Traces of World War II in Norway – Highlights

War actions in Scandinavia constitute a crucial stage in the unfolding of WWII events in Europe. The strategic position of the Scandinavian peninsula was not overlooked by strategists in the Third Reich and the USSR, and by the Western Allies. As a matter of fact, the German invasion of Denmark and Norway took place as early as the Spring of 1940, starting just weeks before the invasion of Holland, Belgium and France.

History & Remains – A Quick Summary

For Germany in WWII, the long and impervious coast of Norway constituted an ideal strong point to carry out raids over the North Sea, Norwegian Sea, the northern Atlantic and the Barents Sea, interfering with resupply convoys from Britain and the US. Especially after the start of the war against the USSR in 1941, the polar routes going to Murmansk – the only non-freezing port on the northern coast of the USSR – were within range of German warships and aircraft operating from the north of Norway. Control over Norway and Denmark meant total control on the access to the Baltic Sea, thus protecting the northern coast of Germany from direct attack by the Western Allies, allowing unimpeded action against the Soviet Union on that sea. Of the greatest importance in the northern European territory was also the abundance of raw materials – mainly metals for industrial production – so desperately needed by the Third Reich.

For the Allies, keeping Scandinavia was an objective of great relevance in the early stages of the war, since this territory could be a convenient springboard to launch attacks against the flat and easy coast of Germany. In the rapidly changing complex alliances and diplomatic relationships of the early stage of WWII (1939-40), Norway and Sweden tried to keep out of the war. Finland fought the Winter War against the USSR (itself one of the results of the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact, albeit not to the knowledge of the Finns), loosing part of its territory and strengthening its link with Germany for some years to come (see this post). The Third Reich attacked Norway by air and sea in April 1940, and help was sought especially in Britain. King Haakon VII of Norway left for exile in England, and the initial battles of WWII between the Reich and the UK were fought – mainly at sea – in proximity of Norwegian ports.

The Atlantic Wall

Possibly the most impressive military trace of WWII in Europe, the Atlantic Wall – a defense line stretching from France to northern Norway – was designed and built in Denmark and Germany, immediately following the successful push of the Third Reich into these Countries. Actually, those are the Countries where the most relevant remains of this interesting trace of war can be found today. A very ambitious project both in purpose and required resources, the Atlantic Wall never reached completion. Despite that, the geography of Norway, with a coastline featuring only limited access to the inland area, allowed to create an effective barrier against a potential enemy landing. Hundreds of gun batteries, complemented with anti-aircraft artillery and radars, constituted a powerful deterrent against any invasion. As a matter of fact, after the unique episode of the Battle of Narvik in the early stages of WWII, no Allied forces ever landed in Norway from the sea for the rest of the war.

A complete visit to all sites of the Atlantic Wall in Norway is a really immense task, due to the number of installations and their geographical remoteness. However, a few impressive highlights can be found in convenient locations, and can be easily visited by everybody. In this post some of them are presented – the colossal battery ‘Vara’, the southern fortified area of Lista, the forts of Fjell and Tellevik near Bergen, and the massive cannons of Austratt.

War Museums

But other fragments of the rich legacy of WWII in Norway can be retraced also away from the preserved installations of the Atlantic Wall. An interesting page is that of naval warfare deployed by the Navy of the Third Reich – the Kriegsmarine – to counter Allied shipping activities. Names like Tirpitz, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau are frequently found in history books as well as in movies or scale model shops, and they are just a few of the mighty vessels linked to the Scandinavian war theater. Dedicated exhibitions can be found in little but impressively rich museums on these topics. In this post, the Tirpitz Museum in Alta, the War Museum of Narvik and the exhibition in the visitor center of North Cape are covered.

Special interest sites

Heroic actions involving the Norwegian resistance organization are proudly remembered all over the Nation. A particularly interesting location being the Rjukan hydroelectric power-plant, which produced heavy water, a key-component in the research leading to the preparation of fissile material. This strategic asset was highly needed by the German nuclear program. On the other hand, its possession by the Third Reich was seen as a clear and present danger by the Allies, who tried to have the plant destroyed in several instances. The Norwegian resistance was clearly much involved in sabotage missions, due to the difficulty in targeting the place through air bombing raids. The power-plant is today a nice museum, covered in this post.

Photographs in this chapter were collected on a visit in August 2022.

Sights

The map below shows the location of the sites mentioned in this chapter. Their listing in the descriptions roughly follows a clockwise sense, starting from the southernmost point of Kristiansand (Vara battery). Red items are in disrepair, whereas blue ones are official tourist destinations.

Navigate this post – Click on links to scroll

Vara Battery – Kristiansand

The Vara battery was built as the core of the strongly fortified area around Kristiansand. Thanks to its position close to the southernmost tip of the Norwegian territory, this port town is still today very busy with passenger and freight traffic from nearby Denmark.

The Third Reich military started to lay sea mines as soon as it gained control of both sides of the Skagerrak strait. The coast around Kristiansand was reinforced with several coastal artillery pieces, and production of a set of special 38 cm caliber guns – called Siegfried -was started by the Krupp ironworks in Essen in 1940. The aim was that of controlling access to the Baltic sea by means of two batteries of long-range naval guns, one to the south in Denmark (Hanstholm, see here), and one to the north in Kristiansand.

The cannons should be capable of revolving by 360 degrees, and special concrete rotundas were prepared for the scope in a location called Møvik, on the southwestern end of the gulf of Kristiansand. The complex morphology of the terrain in this site led to a smaller than desirable area for the battery, where all technical buildings – including ammo storages – had to be built relatively close to one another. These massive constructions alone, built by the same ‘Organisation Todt’ responsible for the implementation of the coastal defense positions all over Europe, make for a remarkable work of engineering, carried out with the help of local builders, working relentlessly around the clock to have these emplacements ready as soon as possible.

In the event, only three of the four Siegfried cannons made their way to the battery in Kristiansand, one being apparently lost when the transport ship carrying it was sunk on the Baltic Sea. Transporting these 110 ton, around 60 ft long barrels by rail from Germany into the narrow valleys of Scandinavia was not an easy task. However, two cannons were test-fired in May 1942, and the third in November the same year.

The battery received the name ‘Vara’, after a high-ranking official killed in Guernsey in 1941.

Battery Vara went through the war without seeing an involvement in any major war action, and was mainly test-fired only. The whole installation, comprising target detection points, analog computers for target aiming, ammo storages – including more than 1.400 shells! – and many other service buildings, was inherited intact by the Norwegian Armed Forces in 1945, similar to many other installations along the coast of the Skagerrak and the North Sea. It was incorporated in the Norwegian coastal artillery between 1946 and 1954, being later placed in reserve having by then become obsolete for Cold War warfare standards. Two cannons were scrapped, whereas one – the only entirely surviving battery Nr. 2 – was luckily kept. The site survived subsequent stages of demolition works over the next decades, but in the early 1990s it was finally re-opened as a museum.

Cannon Nr. 2

Today, the centerpiece of the visit is constituted by a walk around the perfectly preserved building of cannon Nr.2. This bunkerized building is composed of a set of technical rooms, for ammo assembly and storage, as well as for services like Diesel power generators, and an adjoining rotunda, where the big cannon revolved around a pinion, and could be pointed to its target, following instructions from the battery control center. The latter elaborated target data from detection, identification, measuring and range-finding positions scattered around the battery perimeter.

Access to the back of the concrete building is via the original hatch, closed by iron doors. You can see the narrow-gauge railway track leading in. This linked the cannon buildings with the ammo storages around, and allowed to supply the cannon with ammo parts (the explosive cartridge and the shell are not assembled in a single unity for larger cannons, unlike for lighter weapons). The hatch drives you into a long corridor, the backbone of the bunkerized quarters behind the cannon rotunda. Here some shells have been put on the original railway trolley for display.

The cannon building hosted a permanent watch of a few men, which manned it permanently in shifts. A living room with some berths is the only one offering some comfort in the building.

