Original subtitles

[narrator] In Ohio,

a ruined neighborhood built to keep the peace.

[Michele] This is a really violent situation.

They want better conditions, they want fair pay, they want better housing.

[narrator] An ancient ghost town with traces of life.

There's people's belongings left behind as if they had just left recently.

[narrator] And a fantastical world hidden in the jungle.

[narrator] And a fantastical world hidden in the jungle.

[Jim] You see heads and hands sticking out of the ground.

Stuff that looks like snakes.

It's almost looks like some playground designed by Dr. Seuss.

[narrator] Decaying relics.

Ruins of lost worlds.

Sites haunted by the past.

Their secrets waiting to be revealed.

In Ohio, in the town of Campbell...

one neighborhood looks different from the rest.

[Dougal] Well, at first glance,

you wouldn't think anything different of this place.

You've got some nice green areas, you've got some residential housing and so on.

But, you know, most of the houses seems to empty.

But, you know, most of the houses seems to empty.

[Michele] This is a place that really looks like it has seen better days.

That it once used to just be full of activity, full of people.

And now, it just looks impoverished and just neglected.

[narrator] But there's something else that's not quite right about these homes.

[Dougal] They all look the same inside. It almost looks industrial.

So it's at odds with what you'd expect for that particular area.

So it's at odds with what you'd expect for that particular area.

[narrator] Traces of protest mark these strangely uniform houses.

[Katherine] Something has happened here. It's not what it once was.

And you can't help but wonder what happened

to make it reach the state that it's in today.

It was really a hot mess of abandonment when I first came here.

[narrator] Tim Sokoloff first came here as a teenager.

[narrator] Tim Sokoloff first came here as a teenager.

Most of what we're seeing now, you couldn't see,

it was overgrown, there were trees and brush everywhere.

[narrator] Beneath the undergrowth,

Tim found the houses were unusually distinctive.

[Tim] Everything was minimalistic,

you know, there was no cabinets, cupboards.

This was it. You had a sink and a shelf.

This was your fuse box, it's a Frankenstein switch

with two fuses that ran the whole apartment.

with two fuses that ran the whole apartment.

And here, you know, we've got an original bathroom.

And pipes all exposed.

Toilet with a tank that had the connection. The tanks are actually made to the walls.

And everybody looks here and they say,

"Wow, how do you take a bath in that tub?"

Yeah, little 4-foot tub, cast iron.

[narrator] But this neighborhood became home to poverty.

And at number 50 Chamber Street, events turned tragic.

And at number 50 Chamber Street, events turned tragic.

[Tim] Two brothers lived in this apartment.

They didn't have their water turned on,

'cause they didn't want to pay a water bill.

They would go dumpster diving for food.

And, at one point in time,

a neighbor had come over and knocked on the door.

And when the one brother opened the door,

there were legs sticking out from behind the door,

because the other brother had just passed away, and just, you know,

let him lay there.

[narrator] Poverty had become the norm here by the time the brother died.

But it didn't start out this way.

But it didn't start out this way.

These are the Sheet and Tube Company homes.

Their story begins with the establishment

of a steel mill in neighboring Youngstown.

[Katherine] Youngstown Sheet and Tube was one of the great

iron and steel companies of the day.

Remember it's coming about just as

the Industrial Revolution is growing in the United States.

[Michele] But it goes on in the 20th century

to become larger than Coca-Cola,

to become larger than Coca-Cola,

larger than Heinz, larger than Johnson & Johnson.

It becomes the fifth largest steel company in the United States

and the largest employer in Youngstown.

[narrator] But in 1915,

the company hit its first major hurdle.

Europe was in the grips of the first world war

and industries strained to make materials for battle.

[Michele] The first world war has a really interesting impact

[Michele] The first world war has a really interesting impact

on industry in the United States.

It ramps up demand, and so it's actually good for business.

[Dougal] I mean, if you think about it,

if you're making steel and iron,

war is when demand's at its greatest.

For the manufacturing industry,

it's a boom time.

[narrator] But while the company was making money,

its employees were facing a war of their own.

[Katherine] Working conditions for these steel workers was not good.

