Are you guys ready for some cool photos from one of the COOLEST abandoned places I’ve ever been to?!
Keeping in mind, I haven’t even made it over to Chornobyl and Pripyat’ yet.
A few days ago, I had the opportunity to join my counterpart Oksana and several of our students on a field trip to both Lutsk and Fort Tarakanivskyy.
It was the perfect Halloween field trip.
Fort Tarakanivskyy is an abandoned military fortress located near the city of Dubno in the Rivne oblast. It was originally built to protect the Kyiv-Lviv railroad during the 18th and 19th centuries, when Ukraine was still part of the Russian empire.
It was originally a military fortress before it was converted into a warehouse and then later, a prison. Most of it is underground, and it’s completely falling apart and covered in (Cyrillic) graffiti, naturally.
This story and this story will tell you more about it than I can.
It’s been abandoned since the early 1900s, and is now mostly used for films (a scene from Inglourious Basterds was filmed here) and explorations. It’s totally free and open to the public (bring a flashlight and good shoes) — it’s just a bit hidden and, yunno, probably also haunted.
SO COOL, RIGHT?! I’m so so so lucky that I have the chance to explore the ruins of Eastern European history.
This post was originally published Dec. 28, 2020. Its timestamp has been updated to better reflect the timeline of my Peace Corps service.
