100 Places You Will Never Visit (18 page)

The Vault was designed with a lifespan of some 1,000 years. Access to its chambers is via a 98-meter (320-ft) tunnel, which has a brushed-steel entrance portal. The tunnel itself is divided into three separate locked sections, each section progressively colder and icier. A thick concrete wall and a large metal door blocks the way to the chambers. Each chamber—some 20 meters (66 ft) deep, 10 meters (33 ft) across and 6 meters (20 ft) high—is kept at a steady -18°C (0°F). Any uninvited guests will soon feel the effects of this low temperature and the low oxygen levels necessary to delay seed aging. There is enough room in the Vault to store 4.5 million seed samples.

Each deposit goes into an extra-thick, heat-sealed padded envelope that excludes any possibility of the contents being exposed to the elements. Deposits are X-rayed upon arrival on the island, to ensure they contain nothing harmful or dangerous.

SOWING THE SEEDS Samples are securely stored in plastic containers kept on metal shelves in one of three climate-controlled main storage chambers. There is no charge to make a deposit, with costs covered by a mixture of charitable and governmental contributions.

The Vault is opened, on average, twice a year to make new deposits, but entry is strictly limited. It is said that the Vault doors can be opened by one of only four individual keys. Rumor has it that on an official visit, not even the Norwegian royal family were allowed into the main chambers themselves, and while it is possible to arrange visits to the general site, you will need to thoroughly prove your credentials and undergo extensive security checks. The limited roll call evidenced by the Vault’s guest book includes UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and former US President and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Jimmy Carter. Considering that the contents of the seed Vault might one day just save the planet from extinction, one can hardly complain about this exclusivity.

It should also be noted that an extra layer of security is offered around Spitsbergen by the population of native polar bears, among the most dangerous species on the planet and far more able to operate in the Arctic conditions than any human.

However, should you find yourself in the area, you may wish to treat yourself to dinner at Huset in Longyearbyen, the administrative capital of the archipelago. This is the world’s most northerly restaurant to boast a Michelin star—and fortunately, the menu is not overly reliant on local produce.

1 SUSPENDED ANIMATION The Svalbard Global Seed Vault stores back-up samples of seeds from around the world at subzero temperatures deep beneath the Arctic permafrost. Access to the storage chambers is secured by a 98-meter (320-ft) tunnel divided into three locked sections.

61 Pionen White Mountains

LOCATION Vita Berg Park, Stockholm, Sweden

NEAREST POPULATION HUB Stockholm

ECRECY OVERVIEW High-security location: a secure data center best known for hosting the servers of WikiLeaks.

A spectacular underground facility drilled into the granite beneath Vita Berg Park (White Mountain Park) in the Södermalm district of Stockholm, Pionen White Mountains is one of the world’s most advanced computer centers. It hosts the servers of numerous companies, including, since the end of 2010, the controversial WikiLeaks organization.

Within a year of launching its website in 2007, WikiLeaks boasted a database of almost 1.25 million secret and confidential documents, often deposited by anonymous whistle-blowers from around the world.

Led by an enigmatic Australian called Julian Assange, the organization quickly became a major thorn in the side of authorities on every continent. It won particular notoriety when it released extensive material relating to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, prompting serious examination of Allied conduct during those conflicts.

In 2010, WikiLeaks also released vast numbers of confidential US diplomatic cables, causing Washington severe embarrassment since many prominent public figures were described in less-than-flattering terms. Originally, the documents were published with certain key information excluded to protect the identity of individuals, but this precaution was later lifted by Assange (who had by then been indicted for sex offenses in Sweden). His decision drew widespread opprobrium from critics, who claimed he was putting the safety of named individuals at risk for his own idealistic belief in “openness.” Some called his actions treasonous, and WikiLeaks became the focus of renewed attention from governments across the globe.

The hosting of the expanding WikiLeaks database had already moved several times, and was then thrown off Amazon’s servers, apparently for breaching its terms of service. In late 2010, the organization relocated its hosting to Bahnhof, one of Sweden’s oldest internet companies (founded by Oscar Swartz in 1994) and the owners of the Pionen White Mountains.