[Katherine] Working conditions for these steel workers was not good.

And then everything gets speeded up when the war begins,

the workers are expected to do more and to work overtime.

[Tim] There was no union yet, there was problems

and they weren't really trying to pay the guys

what they should be paying them.

So there's a lot of dissent that started the build.

[narrator] Low pay and bad conditions created a pressure cooker.

One that was about to blow.

[Michele] In December, 1915,

[Michele] In December, 1915,

500 employees walk out, they put down their tools.

They want better conditions, they want fair pay, they want better housing.

[narrator] The labor strike continued for weeks.

But after the new year, events came to a head.

[Katherine] On January 7th, 1916,

the strikers along with their wives march up Wilson Avenue

to meet a group of scab workers who were coming in to try to take their jobs.

to meet a group of scab workers who were coming in to try to take their jobs.

That's when things get out of hand.

[Tim] We're not sure who took the first shot.

If it was one of the guards at the steel mill,

or if it was one of the people in the crowd, but a shot was fired

and a riot broke out.

[Dougal] People rioted, they looted some of the buildings, burnt things and so on.

And the next day on the 8th, the home guard had to be called in to calm things down

and many of the workers were arrested and jailed.

and many of the workers were arrested and jailed.

[Tim] This is a Youngstown Tube Hospital. For some guys, it saved their lives

by getting right here to the hospital before they could

bleed out or their injury took their life.

[narrator] The riot was a bloodbath.

[Michele] By the time the dust had settled,

one hundred and twenty-five people are injured and three people are dead.

[narrator] Tensions between employer and employee were higher than ever.

So the company made an offer.

So the company made an offer.

[Tim] The new workers rioted and burned the city to the ground.

And the mill said, "This is not conducive to our business model, we can't have this.

Let's build them some nice homes that they can live in that will be--

Give them a better standard of living."

[narrator] The company's solution was to seduce

its employees with unrivalled new homes.

[Michele] The housing was going to be connected to electricity.

[Michele] The housing was going to be connected to electricity.

It was gonna have running water.

And so it was gonna provide workers with amenities

that were not yet fully standard in the United States.

[narrator] The buildings were sold as homes of the future.

But with the company's eye on the bottom line,

these houses would have to be built on the cheap.

[narrator] Following a riot in 1916,

Youngstown's Sheet and Tube was forced to build company housing.

But they didn't want to dig too deeply into their profits.

[Dougal] They came up with an ingenious way of doing that

by building, essentially, pre-fabricated units.

They were going to construct houses one next to each other that were all the same.

They were going to construct houses one next to each other that were all the same.

[Tim] When this apartment complex was created,

it stood for everything that America stood for.

Strong, innovative,

powerful-- you know, this was the epitome of modern building technology.

[narrator] Entire walls were cast in low-cost concrete.

When they arrived on site, they were assembled like flat-packed furniture.

The buildings went together, so when they put the next slab in,

it slid right in there.

it slid right in there.

Into that one like a lock-in-place kind of Lego.

And here's a section of wall, this was actually standing up against here

when I first came here, and eventually, fell over onto the ground.

And when it hit the ground, it's so heavy,

that we heard it all the way up into the Union Square Park.

[Dougal] You expect cars to come off a production line not houses.

But here, they flipped that around.

And they were literally producing house after house after house after house.

Very quickly, very cheaply.

Very quickly, very cheaply.

But in doing so, also creating a community that was desirable

for the workers to want to go and move in.

[narrator] The new homes put an end to the strike action.

[Dougal] But that meant that Youngstown were both employer but also landlord.

So when something was gonna go wrong,

things were gonna go badly wrong.

[narrator] The company and the neighborhood prospered for 60 years.

But on September 19th, 1977,

the steel mill closed down.

the steel mill closed down.

5,000 people lost their jobs overnight.

It's still known as Black Monday.

[Michele] And this has a huge ripple effect in the community.

And when Black Monday happens, it's sort of the first in a series of plant shutdowns.

And so you have this depopulation that starts

to happen in the late '70s into the '80s.

