Original subtitles

Narrator: A vast complex built on grand ambitions.

This was going to be a place

that would represent the highest aspirations

of the Soviet union.

A Liberian hotel haunted by a tumultuous past.

At one point this former five-star hotel housed thousands of squatters.

Indigenous ruins in Arizona given new life by an explosive event.

It must have been a truly awe-inspiring thing to witness.

And a creepy clifftop castle in the Czech Republic

concealing a gateway to hell.

To the locals,

it could only mean that the ss were practising a cult magic.

(Suspenseful music)

Decaying relics,

ruins of lost worlds.

Sites haunted by the past,

sites haunted by the past,

their secrets waiting to be revealed.

(Pacing music)

In the disputed region of abkhazia,

is the wreckage of a site where a nation's dream became a nightmare.

(Tense music)

We're on the coast of the black sea and not far from the beach

we come upon this complex of concrete buildings

that are crumbling into ruin.

There's this Soviet constructivist architecture,

very practical, very heroic, very grand scale,

it's hard to say at first glance what this thing is.

(Tense music)

There's something unmistakably apocalyptic about this site.

But what was it for and why is it now in ruins?

At one time this location promised to deliver heroic victory

over western rivals.

When you go inside it, it very much has the look of a dormitory,

a hotel, a barracks

because you've got these long hallways

with you know, small rooms off each.

At one end the roof is completely gone

and that exposes a massive swimming pool,

certainly, no hotel would need an olympic-size swimming pool

so this was clearly something else.

This was once a centre of excellence

but something catastrophic destroyed it,

the legacy of which is still being felt today.

(Suspenseful music)

(Speaks Russian)

Daur arshba is the director of this site today.

Spanning nearly 160 acres,

four wheels is the only way to get around.

(Speaks Russian)

The first thing to say about where we are

is that the country we're in abkhazia

doesn't really exist

doesn't really exist

but try telling that to the 240,000 people who live here,

and you're not going to get the warmest of welcomes.

It's not recognised as an independent nation

but it sees itself as a distinct people and a distinct land.

During the days of the Soviet union,

this region was part of the republic of Georgia

which itself was part of the ussr

and that's where the story of this complex really begins.

Initiated in the mid-1960s

the project was part of a grand and ambitious plan.

If buildings can represent dreams and aspirations,

then this one certainly did that.

This was going to be a centre that would bring together the best

and the brightest from all across the Soviet union

and train them for a very distinct type of world domination.

And train them for a very distinct type of world domination.

This is the eshera sports complex,

the central olympic base of the ussr.

This place was chosen because it sat along a stretch of coastline

that was favoured by the Soviet elite because of the weather.

Athletes could get away from the darkness and cold

of the endless winters

and train and focus on their sports

in this beautiful temperate warm environment.

(Speaks Russian)

Well, the place was, was a marvel

because it had you know, four football pitches,

it had an olympic size swimming pool,

it had basketball courts, it had a couple of running tracks,

it had basketball courts, it had a couple of running tracks,

it had you know, facilities for 40 different sports.

At one point the pool would have been kitted out

with all the latest technology

and packed full of hopeful athletes training to be the best they could.

Daur had the privilege of seeing first-hand

what it took to be the best.

(Eerie music)

(Speaks Russian)

To house all the athletes

there was a nine-storey accommodation block

which also had a huge canteen

serving the very best food,

you know there was no expense spared in this pursuit for victory.

You know there was no expense spared in this pursuit for victory.

It was the perfect place to psych up the athletes to do well

for, you know, mother Russia.

There was also another factor

driving the relentless pursuit of sporting excellence.

At this time the cold war is raging

and more often than not we associate that with the nuclear arms race

or the space race.

But sport was the other great arena that this conflict played out, in.

It's impossible to overstate

how important global competition in sports was to the Soviet union.

The cold war was about a lot more than just a military build-up,

it was an ideological war,

the Soviet union wanted to prove they had a superior system

to that of the west

if they could show that their people were the fastest and the strongest

that would be a kind of confirmation

that the Soviet system was the superior way

to organise a society.

At the 1980 summer Olympics in Moscow,

that ideological clash was supposed to play out on the world stage.

In 1979,

the ussr invaded Afghanistan to prop up a communist government,

in response, the us decided to boycott the 1980 Olympics

and ultimately 65 other countries around the world

also refused to attend those games.

Well, this was a very tough decision for president Jimmy Carter to take

because all these American olympians had been training for years.

