Photo via Elena Chinarina
Forget haunted houses - in Russia, there are entire cities and towns that look haunted. Dark Roasted Blend explains:
We'd like to call them "ghost towns", but they are clearly not abandoned. Amazingly, people still live in them, go to work in harshest possible conditions (paradoxically making it the richest and mightiest industrial area in Russia) and then come "home" to relax in this inhuman weather, non-existing infrastructure, in dangerously dilapidated buildings...
Take, for example, Cherepovetz City ("City of Skulls") shown above. No need for skeletons, monsters, or for that matter, any special effects to make this town terrifying: Link
"Among the local historians there have been a lot of debates upon the origin of the word "Cherepovets". According to one of the versions the town supposedly received its name from the word "skull" ("cherep" in Russian). In antiquity there was a pagan sanctuary in honor of God Veles on the hill at the confluence of the Sheksna and the Yagorba. The top of the hill was called "skull". Another version suggests that the word "Cherepovets" originates from the name of the tribe "ves" (????), who inhabited the Sheksna banks. According to some legends, "Cherepovets", in the language of local indigenous Veps, means "Veps' fish hill"."
It's also the center of culture and the arts for region of Vologda Oblast, Russia.
I live in that city and I can say that it's not so awesome.
Here my photos, made from paraglider:
http://n1maerd.livejournal.com/60341.html