A number of rooms in the bunker are dedicated to the power generator plant. A primary and a back-up generator share the same room. Of special interest are the labels on all machines and mechanisms, proudly made in Germany – in some cases, by brands still existing today.

Electric power was required for the motion of the cannon, besides for smaller appliances like lights and radios. The cannons could make use of the regional grid, but since an unstable supply might have damaged the cannon motors, aiming operations were often carried out on the controlled internal power grid, fed by the generators, and producing an optimal output.

Beside the generator room, the air conditioning plant (not for comfort, but to slightly pressurize the bunker in order to repel and pump-out poisonous or exhaust gas), the Diesel tank and the water tank for cooling the generator can be seen in adjoining rooms.

To the far end of the corridor, a radio room was used to maintain a link with the battery command post, located more than 1 mile away from Vara battery. Actually, by design the electric signals to orient the cannon could be given by the control post, and the radio communication system was there for backup.

On the other side of the corridor with respect to the generator rooms – i.e. towards the cannon rotunda – are four adjoining rooms, used to store the components of the explosive cartridges and shells. The shells and cartridges prepared for firing were moved via a crane to a tray, and from there sent side-wards to the rotunda, where they were loaded on a trolley. The cranes, trays and slots linking these rooms to the rotunda can be found around the area of the bunker closer to the rotunda.

The cranes moved along tracks hanging from the ceiling. These tracks had some switch points, allowing to allow the crane to move across different rooms in the bunker.

Inside these rooms, today you can find much original material of special interest. Specimens of high-explosive (yellow) and armor-piercing (blue) shells are displayed. The weight of the shells was around 800 kg, where the cartridge could feature different weights, roughly from 100 to 200 kg.

The top range of these cannons and shells was around 43 km. Smaller 500 kg shells could alternatively be fired by Siegfried cannons, with a longer range of 55 km. Furthermore, the cannon could be test-fired during drills with smaller caliber shots, by reducing the bore of the cannon. This was a very useful feature, since the estimated loss of barrel metal due to attrition was a staggering 0.25 kg per shot, implying a life of the barrel of only around 250-300 shots, firing with sufficient accuracy. Shooting smaller shells allowed to spare barrel wear and extend the time between overhauls of the cannon.

The sealed canisters for the explosive cartridges, with original markings in German, can still be seen piled in a room!

More material on display includes a rare example of fire direction computer. Actually, that on display is smaller than the one originally used for the long-range cannons of Vara battery, but it provides a good idea of the level of sophistication of this mechanism. Data like target distance, velocity, orientation, wind speed and direction, etc. were set as input to this analog computer, producing fire direction variables to point the cannon. An incredible masterpiece of engineering and craftsmanship, this type of computer is difficult to find in museums, and allows to appreciate the level of development of warfare back in the 1940s.

Data including range of the target was found with the help of special instrumentation. A stereoscopic range-finder was installed in the battery command post, with an arm of 12 m, which allowed good accuracy for very distant targets – required for the long range of the cannons of Vara battery. Smaller instruments with the same principle are displayed in one of the rooms.

Among the special features of this bunkerized building are the restored, original writings from German times, as well as a one-of-a-kind painting made by a Soviet prisoner of war.

From the bunkerized room, you can get access to the rotunda. Cartridges put on trolleys moved along a circular railway track all around the rotunda. This way, cartridges could be taken to the cannon whatever the direction it was pointing. Once to the base of the cannon turret, the explosive charge and the shell were lifted separately by means of two special elevators, up to the level of the gun shutter.

An impressive feature of the rotunda is the ring cover for the circular railway. In order to protect the railway passage from above, while allowing the cannon to rotate, a roof made of thick metal scales was implemented. When revolving around the pinion, the cannon turret would automatically lift the scales on its passage. The sound of the scales being lifted and released while the cannon body was revolving must have been really an experience!

Pictures can hardly tell how big the cannon turret is!

Following an exploration from beneath, you can exit the bunker building, climb up to the level of the barrel, and finally enter the turret.

Here the back of the barrel dominates the relatively large firing chamber. The shutter has been left open, so you can see the sunlight through the barrel.

The shell and explosive charge were received from the two elevators on a special tray, and here they were finally aligned one before the other. Somewhat in contrast to the top-notch technology level of the installation, the cartridge had to be pushed from the back into the barrel by hand. A long wooden stick was used for the task. Actually, it was so long that it protruded from the back of the cannon turret, thus requiring a small hatch to be pierced in the metal armor correspondingly. On one side of the barrel, instrumentation for measuring the pointing direction is still in place.

Air-pumping mechanisms can be clearly seen, similarly to communication phones to the back and top of the room.

Cannon Nr. 1

The position of cannon Nr.1 was prepared unusually close to that of Nr.2. As said, this was due to the limited available area on the uneven coast section where the battery was put in place. However, Nr.1 never received a cannon. Conversely, it was modified later in the war, when experimenting with cannon protection from air-dropped high-yield bombs. The rotunda was capped with a very thick concrete roof, sustained by sidewalls which limited the side-wards rotation of the cannon to 120 degrees.

The rotunda can be walked freely. The central pinion is still in place. Inside, the ceiling is covered in original metal panels. The round corridor for the trolleys can still be seen, but there is no access left to the bunkerized part.

The firing position can be climbed, and from the elevated top you get a great view of the battery and of the area ahead of it.

Other buildings

Following the railway around the site is a great way to find what remains today of the original installation. There are two bulky ammo storages. These were reportedly more thickly armored than usual, in view of a higher risk of getting hit, due to the unusual proximity with the cannons – designated targets for the enemy.

Furthermore, other smaller buildings are scattered around, which may have served as storage for lighter weapons.

The positions of cannons Nr. 3 and Nr. 4 have been largely demolished, and access is permanently shut to the bunkerized part. However, you can easily climb to the top level, to get a nice view of the rotunda.

Visiting

Vara is in the top-five list of the most famous surviving installations of the Atlantic Wall in Europe, and a visit to this destination is in itself a good reason for a detour to Norway for war historians and like-minded people. Due to its proximity to the port of Kristiansand, just minutes apart by car, and the relatively easy-to-reach location in the most populated part of Norway, it is also a top destination for any tourist in the area. As a matter of fact, the place is run as a top-level museum, with great reception capability, and is visited by thousands of visitors per year.

Visiting can be performed on a self-guided basis, with an explanation leaflet which allows to get much from your visit, especially if you are not new to installations of the Atlantic Wall (which are mostly standardized, despite Vara having really oversized guns!). A tour of the main features – cannon Nr.2 and the building of Nr.1 – may take 1 hour at least, for an averagely interested person. For an in-depth visit and a quick tour of the premises including other remains, more than 2 hours are needed. Thanks to the exceptional level of conservation and the explanation of whatever is on display, the visit is not boring and may be very rewarding even for younger people.

Large parking on site, picnic tables and warm reception are available – as usual in Norway! Website with full information here.

Nordberg & Marka Batteries – Farsund

Located in the southwestern corner of the Norwegian territory, about 100 miles south of the port of Stavanger, the municipality of Farsund encompasses a number of small coastal villages, around the landmark represented by the lighthouse of Lista.

Two batteries were set up by the German occupation forces as part of the Atlantic wall, both fully operative by 1942. The northern one is called Nordberg fort, where the southern one, very close to the shore line, is known as Marka fort. Between the two, the Germans installed a full-scale airbase, with a runway of roughly 1.5 km, complemented by hangars and shelters largely standing today. Following the end of WWII and the withdrawal of the German military, all these installations were converted for military use by the Norwegian armed forces, which also developed the original airfield into a more modern airbase by stretching the runway.

Today, Nordberg fort is a museum. The German Navy was in charge of the station, which had as centerpieces three 150 mm cannons, with a range of around 23 km. The cannons have been scrapped (with the exception of a lighter piece of Russian make). However, the firing positions are still there, linked by a semi-interred trench.