(Speaks Russian)

(Laughs)

In the absence of the United States,

the Soviet team dominated the games,

securing a record 80 gold medals.

Some of that spectacular performance

was partly due to the training that took place at this centre.

(Speaks Russian)

(Dramatic music)

But the boycott of the games was not the only thing to raise eyebrows.

It was the first and only games since

not to disqualify a single athlete

for using performance-enhancing drugs.

Now, this was unheard of.

Clearly, when you look at their medal haul in the 1980 Olympics

you have to question whether this was all clean

and there was a lot of controversy at the time of how clean were they.

And there was a lot of controversy at the time of how clean were they.

Whatever the truth, one thing is certain.

For the next decade,

this facility continued to churn out world-beating athletes.

But it wouldn't be long before the whole thing came crashing down,

change was coming.

By the early '90s,

the eshera sports complex was becoming an arena

for a very different kind of battle.

As the Soviet union collapsed

its control over the very Soviet states collapsed as well

and many of those states began to dissolve into warring factions.

Georgia emerged as an independent state

including this abkhazia province

and so in 1992,

the abkhazia population of Georgia tried to separate from Georgia

and form their own state.

And of course, the Georgians resisted

and they used you know, the most merciless tactics

to put the abkhazia down.

(Speaks Russian)

For over a year there was vicious fighting in the streets.

The conflict claiming the lives of over 15,000 people.

(Tense music)

The war got very ugly,

people of Georgian backgrounds were killed

and driven out of abkhazia by the thousands.

And it's suspected that much of the violence

between the abkhazia and the Georgians in the civil war

was fostered by the Russians

who had a vested interest in keeping Georgia unstable

and sort of in the de facto Soviet grasp.

In the chaos of war,

both sides were accused of committing terrible atrocities.

Both sides were accused of committing terrible atrocities.

This building was caught in the deadly crossfire.

This sports complex, unfortunately, sat in the cockpit of the war

between the abkhazia and the Georgians

and it's in that westernmost area

and so it becomes yet another front in the fighting.

(Speaks Russian)

These buildings were so damaged that they were really beyond repair.

(Suspenseful music)

All around abkhazia are the scars of conflict,

none more so than at this prestigious site.

But daur is confident the days of glory will return.

(Speaks Russian)

Whether that happens or not nobody knows

and until then well, it's empty

and it remains isolated much like abkhazia.

(Pacing music)

In a dense forest 30 miles north of the Czech capital Prague,

in a dense forest 30 miles north of the Czech capital Prague,

stands a castle with a supernatural attraction.

(Eerie music) (Birds chirp)

A deep orange forest stretches out in every direction.

Then through a clearing in the trees,

you see this monumental structure.

It feels still, eerie.

Inside the unnerving atmosphere becomes ever more acute.

As your eyes become accustomed to the darkness,

you start to see horrible metal instruments.

And symbols of the occult.

These thrones are adorned with satanic symbolism

and there are these grotesque faces carved into the structures.

For centuries this isolated stronghold

has been a magnet for those obsessed with its dark power.

(Foreboding music)

(Foreboding music)

Evil men have come to this place

and they have committed unspeakable acts.

(Tense music)

For zuzana pavlikova simonkova,

houska castle is more than a historical bastion,

it's a family heirloom.

(Speaks Russian)

Houska castle has been confiscated from its owners at least three times

in its history.

The reasons why aren't immediately clear.

There is never really been any strategic value to this castle,

it's not near any borders

and it's not near any routes that an army would take.

There aren't even any important trading routes nearby.

So why build it at all?

As the castle keeper,

miroslav konopasek knows at houska the devil is in the detail.

(Speaks Russian)

He's long been associated with good overcoming evil,

the battle between heaven and hell.

There's a very good reason why he's painted on these walls.

It's a story that dates back to the ninth century

before the castle or chapel existed.

(Foreboding music)

(Speaks Russian)

Determined to explore what lay in the depths of this pit,

a powerful local lord turned to those desperate enough to find out.

Prisoners sentenced to death could earn a pardon

if they agreed to be lowered into this allegedly bottomless pit

if they agreed to be lowered into this allegedly bottomless pit

and then come back and report what they saw.

When the first man was lowered into the pit

he began screaming in horror after just a few seconds

and he begged to be pulled back up.

When he was hauled out

it was reported that his hair had turned shock white,

that he appeared to have aged 30 years

and he was extremely wrinkled all over.

(Speaks Russian)

Real or imagined,

the local's terror was genuine enough for them to seal over the pit,

building the chapel and castle on top.

