Home on Baumann Enkataleiptics

A Thousand People for a Month

Mon, 27 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

On my recent field trip to Croatia, I visited one of the country’s arguably most famous abandoned sites: Željava airbase. Built beneath Mount Plješevica on what is now the Croatian–Bosnian border, the former Yugoslav Air Force installation – codenamed Objekat 505 – combined several runways with roughly 3.5 kilometres of underground aircraft galleries (known as Klek 505), maintenance areas and command facilities. Completed in the late 1960s, it housed two fighter squadrons and a reconnaissance squadron, principally equipped with variants of the MiG-21. The complex was deliberately destroyed during the wars accompanying the breakup of Yugoslavia on May 16, 1992, leaving its runways cratered and almost all of the underground infrastructure burnt, blasted and stripped.

Monument to the Uprising of the People of Kordun and Banija

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

There is much that can be written about the Monument to the Uprising of the People of Kordun and Banija. There is also much that has already been written about the Monument of… oh, I’m just going to call it the Monument - saves me a good amount of typing.

Because so much has already been written about it, I will not repeat the purpose of the Monument, its construction dates, and so on – you can find that all on Wikipedia.

M1730 reactivated

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

M1730

In the last post, I wrote about the M1730 ammeters: Soviet measuring instruments originally manufactured, tested, and certified for nuclear power plant use around 35 years ago. They are ammeters, but with the right sort of magic, they can display pretty much anything.

After a rather improbable journey from Ukraine to Switzerland – including a brief detour through false accusations of transferring money to a sanctioned Russian politician – a box of Soviet nuclear-power-plant instruments ended up on my workbench. They had stayed in their packaging long enough. It was time for them to do some work.

Petrol Station Near Nemea

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Ebbw Vale Comprehensive School

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The disappearance of a school

I discovered, almost by accident, that one of the schools I tought at as a young German language assistant has completely disappeared. No trace left except photos, memories and old aerial views…

Checked, Sealed, Forgotten

Sun, 07 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Where do I put this…

I wasn’t sure whether to tag this post with “Biel”, “Leningrad” or “Slavutych”. All three places are referenced on the map – I will explain my choices below.

There were hundreds of these things!

One of the things that struck me during my 2018 visit to the Chornobyl NPP was the interface design of the control rooms. While there were some digital elements (several VFD displays of Skala parameters and the Pyatachok), many instruments were still analogue. And a lot of those analogue instruments looked similar - a long rectangle with a value and a scale behind glass, and a light beam indicating the current value on the scale.

Contact

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Enkataleiptics

Enkataleiptics is a modern term derived from the Ancient Greek concept of ἐγκατάλειψις (enkatáleipsis), meaning abandonment, desertion, or the act of leaving something behind.

The term was coined to describe the study of structures, artefacts, technologies, and landscapes that have outlived their original purpose and entered a state of abandonment, neglect, reuse, decay, or historical transformation.

While inspired by the naming conventions of disciplines such as linguistics, cybernetics, and economics, Enkataleiptics has no established academic usage (yet) and is employed here in a broader interdisciplinary sense.

Map

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The ECS

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The Enkataleiptic Classification System (ECS)

The Enkataleiptic Classification System (ECS) is a framework for describing the current state of sites, structures, artefacts, and landscapes undergoing or having undergone Enkataleipsis — the process by which places and objects are left behind by their original users.

Traditional classifications often focus on a site’s original purpose: industrial, military, residential, religious, or agricultural. The ECS instead focuses on its present condition. A blast furnace, a castle, a railway station, and a farmhouse may differ greatly in age and function, yet all can occupy similar stages of abandonment, decay, fragmentation, reclamation, or loss.