Doftana Penitentiary, dubbed the “Bastille of Romania,” is among the most enticing of the country’s ruins and three wings had cells with no natural light whatsoever—these were reserved for those sentenced to more severe punishments fascists and communists were jailed within the complex alongside petty criminals communists used to write articles on toilet paper swing them on a wire from one cell to the other and smuggle them out for a weekly leaflet that would then be distributed among factory and railroad workers Among the future communist leaders serving sentences within the prison were Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej and Nicolae Ceaușescu Both would eventually rule Romania: Gheorghiu-Dej from 1948 through 1965 and Ceaușescu 1965 through 1989 Gheorghiu-Dej transformed the prison into a museum for propaganda reasons using it to show the entire nation where the bourgeois regime used to lock up those who fought for the rights of proletarians. A miniature of the compound was placed in the first hall at the entrance statues of Dej and later of Ceaușescu were on exhibition and the cell of the latter could be seen preserved as it had appeared 30 years before and soldiers arrived here every day on a continuous pilgrimage This prison was chosen because of the scenery and imposing structure and Ceaușescu had only been there for petty crime in his youth awaiting his penalty before he was sent away the museum was abandoned and left to decay water leaks have begun to chip away at floors and walls The miniature of the compound and the statues have been smashed beyond recognition probably as payback after 45 years of poverty and terror Plans to sell the old prison to a real estate developer or a hotel operator have failed and the fate of the building is now uncertain The building is not officially open for tours and it is dangerous to visit without proper protective equipment so you must stick to admiring it from the outside Mexico's largest collection of masks is found in the ruins of an abandoned convent This maximum-security prison was abandoned to make way for a national park The ruins of a Massachusetts prison farm can still be found crumbling the woods of a state park World's first "penitentiary," meant to be humane This abandoned prison is now a museum chronicling the oppression of political prisoners in the not-so-distant past The ruins of a village destroyed by a 22-day flood Only the stone foundations remain of one of the greatest Buddhist temples in early East Asian history Former Gestapo prison turned memorial museum the five-star guesthouse Atra Doftana has generated EUR 162,000 in revenues by attracting some 5,000 tourists to the little known but promising area of Doftana Valley The owners see this niche business growing further over the years to come and are even considering expanding it With its modern architecture and interior design, a gourmet restaurant boasting an Italian chef and jazz music drifting through the hallways, the unconventional five-star Atra Doftana tourist guesthouse is an unexpected and almost alien presence in the rural and traditional area of Doftana Valley. four local entrepreneurs with established businesses in IT EU funds consultancy and home installations The four of them decided to invest in a high-end tourist side project back in 2008 The owners knew they wanted to build a place by a lake and after seeing several other locations decided onDoftanaValleybecause of the landscape and the proximity toBucharest– between an hour and a half and two hours from the capital by car Located close to the much more popular and crowded Prahova Valley, Doftana Valley is a rural area with mostly untapped tourist potential. “We are not competing with Prahova Valley, but rather offering an alternative. We want those coming here to enjoy peace and tranquility,” said Munteanu. The area’s main attraction is Lake Paltinu a place swarming with local campers during weekends There are several other guesthouses in the villages of Doftana Valley but these are mostly two-star locations which focus on rural tourism The unconventional Atra Doftana was designed by award-winning architect Bogdan Babici and George Maftei from Tecon and won first prize at the Bucharest Architecture Annual Awards last year in its category The modern building was built to respect the surrounding landscape and using traditional local materials Its structure slopes down a steep terrain towards Lake Paltinu gym and reception area and is located just beneath the roof which provides access to the building and serves as a parking lot The second level is just beneath and features the restaurant and a lounge Atra Doftana was officially opened last year following a EUR 1 million investment Some EUR 200,000 of the money was EU funds the maximum sum that could be accessed for this type of project One year after completing the project they are still waiting to receive the last installment because of the bureaucracy in the system The owners estimate they can recover the initial investment in about 10-15 years the guesthouse has brought RON 700,000 (approximately EUR 162,000) in revenues in the first year 40 percent of which came from accommodation while the restaurant generated the rest Atra Doftana reported a 40 percent average occupancy rate for the first year This ranged from 10 percent in February due to the extreme weather conditions to about 90 percent in August The facility has eight rooms with a total capacity of 25 places About 60 percent of the 5,000 guests were individuals while the rest came for business/corporate events During weekends and holiday seasons demand for accommodation outstrips capacity leading the owners to consider expanding the business in the future “We could use another 10 rooms but we don’t intend to extend the existing construction or build a large hotel Most likely we will build some small locations in the nearby area which would be in close connection to the existing guesthouse,” they said More concrete future development plans include