What better to cover an entrance to hell

than a chapel dedicated to the archangel

who does battle with Satan himself.

Although the pit was sealed,

the malevolent spirit of houska continued to attract attention.

The malevolent spirit of houska continued to attract attention.

During the 30 years war in the 1600s,

houska castle fell under the control of a Swedish army.

Their commander, oronto, remained after the war

and sought to harness the power of hell for his own gain.

He was obsessed with legends surrounding the castle

and it is rumoured that he even performed black magic rituals

to try to achieve immortality.

His looting of the local area soon riled up the villagers,

putting his claims of immortality to the test.

(Speaks Russian)

With a sizable bounty on his head,

he was shot to death by two opportunistic local huntsmen.

(Gunshot)

Oronto wouldn't be the castle's last occupant with sinister ambitions.

In the late 1930s,

it attracted the attention of some notorious occultists.

(Tense music)

There was another evil force coming to houska

one that would do anything to achieve total domination.

(Suspenseful music)

When the second world war broke out in 1939

the wharton ss took the castle for themselves.

Their leader Heinrich himmler

is said to have been fascinated by the supernatural.

It's theorised that himmler genuinely believed

that the power of the old occult masters

would help the Nazis rule the world.

Himmler is said to have used his power

to collect as many books about witchcraft, the supernatural

and the occult as possible,

his collection totalled approximately 13,000 books

and manuscripts.

The castle was soon used in service of his obsession.

(Ominous music)

(Speaks Russian)

But stories persist that the ss used houska as more than just a library.

Locals claimed to have heard moans, screams and cries

in many different languages coming from the castle at night.

And the rumour went around

that it was being used for some fringe scientific experiments

on human subjects.

Some claim that the ss were attempting to create super soldiers

some claim that the ss were attempting to create super soldiers

by performing black magic rituals.

(Speaks Russian)

Once the war had ended,

the castle was used as a children's home,

one of its former residents told miroslav an unsettling story.

(Speaks Russian)

(Tense musical sting)

The truth of what happened here may never be known.

But there is no doubt

that a very real evil did stalk these halls.

(Foreboding music)

It's clear that himmler and some of his crackpot henchmen

in the ss were profoundly into the occult

but there's also a lot of exaggeration

around how widespread that was.

Sometimes it's difficult for us to understand

how people could be so evil

so we conjure these wild conspiracy theories

to try to explain human psychology that we can't comprehend.

(Ominous music)

After the war,

houska was seized by the communist state,

it was finally returned to zuzana's family in the 1990s.

It was finally returned to zuzana's family in the 1990s.

Today she is working to preserve the castle

and all its legends for future generations.

(Speaks Russian)

(Pacing music)

On the coast of west Africa

is a scarred structure that embodies a country's devastating past.

(Suspenseful music)

Liberia is one of the oldest nations on the continent of Africa

and its capital is a city called Monrovia.

Monrovia is a vibrant city with mainly low-rise buildings

so this abandoned structure really stands out from the crowd.

It's nine storeys tall, 300 rooms,

judging by its size and organisation

it might have been a hospital at one point

or maybe a high-end office block.

It looks like the place had been looted from top to bottom.

This picture of the building is complicated

by the structure that's next to it

which is in this strange circular shape,

it almost looks like a spaceship of some sort.

One feature reveals what this place used to be.

An empty swimming pool

tells us that this building must have been a hotel.

What ripped apart this once luxurious holiday hotspot?

This hotel bears the scars of a catastrophic event.

This hotel bears the scars of a catastrophic event.

(Soft music)

Liberia is one of the poorest countries in the world

so it's easy to forget

that it was once one of Africa's richest nations.

In the 1950s and '60s,

Liberia's economy was thriving due to its rich natural resources

such as rubber, iron ore and diamonds.

With that came an appetite to tap into another industry.

Liberia wanted to open the country up to more foreign tourists

and this was the hotel to realise that ambition.

(Dramatic music)

This was the ducor palace hotel.

Henry buckle used to work here as a bartender.

(Pacing music)

(Pacing music)

Built-in 1960

the ducor palace was operated by a well-known hotel empire.

The intercontinental hotel chain took over

and it became one of Africa's

and even the world's most luxurious hotels.

Africa's first five-star hotel

changed the face of Liberia's capital.

The hotel illuminated Monrovia's skies

and it was the heart and soul of the city.

And it was a stomping ground for many of the rich and famous.

