All language subtitles for Abandoned.Engineering.S06E03.Blast.Zone.1080p.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-squalor_track3_[eng]

Narrator: A complex
with an explosive past

now lying forgotten
in the woods.

The most fascinating structures
are these round cylinders

with reinforced
ribs on the outside.

This was highly specialised.

Grand coastal defences in Ghana

that are stark reminders
of the brutal trade in slaves.

When you see the extent
of these fortifications,

how many there are and
how solid they are constructed,

the first question that comes
to your mind is why here?

What was so valuable?

A huge hidden nuclear
bunker in Florida usa.

Just this vast cavernous
chamber echoes with every footfall

and clearly meant to house
something really important.

And a decaying giant

that was once at the heart of
Serbia's industrial revolution.

It was supposed to symbolise
a new future for the country,

a new hope for the people.

But this specific
site would play a part

in the country's history that
no one could have foreseen.

Crumbling remains
and ruins of lost worlds,

they were shaped by
extraordinary events

and are now haunted by the past.

Their secrets are
waiting to be revealed.

Hidden from view,

deep in the forests
of western Poland,

a peculiar group of
buildings stretch out

over a colossal site.

To start off, you're
just in the forest

but you begin to realise
that man has been here

and left quite a Mark,

it begins with little
things, railway tracks,

odd bits and pieces
but then gradually,

it begins to reveal
more and more buildings,

they're everywhere.

The buildings you first come to

just look like something
out of a Sci-Fi movie,

they're these giant
concrete structures

that seem to be on these legs
that could come alive at any time.

Very, very well-constructed but
when you look down from above,

they're absolutely
open to the elements,

there's no roof,

it's clearly a very
unique structure.

And then you turn a corner
and there's a different building,

more rectangular structure.

This is so abandoned,

there's very little
that can tell you

what the purpose of this was

except that some kind of
industrial enterprise was here

but you can't tell what it was.

But what can be discovered

by travelling a little
deeper into the forest?

There are these big open
basins and they look corroded

in some kind of way

and there's channels
leading from them,

so there was action not just
above ground but also below.

While its original
purpose may be unclear,

one thing is certain.

This is a complex of buildings
that shouldn't be in a forest,

this is an urban
kind of complex,

there's something
secretive and special

that's going on here and
some people have put

a lot of effort to hide this
very substantial complex away.

With railway tracks
stretching through the forest,

this site was clearly
of major importance.

We have this large complex

spread over a large
landscape of buildings

with old rail lines, trees
intergrown everywhere,

you're only seeing a
fraction at the first glance.

This is a really,
really big operation.

There's a railway
that terminates there,

so there was
obviously a lot of goods

either coming in or
going out of this place

but what were they?

Radoslaw domke is a historian

from the nearby
university of zielona gora.

For many years,

he has been researching
the buildings here

to try and uncover the
mysteries that surround them.

This round were for transporting
er, coal to, to power plant.

Coal give energy
for this whole object.

When you look at the power plant

and you think about
the amount of coal,

the amount of fuel that's
coming in to this place,

there's clearly a need to
make a lot of electricity,

this is a very power-hungry
manufacturing process,

whatever's going on here.

The railway didn't only
serve the power plant,

at the other end of the
site, there are structures

that are central to understanding
this place's true purpose.

When you're
looking at this object,

it's hard to know function
about this building,

you have to have very specific
knowledge about engineering.

For many Poles, even from
the West Side of Poland,

this place is a huge secret
that people don't realise

that it was so important,
that it was so dangerous.

The unusual design served
a very important function.

What you are
seeing here, it's silos,

it was very dangerous
material here inside the silo,

and that's why this construction
is so hard and monumental.

If you look around,

you can see that in
the case of explosion,

the blast will go up.

It minimalise victims
around the area.

This was a vast explosives
manufacturing plant

with this distinctive
feature at its very heart.

These are not small silos,

the space is utterly vast, which
is mind-boggling at the moment

but it's even more mind-boggling
to think that this vast space

was full of explosives.

There was, of course,
the ever-present risk

of a terrible accident,

so the layout of the whole place
was designed with safety in mind.

