Original subtitles

Tom ward (narrates): A royal retreat in Romania caught

in a web of corruption.

There have been allegations,

these beautiful structures have been allowed

to fall into disrepair on purpose.

A Canadian engineering marvel that lit up the modern age.

If you look at this gallery, it just radiates power.

A vast factory in Uruguay that once played a pivotal role

in the nation's economy.

In the early 1900s one out of every 200 people

in Uruguay worked here.

And a subterranean treasure with a formidable secret.

They did not want the United States

to know what was going on there.

Decaying relics, shadows of lost worlds,

ruins haunted by the past,

their secrets waiting to be revealed.

(Theme music)

On the us-Canadian border

an extensive labyrinth lies hidden behind the mighty Niagara Falls.

In the cliff face by low Niagara Falls

is this huge tunnel leading who knows where.

But why put it here so dangerously close

to such an extra ordinary natural force

like the falls?

The only building nearby appears to be unconnected.

Could be a turn of the century train station

or hotel.

Inside things take an unexpected turn.

There is a room that looks like

something out of a Jules verne adventure.

One particularly big room is filled with a row

of enormous blue cylinders,

each one just radiates some sense of power.

Behind eerie corridors lined with rusting machinery,

there is more than meets the eye.

A deep shaft plummets over a hundred feet and its shrouded

in darkness.

So, you've got all of this sort of odd construction

right next to one

of this classic wonders of the world.

And it was absolutely ground-breaking in its day.

Heritage manager Jim hill reveals how these structures were intended

to blend into the surroundings.

So, when they designed the building they thought a lot

about the materials they were gonna use.

Even the kind of limestone had a slightly blueish,

greenish tinge just like the water,

so, they were kind of blending the look of the building

with the water.

And then the roof is all done in this beautiful green tile

and that would allow the top of the building

to blend in with the tree line.

But the quaint camouflaged facade is deceptive.

What you're looking at is like an iceberg,

you're only really seeing about a quarter of the building.

What makes this building special,

and in some ways visionary in its design,

is how much you don't see.

This is the Canadian niagara power station,

one of North America's first

and most ambitious hydroelectric plants.

It can be traced back to the late 19th century

and the inspiration of pioneering entrepreneur

William b rankin.

But why is most of it concealed underground?

Rankin visited niagara in 1877

and he became consumed with the idea

of harnessing niagara's power.

And he started thinking about the potential

for this huge amount of natural power

to make electricity.

The need for electricity

was literally soaring through the roof.

There was kind of an energy gold rush going on,

people had realised that harnessing the power of niagara

could have extraordinary results.

But there were objections to rankin's plan,

particularly from members of the local indigenous community

who were worried about the threat to a way of life

that had almost been unchanged for centuries.

Indigenous people had an incredibly important relationship

to the niagara river.

There are been people living here for 13,000 years.

So, to create a plant like this,

in many ways it was seen as interfering

with a natural setting that people had enjoyed and lived with

for thousands of years and water was life.

They needed it to for the fish, they needed it to irrigate crops,

they needed it for transportation.

Water was everything.

So, the idea of redirecting it, using it for some other purpose

would have been a little questionable for them.

The wider public had their reservations too.

This was new and experimental technology

that the average person found difficult to comprehend.

There was a lot of fear and anxiety about electricity.

It was considered to be a dangerous natural force

that might be impossible to harness effectively.

Years of delay eroded support for the project,

and it cost them the exclusive rights

to generate power for the Canadian side.

Eventually, an agreement was reached on the condition

that the plant didn't spoil the view

or interrupt the rivers precious flow.

Out of sight rankin's plant recreated Niagara Falls.

So, hydroelectric power is when you generate power

by using the force of the movement of water.

So, when you have a river travelling from high to low,

if you can put a turbine in the way,

the river actually moves the turbine,

so, you have potential energy created into kinetic energy

that we can use as electricity.

Well, the water comes into the plant

from the niagara river,

and it travels under these two Bridges

into this big fore bay, just a big pool of water.

And then it looks like it butts right up against the building.

But actually, there are these big archways,

and the water comes in the building from underneath those arches.

Water from the niagara river would come in here,

fill this entire area.

Rankin's powerplant sent 5% of niagara's flow cascading

down a 11 enormous pipes known as pen stocks.