You can see also the original control point for the battery, developed by the Norwegians more recently, and the concrete base for a radar antenna originally on site.

Several original buildings for services – canteen, hospital,… – are still there, making for a an interesting opportunity to see how this installation looked like back in the 1940s.

The Marka fort was assembled around six 150 mm guns, located very close to the sea, grouped in two batteries of three firing positions each. A huge bunkerized command post was built in the premises of the fort. Today, after the Norwegian military left at the end of the Cold War, the Marka battery is basically a ghost site, despite being still in a relatively good shape.

The control bunker is especially interesting, since you can access the top level and watch the sea from the very same room and windows originally used by the German Navy troops! The general arrangement of the bunker is similar to other command posts you can find on the Atlantic Wall – especially in Denmark (see here).

The positions for the coastal guns can be reached close to the control bunker. They are uncovered round areas, slightly below the level of the ground, framed by a circular reinforced sidewall.

More Atlantic Wall remains, like bunkers, foundations for radar stations, or emplacements for lighter guns, can be  be found scattered in the area of Farsund – which kept its military site status well after the Germans had left.

Visiting

The museum of Nordberg keeps some of the buildings on the respective site open. However, the majority of the site is open 24 hours, and can be walked freely. A visit may take about 1 hour. A convenient parking can be found right ahead of the modern and welcoming visitor center, from where you can effortlessly reach most of the points of interest in this installation. Website with full information here.

The site of Marka – not part of any museum – can be approached at any time with some walking in the rural area along the coast line. A good starting point for an exploration is here, where you can leave your car and move along an easy trail to the command bunker and the gun rotundas about 0.5 miles west.

Fjell Fortress – Bergen

Bergen was a strategic base of the German Navy, which received a fortified submarine deck among the largest, most active and longest lasting in the history of WWII. The complex morphology of the territory around this port town allowed to effectively protect the access by means of a network of nine firing emplacements. One of them – Fjell – was of exceptional power and range.

It was built between 1942-43 diverting one of the batteries of battleship Gneisenau, which had been damaged beyond repair by an air raid while in port at Kiel (Germany). The battery was composed of three 28 cm guns in a single turret. The latter was very compact in design, a real masterpiece of naval engineering, but nonetheless it featured a rather tall substructure, with all that was needed to operate the guns – protruding from the relatively sleek top of the turret, surfacing on the ground.

Placing this special battery in Fjell required carving the rocky coast, creating a cylindrical underground pit, inside coated with concrete, to host the turret. The turret, an assembly of around 1.000 tonnes with the guns on top, was then transported up to this elevated site, and lowered into the pit. The battery was test fired in the mid of 1943. It acted as an effective deterrent, and reportedly never used in combat.

The battery was incorporated in the Norwegian coastal defense after WWII, and sadly scrapped in 1968, since by then obsolete, but not yet considered an historical landmark.

Clearly, the battery was in the middle of an off-limits military area in wartime, where bunkers for several services and for the the troops, at least two radar antennas and many emplacements for lighter defensive weapons were installed to protect the battery from ground and air attacks.

Today, the bunker-pit where the turret used to rest is the centerpiece of a visit to the site. Starting from the visitor center on top, where the guns used to be, you can descend to the base of the cylindrical pit – roughly 30 ft in diameter and 75 in depth! Here you can see the rooms originally employed for storing the explosive cartridges and the shells for the cannons. These were supplied on trolleys and slides, and sent inside the metal turret, to be lifted up to the level of the cannons for firing.

Most of the original German mechanical and electrical systems is still there to see, including wiring, phones, cranes, trolleys, and examples of shells and cartridges.

Back then, you got access to these storage areas from an entrance on the same level (i.e. not from the top of the turret, but from the base). You can see this entrance, as well as the curved corridor leading from the gate to the ammo storage area. Here, examples of sea mines and other war material can be found. The corridor has narrow-gauge railway track, which was used for resupplying the ammo storage from outside.

The corridor is curved, and firing positions are strategically placed to cover it, in order to counter enemy intrusion.

The bunker gives access to the living quarters for the troops. These are well preserved, and feature brick walls to help insulating the inside from the wet rock of the walls and ceilings.

Services, like toilets, sauna, washing machines and more, are original from the German tenancy. Especially the water basins appear very stylish, a good example of German design from the era.

Besides the main turret bunker, as said the Fjell site offers other constructions on a vast area, which can be checked out from the outside – also since the premises are at least formally military grounds still today.

The road reaching the site from the parking, gently climbing uphill, is reportedly the original main access to the Third Reich site. An interesting tank-stopping device can be seen to the lower end of the road – heavy stones on top of light pillars on the sides of the road. The pillars could be blown, and the stones would fall cutting the road, in case of a potential intrusion.

Visiting

The fort of Fjell, about 15 miles west of central Bergen, is professionally run as a museum. Parking is only possible to the base of the cliff where the turret used to stand. From there, a 0.8 miles road climbs to the entrance. The scenic location and the nice rural area around make for an enjoyable walk. Visiting inside is only possibly on guided tours, offered also in English (an possibly other languages). A small restaurant can be found on top, where an observation deck has been built in place of the battery.

The location of the parking is here. A visit may take around 45 minutes, excluding the time needed to climb uphill and descend to the parking. Website with full information here.

Tellevik Fort – Bergen

The coastal fort of Tellevik, on the eastern head of the Norhordland Bridge, 15 miles north of Bergen, was part of the lighter defense artillery put in place by the German military to defend any access by water to Bergen. The battery was built by order of the Third Reich, profiting from the forced labor of Soviet prisoners of war.

Lighter howitzers were enough to cover the narrow water passages in proximity of the town. The elevation of the emplacement is low, slightly above the water surface.

The battery of Tellevik was centered on two such howitzers, placed on open-top positions. The two guns can be seen still today, on round concrete firing positions. The giant bridge today largely obstructing the field of sight was not there at the time of the German occupation.

The site displays also a concrete trench, connecting the firing positions with a command post for the battery.

A monument to Norwegian seamen victims to sea mines laid by the German to protect the access to Bergen is concurrently located on the site of the Tellevik battery.

Visiting

Tellevik is an open air memorial, which can be walked freely 24/7. It can be reached by inputting these coordinates to a GPS navigation app.

A visit may take about 15 minutes, a nice detour from exceptionally crowded downtown Bergen.

Austrått Fortress – Austrått

Similar to Bergen, the major port of Trondheim was a strategic base for the German Navy. Protected by a long firth, the port was an ideal base for submarines and warships, to intercept convoys in the North Sea, Norwegian Sea, the Atlantic Ocean and the Barents Sea. Correspondingly, a number of coastal forts was prepared by the German occupation forces to counter any unauthorized access to the waterways leading to Trondheim.

The most powerful and impressive of these batteries is the Austratt Fort. Similar to the fortress of Fjell near Bergen (see above), Austratt received one of the turrets of the ill-fated battleship Gneisenau, damaged while moored in Kiel, in February 1942. A control and aiming position was put in place a few miles apart along the coast, whereas the battery was surrounded by an off-limits area, stuffed with bunkers for the troops, ammo storage bunkers, and lighter guns for protection against an attack by land.

A major difference between the two ‘sister sites’ of Fjell and Austratt is that in the latter the cannons are still there!

Following the installation of the turret, test fired in September 1943, the fort saw little action, acting as a deterrent, and effectively preventing any serious intrusion by the Allies towards Trondheim from the sea. After the demise of the Third Reich, the fort was taken over by the Norwegian coastal defense, stricken off in 1968, and restored as a museum in the early 1990s.

The cannons are on top of a hill. From the outside, the massive three-barreled turret is really impressive in size!

The barrels can be seen besides the original range-finder – with its impressive arm, granting good measuring accuracy even at a large distance from the target. This item, with its bell-shaped cover, was originally part of the control point, located southwest of the battery, in a location currently very close to an active base of the Norwegian Air Force (Orland).

