Military Collections in Sweden – Third Chapter

The rich military tradition of Sweden can be retraced by means of many interesting dedicated collections. Many of them are scattered in the nice southernmost country regions of the Scandinavian peninsula, and make for an interesting detour from the most popular touristic destinations.

As reported in the previous two chapters on the topic (see here and here), the neutrality of Sweden in the major confrontations taking place during the 20th century allowed this northern Country to operate in a unique and original way, especially in terms of military procurement. Besides picking what was actually deemed suitable for their internal needs especially from the West, Sweden managed develop a strong domestic design and manufacturing capability, such to fulfill its own self-defense role in a cost-effective and credible way.

The defense of neutrality was carried out in the air by a strong Air Force, often updated over the years. With the end of communism in Eastern Europe and the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, the major threat in the Baltic area came to an end as well, resulting in a major scale-down of this defense force and the disbandment of many military organizations. Correspondingly, memorial museums can be found often close to former airbases. One of them, dedicated to the ‘Scania’ wing F10, in operation since WWII to the early 2000s, is covered in this chapter.

A rather complete collection of aircraft from the entire span of the Cold War can be found in the unusual frame of a private museum, established in the 1960s from the will of the founder to display primarily his own collection of cars. The mix is particularly interesting, witnessing also the close link between Sweden and the vehicle industry of the US, possibly the tightest among all Countries in Europe.

Of course, in the theater of WWII Sweden was politically and geographically in an interesting position as well as later in the Cold War. Its relative proximity to the Third Reich meant it was often overflown by bombers on their way back from missions over mainland Germany. Dogfights and bomber chase missions reached the airspace of Sweden, sometimes ending with either German or Allied aircraft crashing on Swedish territory. An interesting museum covered in this chapter is fully dedicated to the topic.

Photographs in this chapter were taken in the summer of 2024.

Navigate this post – Click on links to scroll

Sights

Ängelholms Flight Museum, Ängelholm

This nice collection of military aviation can be found on the former premises of the air base of Barkåkra (today Helsingborg airport), which has been the home of the 10th Wing ‘Scania’ (aka. F10 or ‘Ängelholm Wing’) between 1945 until the disbandment of the latter in 2002. Established during WWII, the illustrious history of the F10 wing spanned the entire Cold War, reaching into the 21st century. Correspondingly, the Scania Wing was supplied over the years with a rich inventory of aircraft models, ranging from classic fighters of WWII to the more recent SAAB Viggen and Gripen.

The structure of the exhibition, rather compact in size, is composed of two major areas.

In the first, the history of F10 is retraced especially by means of interesting photographs and memorabilia items. Among the pictures, some portray American bomber crews as well as German fighters landed on Swedish territory, which remained neutral during WWII.

In this area are also a few dioramas and reconstructions of typical military scenes, including a medical room, from the earlier days of operation of the Scania Wing. Everyday items, as well as military training and illustrative material, is presented in display cases.

The second major area is where most hardware of the collection can be found – aircraft, engines, vehicles, and much gear from the days of operation of the F10 wing. Among the earliest models acquired by F10 back in the WWII years was – rather interestingly – an Italian fighter, the Reggiane Re-2000 Falco, a batch of which was obtained from Italy in a supply shortage scenario, where especially the US had halted material export to non-allied countries. Pressed into service with the Air Force of Sweden (and specifically also with the F10 wing) as an interceptor with the locally attributed code of J20, this generally adequate machine was powered by a Piaggio P.XI 14-cylinders radial engine (which according to Roman numbering then often employed in Italy translates into P.11), a 1.040 hp model license-made in Italy, and originally a French design by Gnome-Rhone. A Re-2000 is not on display, but a Piaggio P.XI is! This engine has been quite popular in those years in Sweden, ending up also as an interim power plant for the Swedish own SAAB B17C single-engine light bomber/diver (not to be confounded with the homonym American Flying Fortress).

Close by the P.XI is the oldest aircraft on display belonging to the F10, in the form of a FFVS J22. The company FFVS was actually a Swedish state-managed entity, borne in the years of WWII to cope with the wartime supply requirements on one side and the overbooking of the SAAB plants on the other. Introduced during WWII, this rugged fighter was powered by a Pratt & Whitney R-1830, the ubiquitous Twin Wasp, license-built in Sweden by Svenska Flygmotor. The Scania Wing received the J22 model only in 1945, the last propeller-driven aircraft in its inventory. The exemplar on display looks under maintenance, and is possibly in airworthy conditions.

Next on display is a SAAB J29 Tunnan, with its distinctive barrel-shaped fuselage enshrouding the single, centrifugal flow jet engine. The F10 wing transitioned to jets in 1946 with the early SAAB J21R and the British-supplied DeHavilland DH100 Vampire (named J28R in Sweden). The Tunnan was provided to the F10 wing in 1953, and there it remained until 1963, while more advanced models were becoming available. The engine of the J29 was a DeHavilland Ghost, manufactured under licence in Sweden by Svenska Flygmotor under the name RM2B – an example is on display.

Close to the tail cone of the Tunnan is also a DeHavilland Goblin engine, originally employed on the Vampire.

The longest-lasting workhorse in F10 service has been the SAAB J35 Draken. An exemplar of the J version, the most updated and last (with the actual modification taking place in the late 1980s), is on display. The distinctive bulge for the IR seeker under the fuselage, appearing from the modern F version on, can be checked out from very close.

Interestingly, the Draken is presented with an exemplar of the Rb-28 missile hanging from an underwing pylon. This is a SAAB-modified version of the US-designed Hughes AIM-4D Falcon, an air-to-air missile conceived as an anti-bomber weapon, but hastily pressed into service against Vietnamese MiGs during the Vietnam war, under the wings of the Phantom, and proving very ineffective in the dogfighting role. For the Soviet bomber interdiction role of the Draken, this missile platform was deemed more effective, and it was retained for service for decades in Sweden.

Other missiles, rockets and guns (including a dismounted Aden 30 mm cannon) pertaining to the warload of the Draken are on display as well, together with an interesting console for missile signal testing.

Ahead of the Draken is a memorial wall, and ahead of it is a Rolls-Royce Avon jet engine, displayed as an instructional cutaway – including both the turbomachinery and the afterburning component. License-built in Sweden by Svenska Flygmotor as RM6C, this was the engine of the Draken.

The F10 wing received the SAAB J37 Viggen only after the collapse of the USSR in 1993, marking the beginning of the last, post-Cold War chapter in the history of the unit. Quite elusive due to its adoption only by Sweden, albeit rather successful in its intended roles, an exemplar of this machine can be found in this collection. Specifically, this is a photo reconnaissance version named SF37. Lacking a radar, this model typically operated on reconnaissance missions in a flight of two, together with a radar-supplied SH37 variant.

The Viggen can be neared and checked out entirely with ease, thanks to its positioning on a pedestal. The photo-reconnaissance payload is on display. Under the left wing is a SAAB Rb-04 anti-ship missile. This Swedish own design was conceived for countering invasion starting from the sea. With a radius of 25 km and active radar homing, its warhead was sufficient for knocking out an enemy cruiser with a single hit.

The collection of the Scania Wing also includes the SAAB SK60 trainer, a successful trainer employed for decades, and inducted into the F10 inventory during the 1990s, when the wing took over the basic training role from the F5 wing. Similarly, an ubiquitous Bell 204 (Hkp 3B according to Swedish naming) can be found on display, as it was employed within the F10 for rescue and logistics/transport duties.

Close to the Viggen are further interesting exhibits. One is on the wartime bases (krigsflygbaser, see this post), with models and original signs from one of them.

Another is about weather forecasting within F10. It includes electronic hardware, an entire room with original consoles, and weather balloons, still today employed to carry atmospheric sounds.

A display is dedicated to pilot’s protection helmets, survival kits and ejection seats. Not only in Sweden, the latter have been in the focus of a major technological development over the years of the Cold War. Ejecting from a fast jet in the 1950s was reportedly a highly-risky business, since even when the maneuver was technically successful – i.e. such to take the pilot out of the aircraft alive – the ejection-induced acceleration alone was more than enough to cause serious injury, usually to the spine. Over the years, multi-stage ejection was implemented, allowing for a more gradual maneuver, which albeit remaining lightning-fast, does not inflict so harsh a treatment to the pilot’s body as in the past.

A top exhibit on display is an original cockpit from a SAAB J35 Draken, employed for training purposes. The cockpit is very well preserved, thoroughly described by explanatory panels nearby, and it can be boarded to give you a feeling of the functionality of the onboard systems, as well as of the ergonomics of the cockpit.

Two more training aircraft are included in the exhibition, a SK61 and SK50, both single-propeller machines employed for basic training.

Additionally, the last type in service with the F10 has been the SAAB JAS39 Gripen (from 1999 until disbandment), which is here represented by means of the first serial production machine of the first version (‘A’). This exemplar was actually never pressed in air force service, but it was employed as a test bed for multiple operations, including test firing of missile ordnance in the early 2000s.

Additional dioramas in this compact but rich collection include op-rooms from various ages.

An interesting exhibit is a relatively well-preserved Rolls-Royce Merlin piston enigine, originally powering a British Avro Lancaster bomber which sank south of Trelleborg in the Baltic Sea, presumably early in 1945 after a bombing run over Germany.

Finally, on the outside it is possible to find a British Bristol Bloodhound Mk II missile. This SAM supplied a squadron of F10 wing, complementing the air defense role in proximity to the airbase.

Getting there and visiting

The name of the museum in the local language is Ängelholms Flygmuseum, which translates into Ängelholm Flight Museum. It is located on the southwestern border of the former airbase of Ängelholm, easily reachable at the address Drakenvägen 5, 26274 Ängelholm. This town is 15 mi north of Helsingborg along the E6 highway.

Large parking ahead of the entrance. Nice shop with books, toys and gadgets by the ticket office. The museum facility is rather compact, yet a visit may easily take 1.5 hours for an interested subject, when carefully checking out all items on display and taking pictures. Descriptions are in double language, Swedish/English, allowing for an informative visit even if you are from abroad.

Professional website with full information here.

Museum of Forced Landings, Morup

The Museum of Forced Landings (in Swedish language the museum is named in a rather different way, ‘Morups Samtidsmuseum’) is a one-of-a-kind collection of remains and traces from air crashes or forced landings taking place during WWII in Sweden. Run by a lively group of dedicated enthusiasts, the display is extremely well-crafted, offering not just an array of many and diverse relics from aircraft wrecks, but for each of them a complete synopsis of the story behind that specific flight – and the crewmen who were on board.

Furthermore, in my case I was accompanied by a very knowledgeable English-speaking gentleman for the entire duration of my visit, making the experience even more engaging.

The exhibition starts with a display of general maps of the crash or forced landing sites. A sharp increase towards the end of the war is evident, due to the increase in the number of bombing raids over the center of the Third Reich. The crashed aircraft are mostly from the US and Britain. When hit over Germany but still airworthy, Allied crews attempted an escape to neutral Sweden, to avoid capture by the Germans.

Of course, Sweden was a neutral country, hence all grounded crews, irrespective of their nationality, were interned, albeit in more than decent conditions, especially compared to German or Soviet prison camps.

A map of the internment location in Sweden is presented as well. Clearly, also German aircraft crash-landed in Sweden. Crews of opposing nationalities were interned in totally different locations. Rare photographs from these sites are on display.

Then, one by one, the display cases describe each a notable forced landing, retracing its timeline, and showing some relics from the wreckage, as well as personal items belonging to the crew. Nice detailed scaled models and dioramas of the accident complete the reconstruction.

Among them are a German Messerschmitt Bf110 attack aircraft, with a fragment of the canopy as well as other parts on display, Norwegian training aircraft, a German Junkers Ju-52 transport, with an entire control column put as an exhibit.

The bombsight, radio and other instrument goggles belong to a German Heinkel He-111 bomber landed on ice.

One of the plots documented in the deepest detail is that involving Lt Edward E. Phillips, of USAAF 354th fighter group, which flew escort missions over Germany from Baxton, England, with North American P-51 Mustang fighters. On the 15th of April 1944, on return from a mostly failed bombing mission over Germany in bad weather, Lt. Phillips aircraft was chased north by a Bf109. He was hit over southern Sweden, bailed out but the parachute failed to deploy. He was killed instantly, and his aircraft impacted soft terrain and sank so deeply due to its own energy that it almost disappeared into the ground – and there it remained for 40 years. In the 1990s an excavation attempt was carried out by the future crew of the museum, uncovering substantial remains of the aircraft, including many parts, cockpit gauges, machine guns, an entire landing gear leg, and more.