When you think about the decline of the Rust Belt,

that's exactly what this moment is.

that's exactly what this moment is.

[narrator] Over the next few decades,

the Sheet and Tube company homes slowly emptied

and fell into disrepair.

Since the 1990s,

most of the pre-fab homes have lain rotting and empty.

But Tim Sokolov is bringing them back from the brink.

[Tim] We just started couple of years ago renovating apartments

to try to bring the complex back to life.

to try to bring the complex back to life.

And this is one that we renovated, it's finished.

And people are just moving in here, today as a matter of fact.

This was a modern marvel of building and engineering technology.

And it has a lot of history here for our mills and for our nation.

It's important to save it. It could help bring back the town.

It's our diamond in the rough.

[narrator] In the Highlands of Central Mexico,

a series of concrete structures hide below dense rain forest.

a series of concrete structures hide below dense rain forest.

Everywhere you look, you are just surrounded by this canopy that is the jungle.

Then, as you drop down beneath the canopy, you realize that there are these strange

structures, dotted all around.

[narrator] These remains are difficult to date.

[Jim] There are some things that look almost like Mayan ruins,

others that look strangely modern.

[narrator] Deeper in the forest, this site gets stranger.

There are fantastical pillars and stairs to nowhere.

There's a library with no books and a cinema with no seats.

[Jim] You see heads and hands sticking out of the ground.

Stuff that looks like snakes.

It's almost like some playground designed by Dr. Seuss.

It's almost like some playground designed by Dr. Seuss.

[narrator] What kind of people left behind these bizarre traces?

[Rob] I mean, what are all these structures?

And what the heck are they doing in the middle of the jungle?

[Jim] Who would put in so much effort, so much time,

so much money to create this fantasy land?

[narrator] Zaira Linian is the director of this hidden sight,

[narrator] Zaira Linian is the director of this hidden sight,

which dates back to the 1940s.

[Zaira speaking Spanish]

[translator] We are about to enter one of the most wonderful places in Mexico.

A garden full of magic with natural and architectural beauty.

It's known as "Las Pozas" or "The pools."

[narrator] Las Pozas sits in a densely forested region

[narrator] Las Pozas sits in a densely forested region

of Mexico's San Luis Potosi state.

And it was this lush, exotic environment

that lured the creator of this magical site from a very different world.

[Rob] Edward James was born in 1907 to a British-American family.

A very wealthy family.

And he was a true British aristocrat.

[Alicia] His godfather was actually King Edward VII of England.

[Alicia] His godfather was actually King Edward VII of England.

And there were even rumors that he was his illegitimate son.

[narrator] Edward James inherited a huge fortune at a very young age.

[Jim] In the early 1940s, he was drawn to Los Angles.

Eventually, he fell in with a group,

that you might call bohemians. They're almost like, proto-hippies.

[Alicia] While he was living in LA,

James decided he wanted to create a retreat.

James decided he wanted to create a retreat.

[Rob] He wanted to create his very own

Garden of Eden.

[narrator] Edward James' obsessions with exotic flowers

led him to Mexico.

[translator] He arrived here looking for orchids,

on one of his road trips.

He saw the gardener

watering a large number of orchids,

which he had never seen.

They were very beautiful.

[Zaira speaking Spanish]

[Jim] The orchid is in some way the most sensuous of plants

and that appealed to James' sensibility.

[narrator] Las Pozas was the perfect place

to indulge his passion for orchids.

Las Pozas started off as just two simple huts being built

because James wanted to focus his attention

on the plantation of orchids.

[Jim] He devoted himself to cultivating

these thousands and thousands of orchids across his big plot.

these thousands and thousands of orchids across his big plot.

[Zaira speaking Spanish]

[translator] He began to bring orchids from other parts of the country.

[continues in Spanish]

He even brought in from other parts of the world.

[speaking Spanish]

[translator] Everything was going very well. He seeded, he cultivated.

He experimented with orchids.

He loved the climate and so did the orchids.

[continues in Spanish]

[continues in Spanish]

[narrator] But the nurturing climate of Las Pozas

was about to deal Edward James a devastating blow.