Despite access to the the firing chamber being possible through a hatch to the back of the turret, the tour follows the way a shell would travel from storage to firing. Hence you start your tour from an entrance to the side of the hill, at the same level of the bottom of the cylindrical tower supporting the guns. This metal tower was taken from the Gneisenau together with the cannons, and put in a pit carved in the rock for the purpose in Austratt.

Access through the side of the hill is protected by a smaller gun. Once inside, you find yourself in a curvy corridor, with a narrow-gauge railway track for the trolleys needed to carry the shells and cartridges inside. A firing position behind an embrassure points against the entrance, for further protection of the site against an intrusion.

The bunker in Austratt – but the same happened to many installations of the Atlantic Wall in Norway – was plagued with severe humidity problems. Immediately besides the entrance, a room with a water basin is fed by natural water dripping from the ceiling and from the rocky walls around.

Original machines for tooling, put in place for maintenance purposes back in the Third Reich years, are still there and working. Similarly, a primary and a backup Diesel generators supplying the fort are still in place, with all ancillary plants, like big Diesel and water tanks for cooling. This is original machinery too, as witnessed by the tags of the mechanical components, all made in Germany.

Living quarters were at the bottom level too. Trying to supply some comfort, the rocky walls were covered with bricks and wood, especially against humidity. These rooms have been partly refurbished with a good resemblance to the original ones. They include the kitchen and some of the sleeping quarters for the troops. However, since humidity was really extreme, troops spent limited time here especially for sleeping, and provisional barracks were built outside of the installation instead.

Hygienic services were reportedly extremely advanced compared to Norwegian standards of the time. Fully working toilets, lavatories and showers were taken as a blueprint by the Norwegian Army after the war. The electric water heater put in place in the Austratt battery was apparently among the first installed in the whole Country – it can still be seen.

Explosive cartridges, fuses and shells arriving from the bunker entry you have walked through at the beginning of your tour would be eventually lifted upstairs. Shells, either high-yield explosive or armor-piercing, would be stored in a chamber featuring cranes hanging from the ceiling, used to put the shells on trolleys. These trolleys transported the shells to the lower level of the turret. The chamber where the shells were stored is physically separated by the turret by means of a concrete wall.

Tight compartments are often found in war bunkers of the Atlantic Wall, and this can be explained by the fact that the deadliest effect of an enemy shot (either a cannon shell from a warship, or an air-dropped bomb) would be that of an overpressure wave (shockwave), capable of killing many in just moments. Overpressure effects can be effectively reduced by putting physical obstacles on the way the shockwave would travel – walls, tight doors, etc. – or by forcing it into smaller passages, like hatches or smaller doors and windows. Therefore, bunkers like Austratt are built in rather small rooms, connected only through narrow hatches and doors.

Again in the storage chamber for the shells, extensive writing in German can be found on many of the mechanisms and electric plants. Everything is original and exceptionally well conserved, just like the Germans had just left!

The lowest level of the turret, where the shells would arrive from the storage chamber to be loaded on elevators going to the upper levels, is a masterpiece of engineering. The technical problem here was that of connecting the slides from the storage chamber, which are anchored to the ground, to the receiving slides on the turret, which could pivot around 360 degrees. The designer of the turret solved the issue by placing an intermediate ring, revolving independently, and capable of connecting the fixed slides from the storage chamber to the revolving platform on the turret. The extremely compact size of the overall design, originally prepared for fitting into a warship, and the elegance and precision of the mechanism resemble those of a pocket watch from the 1920s more than a cannon!

On the turret, you can see three elevators for the three barrels, which were therefore fed independently.

Going upstairs, you meet the storage room for the explosive cartridges. These used to be stored in sealed canisters on display, original from the time. This storage room is placed to the side of the corresponding level in the turret, in a similar fashion to the shells storage below.

Climbing up one more level inside the turret, you reach a platform with the motors for moving the battery around its vertical axis, and for lifting or lowering the three monster barrels. The motion involved high-pressure mechanisms, rather complex and requiring many valves and extensive piping.

To the back of each of the barrels, you can see a large empty volume for recoil. The battery rested on a ball bearing – one of the pretty sizable metal balls is on display.

Finally, the firing chamber can be found on the top level in the turret. Here the shells and cartridges were received, aligned and loaded from the back into the barrels by a pushing mechanical arm. Three independent mechanisms were put in place for the scope in the firing chamber.

To the front of the battery, instrumentation for aiming can be found, with writing in German. Also radio positions are there.

Battery fire could be triggered by a single man, sitting to the back of the turret in front of a control panel with three independent triggers.

You can exit the turret from the hatch to the back of the turret, concluding your tour. In the video below you can see a portrait of the battery from the air, made with a drone.

All in all, similar to the Vara battery (see above), Austratt is in an exceptional state of conservation in the Norwegian and European panorama of artillery engineering from WWII, and a visit may be super-interesting for any public.

Visiting

Despite being relatively close to Trondheim on a map, as usual in Norway, Austratt is a more than two hours drive from the town, and reaching requires taking at least one ferry. However, as noted, this location is a pinnacle in the Atlantic Wall, and surely deserves a visit for technicians and non-technical public as well, and of course for the kids.

Access to the exterior is possible at any time, but visiting inside is only possible on guided tours. The guide is very knowledgeable and makes the visit interesting also for a technically-minded public. The visit inside may take around 1 hour, more if you make questions and show some interest. Convenient parking by the gate of the fort, easy access to the area around the battery. Moving inside can be requiring for non-fit people.

Website with full information here.

Arctic Circle & North Cape

As pointed out in the introduction to this chapter, Norway is rich of memorials from WWII. Even close to some of the attractions in this wonderful Country which are must-see stops for other reasons, features recalling memories from war actions are offered to a curious eye.

Two notable examples are the visitor center of the Arctic Circle along the E6, as well as that of North Cape.

Scandinavia has been a bloody and extremely active theater of war all along WWII, and Norway was directly involved in significant war actions since the first year of the conflict. As a matter of fact, most of the impressive line of fortifications constituting the Atlantic Wall was erected by deploying forced laborers, typically prisoners of war from the Eastern Front, primarily including Russians, other people from the USSR, and Balkan prisoners.

Soviet troops attacked the northernmost German-occupied region from the North, together with the Finns, after the latter negotiated a separate peace with the USSR in late 1944. The retreating Germans opposed a fierce resistance, and it was in this latest stage of the war that most physical damage to towns and installations was caused in Norway, since German troops were ordered to burn up all positions they had to leave.

These facts explain the many Soviet monuments and war cemeteries scattered especially in the northern part of Norway still today – commemorating Soviet soldiers fallen either in war actions or as prisoners of war in the harsh conditions of northern Norway.

One such monument, albeit overlooked, is prominently placed besides the visitor center of the Arctic Circle.

The interest of Germany for Norway was primarily for its strategic position, which became an asset of special value after the start of the war against the USSR in mid-1941. The convoys feeding vital material to the USSR from Britain and the US had to go to Murmansk (see here) and the Kola Peninsula, i.e. over the Barents Sea. This was conveniently controlled by the German occupants, operating from the Norwegian coast.

In the visitor center of North Cape some panels are dedicated to this topic, showing an impression of the structure and routes followed by Allied convoys going to the USSR.

Detailed panels with maps and pictures recall the last battle of the German battleship Scharnhorst, which was confronted by the group of the British battleship HMS Duke of York, in an epic battle relatively close to North Cape. The massive German battleship, deployed to Norway with Tirpitz (a sister ship of the famous Bismarck) to block the resupply traffic to the USSR, was hit several times and finally sunk in the freezing last days of 1943. The battle was posthumously named ‘Battle of North Cape’. A detailed scaled model of the German battleship is similarly on display in the visitor center.