A link was established by the local crew with the former wife of the man in the US, and the story hit the news. A memorial was inaugurated on the location of the crash.

Another American aircraft with a story to tell is a Consolidated B-24 Liberator. This time the aircraft managed to crash land under control, and the entire crew of 10 was saved and interned. Sgt Robert C. Birmingham, part of the crew, visited the locations of his adventure in Sweden more than once with his family.

More accidents described in the display involve British and German aircraft.

In an adjoining room, an impressive collection of quality scale models reconstruct many of the aircraft in service within the Air Force in Sweden, including details such as different celebration markings and camo coats. Among the artifacts and memorabilia items on display in this part is an autographed photo of WWII German ace Günther Rall.

In another small hangar is an interesting addition to the collection, mostly centered on aircraft engines. Engines from crash-landed aircraft, significantly damaged but undergoing a display-oriented cleaning and refurbishment, make for an unusual and interesting sight.

Outside is also a small collection of classic cars in pristine conditions.

Getting there and visiting

The museum is called ‘Morups Samtidsmuseum’ in Swedish language. It can be found right along the road N.768 about 6 miles north of the coastal town of Falkenberg, 0.25 miles north of the small town of Morup. The exact address is X9MP+84 Morup.

A visit may take about 1 hour, more when stimulating further telling by the very enthusiastic crew of the association running the museum.

Please note that no credit cards are accepted, only cash is – unless you are entitled to employ electronic payment methods allowed for citizens or residents of Sweden.

The website, partially under construction as of spring 2025, can be found here.

Credit for directing me to this hidden gem goes to Martin Steffen, from Sweden.

Svedino’s Automobile and Aviation Museum, Ugglarp

This unusual exhibition originates from the own collection of Lennart Svedfelt, a prominent Swedish stage and TV entertainer borne in 1924 and known as ‘Svedino’. The man started purchasing cars and planes for the purpose of collecting them, in an era when a similar activity was hardly heard of. In 1961 he opened his collection as a permanent display, the first museum dedicated to cars in Sweden. Over the years, and even following his passing, the museum continued to grow, reaching more than 100 cars and 40 aircraft on display today!

Even though this is not an eminently military museum, despite the cars being beautiful civilian cars, most aircraft on display are military machines, including some remarkable items – therefore, Svedino’s perfectly fits within this chapter!

The cars on display make for a really unique collection, in and out of Sweden. A remarkable feature is especially the number and uniqueness of US-made cars from the inter-war period between WWI and WWII. In a first building, these include models by Chevrolet, Buick, Dodge, Nash, Oldsmobile, and more!

Also some classic models from European manufacturers, like Opel, are on display. A special rarity is an Adler Trumpf from 1934. Adler, a German company from the 19th century active in the manufacture of petrol engines, operated in the car market for a relatively short time, roughly coincident with the Third Reich period. They made cars in the intermediate price segment, with good success. The company changed business following WWII, making Adler cars interesting collectible items representing car-making from a specific era.

As expected from a Swedish museum, a full array of classic Volvo is on display! These include small trucks and saloons, and interesting models like the PV36 from the inter-war period. Similar to the PV830 and the iconic PV444 from the immediate post-WWII years, an influence of the contemporary American designs is undeniable in all these models.

Also on display are more modern vehicles employed as state cars. An interesting item is a very old Gräf & Stift, an Austrian luxury sedan from before WWI, salvaged from the bottom of a Swedish lake after spending there more than 40 years, and acquired by the museum.

Two interesting cars on display are personal designs from the early 1950s. In Sweden it was possible at that time to introduce privately-built cars, provided they could sustain a compliance check. An example of a fantasy car, with a rather aggressive design and physically assembled from parts of other cars, is on display. It was never completed nor allowed on the road. Another example, designed and made by the son of the industrialist Wennberg, reportedly roamed around all over the 1950s! This unique exemplar is on display with ‘factory markings’ HW.

In a second adjoining building, a really valuable collection of even older cars, dating from earlier than 1930, is on display. Also here most items in the collection are from the US, a really rare sight on this side of the ocean! Looking at the elaborated labels of these oldies, made by Ford, Anderson, Seneca, and thinking of the craftsmen who personally assembled them back in the America of the early 1900s is really thought-provoking!

Among the most unique cars on display is a Pierce-Arrow from 1918, sitting alongside a Haynes from the same year.

Moving on to another adjoining hall, here cars are on display alongside a few classic planes from the first half of the 20th century. A DeHavilland Moth, a Götaverken GV-38 seaplane (a licence-built Rearwin Sportster, a US design), as well as a German Klemm Kl-35 and a Focke-Wulf FW-44 designs, are on the list together with more light airplanes and a few engines.

The latter include an original Rolls-Royce Goblin and Avon, respectively from a DeHavilland Vampire and a SAAB Draken, both in service with the Air Force of Sweden during the Cold War.

A focus of the exhibition is on the memory of a pioneer of Swedish aviation industry, Enoch Tulin, who is the author of many ‘firsts’ in the aeronautical history of this Country – the largest aviation workshop to date before WWI (with 900 employees), the first air mail service, the first air rescue mission, and more. A graduated engineer, flight instructor and early aerobatic pilot, Tulin died in an airplane crash in 1919, after gaining unquestioned prominence in many fields of aeronautical industry and operation in his era.

A final adjoining hall concludes the oldest part of the exhibition premises. Here the spotlight is on a few fighters from the Cold War era, namely a SAAB J29 Tunnan, two DeHavilland Vampire, and even a SAAB J35 Draken.

The latter is really a unique exemplar. As can be guessed by the monstrous red and white spine on the nose cone, typical to experimental aircraft and not a feature of the production machine, the one on display is actually the first prototype!

Another curious item is a Soviet-made Kamov Ka-26 helicopter. Alongside the helicopter is a vintage advertisement from 1975, written in Swedish, and made by Aviaexport, a Soviet agency for the commercialization of Soviet aeronautical products abroad. Borne as an import-export, Aviaexport acted also as a recipient of foreign certification rules, spreading the growing body of western aeronautical regulation within the Soviet design bureaus, to the aim of keeping the quality standard to a level sufficient for commercialization in foreign countries. Actually, thanks to Aviaexport the Kamov Ka-26 received a type certification in Sweden, which allowed its commercialization and regular employment there. Aviaexport is still existent in today’s Russia.

Interspersed between closely-packed aircraft are more cars, including a beautiful Jaguar Mk V and an East-German Trabant, as well as aircraft engines.

A massive Wright Cyclone R-3350 is among them – the power plant of the Lockheed Constellation and Douglas DC-7, often considered the pinnacle and swansong of American piston power, this massive 1.2 tons, 18 cylinders engine produced 3.700 hp of shaft power!

Svedino’s aircraft collection is mostly hosted in a modern hall added more recently beside the original museum’s building. The first item on display is an original Junkers Ju-52! This aircraft is among those license-built in Spain. It operated for some time as far as in California in the 1970s, being later transferred to Ireland, and finally here. The camouflage and markings reenact those of a Third Reich’s Luftwaffe machine force-landed in Sweden during WWII. The cockpit of the Ju-52 has been reproduced separately, to allow checking it without boarding this precious aircraft.

As expected for a Swedish aircraft collection, the most prominent models which have served in the local Air Force are represented. These include a SAAB J32B Lansen, a Cold War attack aircraft from the 1950s, a SAAB SK60 trainer, and a SAAB J35 Draken – a production machine, not a prototype like in the previous hall.

These aircraft are presented alongside their engines. The Swedish licence-built version of the Rolls-Royce Avon, named RM6A, powered the Lansen and later the Draken.

The latest addition to the SAAB heritage on display is the J37 Viggen, here presented in the nice and distinctive camo coat of the Air Force of Sweden. This is presented alongside its mighty engine, the RM8A, a modified version of the Pratt & Whitney JT8D turbofan.

Additionally, a display of an open nose cone allows to see the arrangement of the radar antenna of the Viggen.

An interesting display case hosts the instrument panels, radar and reconnaissance gear of the Lansen, Draken and Viggen, as well as a collection of flight helmets and pilot’s gear, showing the evolution of this technical material over time.

But the collection of Svedino’s is not limited to aircraft in service in Sweden. A Lockheed F-104 Starfighter from the Air Force of Denmark is on display, next to a Gloster Meteor early twin jet. The blue exemplar on display is a former factory demonstrator originally employed by Gloster, and later sold to Sweden for target towing (in a batch of seven aircraft).

A rarity to be found close by is a Percival P.66 Pembroke, a twin-engined multi-purpose transport from the early 1950s, employed for training and passenger transport within the Air Force. Manufactured in Britain in just 128 exemplars, this type was mostly sold abroad to Western-European Countries and in Africa. Sweden originally got a batch of 16.

Another British type on display is a Hawker Hunter, which was actually employed by Sweden as a stop-gap model in the late 1950s, waiting for the completion of the design and the entrance into service of the J35 Draken.

Another Soviet addition to the collection is a MiG-21. A Cold War veteran, this exemplar is Soviet-built, and served in Hungary until 1982 and later in the Latvian SSR.

A recent addition to the exhibition is a Douglas Skyraider! Possibly overshadowed by the illustrious career the type enjoyed in the US Armed Forces, a part of the history of this massive attack aircraft is about Sweden. Some 13 exemplars were actually purchased by Sweden for target towing in the mid 1960 from Britain, which had got a larger batch from the US. The exemplar on display is an AD-4W, the early warning version of the Skyraider. It is currently (2024) being refurbished.

Among the biggest additions to the aircraft collection is actually an English Electric Canberra. As typical to this type, employed by the British for the first, high risk overflights of the Countries of the Soviet bloc before the high-performing Skunk Works aircraft became available, the Canberra (including its modified Martin version in the US) was employed for quintessentially Cold War signal intelligence missions opposite the Soviet Union. Two exemplars were employed also in Sweden from the early 1960s until the mid-1970s, and one of them is that on display.

A curious item also on display is a one-off design which won a competitive call of the Aviation Engineering Association in Stockholm in 1988, and which was later actually built by its designers. Unfortunately, it was eventually never tested due to one of the owners need to quit for health issues when the aircraft was undergoing a certification test for obtaining airworthiness. The name of the prototype is LLS-1.

Scattered among the aircraft are more engines, radars, consoles, simulators, and more aircraft than described, making for an overall very rich and interesting visit.

Getting there and visiting

Svedinos Bil & Flygmuseum – this is the name of the museum in the local language – can be found in a nice countryside 15 miles north of the port town of Halmstad. The exact address is SE-311 69 Ugglarp.

The premises are rather compact, with a large parking ahead of the entrance. Fresh cookies, homemade sandwiches and cakes are available for a light lunch in the exotic lobby, matching in style with this unusual collection.

A visit may take 2 hours for an interested subject. Most items are described with modern panels in double language Swedish/English, making the visit very informative. The website with logistical information is here.

The Wollenberg Bunker – Linking East Germany and the USSR

Heading to Berlin or the former GDR? Looking for traces of the Cold War open for a visit?

A Travel Guide to COLD WAR SITES in EAST GERMANY

Second Edition - 2024

DON'T LEAVE IT AT HOME! AVAILABLE in PAPERBACK or KINDLE from your national Amazon store!
amazon.com | amazon.de | amazon.co.uk
amazon.it | amazon.fr | amazon.co.jp

The events taking place on the geopolitical stage during the last decade of the Cold War – the 1980s – gave little indication of the imminent collapse of the Soviet-led Eastern Bloc (1989-1991). Correspondingly, looking at the amount of technology developed and deployed in the military field during the late, hi-tech stage of the Cold War, it is easy to notice that opponents on both sides of the Iron Curtain dedicated a significant (and even increasing) budget in preparation for a possible total confrontation. Reading papers and specialized books from the time, the outbreak of an open conflict, such to put a violent and abrupt end to years of opposition between the two opposing systems by recurring to nuclear warfare over the territories of Western Europe (most of them belonging to the NATO alliance, and all being substantially more militarized than today), was not deemed just likely, but more as a matter of time.

The БАРС system – The tropospheric network of the Warsaw Pact

In that era of extreme tension, it is not surprising that one of the most sophisticated and expensive assets developed and deployed jointly by all Nations in the Warsaw Pact, of course led by the USSR, came alive. History would cut its life short though, and as soon as the Warsaw Pact disintegrated, as a result of the opt-out from communist dictatorship of all Countries in Eastern Europe, this asset was decommissioned. This system was the tropospheric communication system ‘БАРС’, a Russian word reading ‘BARS’ and meaning ‘snow leopard’. The name stands as an acronym for four words in Russian, which translate into something like ‘Sheltered autonomous radio communication system’.

