Chi siamo

Hello our dear reader!

We are happy to share with you our site – our small baby that we were growing during 3 years since 2016. We hope that you will like our work and will be happy to greet you inside the new world where abandoned places are not forgotten and continue living!

About us

N: Hello! I am Nastia and I am 23 years old. I was born in Crimea, when it was Ukrainian, and in 2013 moved to Moscow where I still live. I was studying journalism in National Research University Higher School of Economics. Since then I used to work as an editor in such journals as Slon (Republic now), RBC, 34travel, Perito-Burrito and Takie Dela. Now I am doing my master in media management in HSE.

In my free time I like to make some ecological events and help people with IDD in our club called Best Buddies. In the autumn of 2019 I bought my first car to search for more abandoned places and took a dog Margo who later will become a guide for a blind person. She sometimes helps me to explore some abandoned places!

J: Ciao! My name is Jacopo and usually my friends call me Donquixote Rosinante Corazon. I am 25, and I was born in a small city in Veneto region called Este. I have studied sociology in Padova University, and in 2018 I moved to Moscow to do my master in Comparative Social Research. I am really into environmental issues, therefore my future topics and projects will be more and more dedicated to these problematics. From the autumn 2019 I study in France, Paris.

By the way, my name is Jacopo, and not JacoBo. Just please, remember that.

How we met

N: It was June, 2015, when Jacopo first appeared on the threshold of my house. I accepted his request in couchsurfing, and since then the biggest journey of our lives started.

I knew that this boy will bring lots of joy and adventures to my life, and since then it has been always joyful and adventurous our road.

Unfortunately in the end of 2018 we broke up though we still keep on working together on Stalker.

Birth of Stalker

N: Since the first our meeting Jacopo’s passion was always abandoned buildings. He was always saying that he wants to make his own blog, but actually he never did. So one day I just said to him,

“Look, now we gonna create our own site”.

It was November, 2016, when our blog was born.

J: I immediately decided to call our blog Stalker, because I truly love the movie of Andrei Tarkovsky, “Stalker” (1979). I would love to write a quote here:

Among the visitors of places, there are “stalkers”, who are explores, from the eponymous film by Andrei Tarkovsky (1979). They are exploring “shade areas” with maximum respect without any invasions or manumission. Stalkers are guests of industrial and residential areas, military objects, rural and desolate ruins, historical buildings fallen into desuse out of any dimension.

This quote is completely about us: we visit abandoned place with the full respect, we never do any harm to it, never take anything from there (even if it is an amazing book we were always searching for, or a cool sweater). We love abandoned places, it is our passion, and if we will treat them with respect – they will give us in turn respect.

N: In this blog we show the adventures that happened to us during 2016-2019. We traveled a lot in Europe, Asia and Africa. Overall we visited more than 40 countries, and we are not gonna stop!

While we travel we try to visit abandoned places rather than tourist places crowded and full of flesh and bones. It is much more fun and interesting, and furthermore we open and discover something  about locals and hidden spots which would never be uncovered following the tourist paths.

How to join us

Every of you can write us an email to abbandonedme@gmail.com. We read all of your mails with greetings, questions, support. Send us your story about abandoned places in your region, and luckily it will be published on the pages of our blog. We are curious to hear every story, so don’t hesitate to contact us.

Thank you all and see you in this world full of adventures!