 

SEE ALSO: The deserted hotels of Sharm el Seikh, Egypt // More abandoned hotels around the world // More abandoned places in the desert // More abandoned places in Egypt // LIST OF ALL DESERTED PLACES 
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Haubitz + Zoche

Haubitz + Zoche

Haubitz + Zoche

Haubitz + Zoche

Haubitz + Zoche

The Woodward Avenue Presbyterian Church in Detroit

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The Woodward Avenue Presbyterian Church was built in 1911 in Detroit, Michigan to serve congregants located in what was then the north Woodward area. The church had 163 members. Designed by architect Sidney Badgley, Woodward Avenue Presbyterian is an English Gothic-style church, faced with rough rock and trimmed with a contrasting limestone, and measuring 184 feet (56 meters) long by 104 feet (31 meters) wide. 

In 1921 the church had reached over 2200 members but by the 1950s many of them had started leaving Detroit for the northern suburbs. Only 404 members had left behind in 1971 and in 1981 the church merged with Covenant Church. 

A death of a pastor in 2005 was the end of the Presbyterian church, then known as the Abyssinia Interdenominational Church. with the building left abandoned for the following years. In 2011 the interior was used as a set for the movie Alex Cross. A few years ago there were plans for the church to be turned into a homeless shelter but until today it remains one of the many abandoned buildings of Detroit. 

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SEE ALSO: More abandoned churches around the world // More abandoned places in Detroit and around Michigan // More abandoned places in the United States // LIST OF ALL DESERTED PLACES 
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Toby Vanable/flickr.com 

Inside Keranis cigarette factory in Athens

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Starting in 1933 and for more than 70 years, this building in Piraeus, near Athens, was the headquarters of Keranis, one of Greece's largest tobacco companies. In its prime, more than 2,500 people were working inside the 28,700 m² (309,000 ft²) factory, manufacturing more than 2.5 million cigarettes per shift and making Keranis the biggest Greek tobacco company. 

Things started to change from the 70s and 80s when more and more Greeks would rather buy imported cigarette brands instead of the Greek ones. In 1998, the family controlling the business sold it to a brokerage firm which shut down a few years later, together with Keranis. Today, the building belongs to an asset management company and it is up for lease. There were plans for the Piraeus courthouse to move inside the abandoned factory but those plans fell through. 

All photos by Vassilis K. Makris

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Vassilis K. Makris/lifo.gr

Vassilis K. Makris/lifo.gr

Vassilis K. Makris/lifo.gr

Vassilis K. Makris/lifo.gr

Vassilis K. Makris/lifo.gr

Europe's abandoned border crossings

In 1995, the Schengen agreement took effect liberating travel between 7 European countries. Since then, more countries have been added and today 26 countries, members of the Schengen Area, have abolished border controls and share a common visa policy. 

As border checkpoints between these countries are no longer needed, many of them have been abandoned. Spanish photographer Ignacio Evangelista travelled around Europe to take photos of those abandoned border checkpoints for his award-winning project "After Schengen". 



SEE ALSO: More abandoned border crossings around Europe // LIST OF ALL DESERTED PLACES 
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Rattersdorf - Köszegcs Austria - Hungary

Ignacio Evangelista

Portalet Spain - France

Ignacio Evangelista

Hardegg - Cizov Austria - Czech Republic

Ignacio Evangelista

Eisenberg - Vaskeresztes Austria - Hungary

Ignacio Evangelista

Ždarky-Pstrazna Czech Repuplic - Poland

Ignacio Evangelista

Inside Mussolini's secret bunker

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In order to provide shelter to bureaucrats and party leaders during World War II, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini built several secret bunkers under the city of Rome. Now, many of those bunkers open to the public for the first time. 

This bunker was a 55 m (180 ft) long converted wine cellar, deep beneath Mussolini's residence, Villa Torlonia, which housed the dictator and his family from 1925 to 1943. Mussolini ordered its construction in 1940, fearing his house would become the target of an Allied bombardment. 

The bunker had 3 escape routes and was quipped with a double set of steel, gas-proof doors, and a sophisticated air filtering system that could provide oxygen for 15 people for 3-6 hours. Later, Mussolini decided to build another bunker, and then a third, which was still unfinished by the time he was arrested in 1943.

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Reuters/Remo Casilli

Reuters/Remo Casilli

Reuters/Remo Casilli

Reuters/Remo Casilli

Reuters/Remo Casilli

The ghost island of Boston

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For the last three decades, Boston's Long Island has been the home of a vibrant community: the city's shelter, housing hundreds of homeless people, addicts and troubled teens. During the recent years, Boston's taxpayers and nonprofit groups have spent millions of dollars to refurbish the island's old buildings where until last October up to 700 people sought shelter and other services every day. The community thrived and its two farms were producing some 25,000 pounds of produce a year. Potatoes, parsnips, cilantro, as well as eggs and honey. 

The shelter however fell victim of America's infrastructure crisis. A bridge between the island and the city of Boston was deemed unsafe. To replace the bridge, the city would have to pay an estimated $90 million. An evacuation of the island was ordered instead. With about one-third of Boston's shelter beds for the homeless and about half the city’s detox beds based on the island, the city's social services are now in limbo.

The deserted shelter facilities now complete the scenery of abandonment on Boston's Long Island. With, long-abandoned bunkers that hid gun batteries and Nike missiles, a dusty chapel that hasn’t held services in years, a shuttered morgue, a 150-year-old cemetery, Long Island now looks more like a ghost island.

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Jessica Rinaldi/bostonglobe.com

Jessica Rinaldi/bostonglobe.com

Jessica Rinaldi/bostonglobe.com

Jessica Rinaldi/bostonglobe.com

Jessica Rinaldi/bostonglobe.com