[Jim] James was away on a trip

when a freak cold snap

hit the Central Highlands of Mexico.

And that period of cold weather

destroyed his entire collection of orchids.

[Rob] When returning from a trip to New York,

he was confronted with a very unpleasant surprise.

he was confronted with a very unpleasant surprise.

[Jim] You can imagine James just discovering this devastation.

It must have been absolutely crushing.

[narrator] But the catastrophic event

propelled Edward James to create something even more extraordinary.

[narrator] In the early 1960s,

in the rainforest of Mexico,

British nobleman, Edward James,

was devasted to loose his collection of beloved orchids.

[Rob] James decided he was going to create

his version of the Garden of Eden.

but with concrete structures

that couldn't be destroyed by freak weather.

that couldn't be destroyed by freak weather.

[Zaira speaking Spanish]

[translator] He began to build concrete shapes.

in the form of a leaf, in the form of a flower.

In the form of an orchid.

[speaking Spanish]

[narrator] But Edward James didn't stop at stone flowers,

he soon began to indulge his other obsession.

[Jim] James came of age in a time when some of the most exciting

work happening in the arts was the movement of surrealism.

work happening in the arts was the movement of surrealism.

This is the idea of artists trying to get in touch

with something deeper, something from your subconscious.

[narrator] Edward James had been friends

with famous surrealist artists,

like, Salvador Dali.

After the loss of his orchids,

he retreated into a surreal fantasy world.

[Jim] He created all kinds of fantastical shapes.

Everything was as if it just emerged out of some kind of dream.

Everything was as if it just emerged out of some kind of dream.

[Rob] This garden was constantly evolving

with ever larger and ever more bizarre

concrete structures being added.

[Zaira speaking in Spanish]

[translator] There are around 36 main constructions here

that were built over a 30-year period.

[continues in Spanish]

[translator] One of the most iconic pieces in this place

[translator] One of the most iconic pieces in this place

is the Cinema, otherwise known as the Stairway to Heaven.

[continues in Spanish]

[Jim] He put seats there, but no screen.

He was having fun.

[Alicia] James gave these structures

really, kind of, unique and whimsical names

like, "The house with three-stories that might actually be five."

[Jim] I think that delighted him. That having people say,

[chuckling] "What the heck is this?"

[narrator] Edward James found refuge in his garden

[narrator] Edward James found refuge in his garden

at Las Pozas until his death.

[Jim] James died in 1984

and you can imagine this spectacular space

just being reclaimed by the jungle

and being kind of lost and forgotten

a bit the way he might have imagined.

[Alicia] The garden is a masterpiece

and a testament to one man's eccentricity

and his desire to be extraordinary.

and his desire to be extraordinary.

[narrator] Today, a dedicated foundation

takes care of Edward James' surrealist vision

in the way he'd intended.

[Zaira speaking Spanish]

[translator] He said many times that he would like this place

to be taken over by nature.

[continues in Spanish]

[translator] He wanted to give back to nature,

the space he borrowed.

[speaking Spanish]

[narrator] In southwest Russia,

a mountain top eerie hides in plain sight.

[Dominic] It's high up in the craggy rocks

looking down on the eagles soaring below.

And it's hard to make out.

And it's hard to make out.

[Lynette] It's almost impossible to believe

that anyone could have a town in this place.

[narrator] But someone has eked out an existence here.

All around it are terraced fields fading into the distance.

[Sascha] Some people call this The Machu Picchu of the Caucasus

and you can really see why.

[Lynette] But why did people come here?

Why did people settle here?

Why did people settle here?

Why?

[narrator] Among the ruins, lie hints

of a conflicted past.

[Sascha] There is people's belongings left behind,

as if they had just left recently.

[Lynette] It looks like a town but there is no movement.

No vehicles. No people.

This is a ghost town.

[narrator] Badgered defenses suggest

this was once a hilltop bastion.

this was once a hilltop bastion.

So what happened to the people

who once defended it?

[narrator] In the faraway region of Dagestan,

in Russia's Caucasus mountains,

local conservationist, Zaur Tsokolov,

is keen to preserve the deserted settlement

of Gamsutl.