The idea put forward by the Soviet top-ranking military staff in the early 1980s (prior to the onset of Gorbachev administration) was that of a system capable of transmitting complex orders (not just simple signals, like for opening a bunker door or silo, but articulated messages) in a safe encrypted way, at a long distance and minimizing the chance of a complete breakdown even in case of an enemy nuclear attack. Despite being not new, the concept of a resilient and reliable system, such to allow exchanging significant amount of data without relying on cables, had been tested in earlier stages of the Cold War only for short-radius operations. Mobile transmitters/receivers, loaded on purpose-designed trucks, allowed for a reduction of the risk of a direct hit from an attacker, and for a quick redeployment in case of need. However, for the amount of data and range required for the coordination of a war scenario, involving many different Countries, and geographically encompassing an entire continent, a different system was required, capable of transmitting more massive data flows on longer distances, with a reduced risk of a sudden or complete interruption.

The БАРС system was based on a certain number of stations, scattered over the territory of the Countries of the Warsaw Pact. Each node was built as a bunkerized, manned military installation, featuring high-power, high-frequency fixed antennas emerging from the ground, and an underground shelter protecting all the technical gear required for manipulating the data to be sent or received, interfacing with the other existing local (i.e. national) networks for military and executive governmental communication, and of course managing the tremendous amount of energy required to pump a long-reaching signal into the ether.

Laying on the front line with the West, hosting a Soviet contingent of some hundred thousands troops (see here and links therein), aircraft (see here), missiles (see here) and nuclear warheads (see here), and being a key-ally of the USSR in case of the outbreak of an open war (at least until late 1989), the German Democratic Republic (or GDR, or DDR in German) was clearly included in the БАРС network from the initial drafting phase. Similarly, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Bulgaria, and of course the Soviet Union (which included Belarus and the Baltics, and stretched west to Kaliningrad), all had БАРС stations on their territory. Stations were located at a range of a few hundred miles from one another, thus within the range required for each of them to communicate with one or more of the other nodes. Data (e.g. orders, reports or authorizations) input locally could be relayed along the network through intermediate nodes, down to the intended destination node. There were 26 nodes in total, of which four were in the USSR.

The Wollenberg site – Bunker 301 ‘Tushurka’

The GDR in particular had three stations built, all along the border with Poland, and located east of Berlin – namely Station 301 in Wollenberg, at the same latitude of Berlin, Station 302 in Langsdorf, towards the Baltic coast, and Station 303 in Röhrsdorf (near Königsbruck), not far from Dresden in the southeast of the GDR territory. The first among them, the Wollenberg site (codenamed ‘Tushurka’) could communicate with the other two national stations, as well as with Station 207 in Poland, from where data would be transmitted further down the network, towards the USSR.

The site was built by the GDR state, with technical hardware coming from several Countries within the Warsaw Pact, and most of the military hi-tech components manufactured in the USSR. The actual site (similar to its sister sites) was built in the frame of a highly secretive operation. The staff comprised about 60-70 men, the majority of which were military, where about 15% were civil technicians. Maximum security clearance was required, due to the top-secret nature of the installation and of the overall БАРС system. The bunkerized part of the installation was only a component of the larger premises of the base, camouflaged within the trees on the side of low-rising hill.

As pointed out, the immense spending required for setting up this multi-national hi-tech military communication system, which was extensively tested and completely commissioned (as a network) by 1987, did not save it from a quick demise and disappearance. In particular, Station 301 went definitively offline as early as August 1990.

However, the fate of the Wollenberg site was not so sad as that of many former Soviet or NVA (i.e. the East German Army) installations in the GDR. The high-power antennas were torn down, but except from that, little material damage was inflicted to the buildings and bunker on site. The place was basically shut-off and left dormant, until when a society of technically very competent local enthusiasts started a plan to preserve and open it to visitors, as a memorial specimen of the technology of the Cold War years.

A visit to the Wollenberg bunker site reveals a tremendous deal of interesting details, very uncommon to find elsewhere in the panorama of Cold War relics around Europe. Thanks to a careful preservation and restoration work, the bunker has most of its original systems still plugged to the grid and lit-up – some of them are reportedly still working! Even though the communication networks have been severed, the experience in the bunker is really evoking, and the atmosphere – with all the lit-up cabinets, lights, CCTV cameras, 1980-style screens, etc. – closely resembles that of the bygone era when БАРС was operative!

This report and photographs were taken during a private visit to the bunker, carried out in the Summer of 2023.

Sights

A visit to the the installation in Wollenberg starts from the original high-security access gate. As you may quickly notice when passing through it and getting a first view of the site, the state of preservation is exceptional. Except for the lack of military staff around, everything looks mostly like in the years of operation.

A group of soft-construction service buildings and a reinforced multi-entry garage constitute the first – and visible – nucleus of the installation. All buildings are painted in a camo coat.

A former building for the on-site staff has been turned into a permanent exhibition, with memorabilia items from the Cold War years, when the Nationale Volksarmee (or NVA, the Armed forces of the GDR) cooperated with the Soviet Red Army and the national Armed forces of other Countries in the Warsaw Pact.

A meeting room, now employed also for small gatherings, is especially rich of interesting and diverse items, including emblems, books, memorial plates and pennants, as well as TV screens, hi-fi systems and and beamers from the era.

Another room has been set-up as a control center for the base, with an original console and regional maps.

Compared to military bases (for aircraft or tanks), the Wollenberg installation is rather compact, with a main road giving access to most of the (not many) buildings on site, as well as the bunker. Actually, the bunkerized part was built under a low-rising hill, with the antennas originally standing on top of it. Access to the bunker is possible either by climbing uphill on the main road, or through a suggestive original pedestrian tunnel. The latter starts from within the service building itself, and – somewhat unexpectedly, for an underground installation – it climbs uphill, while keeping beneath the surface of the hill side slope. The lower end is guarded by an original CCTV camera.

At the top end of the tunnel you can find the actual access to the bunker. The design and reinforcement level conferred grade ‘D’ protection according to the military standard in use at the time, with grade ‘A’ being the strongest. Access is through an airlock, constituted by two tight doors at the opposite ends of a small vestibule built in concrete. This design allowed protection from the blast of a nuclear device.

Notably, the locking mechanism of the tight doors is Soviet military standard, which can be found in high-value installations like nuclear depots elsewhere in the Eastern Bloc (see for instance here in Poland, and here in Czechoslovakia).

To the visitor with some experience of Cold War installations, it will be apparent from the very start of the tour that the state of conservation of the bunker, including the systems in it, is exceptional, similar to the rest of the Wollenberg site. The original warning lights and the CC-TV camera for identifying people at the entrance are still in place.

Next to the entrance, a control room with technical gear for checking-in can be found – including original dosimeters for radiation and chemicals, mostly Soviet-made. Looking inside these devices is possible, and reveals a great deal of sophistication in the design and realization of the military-grade material from the time.

Showers and sinks for washing, as well as canister for disposing of contaminated clothes, are located in the same area.

Upon getting access to the sealed area of the bunker and passing by the decontamination facility, you find yourself on the top floor of the underground bunker. The high-technology gear required for the transmission/reception of data on the БАРС network, as well as the interface with other national communication systems, required for receiving data, issuing orders, etc. over the territory of the GDR, were located on this floor.

Two symmetrically placed rooms host two twin transmission centers for the БАРС system. A single manned console can be found in each of them, surrounded by electronic cabinets and switches. At a closer look, all the material herein is Soviet made, and labeled in Russian only.

On the wall ahead of the console station is a set of cables, communicating with the antenna and allowing to set the orientation and monitoring its status.

The actual signals transmitted to the antenna, or received from it, traveled along special hollow ducts, with an almost rectangular section. Bundles of these ducts can be found in the ‘Sender’ (which means ‘transmitter’ in English) room, immediately next to the room where the manned console is.

The modulation and demodulation of the signals going out and coming in respectively through the antenna on top of the bunker required some special pieces of electronics, which included the Soviet-designed KY-374 klystron (codenamed ‘Viola’), a component to be found in the cabinets of the ‘Sender’ room.

Following the hollow ducts, it is possible to find where they finally exit the usually manned part of the bunker, bending into receptacles and leading outside. Piping related to other systems, including air conditioning, can be seen as well crossing or running in the same narrow technical corridors.

Beside the consoles monitoring the antenna and the data flowing through it, a kind of operative room for communication can be found, where consoles allowing to receive and forward data and communication to/from all systems are on display. This largely original room features consoles of different levels of technology.

Original explanatory schemes showing the basic features of the БАРС system are on display in that area – in Russian!

An adjoining room features the cabinets required for making all these system work. The cabinets are really many, with a significant share of material manufactured in the USSR. The sight of all these cabinets together is really impressive, and tangibly provides the feeling of a high technology, sophisticated and expensive design. It compares well, but in a largely up-scaled fashion, to the electronics to be found in some special communication bunkers on the western side of the Iron Curtain (see here).

Interspersed with the original arrangement of the cabinets and consoles are some displays of original material. These include specimens of different types of cables for signal transmission – some of them hollow and pressurized, others featuring impressive bundles of thinner wires – the KY-374 klystron, and other once top-secret core components of the БАРС transmission system. Also on display is one of the few remaining parts of the original system of antennas, once on top of the bunker. The antennas were the only part to be physically torn down when the system was decommissioned, upon the demise of the Warsaw Pact and the end of the Cold War.

The bunker was manned by military and technical staff 24/7. Furthermore, as typical for bunkers from the Cold War era, provision was made at a design level to allow the staff to live isolated within the bunker for an extended period of time, in view of the eventuality to face a nuclear fallout scenario.

On the same floor as the technical rooms, the commander of the station had his own private room. This is still adorned with typical Soviet iconography, as well as everyday material from the age when the bunker was operative.

A small canteen, with a kitchen and a modest living room, can be found at the same level. An original storage room has been employed to gather examples of everyday products, like soap, skin care cream, etc., as well as canned food, cocoa, and beverages of all sorts.

This represents a very rich catalog of now largely defunct and forgotten labels, from the age and regions of the Eastern Bloc (and especially from within the GDR). Also on display are bottles of spirits, likely still very good!

The visit proceeds then to the lower floor, which can be reached through a flight of metal stairs.

The lower floor host the plants required for the regular operation of the entire bunker, such to guarantee operational ability even in case of an enemy attack carried out with nuclear, chemical or biological warfare. The air filtering and conditioning system is very modern. Beside typical filtering drums for particles, to be found also in other bunkers (see for instance Podborsko here), you can see a bulky filtering and climate conditioning system, neatly arranged within two parallel square-shaped ducts. Filtering against chemicals as well as biologic agents was carried out employing special active filters.

Sensors for the level of contamination of the bunker air can be found in different rooms. Much material here is standard Soviet-made.

Systems for water pumping and compressed air can be found as well, including compressors, pumps and reservoirs. Looking at the always interesting factory labels in this area, it is easy to find export products of Bulgaria, Romania and other communist dictatorships of the era. Of course, much hardware is also manufactured in the GDR.

Electricity was supplied from the outside grid, yet capability for self-sustaining in case of a grid loss (for instance in case of war) was implemented as well. Three big German-made Diesel generators have been put in place, and are still in an apparently good condition.

Another example of the high technological standard reached in the late Cold War era is represented by the control room for the plants within the bunker. A manned control station, with a console and a direct view of lit-up cabinets, reporting the status of the various systems running in the bunker, compares well with control rooms of large industrial plants in operation today.

Carefully kept in its original status, with many of the electric links and cabinets still working, the sight of this room is especially evoking.

Also on the lower floor are the sleeping rooms for off-duty staff. Typically, this was not employed except for drills, when the bunker could be sealed to simulate operations in case of the outbreak of hostilities.

Back to the upper floor, it is possible to exit the bunker via a stairway and through a side gate. You will find yourself on top of the low-rise hill where the bunker has been dug. Here the concrete base of the crane where the БАРС antenna used to sit are still visible. Notably, these antennas were much smaller than the tropospheric antennas employed for the TROPOSCATTER system of NATO. This was the result of a different bandwidth employed for transmissions. Therefore, even in the days of operation, the antennas on top of the bunker were not as sizable as those of TROPOSCATTER installations (which were enormous in size).

Looking closely, in the top area of the installation, the duct for supplying the Diesel oil tank of the bunker can be found, similar to sensors for radiation and other atmospheric parameters (similar to what can be found also in other nuclear-proof bases, for instance here). These allowed to monitor the conditions of the outside air, detect an attack and trigger or manage the sealing of the bunker in case of need, by locking all the tight doors.