Obviously, making explosives
is not without its dangers,

so it makes perfect sense

that you're going to
locate a munitions factory

far away from
towns and villages,

but not only that you're going
to put the separate elements

of the factory far apart.

The chemicals needed to make
munitions are highly reactive,

they're designed to explode
because in their raw state,

in their early state, they're
really hard to control.

Moving this highly unstable
material from place to place,

you wanted to be as
smooth as possible

and the railway lines are
the best way to do that.

But a few important
questions remain.

Who was manufacturing
explosives on such a vast scale?

And why did they
want to keep it a secret?

The history here is rooted in
the continent's darkest days

during the second world war.

Hitler had these
very ambitious plans

to have this huge
production of explosives

and huge production of
munitions for the German reich.

Once the war begins, and the
Germans had seized Poland,

now they can actually create

this new system of
industrial enterprises.

This was one of
its centrepieces,

the christianstadt
dynamite factory.

It was originally owned by dag,

a company that was founded

by the inventor of dynamite
himself, Alfred nobel.

At its peak,

it was producing more than 6,500
tonnes of explosives every month.

The things that they were making
at this factory are mind-boggling.

There's evidence that
they were making rdx,

which is more
explosive than tnt.

This baby goes boom.

And you have got so
much of it being stored.

And also there's suspicion
that they made Nitroglycerin.

Now, Nitroglycerin is one of the
most explosive chemicals there is.

I've only ever
seen it in tiny vials,

let alone giant vats.

While the scale of the
complex is staggering,

there was an even darker
side to the whole operation.

Making ammunitions
is dangerous work,

so you would think
the people making it

would be highly-trained
professionals

with years of experience right?

No.

Here, you've got forced labour
so these are ordinary people,

prisoners of war,

they were made to
make these ammunitions

that were then potentially

going to be used
on their own people.

For those forced to work here,
life was almost unbearable.

The conditions were terrible, it
was very unhealthy to work here,

to work in that kind of industry
and also the treatment of guards,

because if they
want to be aggressive

against the prisoner
or worker, they did.

Not only disease,
not only conditions,

but the treatment of the crew
was very dangerous for life.

If somebody tried to escape,

if somebody tried any defiance,
they could be executed on the spot

without any difficulty,

and you just simply get
another slave labourer.

Hitler's Nazi's seemed to have
designed the complex perfectly

for maximum efficiency.

That changed one
early morning in 1944.

Very little documentation
about this site survives

but one fact we do know was
there was a massive explosion,

which given the war, makes
you think about sabotage.

If it was sabotage then
who was responsible?

It was before the
workers started

and it only hit some
of the key buildings.

We may never know what
actually happened here

but with a forced workforce

and active Polish
resistance in the area,

if you put two and
two together from that,

you get an inside job

and that's what led
to this act of sabotage,

these explosions, and
bringing about a stop

to the manufacture
of weapons here.

Contemporary reports suggest
that during 1944 and 1945,

no fewer than three separate
unexplained explosions

caused major damage
at christianstadt.

But when the war ended,

the Nazi's destroyed
most of the documentation

detailing what went on here.

All items of value were
looted by the invading Russians

and eventually the buildings
were abandoned to the forest.

Today, it's all parkland
open to the public

and very few visitors here
know the secrets that surround it.

I have two feelings.

One feeling is admiring of this,
the genial engineering thought,

the huge monumental buildings,

but on the other hand, my
grandfather was a prisoner

and I know the condition
of living in a camp

during the second world war,
so the second feeling is sadness.

People worked in very
bad conditions here

and it was very
ungood for them health,

for their lives and
for their families.

Beneath an innocuous-looking
mound of earth

near the east coast
of Florida in the usa

is a long-forgotten relic.

Just off a freeway and
hidden amongst the trees,

you've got this sort
of stepped white wall

leading to just quite
a plain white door.

You realise maybe that door

is hiding something
quite intriguing.

You got this thick concrete wall

and then on top
of this low little hill,

you have these various ventilation
shafts to something under here,

something that was
important at one time,

but today there's no
sign of what that was.

