Ukraine's White Elephant observatory gets new lease of life

Ukraine

PERCHED spectacularly 2,000 metres up on a snowcapped peak in Ukraine's Carpathian Mountains, the Bilyi Slon observatory has stood empty and battered by the elements for some seven decades.

Abandoned only a year after it was built in what was then Poland due to the outbreak of World War II, it became a carcass of thick sandstone walls and missing windows that looked more like a ruined castle than a scientific outpost.