This access to the bunker is fenced by the original electrified fence, severing this area from the rest of the installation through a further layer of security.

All in all, a visit to the Wollenberg bunker offers an incredible insight in a fascinating and crucial field of warfare – data and communication exchange – as well as a lively and evocative display of a late Cold War hi-tech installation from the Soviet side of the Iron Curtain!

Getting there & Visiting

The German name of the Wollenberg bunker is ‘Militärhistorisches Sonderobjekt 301 Wollenberg’. It can be reached very easily with a car. It can be found in the open countryside along the regional road 158, driving about 35 miles (about 1 hour) northeast from downtown Berlin towards Poland. The exact location is between the small village of Höhenland (~4 miles) and the more sizable Bad Freienwalde (~6 miles). There is a large parking area immediately next to the road, giving direct pedestrian access to the premises of the former military installation. Despite being placed very conveniently, the site is rather elusive when passing by, since it is hidden in the trees and not directly visible from the road. The address corresponding to the place in Google Maps is Sternkrug 4, 16259 Höhenland. The inconspicuous village of Wollenberg, giving the name to the installation, is just nearby, but it is not crossed by the regional road, and it should not be employed for pointing this destination with a nav.

The Wollenberg bunker is a listed historical installation. It is perfectly maintained, privately managed, and it can be regularly accessed with guided tours. These are offered typically one day per week in the summer, or by prior arrangement. Possibly the best option for getting the most out of your visit is getting in contact with the group of very knowledgeable enthusiasts running the place. The official website is here (do not be discouraged by the ‘static’ appearance of the website, they are very active, and they shall typically answer your inquire).

My visit was planned by initiative of Dr. Reiner Helling (see also here), and we visited in a group of three, including the guide (Dr. Michael Schoeneck, a former engineer, with a profound knowledge of any technical aspects related to this installation), which happened to be a perfect option for touring also the narrowest receptacles of the bunker. Visiting in groups too big may be not advisable, since the rooms and corridors are rather narrow, and the place may turn overcrowded for interacting with the guide and for taking good pictures. I think the visit – including the technical content – may be tailored to the needs of the audience. For technical-minded subjects, historians and former military, a visit may take about 2-3 hours (the latter was my experience). In my case, the guide could understand but not speak fluent English, yet Dr. Helling could translate with ease all the explanations. Of course, if you have at least a basic knowledge of German and of the technical material you are looking at, this may simplify your visit, which is in any case highly advisable for those interested in military technology and the Cold War.

Heading to Berlin or the former GDR? Looking for traces of the Cold War open for a visit?

A Travel Guide to COLD WAR SITES in EAST GERMANY

Second Edition - 2024

DON'T LEAVE IT AT HOME! AVAILABLE in PAPERBACK or KINDLE from your national Amazon store!
amazon.com | amazon.de | amazon.co.uk
amazon.it | amazon.fr | amazon.co.jp

Soviet Nuclear Bunkers in the Czech Republic

History – In brief

After the end of WWII and the collapse of the Third Reich, the territory now belonging to the Czech Republic fell on the Soviet side of the Iron Curtain. Together with today’s Slovakia, it formed the now disappeared unitary state of Czechoslovakia. Despite laying right on the border with the West – including Bavaria, which was part of West Germany and NATO – communist Czechoslovakia enjoyed a relative autonomy from the USSR, until the announced liberally-oriented reforms of the local communist leader Dubcek in the spring of 1968 triggered a violent reaction by the Soviet leader of the time, Leonid Brezhnev (see here). About 250’000 troops from the Warsaw Pact, including the USSR, landed in the Country. As a result, the Soviets established a more hardcore and USSR-compliant local communist regime, and largely increased their military presence.

Similar to the German Democratic Republic (see here for instance), Hungary (see here) or Poland (see here), since then also in Czechoslovakia the local national Army was flanked by a significant contingent of Soviet troops, who left only after the entire Soviet-fueled communist empire started to crumble, at the beginning of the 1990s.

Consequently, for the last two decades of the Cold War, Czechoslovakia was a highly militarized country similar to other ones in the Warsaw Pact (see here). Its geographical position on the border with the West meant it received supply for a high-technology anti-aircraft barrier (see here). Two major airbases in Czechoslovakia were taken over for use by the Soviets and strongly potentiated (see here).

Soviet Nuclear Depots in Czechoslovakia

Beside conventional forces, also nuclear warheads were part of the arsenal deployed in this Country. Where in the late 1960s Soviet strategic nuclear forces were already mostly based on submarine-launched missiles and ICBMs ground-launched from within the USSR’s borders, tactical forces were forward-deployed to satellite countries, to be readily operative in case of war in Europe. Missile systems like the SCUD, Luna (NATO: Frog) and Tochka (NATO: Scarab) were deployed to the Warsaw Pact, supplying either the local Armies or the Soviet forces on site. Typically armed with conventional warheads, these systems were compatible with nuclear warheads too, making them more versatile, and of great use in case of a war against NATO forces in central and western Europe (see here).

Irrespective of their employment by a local national Army or a Soviet missile force, nuclear warheads were kept separated from the rest of the missile system for security, and invariably under strict and exclusive Soviet control. Bunker sites were purpose built in all components of the Warsaw Pact for storing nuclear warheads – see page 46 of this CIA document, showing with some accuracy the location of the corresponding bases.

Granit– and Basalt-type bunkers were typically prepared on airfields or artillery bases, for short-term storage of soon-to-be-launched nuclear weapons. Instead, top-security Monolith-type bunkers (the triangles on the map in the CIA document) were intended for long-term storage of nuclear ordnance.

Monolith-type bunkers were built by local companies on a standard design in the Soviet military inventory, and were implemented in satellite Countries in the late 1960s. Czechoslovakia received three such sites, which took the names Javor 50, by the town of Bílina, Javor 51, close to Míšov, and Javor 52, close to the town of Bělá pod Bezdězem. All three locations are in the north-western regions of today’s Czech Republic.

The Soviet military started withdrawing the nuclear warheads from satellite Countries in 1989, months before the collapse of the wall in Berlin. As for Czechoslovakia, by 1990 all nuclear forces had been moved back to the USSR. Following the end of the Cold War, Monolith-bunkers – similar to most of the colossal inventory of forward-deployed military installations formerly set up by the Soviet Union – were declared surplus by the Countries where they had been implemented.

These primary relics of the Cold War have known since then different destinies. Some of them have been hastily demolished, and together with their associated fragments of recent history, they have almost completely disappeared into oblivion. Luckily, a few are currently still in private hands, and still in existence (see here and here) – specimens of recent military technology, and a vivid memento from recent history, when the map of Europe looked very different from now. Two can be visited, of which one is Javor 51, in the Czech Republic, the main topic of this post. This has been turned into the ‘Atom Museum’, which has the distinction of being the only Monolith-type site in the world offering visits on a regular schedule (the other open site is Podborsko, in Poland, covered here, which is open by appointment).

Also displayed in the following are some pictures of the now inaccessible site Javor 52 in former Czechoslovakia. Photographs were taken in 2020 (Javor 52) and 2022 (Javor 51).

Sights

Javor 51 – The Atom Museum, Míšov

An exceptionally well preserved and high-profile witness of the Cold War, the nuclear depot Javor 51 is a good example of a Monolith-type installation. These bases were centered around two identical semi-interred bunkers for nuclear warheads.

When starting a visit, you will soon make your way to the unloading platform of bunker Nr.1. The shape of the metal canopy, and the small control booth with glass windows overlooking the platform are pretty unique to this site. The metal wall fencing the unloading area is still in its camo coat outside, and greenish paint inside. Caution writings in Russian are still clearly visible. Concrete slabs clearly bear the date of manufacture – 1968. This site was reportedly activated on the 26th of December, 1968.

Even the lamps look original. Some of the – likely – tons of material left by the Soviets on the premises of this site has been put on display ahead of the massive bunker door.

The opening mechanism of the latter is a nice work of mechanics. Four plugs actually lock or unlock the door. They can be moved by means of a manual crank, or likely in the past via an electric mechanism (some wiring is still visible). The thickness of the doors is really impressive (look for the cap of my wide lens on the ground in a picture below for comparison!).

Each bunker had two ground-level entrances to the opposite ends, each with two blast-proof doors in a sequence. Warheads were transported by truck, unloaded beside the entrance of one of the two bunkers, and carried inside through the two doors, which constituted an air-tight airlock.

Today, you can see the inside main hall of the bunkers from the outside during a visit. This was likely not the case in the days of operation. The opening procedure required a request signal to travel all the way to Moscow, and a trigger signal traveling in the opposite direction. Once past the first (external) door with the warhead trolley, that door was shut, and the procedure was repeated for the second door, giving access to the inside of the bunker.

A security trigger told Moscow when the door was open. It can still be seen hanging from top of the door frame.

Once inside, you find yourself on a suspended concrete platform. The warhead trolley had to be lowered via a crane – still in place – to the bottom of the cellar ahead, i.e. to the underground level. The stairs now greatly facilitating visitor’s motion around the bunker were not in place back then, and descending to the underground level for the technicians was via a hatch in the floor of the suspended platform, and a ladder close to the side wall.

On the platform, an original Soviet-made air conditioning system can be seen – with original labeling – and signs in Russian are on display on the walls.

The platform is also a vantage point to see the extensive array of heat-exchangers put along a sidewall of the central hall – atmosphere control was of primary importance for the relatively delicate nuclear warheads. Each of them traveled and was kept in a pressurized canister. However, also the storage site was under careful atmospheric control.

To the opposite end of the bunker, the inner tight door of the second entrance can be clearly seen, ahead of another suspended platform. The warheads left the bunker for maintenance (they might have left also for use, but this never happened, except possibly on drills) from that entrance, which had a loading platform outside for putting the warheads on trucks (this can be better seen in other Monolith sites, like Urkut in Hungary, or Stolzenhain in Germany).

Down on the lower level, the main bunker hall gives access to one side to four big cellars, where the warheads spent their time in storage, and to the other sides to technical rooms. The pavement in the storage cellars features the original metal strongpoints, used to anchor the trolleys for the warheads to the ground. This was in case of a shockwave investing the site in an attack, to avoid the trolleys moving and crashing against one another. The original hooks with spherical joints to link the trolley to the strongpoints are also on display.

The storage cellars today have been used to display informative panels, with many interesting pictures and schemes. These include some from major sites connected with the history of nuclear weaponry in the Soviet Union (like from the test site of Semipalatinsk) and the US (like the Titan Museum near Tucson, AZ, covered in this post).

A few former technical rooms are used to store much original technical gear. This ranges from spare parts, tools and personal gear like working suits left by the Soviets (most with signs in Russian), to items ‘Made in Czechoslovakia’ or even radiation detectors from Britain and the West, gathered here for display and comparison.

Some of these spare parts are wrapped and sealed in Russian, looking like they were cataloged back in the time of operations.

In the main hall, many rare vintage pictures retrace the presence of Soviet military forces on this site as well as others in Czechoslovakia. Magnified copies of rare pictures portray the trucks, canisters and the very warheads likely involved in transport and storage in Javor 51. Actually, much mystery exists around the deployment of nuclear ordnance by the USSR outside its borders (not only to Czechoslovakia). Historical and technical information today made available, even to a dedicated public, is very limited, making this chapter of Cold War history even more intriguing.

Again in the central hall, cabinets for monitoring the nuclear warheads can be seen hanging from the walls, painted in blue. Each warhead used to be stored in a canister, which was periodically linked to these cabinets to check the inner atmosphere, temperature, etc., in order to monitor the health of its very sensitive content.

A large part of the technical/living rooms has been preserved in its original appearance. You can see parts of an air conditioning system, a big water tank, a toilet, a now empty bedroom for the troops. The bunker was constantly manned inside by typically six people, who operated in shifts. They did not sleep there, nor used the toilet much due to poor drainage. However, these facilities were used in drills, and were intended for the case of real war operations, when the bunker might have been sealed from the outside.

The electric cabinets take a dedicated room, like the huge air filters and pumps (Soviet made), installed to grant survival of the people inside the bunker in case of an attack with nuclear weapons or other special warfare. Clearly, the level of safety in the design of the bunker stemmed from the fact that it was considered by the Soviet as a a strategic target for NATO forces.

The last technical rooms host a big Diesel generator, supplied with air from the outside, and a big fuel tank in an adjoining room. Many labels bear writings in Russian, but the generator appears to be made in Czechoslovakia. The bunker was linked to the usual electric power grid of the region, and the generator was intended for emergency operations, in case the grid was lost or the bunker was isolated.

