Hosting the Olympic games is a huge honor, and huge undertaking, for any city. Between venue and course construction and operating costs, the final bill for the games are immense. The estimated total costs for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi is $51 billion dollars. But after the torch moves on, and the athletes all go home, how does the host city clean up?
Often times, they don’t, and the structures erected just for two weeks of competition languish for years. These recently unearthed photos from the 1984 Winter Games are an example of how the Olympic games never really leave a city.
The 1984 Winter Olympics, officially titled the XIV Olympic Winter Games, took place in February of that year in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia. The event marked the second consecutive Olympics, and first winter games, held in a Communist state. If you’re looking for Sarejevo on a world map, it’s the spot currently labeled Bosnia-Herzegovina.
While some of the pictures look just like an abandoned ski resort or highway underpass, a few shots are fascinating in a “world that disappeared” kind of way — like if the zombies win or the “big one” finally gets dropped.
Click here to see more amazing photos of abandoned spots from the 1984 Winter Games.
[via Reddit]