Havre, Montana, USA
Perhaps the youngest underground city, built just over 100 years ago by Chinese immigrants in the northwestern United States. Initially, the secret system of catacombs served to conduct all kinds of illegal business. Opium was smuggled through underground tunnels, and in branch caves, salons were set up where victims of the harmful habit could satisfy their passion.
Gradually, below, under the city lying on the surface, another one arose. With its own bars, restaurants, laundries, a dentist's office, and even a brothel. When a large fire destroyed most of the city in 1904, its inhabitants moved into the catacombs and lived there until their homes were rebuilt. During Prohibition, the catacombs again became popular as they became the only place in town where one could taste alcoholic beverages.
Currently, tourists are taken to the underground city, showing them the preserved opium salon, Chinese restaurant, laundry, and brothel.
Paris, France
The Paris quarries are located about 100 meters deep under the city streets and, according to various sources, their length ranges from 180 to 300 kilometers. They arose due to the extraction of limestone and gypsum, from which the city was mostly built at that time. Since, when digging another tunnel and extracting limestone blocks, no one was interested in what was around, by the end of the 18th century the walls of both the tunnels themselves and the buildings built above them began to collapse more and more often. As a result, in 1777 King Louis XVI issued a decree on the inspection of quarries, which exists to this day, trying to keep the Parisian dungeons in a safe condition.
Eight years later, in 1785, the quarries received another purpose: the remains of six million people, who had been buried for centuries at the city's Cemetery of the Innocents, were moved here. Currently, tourists can walk a 2.5-kilometer path through the improved tunnels and, if desired, see a wall of human skulls and bones artistically arranged at the exit of the dungeons.
Adventure seekers should look for the community of Parisian cataphiles, who can take them to places inaccessible to ordinary tourists. However, rumor has it that as an 'initiation', the guide often leaves their charge alone for a couple of hours in complete darkness, so that they first come to respect the secrets of the catacombs.
Cappadocia, Turkey
The cave settlements in Cappadocia, which arose back in the first millennium BC, are included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. Scientists believe that the main reason for choosing such an unusual method of construction was the lack of wood for building normal houses and at the same time the easily workable rock that makes up the local mountains.
As a result, a multi-level system of caves emerged, in which up to 20 thousand people once lived. Then the cities were abandoned and rediscovered only in the 19th century by a French priest who, descending into a hole in the middle of a mountain plain, unexpectedly found himself in a huge underground city several stories high.
Ventilation was carried out using shafts that led to the surface, and the rooms were adapted not only for human habitation but also for storing grain, keeping animals, and making wine. In addition, many temples with rare beautiful frescoes were found in the underground cities.
City of the Gods, Giza, Egypt
Unlike the previous three, this city is not open to tourists, and many even question its very existence. The 'City of the Gods', located under the Giza Plateau, was supposedly discovered in 1978 after deciphering data from a secret radar that originally studied the Egyptian pyramids. Scientists believe that it is this underground labyrinth that was mentioned by the ancient Greek historian Herodotus. The walls of the tunnels are covered with numerous drawings, and each hall is finished with white marble.
There are many assumptions about the purpose of the City of the Gods. Some claim that the Egyptians used the caves to pass on secret knowledge to chosen students, others say it was a kind of ancient subway.
Olga Grigorieva.
Turist.ru