As you go through
the big steel doors,

you're met with a
second security zone,

like a decontamination chamber.

Whatever was in here, it
certainly meant business.

But what was the purpose
of this bizarre structure?

And what threats would it face?

One thing that's
really striking here

is the whole thing is built
with these large steel beams,

they look strong enough to
support a sky scraper or a stadium

and yet all that's above
this is just a grassy mound.

So there's an impressive array

of structural protection
on display here,

obviously, all designed
to shelter what was inside.

Just this vast cavernous chamber
that echoes with every footfall,

and clearly meant to house
something really important.

What was all this built to
conceal and from whom?

This site, which was located
near to the Kennedy space centre

dates back to the
time of the space race

and an era of worrying
uncertainty for the entire world.

This bunker was built in
1967, the height of the cold war,

though it might not
seem like a military centre,

but it was close to Cuba,

which is an area that
we always worried

might have nuclear
weapons and, of course,

in the Cuban missile crisis

that was all about
trying to get Russia

to remove nuclear
weapons from Cuba.

What's interesting about
this bunker, is its orientation,

'cause if you expand
to look at the larger area,

you'll notice that
the main entrance

and the exposed part of
the bunker is facing away

from the Kennedy centre.

Now, the reason for this
is if there was any attack,

the Kennedy centre is
the most likely location,

so if you face away from it,
you're gonna be better protected.

That wasn't the only
remarkable thing here.

The level of all-round
protection was unprecedented.

Mark oxley is an expert
on the history of the site.

So this isn't your normal
nuclear fallout bunker.

This is actually something
a little bit different,

it was hardened to such a degree

that the outside walls
are 18 inches thick,

but some of the interior
walls go as thick as 48 inches.

The foundation was
also nine feet thick.

The heavy use of
metal in the structure

tells us that it was
designed for something else.

But what you'll
notice is right up here,

this was actually one of at&t's

and the department of defence's
communications bunkers.

The goal of this bunker

was to keep the
hardened communications

of both the at&t long
distance long lines

as well as the military's
autovon network secure

in case of nuclear war.

In the aftermath
of a nuclear attack,

it was feared that people would
swamp the telephone exchange

as they tried to
reach loved ones.

But the military would need
guaranteed open telephone lines

to coordinate its response.

Enter the autovon network
and its priority status.

The autovon network ran parallel

to the normal
communications network.

This was a way for
the defence department

and the executive branch
to maintain communication

between key defence
agencies and key military assets

during a crisis.

The bunker was just one small
part of a much larger project.

So there are these bunkers
scattered around the United States,

from coast to coast,

and they're all, like,
75 or 100 miles apart

in this intricate web
around the country.

At&t actually built three
different kinds of bunkers,

one type was full of
communications equipment,

another type had
power-generating equipment

and the third type had
microwave equipment,

and microwave link
can send telephone data

across the open air without
having to be connected by wire,

so you can imagine how
that could be very valuable

in the aftermath of a war.

While it would have seen
unimaginable destruction across the land,

a nuclear blast
wasn't the real danger

for a place like this.

That was the resulting
electromagnetic pulse,

which would have wiped
out electrical equipment

for miles around.

So, how would the site and its
operators have survived down here

in the aftermath of
nuclear armageddon?

Being inside this
structure is kind of like

being inside of a steel
cage and that's important

because one of the
risks of a nuclear war

is that when a nuclear weapon
goes off in the atmosphere,

it sends out this
bolt of electricity

that could destroy electronics
for hundreds of miles away,

so if you want to protect your
sensitive electrical equipment,

you want to put it
inside a cage of metal,

a Faraday cage,

and that's exactly
what they did here.

A Faraday cage,

it can be something as
simple as chicken wire,

it's just a metal mesh
and what it does,

is it basically neutralises
electrical charges,

so inside of the bunker,

you'll have your
people or any equipment

and all of that is protected
from anything else

that will be going on outside.

While protecting the equipment
was the purpose of the bunker,

it would have all
been for nothing

if there was no one
left alive to operate it.

It had to be habitable even in
the event of a nuclear attack.