The Vita Berg facility was originally built during the Second World War and was later converted to be able to withstand a Soviet nuclear attack. It lies under 30 meters (100 ft) of bedrock beneath the city, protected by armor-plated metal doors almost half a meter (20 in) thick. Accessible by a single entrance, the bunker has 24-hour surveillance cameras in operation to ensure that no visitors go unrecorded.

UNDER THE MOUNTAIN Pionen combines a secure server farm with state-of-the-art conference facilities.

Key: 1. Servers, 2. Conference room on upper level, 3. Offices, 4. Generators and fan room, 5. Conference rooms off access tunnel, 6. Refrigeration plant, 7. Main entrance.

This distinctly unglamorous Cold Warera space had long been out of operation when, in 2007-08, Albert France-Lanord Architects completely overhauled and significantly expanded it for Bahnhof. It now covers 1,200 square meters (13,000 sq ft), and is often likened to the lair of a James Bond villain, with good reason. The space is filled with exotic jungle-like foliage, artificial waterfalls and solar lighting, while the floors are designed to resemble spacescapes. There is a futuristic “floating” conference room, suspended glass corridors and even two German V12 diesel submarine engines providing a back-up power supply. It is about as sexy as cutting-edge internet technology can hope to get.

The relationship between Bahnhof and Assange seems well matched. Assange is undoubtedly fond of the dramatic gesture and no doubt the spectacular design of Pionen White Mountains appeals to that side of him. Perhaps more significantly. Sweden has particularly strong legislation protecting journalistic sources. Assange has confirmed that he set out to nurture a relationship with the country (along with others such as Switzerland and Iceland) “specifically because those nations offer legal protection to the disclosures made on the site.”

In other words, the servers at Pionen White Mountains, which no doubt contain yet more information to make life difficult for powerful figures across the planet, have statutory legal protection to go along with the extensive security systems guarding this subterranean Hollywood set.

Meanwhile, Bahnhof is clear that WikiLeaks is treated with the same discretion and respect as any of the other clients who rent its hosting services. As Jon Karlung, Bahnhof’s head (and unsurprisingly, an avowed fan of the Bond movies) told Forbes magazine in 2010: “The internet should be an open source for freedom of speech, and the role of an ISP [Internet Service Provider] is to be a neutral technological tool of access, not an instrument for collecting information from customers.”

1 BRAINSTORMING Even if you’re only reviewing the latest quarterly profit figures, Pionen offers a range of ultramodern conference facilities fit for a Bond villain—guaranteed to make you feel like global domination is only a breath away.

2 SNOWY MOUNTAIN The main entrance to the Bahnhof server rooms is embedded in the side of the Vita Bergen hill in Stockholm’s Södermalm district. In winter, hot exhaust from the air conditioning envelopes the entrance in mist.

62 Varosha

LOCATION Eastern Cyprus

NEAREST POPULATION HUB Famagusta, Cyprus

SECRECY OVERVIEW Access restricted: a fenced-off ghost town since the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974.

In its heyday, the sun-soaked Mediterranean beaches of Varosha made it one of the world’s most popular holiday destinations. Filled with luxurious high-rise hotels, it was beloved by the Hollywood jet set, with visitors ranging from Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton to Brigitte Bardot. But in 1974, politics intervened and life as it was known in this tourist playground came to a grinding halt.

The Varosha area is a neighborhood (if it can now be called that) of Famagusta, a city lying just north of the Atilla Line that today divides Cyprus between the Greek south and the Turkish north. The impressive John F Kennedy Avenue that runs boldly through the middle of Varosha was once the focal point of its tourist industry, the resort a veritable byword for Mediterranean glamour.

Then in 1974 a Greek-backed coup was launched against Makarios III. Makarios was the Cypriot Orthodox archbishop who had served as President since Cyprus gained independence in 1960. His rule, though, was a divisive one and UN forces were required to keep the peace between the resident Turkish and Greek populations. The 1974 Athens-inspired coup prompted an invasion by Turkish forces and saw the island split between the Greek-run south and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, a situation that continues to this day.

Famagusta fell under the control of the Turkish authorities, and the population of Varosha—almost all of whom were Greek-Cypriot—fled their beach paradise on August 15, 1974, in fear of the fighting then raging less than a mile away between Greek and Turkish troops.

