Pyramiden

Pyramiden takes its name from the pyramid-shaped mountain beside it at the head of Billefjorden. Sweden founded it as a coal-mining settlement in 1910 and sold it to the Soviet Union in 1927. It was run by the state mining trust Arktikugol, which also owns Barentsburg, and in the 1950s about 2,500 people lived here. In Soviet times most of them were Ukrainian, miners from the Donbas and other staff from Volyn. Between 1955 and 1998 as much as nine million tonnes of coal were taken from the mine.

The end came quickly. In 1996 a charter flight for Arktikugol crashed on its approach to Svalbard Airport with the loss of 141 lives. Mining stopped on 31 March 1998, the settlement closed the same year, and the last permanent resident left on 10 October, leaving a ghost town whose interiors stayed much as they had been on the day it emptied. The cold climate has preserved much of what was left behind.

From 2007 Arktikugol began renovating the hotel and upgrading the infrastructure, with a new diesel power station, and in 2013 the hotel reopened for overnight guests. In 2012 Aleksandr Romanovsky became the first person to come back to live in Pyramiden, later joined by others. On 27 August 2019 the settlement held the world's northernmost film festival, marking a century of Soviet cinema, and in 2022 Russia announced new investment to support its presence in Pyramiden and Barentsburg. There are no plans to renovate and reopen the whole settlement.

Pyramiden was built as a showcase of Soviet life, and its public buildings show it. The settlement had a cultural centre with a theatre, a library and art and music studios, a sports complex, a primary school and a canteen open 24 hours a day. Residents also had a shooting range, a football pitch and a seawater swimming pool built to international dimensions. The northernmost monument to Lenin and the northernmost swimming pool in the world both stood here.

Today the settlement is a museum of that life rather than a community. The cinema has been restored to working order and films can be shown on request, drawing on an archive of more than 1,000 Soviet films kept in the storerooms. The renovated hotel houses the Pyramiden Museum, a post office and a souvenir shop, and guides lead visitors through many buildings on request. Romanovsky, a musician as well as a guide, has styled himself the "world's most northern head-banger".

Visiting comes with rules. Anyone may go to Pyramiden, but no building may be entered without permission, even if it is open. Break-ins, vandalism and the theft of artefacts have become a serious threat, speeding up the decay of the buildings, and most are now kept locked. Arctic Travel Company Grumant, a division of Arktikugol, maintains the settlement for tourism.

As of 2026, around 20 to 30 people, most of them tourism workers, live in Pyramiden in summer, and in winter that falls to between one and three. Only two buildings are habitable: the hotel with its restaurant, and a dormitory for staff. The rest of the town stands empty, preserved by the cold.

The settlement's year is shaped by the tourist season. In summer the boats arrive from Longyearbyen, and staff meet them at the harbour, guide groups around the square and the cultural centre, and look after the buildings and the power supply. Several operators have run boat trips, and the guided walk ashore has been handled by local staff whichever boat is used. In winter visits are rarer and come by snowmobile, while for part of the spring ice can stop boats from landing at all.

The isolation is real: there is no mobile phone or internet coverage, the nearest settlement, Longyearbyen, is about 50 km away with no road, and polar bears are frequently seen nearby. Pyramiden's few residents keep the infrastructure running and protect the buildings from damage.

In its Soviet years Pyramiden fed its miners from a canteen that stayed open 24 hours a day, part of the full set of public services the settlement was built around. Those days are gone, and today the only place to eat is the restaurant in the renovated hotel, one of the settlement's two habitable buildings. Visitors on day trips are advised to bring their own food and drinks, since supplies on site are limited.

Most of what visitors eat on a trip to Pyramiden is served on the boat or back in Longyearbyen. In 2017 one tour boat served a warm lunch by the glacier — marinated whale meat, baked salmon and pork rib, with locally baked bread — and carried a licensed bar and snacks such as waffles. Back in town, Longyearbyen offers Svalbard's widest choice of restaurants and its only grocery store, where those heading out for the day can stock up beforehand.