Visiting

The visitor center of the Arctic Circle on the road E6, with a small Soviet monument, can be found here. The monument is open 24/7.

The visitor center of North Cape is… at North Cape! The inside can be accessed during opening times, and the tables with information on WWII convoys and battles are on an underground mezzanine. Website with full information here.

War Museum – Narvik

The port town of Narvik was founded in the 19th century as a commercial base for exporting iron ore from Sweden. A small town by the sea, surrounded by steep-climbing mountains, and in a remote location well north of the Arctic Circle, Narvik was turned for about two months into a though theater of war for the Germans, following their occupation of Norway.

It was here that the British started a battle to stop the German push to the north, as soon as the 10th of April 1940, basically at the same time as the Germans had reached the town during their conquering campaign.

What resulted was a complex, multi-stage operation, lasting until early June 1940.

At first, the British fleet mounted a naval attack, carried out with a flotilla of five destroyers. This force clashed with the local German complement of ten destroyers. The British operation met with mixed success, and was finally repelled by the German navy operating in the narrow waters around Narvik, at the price of two destroyers on each side – plus several cargo ships destroyed in the battle. Three days later, on the 13th of April, a new force, composed of the British battleship HMS Warspite and 9 destroyers, launched another assault, resulting in the complete loss of the German destroyers fleet in the region – German warships were either sunk or scuttled.

The Germans however kept control of the town. A mixed force of British, Polish and French troops, together with the Norwegians, started an operation to conquer the town by land. The operation was successful, and the German troops had to retreat along the coast, away from Narvik. However, the start of the Battle of France – the invasion of France by the Third Reich – on the 10th of May, 1940, resulted in a rapid loss of priority of Narvik as a strategic target for the Allies. It was decided in Britain to withdraw from Norway, and to evacuate all previously landed military forces from Narvik. The town fell under German control on June 8th, basically concluding the conquer of Norway by the Third Reich.

The Allied landings around Narvik in 1940 where the first on the European continent in WWII, carried out without the participation of the US, more than three years before operations in southern Italy or Normandy.

The town of Narvik is still today an active commercial port of primary relevance in the region. The heritage of war actions is preserved in a purpose-installed museum, modernly designed and easy to visit.

On a first floor, the naval operations around Narvik are described by means of technological 3D board with virtual projections – very nice and lively. Around the board, memorabilia from the British and German warships taking part to the operations back in the Spring of 1940 have been put on display.

They include an original Nazi eagle from one of the ships. Since the campaign around Narvik included also air and land operations, war traces including parts of aircraft, guns, mortars, machine guns, first-aid kits and many uniforms are also on display.

Uniforms are from the many corps which took part to those actions – they are British, German, Polish and even French.

On a second floor, you are offered displays of artifacts retracing other aspects of WWII in Norway. These include land mines – put in place by the Germans along the coast, similar to Denmark, to impede Allied landings – an Enigma coding machine, Third Reich memorabilia, a section of the Tirpitz armored hull, radio machinery supplied to the resistance, as well as personal items belonging to former prisoners of war.

Finally, on the last floor heavier weapons are put on display, including torpedoes, light armored vehicles and more, even for post-WWII times.

Visiting

The battle of Narvik is one of the best known from WWII in Norway, and the little museum in the town center duly retraces its timeline, through an elegant exhibition, sufficiently rich to satisfy even the most exigent experts, but not so extensive to be boring for the general public. A really well designed museum, surely worth a visit, which may last from 30 minutes to 1 hour depending on your level of interest.

The location is right besides the town hall, and can be found here. Parking opportunities on the street nearby. Website with information here.

Tirpitz Museum – Alta

The German battleship Tirpitz was laid down as the only sister ship to the well-known Bismark. Eventually, she underwent developments which made her the heaviest battleship built in Europe. Her actions were concentrated along a limited time frame, between January 1942 and November 1944, when she was finally sunk by British Lancaster bombers, making use of Tallboy high-yield bombs.

She spent her operative life along the coasts of Norway, where she constituted an effective deterrent against a sea-launched Allied invasion, and was employed tactically against resupply convoys going to the USSR.

Tirpitz was a strategic target for the Allies, which tried to get rid of her by no less than seven war operations, meeting with limited success until the last one.

With an armor more than 30 cm thick, Tirpitz was marginally maneuverable especially at lower speed, but the hull was very difficult to penetrate, and the four turrets and eight 38 cm barrels, plus twelve side-shooting 15 cm barrels, complemented by many more defensive weapons, made it a dangerous asset against land and sea targets.

The ship capsized and sunk in shallow water in the bay of Tromso, and following the end of the war, she was largely dismantled. Original pieces of the ship could be collected, as well as some personal belongings from the crew. Some more were taken out from the water over the years.

The museum in Alta is dedicated to the memory of the ship, and offers an extremely rich collection of items connected with Tirpitz. Furthermore, by means of memorabilia items, it retraces the history of the war years in the northernmost region of Norway – Finnmark. The reason for installing the Tirpitz Museum in Kåfjord, near Alta, is bound to the fact that the battleship was based here for a period, as witnessed by some historical pictures. The museum has a rich guestbook, which includes top-ranking military staff from several Countries.

The small museum is home to some of the finest and largest scales models portraying Tirpitz. The level of detail and the accuracy of the reconstruction is really stunning.

Some smaller diorama models portray scenes from the life onboard, or details of special interest. An unusual one portrays the capsized hull of the ship, following the sinking!

Besides the scale models, original instrumentation, shells, wooden slabs from the deck, and more parts of the ship are put on display.

A room is dedicated to the operations carried out against the battleship. The ship was reportedly attacked several times without substantial damage. One of the attacks was carried out by the British, recurring to mini-submarines. Among the artifacts on display are the decorations to the men involved in these operations.

Extremely interesting artifacts in the museum include material from the crew, taken away after the sinking over the years – sometimes found in the area as recently as the year 2000.

These include typewriters, cutlery with swastika emblems, musical instruments, sport suits with prominent Third Reich insignia, and many personal belongings.

In one case, the cabinet or wallet of a crewman revealed cash and stamps from the time.

Among the countless items in this exhibition are original material – including radio stations – employed by the resistance movements in Norway, as well as light weapons, uniforms and decorations of the Soviet troops who operated in the Finnmark region, helping in repelling the Germans in the last stages of WWII.

On the outside, the anchor and parts of the armor of Tirpitz can be seen, together with an official memorial stone.

Visiting

The museum is located some five miles from Alta, in the small settlement of Kåfjord. It is hosted in a single, small wooden building – possibly a former canteen – to be found here, with a small parking nearby. A website with full visiting information is here.

Visiting the museum may take from 30 minutes to 1 hour depending on your level of interest.

Vemork Hydroelectric Power Plant & Heavy Water Facility – Rjukan

The nuclear program of the Third Reich is still today a matter for researchers, since – mysteriously enough – most documentation disappeared by the end of the war. Among the ascertained facts were the excellence of nuclear scientist in Germany at the time on the one hand, and the total lack of adequate quantities of raw material, or plants for processing it, to actually build real nuclear weapons on the other.

The latter is witnessed by the great strategic value attributed to the plant in Rjukan, hidden in a scenic deep valley in the region of Telemark, in southern Norway, about three hours by car from Oslo. A hydroelectric plant there – the exact name is Vemork power-plant – was employed to produce heavy water through a dedicated electrolysis separation process, which requires huge amounts of energy. Heavy water is a key component for the production of Plutonium – in turn required for atomic weapons – in heavy-water reactors.

Also the Norwegians understood the value of the plant. As soon as the winds of war started blowing from Germany in early 1940, heavy water then in storage was taken away to France, and later to Britain following the invasion of France by the Third Reich.

After Norway had been occupied by the Reich, the plant was at the center of three sabotage operations. Extremely risky and partly ending in disaster, these operations were carried out both by Norwegian and British staff, parachuted from Britain.