There are large cans
of powdered butter,

powdered eggs,
spaghetti, meat sauce,

I mean, all kinds of things,

and those were meant
to sustain five people,

five workers within this
facility for 30 days, 24/7.

The men here would
never have left the bunker,

it would have
gone in to lockdown

until those inside were notified
that it was safe to go outside.

So this is one of the
radiation detectors,

basically these are planted
all around the facility,

both on top of the facility
and below the facility,

they were meant to
detect gamma radiation,

so in case of a nuclear strike
or nuclear event in the area,

this would basically send a signal
to the remote monitoring station

and automatically close all
the blast doors in the facility,

and turn the carbon
air filtration systems on

to ensure that the air
quality was preserved

inside the facility.

Once the blast doors were shut,

access to and from the bunker
would have been strictly controlled.

So if you had entered
after a radioactive event,

there would be these
massive lead-lined doors

blocking your
entrance into the facility.

So what you'd have to do

is you would be in your
decontamination suit

and you'd be entering what is
known as the decontamination shower.

This is where you would rinse
off all of the radioactive particles

that were on you,

so that you wouldn't
be traipsing them

into the main clean environment.

That was critical to ensure

that everybody who
was inside stayed alive.

But would the people garrisoned
here ever be called in to action?

And how would the site find
a new strategic importance

in the future?

Imagine the job that these
people were asked to do,

you go and you
live in this bunker,

you're waiting for a nuclear war

you desperately hope
would never happen.

If it did happen,
you'd have to wonder

was your family and
everyone you know wiped out?

Meanwhile, you've got
this difficult task to perform

and they were expected
to stay on that station

and run these communications
for up to a month

after any potential conflict.

Fortunately, the men
inside never faced

such a desperate situation.

And in 1979, as a new
and improved system

was being rolled out
across the country,

the military abandoned
the bunkers for good.

Today, a new use has been found

for this extraordinary
place, as Mark explains.

Everything today
is Internet-based,

the Internet of
things is everywhere,

everybody relies on
their cell phones heavily,

GPS navigation,

it has to be processed
where there's a lot of power

and a lot of processors

and that would happen in
a data centre like this one.

The bunker is being prepped
for that next stage of its life.

As a place to securely
store row upon row of servers.

And with hacking
and climate change

both potential
challenges in the future,

it is not the only one of
its kind being repurposed.

This cold war relic
is now being imitated

all around the world among
america's peer advisories

in order to secure
their data from anything

that might bring down a
vitally important network

and compromise the
security of the state.

Along the stunning coastline
of Ghana are striking buildings

that dominate the surroundings.

There are these
enormous white buildings

sat high above the coastline,

they're almost like palaces
with elaborate staircases,

plazas and archways,
hugely impressive.

As you go up the coast,

you see there's more
than one of these

rising from the cliff faces,

some of them are just rubble now
but others are in pretty good shape.

They were built to last.

When you get closer
to the buildings,

it's clear that these
buildings were built

for defensive purposes

but it's not only how
they're positioned,

it's the canons,
it's the firepower.

But behind the imposing walls

are scenes that paint
a confusing picture.

The deeper one goes into
the building the more one finds.

There's a whole hidden
world right under the surface.

The darkness is all-consuming,

the air is thick and heavy,
damp and decay is all around,

shackles rattle on the walls

and thick steel doors
cover tiny enclaves.

It's such an odd place,

the contrast is so enormous
between the floors above ground,

the opulence of them, the
sense of space and light,

the beautiful views of
the shore and the ocean,

and then underground
it's a vertical dungeon.

So what were these
places designed for?

The answer lies in a period
of great European expansion.

During the 15th century,

seafaring traders began to
arrive on the shores of Ghana.

They would alter forever the
course of history in Western Africa.

These white forts are legacies
of those first landings long ago.

The first colonisers
were the Portuguese,

south western Europeans
with the knowledge,

the experience, and
the national purpose

to embark on the enterprise of
developing oceanic trade roots

with Africa and Asia.

They'd come to
find raw materials

but what they stumbled upon
was beyond their wildest dreams.

The akan peoples of the coast

had access to
considerable supplies of gold

and they are willing
to trade it to Europeans

for base metals, textiles and
other manufactured goods.