[translator] We are now at an altitude of about 1,700 meters above sea level.

[translator] We are now at an altitude of about 1,700 meters above sea level.

Mountains surround this place.

[narrator] At the end of the 20th Century,

Gamustl was still inhabited.

Zaur remembers its last resident.

A beekeeper.

[translator] We met the last man to live here,

right here, in his house.

At this table, he treated us to honey made in his hives.

At this table, he treated us to honey made in his hives.

[speaking Russian]

[continues in Russian]

[translator] And according to him, this house is 300 years old.

[speaking Russian]

[narrator] For thousands of years,

Zaur's ancestors lived in this brutal terrain.

[Lynette] This is a part of the world

which has a history dominated

by warring tribes

by warring tribes

and people who feel endangered.

[narrator] Dagestan has long been

a geopolitical flashpoint.

[Sascha] Dagestan is 19,000 sq. miles.

It has a population of about 3.1 million.

But it's a very, very diverse area.

[narrator] The people who lived in Gamsutl

belonged to a tribe of elite highland warriors

belonged to a tribe of elite highland warriors

known as the Avars.

And there are signs of conflict everywhere.

[speaking Russian]

[translator] Every Avar knows that his ancestors fought

in one battle or another.

And all the names of these warriors

are passed on from one generation to the next.

[continues in Russian]

[speaking Russian]

[translator] Gravestones like this one

[translator] Gravestones like this one

were made to honor those who died in foreign lands.

They are memorials to our soldiers who died in faraway battles.

And they're decorated with war symbols, like guns and knives.

[continues in Russian]

[narrator] The position of Gamsutl

is another sure sign

that this once a contested battleground.

[Dominic] From here, from this eagle's nest,

with its series of watchtowers and droppages

with its series of watchtowers and droppages

and above all, visibility,

this was place that really could be defended.

[Zaur speaking Russian]

[translator] This high ground in Gamsutl

was used as a natural tower.

They made use of the rock formation.

[continues speaking Russian]

[translator] A battlement was built on top of the rock

and then guards would have patrolled it up here.

[continues in Russian]

[narrator] So who or what was the threat?

Originally, Dagestan lay between

the Christian and Muslim worlds.

By the 18th Century,

the domineering Islamic Persian Empire

wanted to take control of villages like Gamsutl.

But the Persians underestimated the skills

of the Avar warriors

and their new leader,

Ibrahim of Urada.

Ibrahim of Urada.

[Dominic] Ibrahim was at larger than life character.

He was aggressive. He was provocative.

He was a formidable military and political leader.

[narrator] But Ibrahim had few means

to stop the warmongering Iranian leader, Nader Shah,

who had the might of the Persian Empire behind him.

[Lynette] Nader Shah is seeking to expand the territory

that he controls

that he controls

and the area from which he can draw revenue

and he does that by fighting.

And continuously fighting.

[Sascha] He's sometimes called

the Napoleon of Persia.

[narrator] Nader Shah was determined

to take control of Dagestan.

So with the full force

of the mighty Persian bearing down on them,

how could the Avar warrior

save their ancestral home?

[narrator] In the 18th Century,

the Avar warriors

of Dagestan's hilltop villages

were threatened by the powerful Persian Empire.

But the first problem the Avar leader faced

was to stop the highland tribes

fighting between themselves.

[Lynette] What he's got to be able to do is build a coalition

[Lynette] What he's got to be able to do is build a coalition

who are willing to put aside

their constant state

of internecine warfare

and join in a common cause

to resist Persian domination.

[narrator] Against the odds,

Ibrahim of Urada managed to convince

the squabbling highlanders

to create a united front.

[Sascha] There were penalties for not

cooperating with this agreement.

cooperating with this agreement.

So for example, if a village failed to contribute,

they were fined 100 sheep,

which is significant in this period.

In the end, he assembled an army of 11,000 men,

ready to face the Shah.

[narrator] 1741, battle commenced.

[translator] Military clashes took place

in front of where we're standing right now.

They were fought in front of Gamsutl.

[Dominic] When the war was finally fought,

[Dominic] When the war was finally fought,

it erupted across a front that was tens of miles long.