And hosted important African leaders.

One caretaker claimed he even saw idi armin the Ugandan dictator

one caretaker claimed he even saw idi armin the Ugandan dictator

swimming in the pool while still wearing his gun.

It offered its guests whether from home or abroad

the very best from the moment they arrived.

(Soft music)

The architecture was big, bold and modern,

it had a covered circular driveway with these beautiful blue tiles

so the guests really got dropped off in style.

From the lobby, you could ascend the grand circular stairway

to the main restaurant.

And the creme de la creme, a 360-degree rooftop bar

from which to enjoy the vista.

Henry's career in the hotel evolved

from bartender to chef.

In the 1960s and 1970s,

it was a place of prosperity and extreme privilege.

However, by the 1980s

a radical change was on the horizon.

Intercontinental ceased management of ducor palace.

It was only the start of the hotel's troubles.

In 1989,

a civil war was about to break out in Liberia

a civil war was about to break out in Liberia

and the hotel reacted by closing its doors to visitors.

Trained rebels invaded Liberia from the neighbouring country

the Ivory Coast, they were led by Charles Taylor

who wanted to overthrow Liberian government and take over.

Taylor a sacked government worker had fled to the us

where he was imprisoned,

only to escape and return home as head of a rebel militia.

But they weren't the only insurgents determined to topple the regime.

(Gunshots)

In 1990

a rival guerrilla force beat them to it,

torturing and murdering the president.

Once that was done,

both groups turned against each other

and plunged Liberia into a civil war.

By 1992 fighting had intensified in Monrovia.

The hotel now housing an interim government

the hotel now housing an interim government

offered some protection from the bloodshed.

Four years later, a seize fire bought some respite from the violence

and a surprising winner emerged from elections that followed.

In 1997 Charles Taylor won an election

and became president of Liberia

but there were many who were not happy with this.

Under a tyrannical regime,

the hotel would soon find itself once again caught in the crossfire.

This hotel which had a strategic view of the city

became a firing position for Taylor's rag-tag army.

Liberia's second civil war was finally bought to an end in 2003

after George w bush called for Taylor to step down

and he was indicted by a UN-sponsored war crimes tribunal.

This prompted Charles Taylor's resignation

this prompted Charles Taylor's resignation

from his office of president and he was exiled to Nigeria.

Taylor was gone

but Liberia's economy and infrastructure was shattered.

It was one of Africa's bloodiest and most brutal conflicts,

it resulted in the fatalities of a quarter million residents

and this is in a country where the entire population

is just over 2 million.

The hotel found another purpose

as a home to thousands of displaced residents from the slums of Monrovia.

They were moved in 2007

when the Liberian government leased the hotel

to none other than the Libyan despot colonel gaddafi

who was a keen purchaser of African prime real estate.

Gaddafi was now in charge of a multi-million dollar refit

of the hotel ducor but not for long.

In 2010,

a clean-up of the war-torn building began

but relations were turning sour between the Liberian government

and gaddafi

and so the project kept being delayed.

Gaddafi was killed by his own people

and with his demise came the collapse of his projects

including the rehabilitation of the ducor palace hotel.

(Suspenseful music)

Liberia is in the midst of a slow painful process of rebuilding

following its civil war,

hotels are once again starting to open for business for tourists.

Although there are still no plans to revive

what was once the pride of Liberia,

it remains a special place for Monrovia's residents.

It remains a special place for Monrovia's residents.

Locals still like to visit,

they spend special occasions here

such as Christmas and independence day

so they can admire its spectacular views.

In north central Arizona, usa,

concealed within this barren land

is the story of a way of life forever lost.

They call it the painted desert for a reason,

the rocks and stones and spaces just have so many different colours,

nature has created this space

that it looks like an artist has taken to it.

It's just so beautiful.

Almost blending in with the landscape

you start to pick out these structures.

As you get a little bit closer

you can see that these are definitely manmade,

they have stacked stones and were once very carefully built.

They have stacked stones and were once very carefully built.

As you go from room to room

it becomes clear that this was part of a really large settlement.

Distinctive dark features in the surrounding terrain

are a tell-tale reminder of a violent past.

Nearby the geology around the trail starts to look a bit different,

this rock looks to be lava flows.

In the distance, you can see a distinctly shaped hill

and as you get closer you realise it's a volcano.

Could this have something to do with these ruins in the desert?