The coast became so valuable

that the Portuguese referred
to it simply as 'miner', 'the mine'.

More poetically, the English
later named it the gold coast.

The Portuguese were willing
to do whatever they could

to defend the gold, so
they did whatever it took,

including building
these fortifications.

These are Ghana's coastal forts,

a string of imposing defences
built by powerful European empires.

Alex Kingsley okpei is
a local historian here.

We are here in one of the
oldest European structures

along the west African
coast called the elmina castle,

constructed by the
Portuguese in 1482.

This castle was built with materials
from Portugal and then Holland.

See how thick the walls
are, formidable, impregnable,

made not to withstand attacks.

These forts were
built to be intimidating,

four outer towers
formed the batteries,

cannons stretched
all along the front

and huge towering walls
Rose up from the rocks below.

It would have been
a huge undertaking,

but it was essential to keep
other European powers away

and ensure that the local
people only sold their gold

to agents of the
Portuguese crown.

These forts accomplished
exactly what they were designed to.

We know from
records that up to 1550,

the Portuguese were getting up
to 12,400 ounces of gold annually,

which was a sizable
proportion of gold

coming into Europe at the time.

But soon other European powers
would try to muscle in on the scene.

The Portuguese had something

that many other countries
wanted for themselves.

The Netherlands,
Spain, england, France,

they all coveted the wealth

that was pouring
out of the gold coast,

and they were willing
to fight tooth and nail

to get their hands
on the share of it.

By the 17th century,

the Portuguese couldn't
fight them off anymore

and their domination
came to an end.

With the market now open to all,

different nations
built their own forts

and battled to protect
trade in their area.

In total, there were around
40 forts along this coastline

owned by different nations.

They stretched for
more than 300 miles.

The trade these forts were
protecting was also changing.

As across the world,

the market for a new commodity
was beginning to flourish.

It came from the lush tropical
islands of the Caribbean.

Sugar was hugely desirable
and fetched a very high price,

Europeans couldn't
get enough of it.

The problem was that it
was very difficult to produce,

you needed a very large,
very dependable labour force

and the Caribbean and the
Americas just didn't have that anymore.

You had an indigenous population

that had been
decimated by disease,

so they weren't available
for this type of labour,

and even the poorest Europeans

were unwilling to brave
the expensive passage

and the terrible living
and working conditions

for the meagre salary

that working on a sugar
plantation would fetch.

However, in the eyes
of the European powers,

that labour force could
be found in Ghana

and the countries beside it.

The trade in gold was now
making way for the trade in people.

The wealth that would be
opened up by the slave trade,

in terms of labour to
produce raw commodities,

really created tremendous wealth

in terms of trading
people, labourers.

But back across the Atlantic,

on the western coast of Africa,

there was a steady
supply of labour

that the Europeans were
willing to do anything to obtain,

provided there was a profit in it
and the profits would be immense.

Michele: Europeans
are able to come in

and exploit
instability in Africa

in getting slave labour that
would be sent to the Americas.

At the heart of this
new trade were the forts.

We are standing within the
infamous cape coast castle.

Built by the British
around 1664.

It was built during the slave
trade, infamous slave trade,

and within these, we
have deep dungeons

where the mills were kept.

I know about 1,000
were kept at a time

and live in very horrible
conditions, they were tight,

packed together like sardines.

Little air for them to breathe,
little water for them to drink,

no good for them,
no medical attention.

They slept on the floor,

where they slept
that's where they ate,

that's where they defecated,

that's where they urinated.

The conditions were horrific

and a large percentage
of the slaves died

before they even
got on the boat.

Men and women
were kept separately

but the treatment of
women was no better.

In fact for some,
it was even worse.

We are within the
female slave dungeons.

Within this one,

between 200 and 300
young ladies were kept here.

On top, you could be taken out,
sexually abused and bought back.

A greater number
of the female slaves

were used as sex slaves,

so through these dungeons, women
of substance, women of honour,

women of value had to keep
quiet and endure all the atrocities,

because they had
no power of their own,

they had no strength,

they had no voice, everything
had been taken from them,

who were they going to call?

