Biały Słoń

Biały Słoń (English: White Elephant; Ukrainian: Білий слон, Bily slon) 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 (Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast) 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.

The region was part of the Second Polish Republic when the observatory was established during the interbellum period. Biały Słoń, started in 1937 and completed in the summer of 1938, was the highest-elevated, permanently inhabited, building in Poland. It was located on the international border between the Second Polish Republic and Czechoslovakia that stretched across...