Latvia’s Jurmala region: soviet holiday homes to Neverland (12 images)
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The region outside Riga has long been associated with health resorts, sanatoriums and spas. During the country’s time as a soviet satellite, it attracted many high-ranking party officers
You most probably know the former soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev from the annals of modern art history; he features on the left in a mural on the Berlin wall of the 'communist kiss' with east German leader Erick Honecker
Brezhnev, who died 17 years ago exactly in November 1982, had a holiday home in Jurmala. In the picture, an idea of what it might have looked like
Many parts of Jurmala remain favoured holiday destinations, especially with the lovely 33km stretch of beaches
But times change. An eerie, almost apocalyptic, corner of the town of Kemeri has become a forgotten relic of the region’s past. The word Nekurzeme, which is Latvian for ‘Neverland’, is scrawled on one bare wall, pregnant with biting sarcasm and black humour
Just beyond pastel-coloured wooden houses...
...stoops an anaemic high-rise block
Dodging the open man-holes (the stolen covers sold for scrap), passing street lights stripped of bulbs and wiring, then pushing through head-high grasses at the end of a dirt track...
... a huge concrete complex sits decrepit in a birdless silence that’s broken only by the wind groaning through its weathered skeleton
Soviet construction began in the late eighties to provide accommodation for visitors to the local curative waters. But it was a victim of shifting politics
With Latvia’s 1991 independence, the state-funding of the Old Regime disappeared. The site, along with its tourists, jobs and income, never materialised
Today, it has been reclaimed by local youths. Colourful paintball shots dot the faded corridors and courtyards, the only indications of life and vibrancy
...bar a few tired trees and scrubs that have, somehow, sprung up in third storey rooms and concrete concourses