Who was going to
respond to their call?

Like many of the other forts,

cape coast castle was a
place of extreme contrasts.

A few yards, a few metres away

from these cavernous
dungeons are airy light rooms

with parquet floors,

elaborate furnishings
and scenic vistas

that the people involved,

who would profit
off of the slave trade,

where they lived.

It is horrendous to think
that they just went about

their normal day to day
lives completely detached

from the unfathomable
human suffering

they were consciously
inflicting just metres away.

What fate lay in store
for those suffering

the unspeakable conditions
of the Ghanaian castles.

Over some 300 years, an
estimated 12.5 million africans

were shipped to the new world.

And so, this was the final

point of call of their captives,

if you survived your stay here,

eventually this where
you're going to go through,

whether male or female,
they call it door of no return.

Out here, then to a
boat, carried away,

transferred in to a ship

and then carried to the
Americas and the caribbeans.

This was the scene of
one of the worst institutions

in human history, if
not the absolute worst.

The cruelty is
almost unimaginable

and it continued all
the way up until 1814,

not that long ago really.

The slave trade was ended
during the 19th century

but it was only during the
decline of the British empire

in the 20th century

that these forts and
the land they stood on

were finally handed
back to the local people.

For years, the castle's
involvement in slavery

was a taboo subject in Ghana.

But now the people are showing
more interest in their history.

In fact, Ghanaians
themselves account for 70%

of tourist numbers at the forts.

It really is a heritage
site of its own,

in terms of its meaning,
its significance, these forts,

they're so important because
people need to know what happened

and they stand
as stark reminders

of how human beings can
treat other human beings.

In Belgrade, the
capital of Serbia,

there is a damaged structure
that was once at the birth

of a new age in
the country's history.

This place looks like
it's been to hell and back,

like it's been torn up
from the inside out.

The stairs look like
they're ready to snap

under the weight
of the first visitor

and the whole place looks
as though it's ready to collapse.

Nature is gradually
consuming this place,

birds are nesting in it,

trees are growing
out of the walls

and the earth is
swallowing the place up.

This place looks like if
it's hit by a powerful storm,

then a whole chain
reaction of destructive events

will be set off in here.

It's a miracle really
that it's still standing.

It's clearly got a story to tell

but that story has become
buried under years of waste,

there's even a boat
lost under a sea of trash.

There are other
buildings around here, too,

the place clearly isn't alone

and there's tracks linking
it to these other structures,

so we're looking at
just one small part

of a very vast
industrial edifice.

This place was once a
monument to a bright future

but the level of destruction
here tells a different story.

The place has clearly
been through the wars,

you can tell that immense
change took place here.

The thing about this place is

it was supposed to symbolise
a new future for the country,

a new hope for the people.

But what unfolded here was
in fact a disastrous setback

and a devastating tragedy.

Buried amongst
the rubble and waste

are the origins of a
ground-breaking moment

in the modern history of Serbia.

Serbia had been under the
rule of the ottoman empire

since the 15th century

and in 1878, it finally
got its independence.

They had effectively
been a slave state

under the ottoman empire

and now, suddenly the
shackles had been thrown off

and the country had the
opportunity to make some progress.

Structures like
this were the result

and a portent of
what was to come.

At the time that Serbia
gained its independence,

everything was
relatively small scale,

this wasn't a heavily
urbanised country,

it wasn't in any way an
industrialised country.

But under the rule of
the new king in Serbia,

investment from
abroad was allowed.

He had grand plans for
the future of his country.

This building was
going to be a central part

of making that huge jump
from agricultural nation

to an industrial nation.

This was the
Belgrade sugar refinery.

There was sugar beet being
produced and they saw an opportunity.

This could be exploited

and used to fuel their
industrial revolution.

As local expert,
ljubisa ristic explains,

this meant the beginning
of a new Belgrade.

It was very
important for the city

and that complex with
the apartment buildings

for the thousands of people
who used to work here.

It must be a very big change
and actually this industry produced

a situation to start
other industries.

You can just imagine
what it was like back then.

The din of the machines working,

the employees hustling through
going about their business.

