"Abandoned City" Yumen

In the past more than half a century, oil exploitation has been exhausted, and the municipal government, oil fields and 90,000 residents have moved out. The old town was ruined and was almost empty.In front of the empty old city government building, the slogan "All for oil" has not faded.

"Abandoned City" Yumen

This set of photos was taken from April 14, 2018 to April 18, 2018. Yumen City, Gansu Province, China.

Yumen gave birth to the first oil well in China and gave birth to the "Iron Man" Wang Jinxi.

In December 1957, China's first oil industry base was built in Yumen. The crude oil output reached 755,400 tons that year, accounting for 87.78% of the total national oil production at that time. Yumen District is set up in the city and rises from the ground.

In the past more than half a century, oil exploitation has been exhausted, and the municipal government, oil fields and 90,000 residents have moved out. The old town of Laojunmiao was ruined and was almost empty.

In front of the empty old city government building, the slogan "All for oil" has not faded.

The unique value of Yumen is that it is China's first oil industry base. While creating a number of "China's first" in the industrial field, it has cultivated an industrial culture with socialist characteristics such as the iron man spirit and the "three Bigs and four Outs".

The monopoly of the oil industry, combined with the history of military control and the integration of government and enterprise, has made Yumen create a special "dualistic" structure. After the production capacity of the old mining area has been seriously degraded, the relocation measures of different institutions have turned the old city into a “recycled city of the Republic”.

Going back again, Yumen is a geographical concept followed two thousand years, carrying an extremely rich cultural imagery. "There is no city in the camping, the rain and the snow are even deserted." Once the frontiers wanted the land, the Silk Road was the town, and then the energy-producing place, the empty city that could not reach the spring breeze, "during talking and laughing, Cao’s million-strong army was burned".

The city will face a transformation and life will always change.

Old Yumen, the old things are disappearing forever. The new is brewing all still under the rubble.