Dead town Kolmanskop Bashny.Net

They say that once in Namibia was like this: you walk along the beach, sand kovyrnesh toe in the sand - a diamond. It sounds implausible, as another attraction for tourists, and yet another 100 years ago, everything was just so.





This Kolmanskop, a former city, the former world center of the diamond. It is located in southern Namibia, a few kilometers from the port of Luderitz and clearly visible from the local motorway B4.



In 1908, in these barren lands happened to visit the local railwaymen, which slowly cleared the narrow-gauge railway from sediments of sand and found a gem. Picking curiosity, work went to the authorities to ask, not whether he found the diamond. Foreman surnamed Shtauh confirmed guess and a few years later became a millionaire.





While all oceanfront Namibia belonged to the German Reich, so the newborn epicenter diamond rush was built in the German style, with Germany's thoroughness. Africa's not resembled nothing but sand and heat. A prospecting town Kolmanskop were opened hospital, power, dance hall, playground for skitls, theater, casino, and the first X-ray laboratory in the Southern Hemisphere.





And it - shop for the production of ice, which in this sultry "paradise" was appreciated almost its weight in diamonds. Ie drinking diamond nouveaux riches - those who were lucky enough to stake profitable Sands first - only the champagne on ice, occasionally yearning for German beer cold.



In Kolmanskop from around the world pulled hundreds obsessed easy enrichment. Fortune Hunters arrived and arrived, the population had reached the number of 1,100 people (300 German and 800 owners contract workers). Quench your thirst for local products lemonade shop, hunger - Food own abattoirs and bakeries. Earned a furniture factory and the first in Africa tram. The owners of Kolmanskop, those foremen shtauhi, bathed in luxury and bliss, like staying in an earthly paradise.





Union of South Africa not long envied and attacked German sybarite Namibia. The operation was successful, and Kolmanskop his fateful sands fell to the Union of South Africa, and the company "De Beers", with its slogan "A Diamond is Forever". It soon turned out that fate can take gifts. Residents of the town Kolmanskop, crawling on his knees, reseeded all the sand in the area and deeper sand, clay, diamond was found - they just run out with poker and mazurka. In 1918, the majority of citizens left Kolmanskop and moved south to the Orange River, where he opened a fresh deposit of their favorite stones.

Today on past glories Kolmanskop little resembles. At once elegant homes live sand and the wind howled. In 1980, the local diamond trust something here renovated and opened a museum. For nearly 30 years, a ghost town is maintained in good condition. But tourists here is not so easy to get - you have to buy a special permit to go and organized groups only from Luderitz and strictly from morning to afternoon. The rest of the gate in the most gritty city in the world closed, the territory patrolled evil guys with machine guns, and somewhere near still mined famous Namibian diamonds.