!!!Kolmanskop Ghost Town

by Dmitry Moiseenko,
member of the [AirPano Team|Geography/About/Consortium/AirPano,_Team] that is a member of the [global-geography Consortium|Geography/About/Consortium]. \\

16 October 2017

with kind permission of [AirPano|http://www.AirPano.com]

Many fantastic movies feature the idea of the global post-apocalypse:
the majority of people are gone, megalopolises that once were noisy and
full of life become empty and lifeless, the winds blow through deserted
buildings and wild animals occupy former human dwellings. In fact, even
now you can find many ghost towns on our Earth. One of them is
Kolmanskop in Namibia.

[{Image src='01_Kolmanskop Ghost Town, Namibia.jpg' caption='Kolmanskop Ghost Town, Namibia' alt='' width='900' popup='false' height='601'}]

The story of this place is related to the period of the Namibian diamond
rush that hit the country in the beginning of the 20th century. In 1904
the first diamond was found in Namibia and then lots of people rushed
here in the hope of getting incredibly rich. One of them was a German
August Stauch: he became a railway inspector in the area of the port
town of Lüderitz lying on the coast of the Atlantic ocean; he was
strongly interested in mineralogy and even obtained a permit for the
exploitation of diamond fields.

[{Image src='02_Kolmanskop Ghost Town, Namibia.jpg' caption='Kolmanskop Ghost Town, Namibia' alt='' width='900' popup='false' height='539'}]

He asked his workers to look out for "unusually shiny stones". And one
of them got the job done: in 1908, Zacharias Lewala picked up several
small diamonds right on the surface of the desert. Stauch purchased the
surrounding area and founded a settlement here.

[{Image src='03_Kolmanskop Ghost Town, Namibia.jpg' caption='Kolmanskop Ghost Town, Namibia' alt='' width='900' popup='false' height='601'}]

He invited fellow Germans for the exploration of the area and
eventually, the town featured the architectural style of a German town
with neat houses and institutions including a town hall, school,
hospital, theatre, casino, and stadium. Moreover, the first x-ray
station in the southern hemisphere was built, as well as the first tram
in Africa started operating here.

[{Image src='04_Kolmanskop Ghost Town, Namibia.jpg' caption='Kolmanskop Ghost Town, Namibia' alt='' width='900' popup='false' height='602'}]

For around two decades the things were getting on well: even though the
amount of the produced diamonds was not large, they were purely clear as
all the Namibian diamonds. The nature of these diamonds is easily
explained: the minerals were washed out from the ground by subterranean
streams into the ocean; then the tide brought them ashore and the wind
carried them away with the sand.

[{Image src='05_Kolmanskop Ghost Town, Namibia.jpg' caption='Kolmanskop Ghost Town, Namibia' alt='' width='900' popup='false' height='421'}]

But the diamond field slowly started to deplete and there was no reason
for people to stay here any longer. Little by little inhabitants started
leaving their homes, and the discovery of the richest diamond-bearing
deposits in Namibia in 1928 hastened this mass migration. A new diamond
field was 270 km south of Kolmanskop and many of the town's inhabitants
joined the rush to the south leaving their homes and possessions behind.

[{Image src='06_Kolmanskop Ghost Town, Namibia.jpg' caption='Kolmanskop Ghost Town, Namibia' alt='' width='900' popup='false' height='569'}]

In the 1950s Kolmanskop was ultimately abandoned, but it can hardly be
called totally deserted: this ghost town became a popular tourist
destination. Now it is located within the restricted area of the Namib
desert occupying around 26,000 sq. km along the Atlantic shore. These
lands belong to a diamond-mining company. Although diamonds are mined on
only 5% of its territory, the other area is a "buffer" and people need
special permits to enter the town.

[{Image src='07_Kolmanskop Ghost Town, Namibia.jpg' caption='Kolmanskop Ghost Town, Namibia' alt='' width='900' popup='false' height='602'}]

In the case of Kolmanskop, the solution is an easy one: the absence of
diamonds is practically proved and permits can be bought right at the
entrance of the town. The walk among abandoned houses with dead windows
can provoke philosophical reflection, and you can make sure that it is
true with the help of AirPano panoramas!

\\ \\
[10 Panoramas of Kolmanskop Ghost Town|Geography/Africa/Namibia/Pictures/Panoramas_of_Kolmanskop_Ghost_Town]










[{SET customtitle='Kolmanskop Ghost Town (AP)'}]

[{Metadata Suchbegriff=' ' Kontrolle='Nein'}]