Across The Planet

Machu Picchu is a lost city of Inca in Peru. It is located 2400m above the sea level on a ridge above the Urubamba Valley 80 km northwest of Cusco. It was built in 1450 but abandoned a few hundreds years later in time of Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire. Probably most of inhabitants are wiped off by smallpox. City was forgotten for years until Hiram Bingham american historian brought it to world attention. Machu Pichu is now one of the Peru biggest tourist attraction. The Unesco declared Machu Pichu as a World Heritage Site in 1983 and it is also one of the New Seven Wonders of The World.

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This mine is one of the most impressive places on eath. It is 525m deep hole in the ground and 1200m wide. The Mine is an abandoned open pit diamond mine located in Mirny, Eastern Siberia. It was the first and one of the largest diamond pipes of the USSR. Mir Mine was discovered on June 13, 1955 by Soviet geologists Yuri Khabardin, Ekaterina Elagina and V.Avdeenko during the large Amakinsky Expedition in Yakut ASSR. It was operated for almost 50 years, finally closing on April 30, 2004. Mir Mine gave out 2 million carats annually. It takes trucks close to 2 hours to drive from the bottom to the top. The suction above the hole resulted in several helicopter crashes, so all flight above the hole is prohibited now.

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Palagruža is a small Croatian archipelag in the middle of the Adriatic Sea. It consists of one bigger main island, named Velika Palagruža and one smaller island named Mala Palagruža. Velika Palagruža is 1400 m long and 300 m wide. Also there is about twenty rocks or reefs around. Palagruža is located 123 km south of Split (Croatia) and 160 km east of Pescara (Italy). Palagruža is closer to Italy mainland then Croatian. It is about 42 km from Monte Gargano. Many states controlled Palagruza during history. Austro Hungary empire built lighthouse in 1875. Lighthouse is located on cliff in the middle of the island 90 m above sea level, and it is also site of meteorological station. Palagruža is surrounded with dangerous waters, and …click here to read more

Barentsburg (Grumant in Russian) is a small Russian settlement in Svalbard (a group of islands north from Norway), with about of 700 inhabitants registered in September 2005. An interesting fact about this small town is that it is one of the most northerly settlement in Europe. Barentsburg has been inhabitated by Russians since 1932, and get his peak during Cold War as the Russia tried to expand zone of control.
Although island is under the Norwegian sovereignty, Russian citizens have the equal rights to exploit natural resources. Also Russia maintain a consulate in Barentsburg. Main business in Barentsburg is coal mining. The tourism is only in beginning but all that is not enough to revive the town. …click here to read more