But more important than number of troops in an area like this,

is familiarity and intimacy with the terrain.

And the Dagestanis had that.

[Lynette] Ibrahim and his tribes

have a massive

homefield advantage.

[narrator] The unlikely confederation of Avars

took Nadir Shah by surprise.

[translator] Nadir Shah was defeated here

and had to flee that way to the north.

[Dominic] Rumor has it that he left his vast treasures of his campaign gold

here in the mountains.

And there are still treasure hunters who come looking for it.

[narrator] Following his victory,

Ibrahim became famous as a Muslim scholar

while Nadir Shah was later assassinated by his own people.

while Nadir Shah was later assassinated by his own people.

The Avars survived in Gamsutl for the next 200 years

until the Russian communists arrived in the 20th century.

The Soviets did their best

to squash the Avars' fighting spirit.

But in the end, it was nature that won out.

[translator] The last citizens of this place

[translator] The last citizens of this place

described a torrential rainstorm in the 1970s.

During that storm, a bridge down in the valley,

which was the only thing connecting the village to the outside world,

was washed away.

[Sascha] It's simply too isolated

and people leave slowly over time

until in the end, there was just one person left.

And he died in 2015.

[narrator] Zaur is determined

this site that embodies the Avar warrior spirit

lives on.

[translator] Every rock here is steeped in history.

They hold our ancestral spirit.

[narrator] Croatia's glittering Dalmatian coast

is crammed with tourist resorts.

is crammed with tourist resorts.

But one stands out.

[Rob] The buildings form this ghostly backdrop

to what should be a picture postcard holiday spot.

It's really quite unsettling.

[Lynette] We've got a tourist mecca nearby.

This oughta be prime real estate.

[narrator] An eclectic mix of broken buildings

follows the shoreline.

follows the shoreline.

[Rob] Each building is very different in style.

From brutal concrete corridors and

square solid rooms to these

beautiful stunning curves and elaborate archways.

You can still sort of detect the original furnishings.

The wall paper. These beautiful staircases.

[narrator] A grand old building at the heart of the complex

looks the most exclusive.

looks the most exclusive.

[Lynette] This facility has got bars,

and restaurants and courtyards.

[Geoff] Then you have these more modern hotels

built in the 1960s, '70s and even '80s,

built at clearly at a tremendous expense,

that have all been just left to rot.

[narrator] But this resort has also been bombarded.

[Lynette] This place has got

evidence of large caliber rounds being fired into it.

evidence of large caliber rounds being fired into it.

Which some people might call a war crime.

[narrator] These obliterated structures

saw one of the bloodiest conflicts of 20th-century Europe play out.

[Rob] This place is a living time capsule.

From a period in this nation's history

that has definitely not been forgotten.

[narrator] History professor, Jure Maric,

crosses the Adriatic Sea

to visit his hometown of Kupari.

[translator] For the first ten years of my life,

I would come to the beach here.

It was a pretty crowded spot.

Everything was packed full.

The beaches, the bars, restaurants. Everything.

The beaches, the bars, restaurants. Everything.

[narrator] Back then, Kupari was one of Croatia's most exclusive resorts.

And The Grand was its first hotel.

[translator] We're entering the ruins of The Grand Hotel.

It's really the starting point of organized tourism here in 1920.

[Geoff] The Grand Hotel, you know, was incredibly ornate.

Spiral staircase up to the upper floors.

You know, these beautiful rooms.

Great views across the sea.

So this was quite the impressive tourist destination.

[narrator] But the good times didn't last.

[Rob] World War II stopped tourism in this town.

But it wasn't the end of it for good.

It was about to get a second wind

and on a far greater scale.

and on a far greater scale.

[narrator] After the war, Croatia joined forces with neighboring Serbia,

its longtime rival.

Along with three other Balkan states,

they formed Socialist Yugoslavia,

led by the Communist Josip Tito.

[Geoff] Tito has to assure the loyalty of the military.

The Serb-controlled Yugoslav army

The Serb-controlled Yugoslav army

in order to maintain the communist hold in Yugoslavia.