For those involved, this
must have felt really exciting.

The plan was to attract
vast numbers of workers

to kick-start growth in the city

but there were troubles
from the very start.

Ljubisa: In a few years,
this company failed

and they actually asked
for protection, bankruptcy,

you know, and the
Serbian state took over

and from that on, it was
actually owned by state.

Financial concerns
weren't the only problems.

A campaign for workers'
rights would soon lead

to a dramatic and bloody
confrontation outside the gates.

The amount of change
that industrialisation caused

was enormous but it was
also the speed of that change.

One day it wasn't here,

and you've got a largely
agricultural society and economy,

and the next day, you've
got full-scale industry.

You're now working
according to the clock

and according to the demands
of whoever's running the factory,

and not everyone is going
to take to that very easily

and with good reason.

All across the Balkans,

the changes that
accompanied industrialisation

were accelerating the
demand for workers' rights.

Belgrade is going to see
this earliest and heaviest,

'cause it's the first
place in the country

to witness heavy
industrialisation.

And the struggle that's fought
here is gonna symbolise the struggle

that will soon consume
the whole country.

Wherever there are differences,

wherever there are people
making more than others,

there will be tensions
and this was no exception.

By February 1907,

the plight of the workers
finally became desperate.

The records aren't exactly clear

but basically, the German
owners failed to comply

or reneged on agreements
relating to working conditions

and rates of pay.

So a group of workers went
to the factory management

to issue them a warning,

honour your
agreement or we'll strike.

Unfortunately, this
push for rights or pay,

soon turned in to a tragedy.

The battle lines were drawn and
the owners wouldn't back down.

Nor would the 400 workers
who opted to go on strike.

The workers occupied the
factory, they stopped working,

police came, they
had strike guards

and then everything,
and after some days,

all these negotiations
and everything,

they crashed the
strike with firearms.

On 14 march, following
18 days of stalemate,

the standoff came to an
end and violence erupted.

Picketers were soon
arming themselves

with metal bars, iron spikes,

some even had
knives or handguns.

We've all seen pictures,

television showing what
happens in events like these,

there are crowds on both
side, emotions are high,

there's a lot of yelling,
a lot of shouting.

Violence is sometimes
inevitable in these circumstances.

And the shooting started,

they were trying to arrest
some leaders of the strike.

It was very dramatic
because it was lot of workers,

lot of police, lot of
army, lot of families,

lot of kids and it was
at the end, a bloody end.

Four workers were
killed in the violence,

the factory owners were
eventually forced to agree

to improve
conditions for workers.

But it soon became apparent

they had no intention
of keeping their word.

The strike ended in defeat but
it set an important precedent.

We can see it as the beginning

of the true socialist
movement in Serbia,

and the battle fought there
is going to be continued on

for decades to come
across the country.

The refinery survived the
first encounter unscathed

and was back in
use straight away

but just down the line was
world war I and world war ii,

then Soviet rule,

this country was in for a
tough time in the 20th century.

The sugar refinery was repaired,

modified and
rebuilt over the years

as a result of wars
and foreign occupation.

But it has somehow come
to define the story of Serbia.

It finally closed
its doors in 1983.

Against all the odds,

the refinery has since
had a colourful second life

as an arts and theatre venue,

ljubisa has been
heavily involved

in shaping this positive new
role for the building in Serbian life.

We found ourselves with a
theatre here with no subsidies,

with no way how to survive

and we started to
organise these rave parties,

and this became very famous

for the people like Goldie
from London, like David guetta,

like junior Jack,
like Bob sinclair,

everybody from the mtv
still, you know, came here.

We had a lot of big, big parties
for three, four, 5,000 people.

And so this building,

which symbolises a key
moment in Serbia's social history,

now has a new bright
future to look forward to.

Finally, city and the
government came to us

and said now we will make a
huge biggest cultural centre here

and that's what's going
on at this very moment,

and we are very
happy about that.

Now, they are abandoned
crumbling ruins...

..Many remind
us of dark times...

..But some were once
beacons of hope and progress.

Lasting testimonies to human
imagination, enterprise and spirit.

Captioned by
ai-media ai-media. TV