From the technical area, it was possible to access or exit the bunker, via a human-size airlock. The innermost tight door can be seen painted in yellow, with a locking mechanism resembling that of the major tight doors for the missile warheads. Outside the airlock, climbing three levels of ladders was required to get to the surface. This was the normal access to the bunker for the military technical staff, except when warheads arrived or left the storage (this was made via the major entrances, as explained).

Back outside, the second bunker, Nr.2, can be found at a short distance from the former. Nr.2 is being prepared for an exhibition on technology. At the time of writing, it can be toured except for the technical/living rooms. It is in a very good condition, and allows to get similar details as the previous Nr.1 on the construction of this type of facility – including the heating/air conditioning system.

The blue cabinets for plugging the canister for routine status checking and maintenance can be found also in Nr.2 in good shape.

Clearly visible here are the doors closing the technical areas and the warhead cellars. The latter were monitored for security just like the external airtight doors of the bunker, each with a sensor telling controllers whether the cellar was locked or not.

The airlock is covered in soot, possibly the result of a fire. Ahead of the entrance, the unloading platform is very interesting, having a unique set of light doors which had to be opened to allow trucks to come in. The concrete part of the platform appears slightly off-standard, with a short lateral concrete ramp, giving access to the main platform from one side. Parts of missiles – original – are being gathered in this area for display.

Monolith sites include two bunkers, which are the core of a strongly defended fenced area. In Javor 51, fences except the external one have been removed for the safety of visitors (rusty barbed wire can be very dangerous). These can still be found in other similar installations (see here). Similarly, the troops and technicians working on site lived in purpose-built housing, segregated from local communities. In Javor 51, this housing still exists, but cannot be visited.

Leaving the place, you can visit the nice visitor/gathering center, and even find some interesting souvenirs!

Getting there and visiting

All in all, the Atom Museum prepared at Javor 51 is a top destination for everybody interested in the history of the Cold War, nuclear warfare, Soviet history, military history, etc.

Credit goes to the owner of the place, Dr. Vaclav Vitovec, who is leading this remarkable preservation effort, and is a very knowledgeable and enthusiastic guide to the site for those visiting. Dr. Vitovec is also the owner of the border museum in Rozvadov, covered in this post.

The Javor 51 site is actually fairly well known at least to a dedicated public, having been visited by historians, scientists and notable figures – including Francis Gary Powers, Jr., who is very active in preserving the history of the Cold War.

The commitment of the museum’s managers is witnessed also by the nice website (also in English), where you can sign-up for a visit on pre-arranged days – as of 2022, all Saturdays in the warm season – or contact the staff for setting up a personalized visit. It is nice to see a good involvement by the local population (the great majority of visitors on regular visits are Czech), including many from younger generations. The exhibits tell much on the peaceful use of nuclear energy, and this is a major topic in the guided tour in Czech. Actually, the Czech Republic has a strong nuclear tradition, with many power plants in use, and a commitment for the development of nuclear energy in the future.

The location is around 25 miles southeast of Plzen, or 60 miles southwest of Prague. Easy to reach by car. The exact address is Míšov 51, 33563 Míšov, Czechia. Full info on their website. Visiting on a normal scheduled visit is on a partly-guided basis, meaning that you will get an intro (in Czech) of around 40 minutes, than you will be allowed to access the bunkers and visit on your own, for all the time you like. You might end up spending more than 2 hours checking out the site and everything is in it, if you have a special interest for the topic. Dr. Vitovec is fluent in English, and can provide much information upon request.

Javor 52 – Bělá pod Bezdězem

The Monolith-type site Javor 52 has been willingly demolished, likely by the Government of the Czech Republic, as it was the case for most other similar (or more in general, Soviet-related) sites in Poland and Germany.

However, it was hard to get completely rid of any trace of an installation so bulky and reinforced. Therefore, some remains can still be found and explored.

Some technical buildings still in use close to the bunkers may have been there from the days of operation.

Getting close to the bunker area, traces of the multiple fences originally around the site can be found, either in the trees or in the vicinity of unmaintained roads. Wooden or concrete posts with fragments of barbed wire are clearly visible. Also reinforced concrete shooting points can be spotted in the wild vegetation.

As typical, two bunkers were erected on site, and similarly to Javor 51 (see above), in Javor 52 they are aligned, with the entrances all along the same ideal orientation.

The bunkers in Javor 52 have been interred, so that they are now hardly noticeable from the outside, except to a careful eye. Looking inside the eastern one, it is possible to get a view of the open doors of the main airlock, providing a distant view of the inner main hall.

Descending through the lateral human-sized airlock is not possible except for a short length, from a concrete manhole on top of the bunker.

The western bunker is in a better general condition, and the main hall still retains a pretty unique writing in Russian. The ladder descending from the suspended platform has been substituted with a posthumous, regular ladder. Much metalwork has disappeared though, including the heat exchangers, the crane, and the tight doors.

Between the bunkers, a concrete pool can be found – still watertight! – with a function which is hard to guess. A pool for civil use was installed in Stolzenhain (and reportedly also in Javor 52, but I had not the time to watch out for it), but this was in the low-security of the site, far from the bunkers.

Getting there and moving around

Access to this place is possible without violating any property sign, but is clearly not encouraged. Going unnoticed is made tricky by the presence of a public facility nearby – a shelter for foreigners and some education activity. Parking out of sight is possible along the road 27235, north of the complex and to the west of the road – trailheads and corresponding parking areas can be found there. Check out some satellite map to find a way to the exact location of the bunkers – their respective entrances are approximately here (eastern bunker) and here (western bunker).

I visited the site in 2020, and the entrances appeared very dangerous and easy to seal in a permanent way. I do not have any further update, but would suggest to go prepared to find definitively interred and totally inaccessible bunkers.

Javor 50 – Bílina – Quick note

As of 2020, the site of Javor 50 is in a peculiar state of ‘conservation’. The place is closed to the public, but entering would be basically unimpeded, since the external fence to the former military base is mostly collapsed and interrupted. The Soviet quarters insider still have much to offer – including writing in Russian, a scheme of the base, and much more. Likely, the bunkers are also still in a relatively good shape.

Much surprisingly though, somebody is living there with watchdogs, in miserable conditions, keeping visitors out. It is likely that an official visit may be booked by getting in touch with the municipality, since it appears that the site is not used for anything. However I was not successful in connecting with anybody there, therefore I have no suggestion on this point. The of the main entrance is here.

Soviet Traces in the Caucasus – Armenia, Azerbaijan & Georgia

A visit to the three Caucasian republics – Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia – today offers much to virtually any type of traveler. An incredible range of sceneries can be found there, from beaches to mountain ridges, from abundant traces of a multi-millennial civilization to futuristic skyscrapers and oil rigs.

As recent history has dramatically shown, these countries are inhabited by markedly different, deeply divided populations. Furthermore, all three of course still have a complicated relationship with their gigantic neighbor, Russia, which shares a border with both Georgia and Azerbaijan – with some unsolved uncertainties especially with the former, as shown in the cases of the contended territories of Abkhazia and Ossetia. On the other hand, Armenia is historically at loggerheads with Turkey, with which it shares a long – and impenetrable – border.

The three Caucasian nations have suffered the influence of stronger powers for ages. Constant clashes between Czar’s Russia and the Turks meant the loss of independence for long. As a matter of fact, both today’s Georgia and Azerbaijan where under Russia, and Armenia under the Turks, when WWI broke out. Soon after the war, short-lived independent nations were extirpated by the deadly action of the communist Bolsheviks, invading from Russia. The three Caucasian nations were forcibly incorporated in the Soviet Union, creating an artificial, uncomfortable friendship between each other and with Russia.

For roughly seven decades the three nations were on the southern border of the USSR, sharing a frontier with Turkey and Persia (later Iran). Turkey collaborated with the Third Reich in WWII, and later joined NATO, hosting – as it still does today – Western military forces on its territory. That border with the USSR was very active in the Cold War years. Aerial espionage missions were flown by the US from Turkey, ballistic missiles were installed, gigantic radar plants were put in place by the Soviets, who also manufactured MiGs in the outskirts of the Georgian capital – really a hot region in the Cold War!

As soon as the Soviet power started to creak at the very end of the 1980s, national movements faced again, eventually leading to the birth of independent nations as we know them today. This was not without a deadly struggle however, as for the case of Azerbaijan, mostly relevant for its oil reserves and the border with Iran. Furthermore, religious and cultural differences and unsolved disputes over the actual borders among each other meant that these three nations were never friends over the last three decades.

Besides this complicated geopolitical inheritance, the long-lasting Soviet tenancy of the three Caucasian Soviet Socialist Republics (SSRs) left traces, of course. Some highlights among the architectural leftovers of Soviet times are presented in this post, from all three Republics. Monuments, from Soviet times, or celebrating independence from the Soviets, are similarly included. Further traces are preserved in museums – military museums dating from the Soviet era, like in Gori (Stalin’s birth town in Georgia, see this post) and Yerevan, history museums like in Baku and Tbilisi, or collections of artifacts from Soviet times, like the world-class Auto-Museum next to the airport in Tbilisi.

Photographs are from a long visit to the Caucasus in summer 2019.

Navigate this post – Click on links to scroll

Armenia

Azerbaijan

Georgia

Sights in Armenia

Republic Square, Yerevan

A fine example of Soviet-times architecture, Republic Square – originally named Lenin’s Square – was designed in the mid-1920s, soon after the creation of the USSR, and was actually built little by little, reaching completion in the 1970s. It is a great example of Soviet-classicism, contaminated by some Armenian motifs – Armenia boasts an original architectural school originating several centuries ago, and particularly evident in medieval Armenian churches.

The focal point, once a statue of Lenin at the center of the square and pulled down in the 1990s, is possibly the front facade of the rich History Museum of Armenia, in a pale color and openly recalling the lines of the beautiful monasteries to be found in the country.

Besides the museum building, fronted by a huge fountain, the oval shaped square is defined by four more buildings, coordinated in terms of volumes and colors. The frieze on some of the buildings is centered on the usual Soviet iconography – five-pointed stars, sickles, harvest, …

The easternmost building with a clock tower used to be the seat of the government of the Armenian SSR, and is now the palace of the Armenian Government.

The westernmost building was designed, and still is, a hotel.

At night, they regularly offer a nice show with music, lights and water games.

Visiting

Centrally located in Yerevan, you can reach this place in several ways. You probably won’t miss it if traveling to the Armenian capital city. Just note that parking is not possible on the square.

Cascade, Yerevan

A large – better, a monster-size… – stairway, climbing uphill from central Yerevan to a residential uptown neighborhood, was designed in the early 1970s and built in two stages, both in the 1970s and in the 2000s.

The stairway is interrupted by platforms, with sculptures and fountains, which make it look pretty irregular and full of details to discover.

Access to the famous Cafesjian Museum is along the stairway.

As of 2021, the complex is unfinished, still missing a planned building on top. The stairway offers a beautiful view of Yerevan, basically in its entirety. The panorama reaches to Turkey and mount Ararat.

Visiting

This is a highlight in town you won’t probably miss. A climb with a taxi to the top is recommended, descending the stairway instead of climbing it, especially on torrid summer days.

Mother Armenia & Victory Park, Yerevan

A unique sight in the former SSRs of the Caucasian area, the Mother Armenia statute is a typical relic of the Cold War, like you can find elsewhere in Russia or more rarely in the Soviet satellite countries of Eastern Europe.

The statue was born as a commemorative monument for the effort of the Armenian SSR in the Great Patriotic War. Having been designed soon after WWII, when Stalin was still the leader of the USSR, the monument was pretty different from now – a huge statue of Stalin used to stand on top of the huge pillar! This was removed in the early 1960s, being swapped with a nicer statue resembling an Armenian young woman, and titled ‘Mother Armenia’.

The base of the monument features a few decorations, based on typical Soviet iconography.

Around the monument, in what is called Victory Park, a few specimens of Soviet military technology are there to see. These include a few tanks, missiles and aircraft.

Ahead of the monument, an eternal flame is still lighted today (invisible in the pics due to the extreme sunlight). A majestic perspective leads to a balcony, from where you can enjoy a nice view of the Armenian capital city.

The base of the statue is home to a war museum, conceived in Soviet times, and later updated with documents over the most recent  Armenian war actions.

The latter, including the countless clashes with Azerbaijan and Turkey, are documented on the much visited ground floor, besides the main hall.

A part on the same floor is dedicated to the actions of soldiers from the Armenian SSR in Soviet times, and more generally to the Cold War period.