The pen stocks drop the entire length of the building.

Literally, gravity

and the force of all that water falling

those 15 storeys down to the bottom of that plant is creating the force

that turns the turbine, just like a big old water wheel.

Those turbines spin,

they are connected through giant shafts

back up into the building and each of those turbines spins

one of those blue generators you see in that main gallery.

This hall is the generator hall.

And each one of these generators weighs about 40 tonnes.

So, this was massive,

this was incredible technology for its time...

Ten thousand horsepower turbines,

the largest in the world at the time

and 5 generators began creating hydroelectricity.

The halls, corridors, and control room were once filled

with the hum of electricity.

If you came into the plant

when it was at its peak of production

there would have been about 20 people working in here.

You would have heard the whir of all this machinery moving,

loud and very much alive, you're generating electricity here,

you would have felt it.

And rankin's unobtrusive powerplant didn't stop there.

Today, an elevator travels down through the guts of the building.

We're now inside the tail race tunnel,

which is a 2,200-foot long tunnel

that takes you from the powerplant back to the niagara river.

The tail race was key to rankin's promise

that his powerplant would take nothing away from niagara.

But it too had to be hidden from view.

Constructing this colossal outlet right by the falls

while keeping it hidden was a challenge.

One that was going to require an innovative solution.

Well, by digging this huge wheel pit

you're recreating Niagara Falls without interrupting Niagara Falls.

You could bring the water into the plant

without affecting the waterfall

or having equipment or machinery right at the water's edge.

So, it was a lot more work to create this err, this separate waterfall.

They needed to use dynamite to blast this huge tunnel

though 160ft, mainly of limestone.

Then, this whole tunnel is lined with about 17 inches on concrete

and then glazed brick, so the water could move smoothly through it.

So, all that water that came through the plant

to generate electricity flows right back into the niagara river.

But rankin didn't live to see

the full impact of his miracle plant.

Sadly, in September 1905 rankin died,

just a few days after the third generator

came online and started providing more power.

The Canadian niagara power station

transformed the region.

It helped supply power to the entire Great Lakes area,

and this rapidly became one of the most industrialised areas

of the United States.

The Canadian niagara power station

was so well-made and so beautifully engineered

that it continued to function for a 100 years.

But in 2005 the once cutting-edge generators

were finally switched off.

Now, a major renovation project is underway.

We're gonna invite guests to come through,

visitors to Niagara Falls can see the inside of this power plant.

At night there will be an exciting sound and light show

that will literally bring life back to this power plant.

On the banks of the river cerna

in the mountains of southwest Romania

are the ruins of a once palatial building.

When you get closer you see that the town is split

between the two riverbanks.

And on one side

there's this very grand looking ruin...

This must have been a very important place,

but it's clearly seen better days.

It's very symmetrical and there's this rusted roof,

but it's still very grand,

it must have been something quite impressive in its day...

Adorning the walls inside are hallmarks

of the site's former glory.

As you enter,

you're greeted by this extraordinary

painted ceiling

and radiating off either side are long, long corridors

with what appear to be Latin inscriptions on the roofs

and coming off those corridors

is what seemed to be a whole series of cells.

For the affluent people who came here

an experience of pure escapism and indulgence awaited them.

So, what brought all of this wealth here

and where did it go?

Orna chirila is a Romanian architect.

She first visited this derelict site four years ago

while still a student.

When I first came here, I was very sad to see

this place in such a state of decay,

but I was also mesmerised by its beauty

because the architecture is quite amazing.

I had the courage to just walk inside

through a broken window

and this is the window

through which I got in with a friend.

Inside orna discovered the remains of a lost world.

Here, powerful people came to wash away their ills

in the healing thermal waters

that percolate up from deep underground.

There are actually multiple Springs

that are underground in this area

and for millennia people have used these

because of their supposed curative properties.

These rooms are individual treatment rooms

where people were seeking medical treatment.

Each person would have a cabin and they would bathe first,

and then have a series of massages and other treatments.

It was and still is believed

that these treatments could offer cures for warts,

eczema, chronic joint pain, asthma, sinus problems,

and even relief to sufferers of long-term arthritis.

Today, Romanian locals know this grand complex in the town

of herculane as the Neptune baths.

When it opened over a century ago

it was called the Austrian imperial baths.

