Khalmer-Yu (, ) is a
ghost town
A ghost town, deserted city, extinct town, or abandoned city is an abandoned settlement, usually one that contains substantial visible remaining buildings and infrastructure such as roads. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economi ...
, a former
urban-type settlement
Urban-type settlement, abbreviated: ; , abbreviated: ; ; ; ; . is an official designation for lesser urbanized settlements, used in several Central and Eastern Europe, Central and Eastern European countries. The term was primarily used in the So ...
in
Komi Republic
The Komi Republic (; ), sometimes simply referred to as Komi, is a republics of Russia, republic of Russia situated in the northeast of European Russia. Its capital city, capital is the types of inhabited localities in Russia, city of Syktyvka ...
,
Russia
Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...
, disestablished in 1995. Its main occupation was
coal mining
Coal mining is the process of resource extraction, extracting coal from the ground or from a mine. Coal is valued for its Energy value of coal, energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to Electricity generation, generate electr ...
of high-quality
coke coal in
Pechora coal basin
The Pechora coal basin (Печорский угольный бассейн) is located in the Extreme North of European Russia. In covers over 90,000 km2 in Komi Republic and Nenets Autonomous Okrug of the Arkhangelsk Oblast.
The basin is ass ...
. It was administered by Gornyatsky district council of
Vorkuta
Vorkuta (; ; Nenets languages, Nenets for "the abundance of bears", "bear corner") is a coal-mining types of inhabited localities in Russia, town in the Komi Republic, Russia, situated just north of the Arctic Circle in the Pechora coal basin a ...
.
["Valley of Life (about Khalmer-Yu settlement)"]
archived article from a June 1983 issue of ''Zapolyarye'' ("Trans-Arctic Cycle") from article cycle dedicated to 40th anniversary of Vorkuta

It was named after the . The name is translated from
Nenets language
Nenets (in former work also Yurak) is a pair of closely related languages spoken in northern Russia by the Nenets people. They are often treated as being two dialects of the same language, but they are very different and mutual intelligibility ...
as "River in the Death Valley", because the place was used a
burial grounds
A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite, graveyard, or a green space called a memorial park or memorial garden, is a place where the remains of many death, dead people are burial, buried or otherwise entombed. The word ''cemetery'' (from Greek ...
by the indigenous population.
[
]
History
Coal in the area was discovered in the early 1940s. Industrial mining started in 1957. Initially the settlement, together with the surrounding coal fields belonged to Nenets Autonomous Okrug
The Nenets Autonomous Okrug (; ) also known as Nenetsia ( ) is a federal subject of Russia and an autonomous okrug of Arkhangelsk Oblast. Its administrative center is the town of Naryan-Mar. It has an area of and a population of 42,090 ...
. However mining was carried out by Vorkutugol (Воркутуголь, "Vorkutcoal") combine
Combine may refer to:
Machinery
* Combine harvester, or combine, a machine to harvest grain crops
* Seed drill, or combine seeder, a machine to plant seeds
Company structure
* Corporate group, an industrial business group in Western democrac ...
. Therefore, eventually was transferred to Komi ASSR
The Komi Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (; ), abbreviated as Komi ASSR (Komi and ), was an autonomous republic of the Russian SFSR within the Soviet Union, established in 1936 as successor of Komi-Zyryan Autonomous Oblast.
In 1991, it b ...
in November 1959.
In 1993 it was decided to shut down mining operations and to liquidate the settlement by 1995. The last inhabitants were forcibly removed with the help of OMON
OMON is a system of military special police units within the Armed Forces of Russia. It previously operated within the structures of the Soviet and Russian Ministries of Internal Affairs (MVD). Originating as the special forces unit of the So ...
.
Proving ground
In the early 2000s it became part of a military proving ground
A proving ground is an installation or reservation in which technology such as weapons, military tactics and automobile prototypes are experimented with or tested. Proving grounds can be operated by government bodies or civilian industries. The ...
Pemboy (Пембой) as a result of the restoration of the aviation proving ground Khalmer-Yu which existed since the 1960s 15–20 km northeast of the settlement.lelik1970 - "Панцири" в Воркуте
/ref>
References
Ghost towns in Russia
Proving grounds
Populated places disestablished in 1995
1995 disestablishments in Russia
Former urban-type settlements of Komi
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