Little or no attention is devoted by visitors to the rich collection on the underground floor, mostly centered on the actions of the Red Army against Hitler’s Wehrmacht in WWII.

Here the exhibition is very rich of relics from both the German and Russian sides, including weapons, papers, uniforms, … Several maps retrace the epic battles and actions, leading to the defeat of the German military machine.

Portraits of generals, insignia and mottoes in Russians, not limited to the actions in WWII, relive the genuine ‘Soviet remembrance’ feeling, to be appreciated also in similar museums like in Kiev (see here) or Moscow (see here).

Visiting

Reaching Victory Park, where the monument is immersed, is easy with a taxi, or climbing uphill from downtown on top of the Cascade described previously. Visiting inside the monument is totally recommended for curious visitors, war history enthusiast and similar folks. Nothing can be found in a western language. A visit of about 45 minutes may suffice for a rich overview of the inside exhibition.

Railway Station, Matenadaran, Opera Theater & Other buildings in town, Yerevan

Soon after its annexation to the USSR, Armenia started receiving many prototypical items of Soviet architecture. However, like in the case of Republic Square (see above), some buildings were designed by local architects, including elements of traditional Armenian style.

A typically Soviet building in Yerevan is the Railway Station, dating from the 1950s, still featuring the emblem of the Armenian SSR on top of a tall spine, and double Russian/Armenian signs on top.

An example of a blend between Armenian architecture and Soviet ‘magnificence’ is constituted by the Matenadaran, designed soon after WWII (Stalin’s era), to host a unique world-class collection of ancient books and papers.

This enigmatic building, despite of course imposing, is definitely not the usual Soviet ‘monster block’ like other museums elsewhere in Soviet capital cities.

Similarly peculiar is the Opera Theater, dating back again to the years of Stalin. Soviet pomp is scaled down to Armenian proportions, and the color of local stone makes the outcome different from buildings with a similar function in other communist capital cities.

Other examples of Soviet buildings can be found scattered in downtown Yerevan, which is generally speaking a nice-looking, neat city center. These include residential buildings, as well as hotels and more.

Even for more recent low-level, purely-‘communist style’ blocks, they put some effort in reducing the inevitable impact of these bulky constructions.

Visiting

With the exception of the railway station, located south of the city center, all sights just cited can be found in the very center of Yerevan, at a walking distance from one another, highlights along a nice stroll in the area.

Mikoyan Brothers Museum, Alaverdi

Besides the gorgeous monasteries gracing the area of Sanahin, in the northernmost part of Armenia, an unmissable destination in the area for seekers of Soviet relics and aviation enthusiasts is the home of the two Mikoyan brothers.

For aviation connoisseurs, the name ‘Mikoyan’ is one of the most prominent – the ‘M’ in the acronym ‘MiG’ being borrowed from the surname of Artem Mikoyan. This marvelous aircraft designer, whose design bureau grew to top fame in the Cold War period, created with his designs the backbone of the fighter force of the USSR and all its Eastern Bloc satellites. Some of his models have been manufactured in the highest numbers in aviation history, and have served in the Air Forces of the world for several decades. The firm remained alive well after the collapse of the USSR, until the (Russian) state-imposed incorporation of several aircraft design bureaus in a single conglomerate, in the early 2000s.

Possibly less-known today, but a really prominent personality in his era, and perhaps even more influential in recent history than his brother, was Anastas Mikoyan. This was a member of the Soviet Politburo since its foundation in the years of the civil war following the communist revolution in 1917, until 1965 – i.e. managing to stay on top for the entire length of Stalin’s and Khrushchev’s reigns, and resigning only some time after Brezhnev had taken the lead. He over-viewed production in the USSR, acted as an emissary to the US and Cuba in the years of the Kennedy administration, and especially during the missile crisis in 1962.

The two Mikoyan brothers were born in the small mountainous town of Alaverdi, Armenia, where a monument and museum was created back in Soviet times to commemorate their achievements.

The most notable feature, really an unexpected view in this mountain town, is a MiG-21 placed under a concrete canopy, with inscriptions nearby. This supersonic fighter is a true icon of the Cold War, and of course a good way to commemorate Artem Mikoyan’s contribution to aviation history.

The museum is housed in a small building, where visiting is with a guide (English speaking) and photography forbidden and impossible. Several artifacts, pictures and papers unfold the life of the two brothers, since their birth in this village until their respective rise to prominence and success.

An old Soviet car, likely belonging to one of the two (unclear), can be found in an adjoining building.

Despite a primary touristic destination, the area around Alaverdi and the town itself is (as of 2019) a prototype of post-Soviet decay, with a monster-size, partly abandoned factory building dominating the valley, and old-fashioned, shabby working-class blocks scattered along a road in poor conditions, where buses dating back to the Soviet middle-ages move people around.

Visiting

Visiting the museum is recommended for all aviation enthusiasts and for those interested in the Cold War. The town is a tourist destination thanks to the beautiful monasteries. The museum and monument can be visited in less than 1 hour by a committed visitor.

Sights in Azerbaijan

Museum Center, Baku

One of the few prominent remains of Soviet Baku, the Museum Center has taken over the former building of the Lenin Museum, born in the the early 1960s to celebrate the achievements of communism in the USSR (?).

Today this relatively small building hosts several institutions, including a museum on the history of Azerbaijan. The latter includes many pics and smaller artifacts from older and more recent history. Among them, mock-ups of the famous statues in Berlin-Treptow (see here) as well as the one in Volgograd can be found. The museum covers also the contribution to the history of the country made by the influential Heydar Aliyev, a former member of the Soviet Politburo and first president of newborn Azerbaijan.

However, the Soviet roots of the building are clearly visible in the details of parts of the decoration, which include hammer and sickles on the facade as well as inside. The Soviet-neoclassic architecture of the exterior, and some evident miscalculations in the size of the stairs inside (the ceiling is embarrassingly low!), are other distinctive features of communist design.

Visiting

Centrally located along the nice seaside park, this museum is worth a visit for the small art collection and for the history exhibit. Visiting may take about 45 minutes for the committed visitor.

Martyrs’ Lane and Shehidlar Monument, Baku

Despite not dating to the Cold War, this monument is strongly bound to the Soviet impact on the history of Azerbaijan – in particular, to the victims of Soviet military actions.

The annexation of Azerbaijan by hand of the Bolsheviks was fiercely opposed by the population, and many lost their lives trying to stop the attack of the communists. A first memorial for them was erected here, wiped out soon after when the Bolsheviks finally gained control of the area.

A small monument from Soviet time can be seen in the area, from the time of WWII.

A more recent episode in the closing stages of the Cold war, largely forgotten in the West, was the brief but bloody war fought by Azerbaijan against the agonizing USSR, which militarily invaded the region of Baku to prevent secession. Many were killed in the so-called Black January of 1990.

Today’s monument, made of an alley with graves and an eternal flame, is rather scenic but not excessively pompous.

The location is really gorgeous, with a stunning view of Baku and the gulf in the Caspian Sea, as well as of the iconic Flame Towers.

Visiting

Reaching is easy with the funicular starting from downtown Baku. Highly recommended for both the significance of the place and for the panorama.

House of Soviets & Other buildings

The government of the Azerbaijan SSR operated from a stately building, designed in a purely Soviet formal style, and completed under Stalin after WWII. A statue of Lenin originally ahead of the building was demolished following the independence war in 1990 and the secession from the USSR. The building still retains an official role, hosting some ministries of Azerbaijan.

In the peripheries of the pretty big town of Baku, more typically Soviet alleys, architectures… and cars can be easily found. These are in striking contrast with the hyper-futuristic architectures of the big central district, dominated by the iconic Flame Towers.

Visiting

The House of the Soviets, now Government House, can be found in central Baku, along the nice seashore garden. For touring the outskirts of Baku, rich of interesting touristic destinations, a full-service taxi or a car rental are advised.

Sights in Georgia

Georgian Parliament Building, Tbilisi

The Parliament of Georgia was designed and built under Stalin, starting in the 1930s, as the seat of the government of the Georgian SSR. The formal appearance of the front facade is typically Soviet. A now empty medallion on top of the facade used to display the emblem of the SSR. This was destroyed following the clashes against the agonizing USSR which led to the independence of Georgia in 1991-92.

Visiting

A look to the outside is easy to take walking along very popular Shota Rustaveli avenue, a short walk from Liberty Square (formerly Lenin’s Square).

Georgian National Museum, Tbilisi

This world-class museum is dedicated to the history of the Georgian culture, and displays invaluable artifacts dating from all ages.

A small but pretty rich hall is dedicated to the bloody invasion of the Bolsheviks in 1921, which quickly destroyed the short-lived independent Georgian state. This had been created following the collapse of the Czarist empire as a result of WWI and the ensuing revolution/civil war in Russia.

The communist invaders did not waste any time, and openly persecuted all political opponents, quickly imprisoning and killing many in more instances.

The exhibition is centered on documents on both the sides of the independence movement and the invading communists.

Artifacts from the quick and bloody war of 1921 are on display, including guns, insignia, and more. The setting of the shooting of political opponents in a prison (similar to the one you can see in the KGB house in Riga, Latvia, see here) is reconstructed.

A particularly striking memorial is constituted by a train truck used for mass execution – bullet holes are clearly visible.

Visiting

Anybody with an interest in Georgian culture will hardly miss this wonderful museum. Visiting the hall dedicated to the communist attack and the installation of a  Soviet dictatorship will take just a part of the overall time devoted to the visit. The place is centrally located in front of the Parliament Building.

Mother of Georgia Statue & More buildings, Tbilisi

Georgia has got rid of most Soviet relics as quickly as possible. Elusive traces of Soviet architecture remain especially in Tbilisi. This gracious town is not dominated by any Soviet monstrosity, and with the exception of the Parliament Building (see above), buildings dating to the years of Soviet tenancy are blended among older and more modern ones, luckily sparing the town from the typical post-Soviet ghost aura.

The very central Lenin Square has been renamed into Independence Square, when the statue of Lenin gave way to that of St. George.

A nice addition from Soviet times is the Statue of Mother Georgia, from the late 1950s. The idea of gigantic statues was pretty popular in the Soviet Union and other communist countries, like Yugoslavia (see here). However, the nationalistic inspiration of Mother Georgia meant it was not torn down when the Nation gained independence.

A few buildings and decorations from Soviet times can still be found in Tbilisi – side by side with futuristic ones – as well as many cars from the Cold War era!

Batumi

A thriving holiday destination on the Black Sea, closely resembling Miami Beach, the contrast between old-Soviet and novel American-style buildings is sometimes striking in Batumi. International hotels are there side-by-side with old monster apartment blocks from Soviet times, now less visible thanks to the application of some architectural cosmetics.

The town is very lively and enjoyable, as a result of a serious effort to make it an international-level seashore location. Even Donald Trump has been reportedly involved for a while in the construction of a resort on site!

Besides older buildings, some from before the Soviet era, as well as some small-scale Soviet-style monuments are still there. Only rare examples of really shabby Brezhneva (‘Brezhnev-era housing’) can be found in more peripheral areas.

A former port town of the Czar, Batumi was the target of the young communist Stalin, who preached to the workers of the port, spreading the word of Marx in the early 1900s.

Visiting

A visit to Batumi may be for the nightlife, for the sea, or for the Gonio Fortress nearby. The place can be reached directly by plane, car or train.

Kutaisi

The central square of Kutaisi, the second largest town in Georgia and the seat of the Parliament, is centered around the Colchis Fountain, designed in a style similar to that of Mother of Georgia in Tbilisi (see above).

Around the square, the Drama Theater and an adjoining building are clearly built in a Soviet formal style.

Visiting

Easily reachable, the ancient town of Kutaisi may be visited for the many historical and natural attractions in town and around. It is totally easy to reach by plane, train or car.

Borjomi

The name ‘Borjomi’ is known everywhere in the territory of the former USSR, thanks to the water springs in town. The water label ‘Borjomi’ is still today the perfect analogous of ‘Perrier’ or ‘San Pellegrino’ for the western world, meaning a top-quality sparkling water.

Actually, this natural spring was discovered when Georgia was part of the Russian Empire, when Russian soldiers fighting against the Turks  were mysteriously healed from some belly sickness while stationed in the area. The place became famous all over Russia for the its springs. A railway was put in place to connect Borjomi to the rest of the Empire, and famous personalities like Tchaikovsky are celebrated among the illustrious visitors to this nice location in the mountains. This town is still today a popular destination for vacation, with top-level hotels, a theme park, and much nature around to be explored.

