Abandoned attraction from an abandoned factory

Ulcinj Solana, Montenegro. Claimed to be the oldest company around Ulcinj city according to Wikipedia. It produced the salt since the beginning of the previous century. And ceased to work in 2013. Since then the area became abandoned. Not exactly abandoned.

I stumbled upon a post in the internet, describing the place as an ornithology park. Open for visitors. So I thought it might be interesting. We got close to the area using a map the other day during our walk. But there was a metal fence. I was not sure whether the place is actually open for everyone. I recall another salty nature park “Solila” around Tivat was fenced too to an extent, with the fancy entrance, but it was totally void of any control and open. So we took another road to “Solana” in search of a bigger entrance.

It was getting more industrial when we found a checkpoint. It is like a normal entrance of a huge soviet era factory. But apparently the company was abandoned. Still there was a man sitting inside the checkpoint. When asked about the visit, he said the price is so and so. He got out a classic notebook with names of people and times written down. Our exit time was supposed to be added later.

I dont know who is the man and who controls the area. It looks like they decided to make a tourist attraction here at some point. Although it doesn’t look that popular. For the whole time attending we have seen only a single person from afar. Next time i went to make some pictures, and met no one. Just a peaceful place, feeling post apocalyptic in a positive way. There is some art at the entrance. And it looks like they even wanted to make a bike rental at some point. Since the area is quite big. This building with bikes inside felt abandoned though. And the man on the exit said that bikes are not usable anymore. I like this obscurity. A reminder that no things are forever.

Walking through the area we met a wooden house with the stairs, leading to an open door and a bottle of wine standing there. Next visit I carefully climbed upstairs, stepping on the edges of rotten steps, where they were the most stable. And I looked inside. There was a picture of some person on the wall, musty atmosphere, animal excrements and a bunch of chaotically abandoned things. Some were in regular places. Like a monitor with a keyboard, an ashtray and papers on the table. I didn’t want to step inside, might be dangerous floor too, so I just came down.

Walking further there was an abandoned laboratory. Again lots of things have been left there just as they were. Only the stuff was behind the windows. While the entrance door was closed with a padlock. But appliances could be seen inside. Plenty of flasks and test tubes on the shelves. And dried plants sadly stood behind the dusty glasses.

A table standing outside with strange devices, all covered with rust. All of this leading us to questions what the heck was going on here? How is it related to the salt mining? What about ornithology?

We went to the outskirts of the buildings area so we could see a number of artificial square-shaped pools. Hundreds of meters wide each. I guess they would push the sea water through massive faucets filling these pools. There might be some canalisation channels underneath too. But they probably just used to let this water evaporate from the pools leaving salt crystals for harvesting.

We checked those pools close by, which were shown as the water on the map. But they all appeared to be dry, grassy, with spots of cracked earth. So I turned on the satellite layer of the map, which is supposed to be more recent. A couple of huge bodies of water could be seen on the map. We had to take another route to check this, behind one of abandoned hangars. We sneaked through the broken glass and clods of glasswool. Plants already took control of the area. There was a passage to the ground road which went up along the channel. We took the road and stumbled upon another dry pool. This one was deep and vast, with beautiful lawns of red grass growing through white layers of dried algae.

We went further and finally the second pool appeared to be full of water. I guess thats where you can do some birdwatching. My bet is there were more watery pools, so the birds actively used an area once the factory was closed. Hence the ornithology story. But may be then the pools started to dry out, so not that many birds left. Although we have seen some friendly on the way. They let us close enough. Here some were flying on top of the water. And a pack of swimmers could be seen on the further side of the pool.

We spent some time sitting near the water watching around and a far before going back. Thats when we stumbled upon a big hangar with a huge rocky thing inside. Something dark grey with white spots. Few meters in height, this rock felt out of this world. It had an interesting shape, like something from a deep cave. My guess is they used or at least experimented with other salt mining methods too. And it looks like there were salt crystals inside this rock. It may also be a slicy piece from underground rotated on the side.

That was in the center of the whole area with buildings. I guess we found the philosopher stone. Now with a peace of mind we could finally leave the place and return home.