increasing revenues by 20 percent next year a growth rate Munteanu and Florea consider normal for a start-up business This should come from boosting the average annual occupancy rate by 10 percent and by promoting the gourmet restaurant as a destination in its own right They also intend to continue art initiatives such as the most recent contemporary painting exhibition and to promote Doftana Valley as a tourist destination We use cookies for keeping our website reliable and secure providing social media features and to analyse how our website is used Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks The action you just performed triggered the security solution There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page Jamie founded Listverse due to an insatiable desire to share fascinating He has been a guest speaker on numerous national radio and television stations and is a five time published author Abandoned buildings can be spooky in general but abandoned jails are downright terrifying Even if you aren’t a superstitious person just being in these places can be unnerving knowing the horrible things that might have occurred while they were still operational and murder make these places particularly unnerving Here are 10 of the creepiest abandoned jails in Europe Related: 10 Ghastly Prison Practices Of The 19th Century This Italian prison lies on the island of Procida it has some of the best views of the Bay of Naples available on the island this is something you’d expect—as a prison the views weren’t enough to make up for the horrid conditions Thirty to forty men shared a “cell.” To make matters worse more like a bucket that was passed around once a day with nearly as many guards and police (500) It served as a prison—a Russian gulag with better weather This former king’s palace imprisoned some of the mafia’s worse criminals and even some of the fascists under Mussolini in the 1930s it was the “home” to numerous members of the Camorra crime syndicate including Raffael “The Professor” Cutolo and Gigino “The King” Giuliano Giuliano recruited other prisoners to do work for him on the outside once they were released Spac prison is one of the oldest and most beautiful of Europe’s abandoned prisons It was a political prison in Albania during the Soviet era.) The prison has been abandoned for almost 30 years but the walls still bear evidence of the horrors that took place—prisoners have carved their names The rapidly deteriorating property was supposed to be converted into a museum no move from the government to declare it a museum has happened it will remain at risk of further deterioration The prison was named as one of the 50 most endangered sites in the world in 2015 by the New York-based World Monument Fund which should hopefully draw some more attention to funding its revival Visitors to Spac must be careful, though, as the prison is mountainous, and the road to it is not very safe after dark. You should also wear sturdy shoes to navigate the steep mountain terrain.[2] When the Soviet Union and Iron Curtain came down The rocky island outcrop known as Goli Otok is now home to a collection of abandoned buildings It is sometimes called the “Croatian Alcatraz” due to the similarities of their island locations and very high-security measures Russian prisoners of war from the Eastern Front were sent to Goli Otok throughout World War I Prisoners were forced to build shelters and settlements The People’s Federal Republic of Yugoslavia formally declared the entire island a high-security along with the neighboring Sveti Grgur island Prisoners were forced into hard labor regardless of weather conditions which could reach as high as 104°F (40°C) and down into freezing temperatures in the winter The prison was run by the inmates themselves so it operated under a hierarchical system of violence and humiliation Around 16,000 political prisoners served their sentences there in total; of these Since its closure in 1989, it has been left to ruin, and shepherds from Rab moved onto the island to graze their sheep. More recently, it has become a tourist attraction.[3] Patarei prison is a ghostly and mysterious place It has not operated for more than a decade but artists and former prison employees have been using its cells for art shows and small exhibitions But it’s not easy to explore this haunted place The fact that Patarei has housed death row inmates throughout history and that executions have also taken place there have added to the prison’s infamous image The Rummu Prison was built in the late 1930s in a limestone quarry and now the prison is a partially submerged island of crumbling brick walls they closed down the country’s Soviet-era institutions The quarry eventually filled with groundwater One of the best-kept secrets of Krakow is the Liban quarry this location was the main quarry during the Second World War and has been used for many different things since the Liban quarry became a detention center The site was used as a forced labor camp for hundreds of Poles and Jews More than 800 people were imprisoned here between 1942 and 1944 and twenty-one of them were eventually murdered The monument to the victims was erected in 1948 In the days after the war, the quarry still operated but closed down in 1986. The site was rented by Steven Spielberg for the filming of the movie Schindler’s List, based on the book of the same name. The director used the quarry to film scenes that depicted the Plaszow concentration camp.[6] Doftana prison was one of Romania’s most notorious prisons in the early 20th century It was infamous for its harsh treatment of political prisoners and held in freezing solitary confinement cells The prison was built to service the salt mines nearby a devastating earthquake destroyed the prison The prison’s harsh punishments earned it the nickname “the Romanian Bastille.” It was a mining town that had started life as a housing complex for mine workers but the Romanian king converted it into a communist prison in 1921 As of June 2022, the prison has been purchased and is set to be demolished to make way for a hotel.