The Russian Village is one of the first abandoned leisure parks in Japan that I had seen pictures of. Paradoxically, it is also the one I visited the last. Being very popular, I knew it had been very vandalized: its hotels was set on fire and all the windows were smashed. I love the fact that haikyo are relatively pristine in term of ruins but this place seemed to be an exception.

It was built in 1993 in the Niigata Prefecture and they hired many Russians to make it more alive. In the park, they built a gigantic hotel, a replica of Suzdal Church, many shops and a circus.

I visited this place with an explorer who is probably the youngest one I know. Not afraid of much, except of the bears, Mimi-chan braves all the haikyo and takes beautiful photos. I love traveling with people with different eyes, it is like discovering the place with a different mindset. The park was really like a wreck, as I thought, but we had an aim : to find the mammoth. The sun was not that high in the sky anymore and the shadows were covering the area really quick. The mammoth was nowhere to be found and I wished I had look at one of the map on the ground at the entrance. But finally, in the rear-end of the park, we found our taxidermy mammoth. This is a photograph we had to come back home with.

HIGHLIGHTS

– The mammoth
– The cathedral

FACTS

• 1993 – 2002