It took until 1944 to mortally hit the plant, well protected by its own natural setting. Two dedicated bombing raids carried out by US bombers damaged the plant beyond repair – at least in the late war scenario, when the Third Reich reaction capacity was weakening every day. The final act in the Norwegian heavy water saga was the sinking of the small boat – named Hydro – loaded with the reserve of heavy water from Vemork, having just started its trip to Germany on Lake Tinn.

The plant was again in business in the years after the war, and remained operative until the early 1990s, involved in production of various chemicals.

Today, it is a much visited museum. Actually, the most impressive part of the plant is that of the hydroelectric turbines. Aligned in a single immense hangar, these now silent giant machinery send glimpses of the original, fashionable early-1900 industrial style.

Some of the turbines and generator assemblies – manufactured by AEG, as witnessed by the labels – are really huge.

A suspended platform allows to capture with a bird’s eye the entire hall. Here you can see also completely analog control panels, again in a very elegant style from the era.

Visiting

The museum in Vemork can be reached in less than 3 hours driving from central Oslo. The power-plant can be approached walking from the parking (here) over a suspended bridge crossing the deep valley. The area is very scenic. The highlight of the show is the hall with the power turbines. A visit may take from a few minutes to more than 1 hour for more interested subjects.

A website with full information can be found 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.

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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.

Former Soviet and East German Military Bases in the GDR – Pictures from Above

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Soviet Ghosts in Germany

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At the end of WWII, the territory of conquered Germany was split in four sectors by the then-Allies – the US, Great Britain, France and the USSR. A substantial part to the north-east of the country fell in Stalin’s hands. A few years later, following a re-organization of all territories occupied by the Red Army during WWII, the Soviet part of Germany was turned into a communist-led state known as German Democratic Republic (‘GDR’, or ‘DDR’ in German language).

Especially from a military standpoint, similar to Poland, and later Hungary and Czechoslovakia, this produced a kind of cohabitation. As a matter of fact, besides clearly backing the communist dictatorship in occupied countries, the Soviets did not quit at all from newly acquired western territories. On the contrary, thanks to the position on a potential war front had the Cold War turned hot, the westernmost Soviet-controlled countries – with the GDR on top – were stuffed with Soviet military bases, and hundreds of thousands troops. These shared the map with the national military, which in the GDR were known as NVA (an acronym standing for the German equivalent of ‘National People’s Army’).

The national and Soviet forces often took control of separated military facilities, and while operating in a coordinated fashion, they were substantially different entities. As said, this was typical to many Soviet-controlled countries. Yet especially on the relatively small East German territory, of high strategic value thanks to the shared border with the West, the total number of tank bases, training academies, air bases, missile bases, nuclear depots, shooting ranges, etc., reached an unrivaled world’s peak, when compared to the population or the size of the country.

Following the crisis leading to the end of the GDR in 1989, and the collapse of the USSR roughly two years later, all these military assets turned surplus. The German reunification, and the disappearance of a significant military opponent in the close vicinity of the border, triggered a rationalization of military resources in Germany. Most of the NVA bases were closed. The Soviet-controlled installations were evacuated more slowly – it took until 1994 to bring back to their Russian homeland the thousands of troops and tonnes of material stationed in Germany. Once returned to Germany, also most of these bases were deactivated and closed.

Since then, the fate of these former military facilities in Germany has been in the hands of local governments or national initiatives. As a matter of fact, following a few decades spent as ghost bases – a real paradise for urbex explorers! – most air bases have been converted into solar power plants. Some of them have retained an airport status, either with a very reduced runway, or in some cases being turned into full-scale commercial airports. There are exceptions too, as some are still at least partly abandoned, and while invaded by vegetation, they are still totally recognizable especially from above. Other bases, like tank bases or nuclear depots, while mostly earmarked for demolition, have been comparatively better ‘preserved’ – at least, they have been attacked by the state more slowly, so there is still much to see there.

You can find on this website several reports about quite a few of these military bases in the former GDR – especially airbases – from a ‘ground perspective’. Sometimes, it is difficult to appreciate the size, shape, as well as their concentration over the former GDR territory. In order to better show these aspects, now here you have a portrait of many of these bases from the air!

The photographs in the present post are from a single, two-hours flight on a Cessna 172 single-prop aircraft. The flight took place in July 2019. As you can see from the locations pinpointed on the map below, on our route we met not less than 15 former (or still active) military items. And this is just a short trip mostly in southern Brandenburg – i.e. the region immediately south of Berlin.

This report is a complement to other chapters on this site, yet it is especially interesting on its own, as a comprehensive bundle of aerial pics on this subject is not easy to find!

Sights

Points of interest are listed following the flight plan, which was flown roughly as on the map, in a counter-clockwise direction, starting from Reinsdorf Airfield.

Soviet Nuclear Bunker Stolzenhain

This one-of-a-kind facility – there were actually two such depots, but one is today demolished and inaccessible – used to be a major storage for nuclear weapons for the Soviet Western Group of Forces, which included all Soviet troops stationed in the GDR.

The bunker is today closed, but it apparently lies on private land, hence sparing it from being turned into something else (or simply flattened) by the local government. You can see a dedicated report in this chapter.

Vegetation has grown wild in the area, but from above you can clearly spot the rectangular perimeter of the external concrete wall. From north to south, an internal road crossed the rectangle in the middle.

The bunkers are half-interred, hence from above you can barely spot the entrances. These are aligned along a service road arranged in a hexagonal shape.

To the south of the bunker area, you can spot a former group of barracks and an access road heading west. Construction and demolition works are taking place in this area.

Control and Reporting Center Schönewalde

This is an active military installation, and actually quite an advanced one. It is tasked with monitoring the air operations over a large part of the airspace over Germany.

The origin of this half-interred technical installation can be traced to the 1970s, when the site was activated under responsibility of the NVA. Following the end of communist rule and after German reunification, unlike many others this site was not demolished, but instead it was developed further, and pressed into the defense chain of NATO since the mid-1990s.

You can see many half-interred warehouses, garages for trucks, a smaller radar antenna to the west of the complex, close to a helipad.

There is also a larger antenna to the northeastern corner of the CRC.

Holzdorf Air Base

This large airport used to be an airbase of the NVA. It is one of the few airports from the Cold War in the GDR which were turned into a full-scale modern airport. Today it is a base of the Bundeswehr, i.e. the German military.

As we approached from north, you can spot first typical large communist buildings, forming a citadel which is likely still today hosting troops and their families. There is also reportedly a flight academy for helicopters in this complex, north of the airport.

The airport features large hangars for military helicopters to the northwest of the runway.

A rather old-styled control tower can be seen to the south of the runway.

Falkenberg Air Base

We reached the southernmost point on our flight with the former Soviet base in Falkenberg. This old base dating to the 1930s went on to be developed into a Soviet base home to fighter aircraft, MiG-23 and later MiG-29. Close to the airfield, there used to be a SAM missile battery (to the west of the runway).

Approaching from the north-west, you can notice a small ghost town and a large technical area, with what appear to be big unreinforced maintenance hangars, today used for something else by local companies.

The airport is today dedicated to light aviation activities. The runway has been shortened, and sadly large portions of the original airfield have been covered with solar cells.

Most interestingly, in the trees to the northwest of the runway, you can spot four unfinished aircraft shelters – possibly of the type AU-16, which could host both the MiG-23 and MiG-29. They look like short concrete tunnels. They should have been covered with land, but works were interrupted in 1990.

More aircraft shelters – completed – can be found to the east of the field, today used for storage, as it is often the case.

Finsterwalde Air Base

This installation was operative since WWII, when the large hangars and control tower still in place to the south of the apron were built. The base went on serving as a Soviet base, hosting fighters and fighter-bombers of many kinds along its illustrious history. A visit to this site, with its nuclear depot, can be found in this chapter.