(Suspenseful music)

Working in this beautiful landscape,

this beautiful environment is really enlightening,

I take a lot of personal gratification

from being able to share that with other people

especially when so much of our landscapes

especially when so much of our landscapes

surrounding cities and towns is being developed

and being you know, changed forever.

Ian hough is an archaeologist

fascinated by the ancient communities

that once inhabited this unforgiving terrain.

Decades of research have helped uncover the mystery

of what bought life to this arid region.

You look across that landscape and it looks very harsh

and inhospitable and indeed it is.

But people you know, 900 years ago

found a way to live in that environment

and thrive for multiple generations

so it's a testament to their resiliency

and their adaptability.

Just looking at this it is very obvious

that these people had a lot of skill,

that this was a complex society

that had a community that was able to do something

at this sophisticated level.

This is the wupatki pueblo,

this is the wupatki pueblo,

an ancient indigenous American settlement

once home to hundreds of people.

So right now I'm standing at the base of the citadel

and it's one of the larger archaeological sites here

at wupatki national monument.

When this place was built and occupied,

the walls would have been a little bit taller than what you see today.

It was built up high for the, you know, commanding view,

360 degrees around that you can see.

It probably began its life as the home of a single family

and then just grew over time

until it became this sprawling hundred room pueblo.

Within the middle may have been an open area

or a Plaza and people would have been going about daily activities

and that could be anything from preparing food

to you know, playing with children to just going about daily chores.

The people that called this home

the people that called this home

were some of the first to roam this parched land

and they came from far and wide.

Through oral tradition,

we're able to determine that the builders of the wupatki pueblo

are the ancestors of the hopi people and likely of the zuni as well.

There was a real melting pot of different cultures and groups

who were living here and in Harmony in these buildings.

And so the big question is,

how were these people able to sustain themselves?

When the reality of the physical space they're in is just so poor.

You need to have good farming land in order to grow crops,

you cannot just live on hunting alone.

It seems the key to life here

lies around 15 miles southwest of the wupatki pueblo

at the sunset crater volcano.

Around 1085ad, the volcano erupted

around 1085ad, the volcano erupted

and it sent out a massive plume of smoke and ash in this region.

We have some evidence that shows the sunset crater volcano erupted

in the late 1080s

and it could have been an eruption that lasted for several years.

Ash and cinder would have drifted out across this entire landscape,

mostly due to the prevailing winds coming from the southwest

and pushing that ash plume out in this area.

This eruption was most definitely witnessed by the ancestors

of today's pueblo Indians.

They're going to have seen it, they're going to have fled from it

and we believe they survived it.

It changed the lives of the people living here

but probably not in the way you imagine it.

Instead of destroying life here,

it created the conditions for a community to prosper.

It created the conditions for a community to prosper.

At several points during the explosion,

cindery ash was thrown up to 18 miles into the air,

all of this volcanic material settled on the landscape

and acted as a kind of sponge.

It helped the soil absorb water

and it made it possible for this new community to grow food

and survive.

But the life-giving force that spewed forth from the volcano's bowels

would soon be depleted.

It looks like people stopped building additional rooms

and expanding the pueblo in 1225 or 1250

and certainly by 1250

it appears people are leaving that particular location

to set up pueblos in nearby areas not that far away.

The theories today about the wupatki pueblo

is that after 100 years or so

is that after 100 years or so

the soil had lost its fertility,

the ash had degraded enough

that it wasn't able to sustain the soil anymore

and so the people moved on.

But that wasn't the end,

about 500 years later

navajo people took up residence in the region.

In time a controversial new government policy

threatened the navajo's very existence.

In the 1860s,

the navajo were one of those people who were moved by force,

they were made to walk 500 miles away

from the area where they had been living to a reservation system.

Peshlakai etsetti and his wives

were amongst the people who were forced to march to fort sumter

and held there,

they were eventually released in 1868

and they returned to the wupakti area.

But the peshlakai family's life at wupakti

ends with the death of Stella peshlakai.

Ends with the death of Stella peshlakai.

This bought an end to the latest period

of indigenous American settlement here

and the national park service became caretakers of the land.

Today the park service continues its work to preserve the integrity

of this ancient site and its earliest occupants.

It's important to recognise places like wupakti as not being abandoned

in the sense that the word suggests nobody appears to be living there

but through consultation with our associated tribal communities,

we've learned that they view places like wupakti pueblo

as still being inhabited.

For the modern people who are descended from the villages here

at wupatki,

it is still full of the spirits of their ancestors.

Captioned by ai-media ai-media. TV

captioned by ai-media ai-media. TV