Mitsero mines & interviews

Hello subscribers!

Yesterday I uploaded a new Blog Post, the next one about Cyprus, but this time not an overview, like the Blog post before, but on a specific subject/place. A couple of readers had expressed an interest in seeing more from those abandoned mines at Mitsero, which were briefly mentioned in the previous DT Newsletter. So I picked that for yesterday’s new post, which features them more substantially and comes with 20 photos, so it’s another photo essay, essentially.

The mines are near the village of Mitsero, but actually in two different locations outside the village itself. One consists of two types of mine: the first a horizontal tunnel drilled into the mountainside, the second a vertical shaft with a head frame over it. In front of the head frame is the strange structure featured in the photo above. I think it even has a certain “steampunk” appeal to it, or maybe something out of the “Alien” science-fiction-film franchise. What I reckon it was in reality is some kind of distribution-and-loading facility. The ore extracted from the horizontal tunnel would arrive by narrow-gauge railway, meeting the output of the vertical shaft at the head frame, and then the wagons would be turned by that apparatus at the top so that their load would drop into those silos in the centre of the structure. From there, so I presume, it would have been loaded on to trucks and taken away to whatever plant processed the ore. It’s a heavily polluted area, with puddles dyed an eerie red or green by toxic chemicals.

You can find more photos of both the vertical mine and its ancillary structures (especially the head frame, which you can climb to the top) in the new Blog post.

The other location, and third type of mine, is a former open-cast mine a good kilometre to the south-east. The bottom of this huge pit is now filled with an eerie lake of red water, which also gave rise to the epithet Blood Lake. Again, chemical pollution is at play here – hence attempting to go swimming in this lake would not be advisable.

What adds to the dark appeal of these places is the fact that they were locations at which victims of a serial killer were found not so long ago, in 2019. The case became known as “the Mitsero murders”. The new Blog post has a bit about that story too.

The photos, however, are the main thing – and I think they really are captivating, if I may say so myself. I’m certainly pleased with this photo essay. The additional photos from inside that dark mine tunnel are especially atmospheric and spooky. Do go and take a look!

For the next few weeks I will have to knuckle down and get updates for Cyprus done and all those new chapters written and uploaded to my main website – so the Blog and Newsletter may have to be put on the back burner for a bit. But I promise to up the posting frequency again after that. The reason for this urgency is that I’m doing an interview for a feature in a Cypriot newspaper about my trip to the country and dark tourism in general, and I would like my website’s coverage of Cyprus to be ready for perusal by readers who might get interested. I’ve already done another interview, which is to be published on a Russian-language expat website in Cyprus, so it’ll appear there in a Russian translation; but I will also put the English original on my website, once the article in Russian is online on their website. Links to both will be duly given on the DT Blog and in one of the following Newsletters.

So much for this time,

best wishes,

Peter