Approaching from the southwest, we flew over the nuclear storage bunker, made for nuclear warheads to supply aircraft operating from here. The columns once holding the crane to lift the warheads can be clearly spotted.

There is also a group of Soviet-style houses for the families of the troops. Apparently somebody is still living there!

The base was enlarged with reinforced shelters to the north and southwest of the runway. The large hangars to the south are still in use with local companies, some of course connected with flight operations – this airport is still active for general aviation operations.

Enroute to the next waypoint, we flew over a natural preserve, which offered some quite spectacular sights.

Alteno-Luckwalde Air Base

This airfield north of Finsterwalde was a reserve airport of the East German NVA. While never developed to the extent of primary airfields, it was among the few reserve air bases to receive an asphalt runway.

Today, the view is rather desolating – the airfield has been totally covered with solar cells.

Brand-Briesen Air Base

This WWII base was selected for quick and substantial improvement since the early Cold War years, and went on to be one of the most developed Soviet air bases in the former GDR. In the beginning it hosted Ilyushin Il-28 bombers, but in the jet age it was home to a number of different squadrons and aircraft types. You can find the results of the exploration of a part of this base in this chapter.

Approaching from the south, you first spot an immense hangar, conceived at the turning of the century for commercial airships, and later turned into a water park – Tropical Island.

 

But more interestingly, to the south of the airfield – unusually far from it, actually – you can find a depot for nuclear weapons, to supply the aircraft operating from the base. Similar to Finsterwalde, the pillars once holding the crane for lifting the warheads can be clearly seen.

Still to the south of the airfield, the local citadel for the troops is today an interesting ghost town.

As you may notice, the airfield is today closed, and has been largely converted into a recreation park. Incredibly, they decided to build an array of small houses on the former premises of the airport, and in close proximity to the monster airship hangar.

Yet some relics from the past function of the air base are to be found scattered around. These include aircraft shelters, and more rare engine testing facilities – V-shaped concrete walls emerging from the grass nearby some of the shelters.

Kleinköris Air Base

This airbase was activated in the late 1960s as a reserve airfield for the East German NVA. It was used for exercises, and as a home base for helicopters of the Volkspolizei, i.e. the police of the GDR. After deactivation, it was used as a military storage for a while, and finally closed.

The appearance, perfectly evident from the air, is rather unusual – it features a long grassy runway, with concrete taxiways at the ends. To the reports from the time, this is the original configuration of the airbase. Luckily, it is basically still intact.

Wünsdorf

The name of this small town will be forever linked to the two military high commands which were headquartered on its premises – Hitler’s OKW first, and the command of the Soviet Western Group of Forces for the full span of the Cold War. You can find a dedicated chapter here.

From above, you can get a nice view of the extension and shape of this military town, as well as good portraits of some of the highlights in it. Approaching from the southeast, you first meet the most famous building in Wünsdorf, the officers’ house. This majestic building dates from the early 20th century. It knew an extensive renovation during the Cold War years, as an officers’ club for the Soviet Red Army.

This huge building features a statue of Lenin on one side. In the wings to the back, you can find a swimming pool and a theater. The round building with a mural is a late Soviet addition, and once hosted a circular panorama painting.

The high command occupied the buildings north of the officers’ club, today converted into something else.

Another highlight of Wünsdorf are the many bunkers. These include the Maybach bunkers from Hitler’s era, once hosting the OKW. These were designed for deception as living houses, but could withstand aerial bombardment. They were blown by the Soviet, with only partial success. The Zeppelin bunkers, like cusped concrete towers, were designed to resist bombardment, by deviating air-dropped bombs falling from above along the sidewalls and down to the ground nearby.

Soviet bunkers were located very close to the array of Maybach bunkers. They are largely interred, and from above you can see some concrete tunnels in the trees.

The railway line and station is an historical track from the time. The Wünsdorf-Moscow line operated in both ways on a daily basis. The service was suspended only in 1994, at the very end of the withdrawal of the last occupation troops to Russia – for many, the symbolic end of Soviet occupation.

The buildings for those stationed in Wünsdorf and their families were really many. Today this town, having lost its original core business, is largely uninhabited.

Sperenberg Air Base

Not far from Wünsdorf, you can find the former Soviet air base of Sperenberg. This immense transport base used to be a major logistic base for the Soviets, which operated from here with their monster cargo planes. More on this base can be found in this chapter.

Approaching from the east, you first meet the buildings for the troops, to the east of the airport and close to the village.

An aerial view allows to clearly capture the shape of the base, with two large parallel taxiways with a huge array of parking bays for transport aircraft, and a long runway – still basically intact! – to the south.

A large hangar with an inscription in Russian can be found to the east, whereas a small terminal building can be spotted ahead of a large apron to the west.

Today the airport is closed, but rumors have surfaced more than once concerning its evaluation as a third airport for Berlin. This may justify its missed conversion into another desolating field of solar cells.

Kummersdorf Military Laboratory

A bit of an outsider here, Kummersdorf holds a very relevant place in the history of war technique thanks to pre-Soviet activity. In the late 1920s the Germans established here an experimental laboratory especially dedicated to novel weapons. It can be said that western rocketry was born here, since the group of Walther Dornberger, later joined by Wernher von Braun, started operations on liquid-propelled rockets in this lab.

Activities later moved to somewhere else, and finally landed in Peenemünde – see this dedicated chapter.

The laboratory in Kummersdorf was used also during WWII to test captured material, especially enemy tanks. Following the end of WWII, the Soviets took over the facility, but turned it into a more standard military base.

The red barracks in typical German style can be clearly seen from above. Most of the post-WWII depots are falling apart, but the area is really huge.

Forst Zinna Military Base

This base is located to the northeast of Jüterbog-Altes Lager, a huge Imperial, Nazi and later Soviet military complex, including two shooting ranges, a few airfields, an academy and many barracks.

Forst Zinna base was operative in the years of the Third Reich, named after Adolf Hitler himself. It went on to become a large base for the artillery groups training in the nearby shooting ranges. A dedicated chapter can be found here.

From above, it is clear that demolition works are slowly wiping out the base. Yet there is much housing left to visit. Typical German buildings share the area with shabby Soviet ‘socialist housing’. A bridge passing over a major road and railway track going to Berlin links the base to the shooting range north of it.

Altes Lager Shooting Range and Barracks

The shooting range north of Forst Zinna is pointed with concrete control towers. The area is very extensive, and quite more convenient to explore from above!

Closer to Altes Lager, many barracks can be seen aligned along a major road. From the style, these appear to be from an older time than the Soviet occupation years.

Jüterbog-Altes Lager Training Academy

This pretty unique piece of architecture dates from the years of the Führer, and used to be an academy for air force technicians. It was later turned into a military academy for Soviet staff, and a KGB office was reportedly active here too. A report can be found in this chapter.

From above you can better capture the plant of the complex. The half-circle to the north hosted a big theater in the basement.

Most strikingly, in the western part of the complex you can see sporting facilities which have been completely refurbished, and are actually in use. These include a football field and some tennis courts. There is also a pool, but this has not been refurbished.

Jüterbog-Niedergörsdorf Air Base

This large air base was jointly operated by the NVA and Soviet air force. You can find a report in this chapter.

Approaching from the northwest you can see aircraft shelters, whereas to the northeast you find an array of large maintenance hangars. These have been turned into something else, including a test driving facility, which chopped part of the original apron.

To the south of the runway, the base used to feature a large number of parking bays for helicopters. The runway has not been physically cut, albeit a central section of the original concrete has been taken away. Air operations today are apparently limited to ultralights and trikes.

A menacing army of solar cells is attacking the perimeter of the base from the east! An unmissable sight next to this base (to the east) is a former aircraft shelter turned into a private collection of Soviet memorabilia – Shelter Albrecht (covered in this post).

Enroute to the next waypoint, you can clearly spot from the air a military hospital complex (see this chapter) – rather famous among urbex fanatics… – and other service buildings.

