page_title: Biały Słoń
section_title: World War II and abandonment
hierarchical_section_title: Biały Słoń / World War II and abandonment
caption_attribution_description: Українська: План-схема прибудинкової території обсерваторії на г. Попиван
context_page_description: Biały Słoń is a Polish name for an abandoned campus of the former Polish Astronomical and Meteorological Observatory of Warsaw University, located at remote area on the peak of Pip Ivan in the Chornohora range of the Carpathian Mountains, Ukraine. Currently the structure is used as a mountain shelter with a small search and rescue team with some rooms adopted for lodging and recovery.
  Along with that Bialy Slon is recognized as a historical landmark and there are restoration activities on the way since 2012 to restore its original conditions in cooperation with the Ciscarpathian National University and the Warsaw University and scheduled to be finished in 2018. It is considered to be the highest built residential structure in Ukraine.
  The closest settlement today is a village of Zelena in Verkhovyna Raion and territorially belongs to the Zelena rural council. Currently the observatory is classified under the registration number three as a monument of cultural heritage that is not considered for privatization. The facility is located with the Carpathian National Nature Park.
context_section_description: On September 18, 1939, following the Soviet aggression on eastern part of Poland (see: Kresy), the personnel of the Observatory packed the most important equipment (including the refractor) and left toward the Hungarian border. At first it was taken to the Budapest Konkoly Observatory, and by the end of war to the Vienna Observatory. Within the first years after the war, the equipment returned to Poland. The three-lens objective today is located in the Silesian Planetarium (Katowice).
  At the end of the month, the Red Army captured the building. After the region was united with the Ukrainian SSR, the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (NASU) sent an expedition. On 31 December 1939 the first academician-astronomer of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR Oleksandr Orlov ascended to the observatory. He established that the most valuable equipment has been taken out of the building, including five lenses of big diameter, two lenses of smaller diameter, two micrometers, and two chronometers. Based on the Orlov's report, the NASU Presidium declared that the Carpathian Astronomical Observatory (the newly acquired name) is transferred to the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, based on the resolution of the government of the Ukrainian SSR of 2 January 1940. The director of the Carpathian Observatory was appointed academician Oleksandr Orlov. Until June 1941 it was used as a meteorological station. In the summer of 1941 (see: Operation Barbarossa), the Observatory was seized by the Wehrmacht, which in turn was passed to the Hungarian troops, who were stationed there until winter 1941. After that, the deserted building became a ruin, even though it had not been damaged during the war, the locals reused all remaining material. Even the cast iron batteries were taken away.
  It was reported that Germans have taken out metal parts of astrograph to Lviv. Now they are kept indoors of the Lviv University Faculty of Physics.
caption: Topographic map of the building's surroundings
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