8 Fascinating Object Graveyards

Aircraft Bone Yard (Arizona, USA)

Meet the Bone Yard, near Davis Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona. For those of you that have never seen it, it's difficult to comprehend the size of it. The number of aircraft stored there and the precision in the way they are parked is impressive. Another important fact is that they are all capable of being returned to service if the need ever arises. Both the museum and the Bone Yard are very popular attractions in the Arizona desert.

Train Graveyard (Bolivia)

In southwest Bolivia lies a place where it looks as if all the country’s ailing old locomotives have rolled into the wilderness to chug their last chugs – or been struck dead on the spot at the hand of the evil stationmaster in the Earth’s furnace. This gigantic train graveyard – chock-full of the hollow husks and skeletal remains of long forsaken steam engines – is situated on the deserted outskirts of the small trading post of Uyuni, high in the Andean plane some 3,670 m above sea level.

Ship Graveyard (Mauritania)

The city of Nouadhibou is the second largest city in Mauritania, and the location of one of the largest ship graveyard in the world. Hundreds of rusting ships can be seen all around, in the water, and on beaches.

This phenomenon started in the 80's after the nationalization of the Mauritanian fishing industry, numerous uneconomical ships were simply abandoned there. Foreign ship owners later found very convenient to get rid of their old vessels in the bay.

Soviet Tank Graveyard (Afghanistan)

On the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan there’s a massive collection of abandoned Soviet battle vehicles left behind after the failure of a massive eastern bloc military occupation of the country in the 1970’s and 1980’s. The Soviets left in a hurry and couldn’t be bothered to find a way to get broken-down tanks back home, so now they sit, partially stripped and covered in graffiti. Afghanistan has few recycling facilities, so this cemetery of tanks will likely remain where it is for many more years as a reminder of the Russian invasion.

Anchor Graveyard (Portugal)

Among the dunes of Tavira island, in Portugal, there’s an impressive called the Cemitério das Âncoras (The Anchor Graveyard). It was built in remembrence of the glorious tradition of tuna fishing with large nets ("armações de atum") fixed with these anchors, a fishing technique already invented by the Phoenicians. Tavira used to be a place devoted to the tuna fishing. They built up this anchor graveyard to remember those who had to quit their occupation when the big fish abandoned the coasts.

Vending Machine Graveyard (Japan)

Located in Tamamura, Gunma-ken, Japan, this vending machine graveyard remind us what an environmental problem they are, because of the amount of power devoted to keeping them brightly lit and cold/hot 24 hours a day.

War Graveyard (Eritrea)

In Asmara -an important city of Eritrea- a huge graveyard of wrecked military tanks, armoured vehicles and other relics of war, captured by the Eritreans or left behind by the Dergue from Ethiopia while evacuating Eritrea.

“We keep this place as a reminder,” says Peter from the Department of Tourism. We walk through the masses of mostly Russian vehicles, tanks and piles of spent shells. In a normal country this place would be a scrap metal merchant’s dream, but here in Eritrea it remains as a symbol of pride and victory over Ethiopia.

Soviet Car Graveyard (Russia)

Meet the Soviet Car Graveyard. Most of these cars are very rare nowadays on Russian streets and were a subject to a great desire to a few generations of Soviet people, almost deprived of the right to have a car. Now they stay there as a silent monument in far-away countryside to the Soviet era and it’s style of life. Maybe on some of these cars Stalin or Brezhnev drove across the streets of Moscow.

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