Only a select few were allowed inside.

Right now we are in the individual treatment room

of emperor of Franz Joseph.

He came here around three times for three weeks

along with Princess Cece.

Franz Joseph was the emperor of Austria

and he ruled over this empire for almost 70 years.

And when Franz Joseph came here in 1852,

he declared it the most beautiful resort town

on the entire continent.

And that's when this area really started to come into its own.

Franz Joseph and his wife empress Elizabeth,

or Cece as she was often known,

regarded these vast baths as their own personal retreat.

From the central room there are actually these two wings

that go out in opposite directions, so the whole room in itself

is about 650ft long.

You can clearly tell that this was not designed

for the ordinary person.

This was a luxurious place.

Despite Elizabeth's royal status and great wealth,

she often cut a forlorn figure.

Elizabeth didn't really fit into the royal court at Vienna.

She didn't do what women of the time were expected to do.

She helped the needy, she wrote poetry,

she lived very much on her own terms.

Elizabeth is also said to have struggled with depression

and an eating disorder.

Today we talk a lot about body image

and clearly Elizabeth felt

those same pressures hundreds of years ago.

To compound the tragedy in Elizabeth's life,

in 1889 her only son died in a murder suicide

with his young lover,

leaving Elizabeth distraught for the rest of her life.

So, perhaps at her halona she felt a place

where she could relax and be herself

and maybe free herself from some of those pressures

if only for a minute.

But the inner peace empress Elizabeth felt here

would soon be shattered.

In 1898 even though she had been warned

against doing so she went to Geneva.

And whilst she was there,

she was set upon and stabbed by an assassin.

She survived the initial attack,

probably because of the tightness of her corset,

but people didn't realise how serious a wound it was.

And she was carried away and then perished later.

The opulent baths time as a playground

for the wealthy elite was coming to an end.

As we know now a cataclysm was on the horizon

that was going to consume Europe in a storm

of artillery and machine gun fire.

Rulers like Franz Joseph

were sleepwalking their way right into it.

During the first world war

all of the spa facilities were abandoned.

They were no longer used for spa treatments for the nobility.

Soldiers from military barracks from that time that came here

to seek treatment left a beautiful markings

on one of the terraces.

Two of these walls are marked with their names, year, regiment.

This is when the town started to decline,

it would never return to its days of glory

under the austrian/hungarian empire.

But the story of the baths was far from over.

At the outbreak of world war ii

Romania allied itself with Hitler's Nazi Germany.

But the deal with the devil backfired

paving the way for Stalin's communist forces

to overrun the country.

You might think that under a communist leadership

these buildings would have been taken apart and seized and destroyed

because of what they represented.

But the baths were fixed up and repainted, and herculane

once again became a thriving resort town.

But the clients were of a very different sort.

The idea of such an opulent elitist town

was not really in keeping with the values

of the new communist regime,

so, they turned it into a facility open to all.

Now, you have people coming from all over the Soviet union

and Romania to these baths that were previously

just the playground of the rich and the elite.

Yet, the bath's days as a workers utopia didn't last.

In 1989, violent revolution brought an end to communist rule in Romania.

And as often was the case in post-communist regions

or in any region that has a massive shift in government,

folks who had formerly been in positions of political power saw

an opportunity here.

Unfortunately, corruption happened

and these buildings were played around like in monopoly

and had different owners, and that led to a property chaos.

There are even allegations that these beautiful structures

have been allowed to fall into disrepair and ruin on purpose,

so, that they can be redeveloped without having to worry too much

about historical preservation.

Whatever the truth, the fate of the baths

had been decided and by early 2000 they had been completely abandoned.

Today, orna and her friends are part of an ambitious plan

to save this grand old ruin.

Our ultimate goal is to restore the building

and give it back to the community...

The real glimmer of hope here

is that the young people of Romania saw their history falling apart

before their eyes and decided to do something about it.

Concealed beneath a blanket of snow and ice deep

in the forests of Poland

are the remnants of a destructive force.

There is one building visible, there is one road in,

but what's special about this place is all hidden.

And you can't imagine what is going on here

until you go through these steel gates.

And then you realise that it's not above ground

that you should be looking, but below ground.

It looks like the walls might just cave in at any moment.