So he decides, among other things,

to create a holiday resort at Kupari

for Yugoslavian army.

[Rob] Quickly, hotels started popping up

all along this coastline.

Huge brutalist blocks,

iconic of the communist era.

[translator] It used to be much bigger than it is now.

Over there, The Kupari Hotel and The Pelegrin Hotel

used to be connected by an adjoining hall.

When the resorts of Kupari was governed by Yugoslav People's Army,

it was open to the public.

I remember that there was no problem with us coming to play

and swim here when I was a kid.

[narrator] Tito spent more than half a billion dollars

in today's money

in today's money

to create this exclusive resort.

But how long could he ensure peace in the Balkans

and continue to dominate the sparring Yugoslav states?

[narrator] In the 1970s,

the derelict resort of Kupari

played an important role

in ensuring Yugoslavia's communist dictator, Josip Tito,

could maintain control.

Tito's Communist powers forced a tentative peace

on this region for nearly 40 years.

[narrator] After Tito died,

the fractious Yugoslav states

stayed together until 1991,

when the collapse of the Soviet Union coincided with the rise

of a ruthless Serbian leader.

[translator] At that point, Slobodan Milosevic came to power.

He wanted to seize control over the whole of Yugoslavia, not just Serbia.

[narrator] But Croatians like Jure's family

[narrator] But Croatians like Jure's family

were demanding independence.

[Geoff] The Serbs of course, oppose this attempt

of these nations to breakaway.

And so a civil war breaks out in 1991.

[Lynette] This spot becomes fought over

between the Serbs and the Croats.

And it gets very nasty.

[narrator] Kupari is just six miles down the coast

from the strategic Croatian city of Dubrovnik,

from the strategic Croatian city of Dubrovnik,

which Milosevic's Serbian led forces were determined to take.

[Rob] Fierce attacks and bombings began in the city.

It became known as the Siege of Dubrovnik.

[Lynette] They tried to pound

the Croatians into submission

by shelling the beautiful ancient

Croat city of Dubrovnik.

And just nearby, there is Kupari.

[Geoff] During this time, a small Croatian force

[Geoff] During this time, a small Croatian force

holes up in Kupari.

So then of course, the Serbs turn their guns on Kupari

and they shell it for six months.

[narrator] The Serbian-led assault was merciless.

Kupari's grand hotel took the greatest hit.

[translator] These are direct blast hits, which did most of the damage.

The enemy came in from the sea

and invaded Kupari amid constant bombings.

The worst damage can be seen over here.

Because the enemy gunboats continue to bomb the resort from over there,

including, of course, this hotel complex.

[Geoff] The resort was absolutely devastated.

And then when the Serbian infiltrate came in to clear the Croats out,

they cleared them with phosphorus grenades, burning them out entirely.

they cleared them with phosphorus grenades, burning them out entirely.

Leaving the place,

essentially, a gutted ruin on a beautiful stretch of coastline.

[Rob] It seems mad that they'd completely destroy

what they themselves had built.

But they were determined to make sure that there was nothing left

for the Croats.

[Lynette] By the end of the bombardment,

this was no longer a habitable place.

[narrator] It took two weeks

for the Serbian-led forces to recapture the coastline.

for the Serbian-led forces to recapture the coastline.

They destroyed 2,000 homes in the process.

[translator] All those attacks along the entire coastline

forced 5,500 out of the 6,000 people living here to flee.

Our house was hit by grenades.

After we had fled, after the municipality had been occupied,

the house was burnt and erased to the ground.

the house was burnt and erased to the ground.

It's very hard to understand what would have motivated people to do that.

[narrator] The Serbian-led occupation of Kupari

lasted until May, 1992,

when the Croatians finally took it back.

Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic died in 2006,

while standing trial for war crimes.

And the decimated resort of Kupari

has still not recovered.

has still not recovered.

[Rob] The level of devastation here is horrifying.

And it's, basically, sat like that ever since.

[translator] For more than 30 years

this place has waited to see better days.

To be returned to its former glory.

[Geoff] But good news, this site has been bought by investors

and there are plans to redevelop it as a great beach resort.