Varosha now resembles a modern-day Pompeii, capturing a lost moment of time. Breakfasts sit half-eaten on tables beneath light bulbs that burned for years, no one having turned them off in the exodus. Car dealerships sit silent, their forecourts filled with what were the latest models back in 1974. Similarly, boutiques are stocked with the dubious fashions of the mid-1970s.

Meanwhile, buildings uncared for and unloved for almost four decades, slowly deteriorate as nature inexorably reclaims her territory. The roots of untended plants and trees are gradually undermining the structural safety of once grand edifices, as untreated roads crack under season after season of raging sunshine. Beaches once populated by sun-seekers are now home to colonies of sea turtles.

GHOST TOWN Half-finished hotels, abandoned during the invasion, line a beachside path in the fenced-off town of Varosha. Regular patrols by Turkish-Cypriot soldiers deter all but the most adventurous tourists from daring to cross the fence.

Yet while Varosha might be slowly dying of neglect, it remains a subject high on the political agenda. Indeed, there was hope among the international community that its future would be resolved when the UN-brokered Annan Plan for Cyprus was put to a referendum in 2004. Named after the UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, who had a keen interest in the island’s plight, the proposals—by then already in their fifth draft—paved the way for the return of Varosha to its former Greek-Cypriot inhabitants. However, Cyprus’s President, Tassos Papadopolous, campaigned for a no vote and the Greek-Cypriot population duly rejected the scheme, with only 24 percent voting in favor.

In a detailed summary delivered to Annan of the reasons for rejection, one of the complaints was that the proposals “absolved Turkey of all responsibility for its invasion of Cyprus and its murders, rapes, destruction of property and churches, looting and forcing approximately 200,000 Greek Cypriots from their homes and property.” While the decades might have passed, it was clear that the wounds caused by the events of 1974 were still raw and Varosha, not only a potent symbol of what occurred but also a valuable bargaining chip to both sides, remains one of the island’s hottest political potatoes.

So it is that a strange situation holds whereby it is possible to tan yourself on the beach in the Turkish-Cypriot resort of Famagusta while Varosha sadly decays next to you, testament to an intractable civil conflict.

1 VACANCIES A row of luxury hotels and apartment blocks stares blankly across the sands of Varosha beach, toward the Mediterranean. Nearby beach umbrellas seem to await the return of long-vanished sunbathers.

63 Gaza Strip Smuggling Tunnels

LOCATION Across the Egypt-Gaza border

NEAREST POPULATION HUB Rafah, Gaza

SECRECY OVERVIEW Access restricted: secret tunnels used for transporting everything from weapons to medicine.

Since the late 1990s, a series of tunnels has been dug beneath the barrier separating Egypt and the Gaza Strip—a border that has long been subject to an Israeli blockade. While used for smuggling people and contraband ranging from arms and explosives to recreational drugs, the tunnels also play a major role in transporting illicit food supplies and other basic consumer goods.

Nestled along the Mediterranean coast between Israel and Egypt, the Gaza Strip is just 40 kilometers (25 miles) long and 10 kilometers (6 miles) wide, yet it is home to more than 1.5 million Palestinians, making it one of the most densely populated places on Earth. Gaza came under Israeli control after the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, and Israel has continued to wield power over most of its borders (and to control what enters and leaves the territory) ever since. The blockade intensified after the Gaza Strip came under Hamas rule in 2007, with only key humanitarian aid allowed through, since Israel regards Hamas as a terrorist organization.

The Gaza Strip shares its southern border with Egypt. Under the 1979 Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty, a buffer zone known as the Philadelphi Route was established, and Egypt has largely kept the border closed, save for a few crossings for official trade. However, evidence of illicit tunnels dug beneath the Philadelphi Route in Rafah, connecting Egyptian territory with the southern Gazan settlement emerged as early as 1997 (the town was divided between Egypt and Gaza under the 1978 Camp David accords).

The tunnels have been used to smuggle arms and ammunition into the Gaza Strip, as well as to transport people between the two sides. It is also said that they were regularly used to bring in narcotics. However, as the Israeli blockade bit increasingly hard, they additionally served as avenues for food, clothes, tobacco, alcohol, building materials, essential medicines and even motor vehicles.