[7] Elgan gulag is a former Russian gulag that is now an abandoned military camp Russian prisoners were sent to the gulag in order to provide cheap labor These camps were scattered across the Far North and Siberia and prison labor crews were often needed for large projects is a vast collection of abandoned Soviet prisons many of which were destroyed during the Cold War It is now an eerie reminder of the horrors that once typified the Soviet prison system Thousands of prisoners were sent to this gulag most likely to build a railroad to link the northern nickel mines to the Soviet factories in the west and the prison camp sank further into the forest with every passing winter It is estimated that up to 18 million people ended up living in forced labour camps. After the death of Joseph Stalin, the gulag system was shut down, but forced labor camps for political and criminal prisoners continued to exist.[9] this prison became a temporary holding area for political prisoners awaiting transport to gulags in the east It became notorious during the Nazi’s reign in Lithuania where it was used by the Gestapo and Saugumas to detain thousands of Jewish and Polish people The majority were taken to the outskirts of Vilnius and executed at Ponary Lithuania’s last execution took place on its grounds in 1995 it held around 1,000 prisoners and 250 guards a statement was made to the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture from multiple prisoners regarding abusive treatment by staff and poor living conditions described as “deplorable.” The prison was officially closed on July 2, 2019. Since its closure, it has been opened to the public as a cultural center. It was used in 2020 to film parts of the fourth season of Stranger Things. A tourism agency in Vilnius is planning to open up a Stranger Things-themed cell in the prison, which will be rented out on Airbnb.[10] Eastern Europe is rich in history and natural beauty Many different cultures have influenced it from the Ancient Greeks to the Ottomans and the Soviets has an unusually complex history filled with war Eastern Europe’s most famous ruin is Pripyat the town abandoned after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster but that is just one of many desolate and terrifying locations across this part of the world So from the crumbling ruins of a genocidal dictator’s lair to a cave regarded as the entrance to hell itself here are ten of EasternEurope’s creepiest and most mysterious locations Related: 10 Creepy Mysteries From Around The World, Including The Wailing House Nicknamed the “Romanian Bastille” for its use as a brutal political prison the Doftana Penitentiary started life as a housing complex for workers at a nearby mine the Romanian king converted it into a prison for communists Its most famous inmate was the future General Secretary of Romania While Russia is replete with old Soviet ruins the most extraordinary and terrifying Soviet relic of all is in Bulgaria Known as the Buzludzha Monument and built to celebrate Bulgaria’s communist history The shape of the huge concrete chamber is reminiscent of a UFO complex mosaics of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin comprising over two million individual pieces Daksa is an uninhabited island just off the coast of Croatia’s most beautiful city, Dubrovnik. It has a ruined Franciscan monastery built in 1231, along with the remains of an old fortress, a villa, and a small lighthouse. This lovely island is up for sale at the price of just over two million dollars What might surprise you is that Daksa has been on the market for over two decades and is yet to find a buyer Petrovaradin is a beautiful Serbian town on the banks of the Danube with a rich history going back to the Romans The town’s crowning jewel is the Petrovaradin Fortress built by the Austrians in the 17th century to guard against Ottoman invaders It is known as the “Gibraltar of the Danube” because of its strongly fortified position and strategic importance Beneath the fortress, however, lies an old mystery: the catacombs of Petrovaradin This network of tunnels has four different stories and runs more than 16 kilometers (10 miles) in length Its walls are inscribed with Masonic symbols and a mysterious inscription saying “IPAM MIAM,” which no one has been able to decode the inhabitants of a Lithuanian town called Siauliai started placing wooden and metal crosses on a nearby hill Some state that it is the site of a Medieval church that was buried by rocks in a huge storm with the monks still inside Others claim the mound was formed by the bodies of thousands of pagans who were slaughtered by the Livonian Order and that these pagans and monks both haunt the hill and less than half of the original mines are still operational The Devil’s Throat Cave in Bulgaria is alleged to be the place where Orpheus entered the underworld to rescue his dead wife Situated in Bulgaria’s Rhodope Mountains the cave gets its name from the fact that its entrance resembles a demonic face water from the Trigrad River falls nearly 44 meters (150 feet) directly downward this huge drop being the eponymous “throat” of the devil The full extent of this subterranean lair is yet to be fully documented though it is believed they once led to nearby military bases and also acted as escape routes While Japan’s suicide forest has a reputation for being the creepiest forest in the world that is because of what it is used for more than because of the forest itself the Hoia Baciu Forest in Romania is a much more terrifying place Located deep in the Carpathian Mountains of Transylvania—the home of Dracula—Hoia Baciu dates back more than 55,000 years there lies an old castle with dark secrets it was built by the Austro-Hungarian admiral Lazar Mamula in the 1850s not a single cannon shot was ever fired from the fortress walls The Austro-Hungarians used it as a prison during World War One it was used by Mussolini’s fascists as a concentration camp