You've got to be pretty brave to want to go deep down

into this particular area.

The discarded equipment here suggests something important

was once carved out from these dark tunnels.

There's bits of train carriage,

there's some pickaxes,

there's a bit of industrial equipment.

Clearly there was something going on here,

possibly mining, but what exactly were they looking for?

One of the reasons that this space is interesting

is because it was kept top secret, what were they hiding down here?

For subterranean explorer michat rzadzki,

it offers a unique window into his countries past.

Behind these doors lies something of huge value.

This site played a critical role in the war

that dominated the world for decades

and changed thousands of people's lives.

Inside a labyrinth of passageways extend deep into the earth,

but there is only so far you can go by motorised transport.

The only way to reach the lower levels

is to descend by rope.

It is very dangerous to go down the shafts,

you have to watch out for the falling rocks

while descending.

We are now about 180 metres below the surface.

This sort after commodity buried in this mine

was originally discovered by accident.

So, uranium was first found in this area in about the 1920s

and it was kind of by surprise

because they were actually mining for iron.

Nuclear powerplants today rely upon uranium,

but there is a much darker use

and that's where this location comes into play.

The discovery of atomic fission confirmed the idea

that uranium could power

the most fearsome weapons in human history.

That's when you split atoms apart

and generate lots and lots of energy

and this was discovered in the late 1930s by the Germans.

And at that point this was a game-changer.

Almost from the start there was a race

between leading countries to try to develop the atomic bomb.

The Soviet union put all their energy

into building their own nuclear weapons

as a counterweight to the Americans.

The one thing that the Soviets needed,

the one piece that was missing was uranium.

These are the mines of kovari,

site of a top-secret uranium deposit

that the Soviets hoped would propel them

into the nuclear age.

Because the ussr had effective control

of all the countries

within its sphere of influence behind the iron curtain,

they were essentially able to essentially make Poland

an offer it couldn't refuse,

which is you let us run a mine

to extract uranium from this location

and we will pay you a certain amount per tonne

of ore extracted.

While under communist control the kovari mines went

by a different name.

The Soviets went to a lot of lengths

to keep their uranium mines and research secret.

They didn't call them mines,

they called them r1 industrial plants.

Rocks containing uranium veins

were mined by hand only with a simple tools.

It was very hard to mine because those rocks contained

only small amount of uranium.

When you're dealing with minerals that are in key veins

you have to be quite precise

because the miners needed to be quite skilled

in not only knowing where the ore was within the rock

but also kind of following its path as they mined their way

through into the mountain.

Some people have compared extracting uranium

to dental work or clock work.

So, the Soviets were willing to pay well for this,

they provided good housing for the workers.

But the Polish workforce toiling

in the darkness had no idea about the dangers lurking here.

The miners knew what they are digging,

but they didn't know all of the hazards connected to it.

The Soviets didn't tell the miners what they were mining,

but the risk was not known at the time.

So, when they come out after they've been mining for months

or years and they start losing their hair

and they start losing their fingernails,

and they start being sick,

they don't know why

because the Soviets aren't going to tell them.

If the miners dared to speak of their activities

or the terrible conditions, there was serious consequences.

Soviets didn't allow the miners to speak

about their work outside of the mine.

There was a legend that the one miner wrote a letter

to his brother and then spent four years

in prison for that.

So, the Russian programme went on and eventually

on August the 29th, 1949

they actually had their first atomic bomb test

that was successful.

So, they became the second state to own an atomic bomb.

So, in many ways all of this secretive mining

and the getting of the uranium paid off.

It was a very successful project.

They exported about 200 tonnes of pure uranium,

but the mine was closed in 1958

after the Soviets found their own uranium deposits.

For 16 years the mines laid dormant,

until in the 1970s it was repurposed

for an altogether different use.

Ironically

it was for the improvement of health.

There was a period when people believed

that being in an environment with a very low level radiation,

like a uranium mine was actually good for your health.

With the idea that people would go into the mines and lounge

and inhale the radon in the air with the theory

that it had somehow healing powers.

But the mines life as a so-called inhalation hospital

didn't last long.

In the late 1980s the shaft lining collapses

and there is just no economic reason to repair it,

and so the mine is no longer utilised.

Today, the mine's upper levels open to visitors,

but most of the subterranean passages

are too dangerous to access.