Besides some older buildings, dating from before the Soviet era, some others are typically Russian style, like the railway station. Original timetables in Russian are still on display.

Look at this pic from an old Soviet base in the former DDR, to see the name ‘Borjomi’ among the railway stops in Soviet times!

Visiting

Reaching secluded Borjomi is not difficult by train or car from Tbilisi, or from nearby Gori.

Great Patriotic War Museum, Gori

Besides Stalin’s birthplace and the corresponding museum (see this dedicated post), for more curious visitors many memorabilia items, documents and artifacts can be found in Gori, in a museum dedicated to the Great Patriotic War (i.e. WWII for the Soviets). A scaled-down museum totally like the one in Kiev or Moscow (see here and here respectively), this exhibition is centered on the role of the Georgian SSR in the fight against Hitler’s Wehrmacht during WWII.

Many documents and photographs make this exhibition very lively.

Rare German relics are displayed in dedicated cases.

Similarly interesting are various artifacts from WWII and the Cold War.

The local hero – Stalin – is of course celebrated with a dedicated wall sculpture, photographs, and more.

A part of the museum is actually a memorial.

The museum has been more recently updated, with some displays concerning the most recent actions of the Georgian Army.

A large commemoration monument from Soviet times, slightly modified after independence, can be found outside the museum, making it noticeable when passing by.

Visiting

This small but interesting museum is located at a minimal walking distance from Stalin’s birth house, but it is a separate entity from it. It can be easily found at the southern tip of the garden leading to Stalin’s house. The entrance can be spotted thanks to the wall monument ahead of it.

Tbilisi Automuseum, Tbilisi

A full immersion in the history of automobiles of the Eastern Bloc! This museum is a true must for 4-wheels enthusiasts. The collection is hosted in two hangars.

The larger one is stuffed with cars from several decades of the Cold War timeline.

Older Soviet cars from Stalin’s era sit side-by-side with more modern Chaikas.

Not only stately ‘official’ cars, unreachable for the general public, are on display.

Smaller Ladas and Zil, often license-built Russian versions of Italian FIAT cars, can be found – some in the colors of the Police or other services.

At the time of visiting (2019) at least one original Soviet Pobeda car could be boarded!

The second hangar hosts a few light military vehicles, and some motorcycles.

Visiting

Visiting this museum is definitely recommended for car enthusiast, Cold War fanatics and alike. Easy to reach with a car or by taxi, moving from downtown in the direction of the airport. Totally worth a detour from Tbilisi city center. Don’t be discouraged by the ‘industrial’ setting around when approaching this elusive location. The place is polished, and managed like a regular museum. Website here.

Forst Zinna – A Soviet Ghost Base in Germany

The area of Jüterbog, about one hour driving south of downtown Berlin, boasts a long military tradition since well before the Cold War. Yet the most astonishing density of military installations in this region was reached in the years of the Third Reich, and later in the decades of Soviet occupation, lasting until the early 1990s.

Many chapters of this website are devoted to the subject of Soviet occupation in the communist German Democratic Republic (GDR), with portraits of many military bases over its former territory (see for instance this chapter, and links therein). These either belonged to the NVA, the armed forces of the GDR, or the Red Army of the Soviet Union, which retained a significant military presence in the GDR all along the Cold War, despite this country being formally independent.

This chapter deals with one of such military bases, Forst Zinna. This base stands out in the East German panoram, due to the intriguing history of the place on one side, but also thanks to the plenty of interesting sights you may find there (as of mid-2019) – whereas many other similar abandoned installations have been wiped out by local governments, sometimes to be converted into something else.

The large military base at Forst Zinna was founded at the dawn of the Third Reich in the mid-1930s, and named after the führer, Adolf Hitler. The core was constituted by a set of solid multi-storey buildings, aligned along at least four parallel rows about a third of a mile in length, built in a typical old-German style. These hosted barracks and training rooms, used by an artillery and transportation school. There were also many service buildings, like canteens, sport and administration facilities. The base was operated by the Wehrmacht until the end of WWII, when the region was conquered by the Red Army. Thanks to its design, featuring large halls and common spaces, it was selected immediately after WWII to host an academy for future German functionaries of the yet-to-be-founded GDR (or DDR, the German acronym for the GDR).

The place was decorated and refurbished reflecting the style of the new communist owners and the cultural paradigms enforced by Stalin. Just before the latter’s death, in February 1953 the academy was transferred, and Forst Zinna was handed over to the Soviet army. They further enlarged the base, adding storage areas, small farms for food production, technical buildings, plus over the years some new housing.

The end of the story is similar to many military areas in the GDR. The Soviets finally left, the bases were too many for reunified Germany in a post-Cold War scenario, so most of them were either demolished, converted or forgotten. Forst Zinna has been largely demolished, but some of the buildings, built before the end of WWII, are reportedly registered as landmarks. The whole area is sitting in the wild vegetation and is not really looked after, but much is still there and makes for a mysterious memento of past vicissitudes Germany managed to survive. To the war historian and urbex fanatic as well, Forst Zinna has really much in store.

Photographs in this post were collected during two long visits in July and August 2019.

Sights

The base occupies a roughly square area, with a side about .8 miles long. For making the description easier, its premises can be divided into four ideal sectors.

The barracks area to the southwest, where you also find an easy access to the base, is populated with the oldest buildings, erected well before WWII. These comprise living quarters, school-like buildings, canteens, administration buildings, at least one gym, a theater, an open-air movie theater, a prison, and more. There are also a couple of clearly distinguishable Soviet-built apartment buildings, much more recent and taller than their neighbors.

To the north of the base you can find a sizable area which likely hosted a huge deposit for vehicles, as well as other technical facilities. Here demolition works have stricken hard, and today only a few buildings are still in place. Yet these include what appears as a centralized power/hot water supply plant, as well as large services for the troops, which make for interesting pictures.

In the third sector to the northeast, a large U-shaped technical building hosts a unique room with Soviet memorabilia. In this area you can find also a swimming pool, a football field with nice Soviet murals, and much dumped military material. Also here demolition works must have been carried out at an early post-Soviet stage, as vegetation has already grown over the debris.

Finally, to the west of the perimeter but next to it, you can find a ghost monument from soviet times.

You can find aerial pictures of the Forst Zinna base in this chapter.

Southwestern Area – Most of the Barracks and Older Buildings

Accessing the base via the southwestern corner, you immediately meet the the first original buildings from the pre-WWII period. They are painted in a nice dark yellow.

From the pics you can appreciate the length of the blocks in this part of the base. Among other spectral items, former notice-boards for activities in the base, like the movie theater, or for the latest news.

The perimeter is marked by a concrete wall running very close to one of the rows of buildings. The walls appear decorated with didactic explanations of something technical.

Entering the buildings, you may find tons of derelict memorabilia items, including hand-written registers, book covers, etc., all in Russian. Something in no shortage in the base is surely restrooms! There are really many.

The actual function of the buildings needs to be guessed, but some must have been used as schools – or even kindergartens – at least in Soviet times, when modern housing was added to the base also for the families of the troops. This theory maybe supported by the type of decoration you sometimes find in these buildings.

Walking in some of the taller yellow buildings, likely hosting also some living areas in the years of operation, you soon perceive the style is clearly pre-Soviet – too elaborated for USSR standard, and typically German. The age of the buildings can be judged also by the heating system, based on tiled stoves fed with coal. Traces of coal can still be seen in the corridors, where the stoves were loaded!

The stairs are particularly nice in style. You are not encouraged to climb upstairs, especially in those buildings were the roof is leaking. Under the roof you can appreciate the wooden structure supporting the external tiles.

Some rooms of these buildings used to host other services, like for instance a – likely – tailor, or uniform shop, as you can see from the furniture and from the explanatory sign.

Close to the southwestern corner of the base you can find two twin apartment buildings in a typical shabby Soviet style, possibly dating to the 1970s.

The size of the apartments is incredibly small! They are apparently small one-room unities, with an extra-small kitchenette and a microscopical bathroom. On the plus side, all have a balcony on the facade.

Leftovers of the original furniture are abundant here – as you may see, everything is extremely poor quality. In some of the bathrooms you may find some stickers decorating the wall, and even traces of toilet paper holders!

The ‘Soviet ghost’ aura here is extremely intense, as everyday items can be found everywhere, like the troops had just left. In the backyard of these buildings you can find remains of a playground, broken bicycles, and even traces of hanging wires!

Just ahead of these buildings, you can see a mystery one-storey tunnel structure made of a set of progressively smaller sections – making it look like a weird ‘telescopic building’. It is clearly from a relatively late age, maybe one of the last additions to the complex.

One of the blocks adjoining the taller buildings to the south is a small (likely) elementary school, with a nice indoor gym, as well as a fenced outdoor playground. Soviet playground designers made extensive use of old tires. Here they are even painted in bright colors!

North of the school, you meet an array of smaller buildings along the perimeter of the base, but their function remains to guess.

The long rows of yellow barracks are interspersed with areas or buildings dedicated to special functions. For instance, at some point you can find a rather large open-air training area, with many types of ladders, balance axes, leapfrogs and more training rigs still in place, albeit completely surrounded by wild vegetation.

Another item is apparently a school building, with a typical academy-style front facade, and classrooms inside. By this building there is also a kind of small firefighting post (not sure), which includes a cylinder bell with a nice sound – really weird, complementing the unreal silence of this place!

There are at least two large canteen buildings. In the first you find very big kitchen rooms, with large ventilation hoods and stoves still in place.

There are also storage rooms, some with wooden trays, maybe for bread, or maybe for putting trays after lunch.

In the second canteen, even larger, you can find also remains of a Soviet decorated wall, with traces of writings and small paintings.

Other special buildings, close to one of the canteens, include a nice greenhouse.

There is also a relatively large open-air movie theater, with a covered stage and uncovered seats for the public. The benches are gone, but their legs remain. The machine room to the back is in a really bad shape.

To one side of the open-air movie theater you can find one of the strangest items in the base. It is an area severed from the others by a serious barbed-wire fence – still difficult to go through! In this kind of ‘private garden’ you can find two explanatory signs in Cyrillic, and what appear to be gym gear for fight training. There is also as a small monument – or a grave? – composed of a glass obelisk planted on a delimited area on the ground.

Even weirder, the adjoining building features very small windows… an exploration of this building allows to clarify its purpose – it used to be a prison, the small windows being on the sidewalls of the cells! There are four cells at least, with peepholes in the doors. Everything very similar in style to the Soviet prison in Karosta, Latvia, except you can’t experience the thrill of sleeping in ‘safely’ – see this post!

Not far from the fenced courtyard you can find a naive wall painting portraying two tanks transported on railway trolleys. One of the troopers has been stricken by an electric shock, as apparently his rifle touched the high-voltage cables over the railway – oh no!

There are also sport-themed murals on a fence. A building nearby looks like a garage for a small vans or for cars, maybe a mechanics shop or similar. There is also a storage room with nice wooden paneling.

The garden + prison ensemble may be interpreted as a military-police-run part of the base, likely an unwelcoming sector of the installation in its heyday! Not far you can find also an academy building with large halls, including a former gym. The vocation of the place is witnessed by a sport-themed mural.

Another special building close by the mystery quarters probably used to be a club, with a kitschy decorated room, and another gym area, with another interesting sport-themed mural. Some of the less explicitly Soviet murals may date to the years immediately after WWII, when Forst Zinna was a training academy for future key-figures of the ‘political life’ (?) of the GDR.

Another interesting building can be found to the northern end of this sector of the base. Some decorative details look more modern than the age of the base. It looks like there was a kind of glass-covered patio, or a large greenhouse.

A highlight of the northern part of this sector is the large theater building. Unfortunately, the roof of the theater room has recently collapsed completely, destroying everything below it. Yet the foyer was spared, with one of the most famous Soviet murals in the GDR. Considering the style, it must date from a relatively recent Soviet age, even though the military gear in the portrait is not really recent.

Still in place is the coat hangers area, with some inscription in Russian on the wall nearby. The building – well, what remains of it – is likely from pre-WWII times.

To the northwestern end of the barracks sector, cross the main former access road to the base, you can find traces of Soviet monuments, with stylized troopers, a huge concrete Red Banner flag and information signs, everything in a rather bad shape, and attacked by the wild vegetation.

Nearby you can find an administration building, nice in style, but again in a very bad shape, and with a partly-collapsed roof. Yet this building hosts something of great interest for pickier explorers and Cold War historians. A couple of rooms likely hosted a logistic or travel service, and here you can find at least three well-preserved maps of the USSR!