Only 10% of the mine now is available

for the tourists,

the rest of it is closed or flooded

because it can collapse at any time.

In Uruguay on the east bank of the Uruguay river

is a fallen cathedral from an industrial golden age.

We're in this sleepy, charming riverside town

and right on the edge is this gigantic sprawling building

that dominates the landscape.

Throughout this site there are varying levels of decay

and disarray, the jetties have almost fallen into the water.

From these docks a product was transported that would change

the way the world eats.

There's a huge warehouse style building

and it looks like its some form of processing space.

You've got high level conveyors with machinery and cogs and hooks.

At the heart of the massive complex

is an inner sanctum

that kept all the processes running like clockwork.

You can tell just by looking at it,

it was something important.

The site created one of the best-known British brands

of the 20th century and transformed the Uruguayan economy.

Mauro delgrosso is custodian of this site today,

his strong personal connection dates back many generations.

The story here begins in Europe,

and a time when big industries were growing fast.

Feeding a dense often undernourished urban population

was a real problem.

Baron Justus Von liebig had a solution.

Justus Von liebig was a German scientist

in the 19th century.

And in 1847 he actually developed a beef concentrate that he hoped

would be able to bring nutritious food

to the poor of Europe.

But there was a flaw with liebig's idea.

Europe, Germany, britain,

France do not have vast prairies

on which you can raise thousands and thousands of cattle

to boil down into concentrate.

Liebig decided to actually look outside of Germany,

and to him there was no better place than Uruguay.

They had a burgeoning cattle economy and it was relatively cheap

to acquire cows there.

The factory opened there in 1865,

but it was soon embroiled in controversy.

It turns out this miracle nutritional product

that was designed for the poor

actually had no nutritional value at all.

To keep up with demand, the factories owners started looking

for a nourishing alternative and their answer was corned beef.

This is a canned product

of ground beef, fat, and loads of salt.

And you put it in a can and it will last forever.

This is the fray bentos industrial complex,

named after the town in Uruguay where the factory was located.

At its height it was one of the world's biggest producers

of canned meat.

In the UK it became a much-loved product,

which was found in practically every kitchen of the country.

Corned beef was a revolutionary product,

never before had meat been canned.

And this canning process allowed this meat to keep for months,

even years.

It was truly revolutionary.

The factory had the capacity to slaughter 1,600 cows every day.

Each cow provided enough meat to make 1,500 cans of corned beef.

Fray bentos eventually earned the nickname

of the kitchen of the world simply

because of the massive quantities of food

that were coming out of there.

To give you an idea of the scale

of the fray bentos factory,

the refrigeration facility could hold 18,000 tonnes

of refrigerated meat.

It wasn't just the factories output

that was impressive, but its efficiency too.

What makes this factory so successful is that the process

of turning livestock into canned meat

has been worked out really carefully from beginning to end.

As profits grew, so did investment.

In 1883 this became the first place in Uruguay

to be powered by electricity,

the countries capital city had to wait another three years.

In 1924 the factory was sold to a British company

and its new owners soon faced an enormous test.

Could their workers step up production

to become unlikely heroes in the fight against Nazi Germany?

Four thousand workers kept this powerhouse

of production running like clockwork.

In just four months they churned out 16 million cans of corned beef.

Hundreds of thousands of hungry British

and American troops were kept fighting fit

by eating this great Uruguayan export.

The popularity of fray bentos soured

during the early post war years.

But by the mid-1960s the public's appetite

for the famous tinned food had plummeted.

There is less demand for preserved food and salted

and canned food in Europe, especially in Great Britain.

So, it is no longer as profitable

to can that much beef and ship it overseas.

Then, in 1964 a typhoid outbreak in Scotland

in which three people died

was traced back to the fray bentos plant in Uruguay.

This signalled the end of the factory's British ownership.

The factory limped on for the next decade.

But by 1979 profits had slumped so low,

it was forced to permanently close.

Today, much of the facility has fallen into disrepair.

It's pretty much only disturbed by the occasional tourist

who'll come in to check out this place.

In 2015 unesco declared the fray bentos factory

a world heritage site...

Ensuring its place in history

as one of the world's biggest producers of tinned food

will never be forgotten.

(Music)

Captioned by ai-media ai-media. TV