The first is a smaller-scale topographic map, and is the worst conserved. The corresponding office was really shabby, with the lowest quality furniture. What appears interesting here is a set of electric power metering rigs or switches, with hand-written labeling in German – maybe from the years of Wehrmacht tenancy?

The second map is a very big political map of the USSR, with all the Soviet Socialist Republics. You may spend an hour looking at all the particulars! The map is from 1971. You can find places like Voroshilovgrad, Leningrad, Chernobyl, Riga, Poliarnyi, Semipalatinsk, Gorkij, Leninakan, all within the boundaries of the Soviet Union – names strongly bound to real world or fiction plots from the Cold War! Some of these locations have even changed their names!

The third map is an even more unique portrait of the railway lines of the USSR, presented in great detail – the map, from 1981, occupies an entire wall. Here you can also find interesting names and places, like Tashkent, Gori – Stalin’s birthplace in Georgia, see this chapter – or Borjomi, where one of the most famous water springs of the Czarist Empire is still active, producing mineral water you can find everywhere in the former USSR still today.

To end with this part, between the administration building and the theater, you can find a really mysterious underground bunker-like structure. This faces to the ground in an area fenced with barbed wire and protected by a firing turret with loopholes. Maybe a deposit for rifles or smaller weapons?

Northern Area – Warehouses and Technical Buildings

This area was likely devoted to the storage of heavy vehicles – trucks, tanks, movable cannons, who knows? As you can see from Google pictures on the web, until at least 2009 there used to be many garage buildings here. As said, this is the area most hit by demolition works, and what you find today is a large flat area, with some buildings surviving close to the perimeter, marked by the original concrete outer wall of the base.

Luckily for explorers, a few surviving buildings make for interesting sights. An item you can easily spot is a tall brick chimney. At the base of this you can find a – likely – power station for the base. The burners are gone, but you can see extensive piping, and boilers for hot water.

The piping from the boilers – made in the GDR in 1973 – are labeled in Russian, and there are also several posters and signs in Cyrillic. Not far from the main rooms, there is a small booth for a technician constantly supervising the plant.

Close by the power station building, large service buildings are shrouded in the wild vegetation. One of them was completely dedicated to bathrooms. The most visible remains are the changing rooms, with some hangers with small mirrors still in place, and the showers, still partly intact!

North of these buildings, you meet a long concrete pool with slides for vehicles at the two far ends. It used to carry out some industrial function – amphibious vehicle testing?

Other surviving buildings in this area include a very tall one, possibly a maintenance hangar, as well as some of the – originally many – garages.

Close by the inner fence dividing this sector from the barracks part of the base, you can find a smaller garage with some books scattered around. There is also a fire emergency station with writings in Russian.

Northeastern Area – Sporting Facilities and Mystery U-Shaped Building

In this area, technically not separated from the southwestern one with the barracks, you can find some non-residential buildings of great interest.

Possibly the construction with the largest area in the whole base, a big U-shaped building with what appear to be large workshops or garages can be found close to the northeastern corner of the base, just inside the perimeter concrete wall.

Inside the halls of this building, you can find many interesting Soviet remains – posts, writings, murals,… The function of these many rooms has really to be guessed. Some feature doors so small that entering with a vehicle would be impossible. Others still preserve the smell of Diesel oil.

An unexpected surprise in this mystery building is a kind of commemoration-information area. The geometry of the rooms is very strange, with a small unlighted corridor leading you in. An incredible Soviet mural with hammer and sickle can be found in this corridor.

In the two adjoining rooms you can find traces of many interesting panels, arranged in a kind of ‘Soviet temple’ architecture. There are photographs of soldiers during training activities, aircraft, tanks, portraits of some high-ranking staff, and much more.

There are also artistically valuable Soviet-themed comics characters! Some big photographs portray the base of Forst Zinna in the days of operation. Unfortunately, big parts of the pics are missing, but you can recognize the typical German architecture of the buildings. The appearance of the base used to be different, without all the trees you find today!

The next room was possibly centered on the explanation of some Soviet industrial activity. The room is dominated by a scaled model of the USSR, with some locations – including Chernobyl nuclear power-plant, find it between Kiev and Minsk! – pinpointed on the map.

The walls of the quarters where these strange rooms can be found are covered in old newspapers. There are also historical pictures of the Soviet monument in Khatyn and other locations in Belarus (see here).

Close by the U-shaped building, moving north you can find a strange storage, with cases for – apparently – rifles.

To the northern end, there is an open-air swimming pool. It lies at the center of a sporting area, close to the outer concrete wall of the base. The pool makes for very good photo opportunities. It is hard to tell whether this was built for the Wehrmacht or later for the Soviets. It is large, and two springboards are more or less still in place.

The service building nearby appears to date from old times. Yet the pool was much used by the Soviets, as shown by the number of panels written in Russian, including regulations, one with a ‘START’ sign, another to show the temperature of water!

There are also typically Soviet decorations, like an Olympics symbol made of metal gearwheels.

Close to the pool, you can find a ghost football field. You can see a goal and a referee ladder, both imprisoned by the newly grown trees!

Next to the football field, the wall of the base is decorated with some nice sport-themed Soviet murals.

Leaving the base behind when walking further northeast, you come across former trenches, and a dump of light material, including many Soviet boots, gas masks, spades, bottles, and so on. They are likely what remains of flattened buildings in this area.

Soviet Monument

Back to the perimeter road where the main gate to the base is, to the opposite side of the main access road you can find an interesting monumental ensemble hidden in the trees. This was probably composed of a small square, today barely recognizable due to the overgrown vegetation, bordered to the far end by a set of concrete slabs adorned with typical soviet themes and by a tall concrete spine.

The latter part is still there, almost untouched. The spine used to be colored, as testified by the scant remnants of red paint over the surface. Also a painted emblem can be found to the back of the cube suspended halfway along the spine.

The slabs feature a head of Lenin, seen from the side, together with the ship Aurora. Others feature a dam, the monument to the Russian motherland in Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad), and the monument to the soviet cosmonauts in Moscow, among other items.

Getting there & Moving around

Reaching the premises of Forst Zinna is not difficult. The site is five minutes northeast of Jüterbog, about 1 hour driving south of Berlin, and is recognized by normal GPS navs. Jüterbog has also a railway station, so you may come by train+MTB.

The official status of the site is uncertain. There are a few prohibition signs ahead of the official gate, but much less than in other similar locations in Germany, and some of the buildings are reportedly listed, albeit not really looked after. The real threat for a visit is in the condition of the base. Most buildings are in a really bad shape, and entering is at your own risk. As said, some of the most visited parts have finally collapsed – luckily, nobody was in at the wrong time, but be sure you know what you are doing and take all precautions.

Forst Zinna is rather popular among German explorers, plus the area is a natural preserve now, so you will likely meet somebody during the exploration of the site, especially during the week-end. If you go on working days instead, you are likely to be alone all of the time, which may add to the atmosphere.

The size of the base is very large. These photographs were taken over three visits, for a total of about 10 hours, and at least on third of the buildings have been totally overlooked or not explored thoroughly.

Berlin Airlift 70th Anniversary Celebrations in Schleswig-Jagel

The blockade imposed by Stalin on the jointly administrated city of Berlin in the spring of 1948 dissipated any doubts on the post-WWII attitude of the Soviet Union towards their former allies in the west. The ensuing joint effort to support the trapped population of Berlin resulted in one of the major airlift operations in history – the Berlin Airlift, or Luftbrücke in German language. In June 2019, 70 years after the end of the blockade, Germany hosted a great celebration for the anniversary of this vital operation.

History – in Brief

The blockade started slowly, with trains crossing the Soviet occupied territory – soon to become administrated as a new state, the communist German Democratic Republic – between Berlin and western Germany forced to stop and go back, truck routes closed, increased controls at border checkpoints. In early summer, the city was completely isolated from the west.

The Soviets tried to motivate the move with treaty violations by the western forces, but this did not receive much credit by the administration of President Truman in the US, nor in Britain, France, or the occupied territories of western Germany. To mitigate the lack of coal, food, drugs and other goods of primary use for the local population, the joint forces of the United States, Britain, France, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand set up a massive airlift under the coordination of the US military.

Over roughly a year more than 275’000 flights were carried out, mainly between three airfields in the territory of western Germany – Jagel, Fassberg and Wiesbaden – occupied by the western Allies, to Berlin Tempelhof downtown airport (see this post), as well as other land and water bases in the cut-off urban area. These were operated with a variety of transport aircraft, including Douglas C-47 and C-54 twin and four-propeller cargo planes manufactured in the US, as well as several British models, including some Shorts seaplanes.

Stalin opted to avoid an escalation. The blockade was finally lifted by the Soviets on May 12, 1949. The situation was stabilized with the birth of the Federal Republic of Germany in the west, and of the opposing German Democratic Republic in the east, later the same year. The western sectors of Berlin were to remain an enclave of the free world deep in the communist bloc for slightly more than another 40 years, when the GDR – aka DDR in German language – finally ceased to exist, and the re-unification started.

A great museum tracing the history of the presence of the western Allies in Berlin, telling the history of the Airlift in great detail, is the Allied Museum (website here) in the former US sector of Berlin-Zehlendorf.

70th Anniversary Celebrations in Germany

In 2019 the 70th year since the end of the blockade, lifted as a result of the airlift effectively sustaining the population of Berlin for an entire year, was celebrated with the patronage of the German government with a series of unique aircraft-related events. The most prominent were a few formation flights of an incredible group of historical aircraft, between the airfields formerly used as supply bases for the airlift.

One of these, the still-active military airfield of Jagel, in Schleswig-Holstein some 60 miles north of Hamburg, hosted a ‘spotter day’ on June 13th, 2019, when a few hundreds photographers were admitted for the whole day on the premises of the airbase, to assist to the landing, departure and flypast of a fleet of nine Douglas C-47, a major workhorse in the days of the airlift.

This marked possibly the largest grouping of such historic aircraft in Europe since many years. But what made the event even more unique – besides the weather, incredibly mild for the region… – was the origin of the aircraft, which except for one are all based in the US. They crossed the Atlantic once more to parade in the celebration of the 75th anniversary of the D-Day in Normandy, attended also by President Trump and Charles, Prince of Wales. A few days after, they toured Germany for the 70th anniversary of the Berlin Airlift.

Besides the commemoration flight, normal flying activity was carried out during the spotter day around the airbase, so this was a good chance to assist to flight operations by Tornados and Typhoons of the German Air Force, as well as other military aircraft.

Historical Flight – Fly-in

A single C-47 arrived earlier than all others, anticipating the massive fly-in of the full wing of Douglas C-47 twin-prop liners. Later on, a flypast all Skytrains to take part in the event started from the east of the field. The aircraft then landed one by one, taxied ahead of the photographers and after a stop of a few hours, took off in a row for another location in Germany.

US Air Force C-47A/DC-3C ‘Miss Virginia’

The first aircraft to come was ex-USAAF 43-30655, built in 1943 as a military C-47A. The aircraft fell in private hands in the 1970s, after yeast stored in Arizona, when it was converted into an DC-3C, an energized version of the original 1930s design. It spent the 1980s in Colombia, then returned to the US as a utility aircraft. It was finally acquired for restoration and given the nice US Air Mobility Command colors it bears today. It flies with the civilian registration N47E.

Golden Age Tours C-41A

This incredible aircraft, now in civilian hands since long, is a unique example of an executive version of the original 1935 DC-3. Built in 1938, it entered military service soon after as a private flight for Maj. General Henry ‘Hap’ Arnold – an instrumental figure in the reorganization of the US military forces upon the early 1940s. It went on keeping its original executive configuration, and today it is lent out for special flights and for filming purposes from its base near San Francisco, CA. It bears the civilian registration N341A.

USAAF C-47A 43-30647 ‘Virginia Ann’

This aircraft was in service with the USAAF since 1943. It took part to the D-Day operations with the name ‘Virginia Ann’, but was put on storage soon after WWII. It later went to private owners and was based in many domestic locations, including being part of the famous Planes of Fame collection in Chino, CA (see this post). Today it is still based on the West Coast, with the registration N62CC.

Chalair C-47B

This C-47B was built among the latest in May 1945. It was surplus for the USAAF soon after WWII, so it joined the Royal Air Force inventory, and from there it left for Canada, where it enjoyed many years of service as a VIP transport in the Royal Canadian Air Force until the 1970s. It reportedly served as a Royal Flight for the Queen of England during a visit to Canada. After withdrawal from active service and changing hands several times in Canada, it was finally acquired in France and totally restored in the late 2000s. It flies with the registration F-AZOX.