Jüterbog-Damm Air Base

This base dates to the years of the German Empire. It was forcibly demilitarized after WWI, but strongly developed in the years of the Third Reich, with the construction of large concrete hangars and service facilities, and a grassy airstrip good for fighter planes of the era.

Following conquer by Soviet forces, the airbase was partly dismantled, but at some point a SAM battery appeared on this site.

Today you can appreciate the size and special shape of the concrete hangars, a true engineering masterpiece from pre-WWII years.

Landing in Reinsdorf

Finally, you can see here a vid of the perfect approach and landing into the touristic airfield of Reinsdorf, about two hours after take-off!

Practical Notes

This flight was carried out from Reinsdorf Airfield (ICAO: EDOD), located about 10 miles southeast of Jüterbog, the most sizable town in the neighborhood. The airfield is roughly 1 hour driving south of downtown Berlin, very easy to reach with a car.

The flight would have not been possible without the help of a fantastic couple, Mrs. Kolditz and her husband, who own a nice French-built Cessna 172 from the mid-1960s, D-EBLD, portrayed here.

There are some features making this very aircraft ideal for aerial pictures. Besides the high-wing configuration, this exemplar features a side window which can be completely opened, allowing for an unobstructed view of the scenery below.

The man is a former NVA pilot, something that must have played a part in him accepting to set up this very unusual flight plan! His great ability as a pilot helped much in having the aircraft in the right position to take the desired aerial pictures.

Thanks to the availability of the Kolditz family, setting up the flight was an easy task, even operating from abroad and through much Google-translation!

Another key-element in this adventure was Federico, a friend of mine sharing my passion for flying, who lives in Berlin, and played an essential part in co-financing the flight and translating between me and the pilot, as – perhaps incredibly, considering the content of this website… – I don’t speak German.

If you are interested in sightseeing flights south of Berlin, I suggest inquiring with the folks at Reinsdorf, a very active airfield with many facilities for touristic and pleasure flights. Website here.

Plokstine – A Preserved Nuclear Missile Site in Lithuania

While almost all nuclear sites you can find in European Countries once beyond the Iron Curtain are today totally abandoned and fairly unaccessible, there exists a perhaps unique exception. The Plokstine site in northwestern Lithuania has been selected around 2010 for complete refurbishment with the help of public money, and in 2012 it has opened its doors as a museum. Located in a beautiful natural setting crowded with hikers – namely Zemaitija National Park, a national recreation area around Plateliai lake – it has quickly grown to international fame, and is now recording several thousands visitors per year, with guided tours in multiple languages – including English – offered on a regular basis during the warm season.

What is today an intriguing tourist destination, used to be part of a large Soviet installation for launching ballistic missiles armed with nuclear warheads. It is worth mentioning that Lithuania was a ‘Soviet Socialist Republic’ in the realm of the USSR, i.e. not just a satellite country of the Soviet Union, but part of it. Actually, this small country on the shores of the Baltic Sea, on the extreme western border of Soviet territory, was an ideal location for deploying weapons to hit European targets from within the Union. Furthermore, the Plokstine forest was – and still is – a little populated area, where construction works for a large top-secret military facility for storing and operating offensive cutting-edge hi-tech warfare would go likely unnoticed.

The missile complex was completed in December 1962, in the years of Khrushchev and Kennedy. The Plokstine site comprises of four interred silos and an extensive underground command station in the middle – the ensemble constituted a so-called ‘Dvina’ launch complex.

The ‘Dvina’ site in Plokstine was actually the last part of the missile base to be built. Two more sister surface sites, with four launchpads each, had been completed one year before, just west of the nearby village of Saiteikiai. These surface sites were similar to those you can find in Latvia (see this post), a neighbor country where unfortunately the last remaining ‘Dvina’ site was demolished in 2017, but abundant traces of the Soviet presence can still be found.

All three launch complexes in this region were designed around the R-12 missile. The R-12U missile was actually used in the underground ‘Dvina’ complex, slightly different from the surface-launched R-12. This weapon was better known by its NATO designation – SS-4 Sandal – and was a 2.3 megaton, single warhead, single stage nuclear missile. It reached true international notoriety before the base in Plokstine was activated, for this was the type deployed to Cuba in the missile crisis of 1962. Coincidentally, part of the staff transferred to Cuba in the days preceding the crisis was from the same rocket regiment of the Red Army (the 79th) stationed in Plokstine. Sandal missiles from here were reportedly transferred in complete secrecy to Cuba, via the port town of Sevastopol in Crimea in that occasion.

The base remained operational until the last missile – by then obsolete – left in 1978.

The Baltics were the first republics to leave the dying Soviet Union, openly defying the military authority of neighbor Russia. After the collapse of the Union and the end of communism in Europe, these three states – which historically do not belong to Russian culture – quickly joined the NATO and European Union, to escape Russian influence as much as possible. Most Soviet military installations were shut down and abandoned, and have been for two decades an interesting destination for explorers and war historians (see this post for many examples). Later on, most sites have been slowly demolished or converted into something else. Really a few of them have been preserved for posterity.

In this post you can find photographs from the Cold War Museum now open in the former ‘Dvina’ site of Plokstine, from a visit in 2017. Close to the bottom, you can find a few further photographs from a previous visit made by appointment in 2009, before the site was selected for renovation – these may be more appealing for Soviet-aura lovers!

Sights

What can be visited today is all in the area of the old ‘Dvina’ complex. The complex is mainly composed of four interred silos, covered by heavy steel & concrete bulged covers, placed on the four corners of a square. These gigantic caps are the most prominent components of the site from the outside. Today, an observation deck has been erected on the south of the area. From there, you can appreciate the distinctive plan of the ‘Dvina’ complex, with an access road terminating in a loop touching all four armored silo covers.

The weight of each cover is told to be around 100 tonnes, as it was armored to withstand a nuclear explosion. The covers would be pulled sideward with a sled mechanism, to open the silos before launch. Unmovable missile launch complexes, like the ‘Dvina’ site in Plokstine, were easy and attractive targets for western weapons, thus requiring a very strong defense barrier. Similar considerations led the design of the Titan missile sites in the US, which albeit more powerful and capable of a greater range, are roughly from the same era (see this post).

To get near the silos or get access to the museum, you need to pay a ticket and join a guided tour. The visit includes a tour of the Cold War Museum, which has been prepared inside the rooms of the former control center. The tour will start from the visitor center, a new modern building. You will soon go through a specimen of the original fences which ran around the ‘Dvina’ complex, and which included barbed wire and high-voltage electrified lines. Close by, you can find traces of original unarmored constructions, likely service buildings. The missile site was operated by more than 300 troops stationing in a number of smaller centers in the area around the complex.

The guide will lead you along a walk around the surface part of the complex, where you can see the construction of the caps from very close. The metal part is very rusty, but the concrete cover has been refurbished and looks like new – a pretty unusual sight, for connoisseurs of Soviet military relics!

Access to the underground missile service and control center is via a small metal door, right in the middle of the square formed by the four silos.

A few rooms in the control center today host the exhibitions of the Cold War Museum. A room displays a quick time-line of the Cold War, since the end of WWII to the end of the USSR. In the adjoining rooms you can find propaganda items

Another room is about defense against nuclear threat. This is interesting, with many artifacts like dosimeters and medical tools, plus easily readable instructions of ‘dos and don’ts’ in case of nuclear attack.

Another room is about the evolution of weapons over the Cold War decades, with original material from the time, including heavier tactical weapons.

The exhibition is modern, small but not superficial, and may appeal to any public, including children. Besides the exhibits, you can appreciate the relatively small size of all rooms and connecting corridors in the former control center.

As you are driven next to the missile operation part, you can find a scale model of the ‘Dvina’ complex and a cut-out of a R-12U silo, together with a map of the relatively few missile sites in Lithuania – from the map, it can be argued that, for some reason, many more sites were prepared in nearby Latvia.

Resting quarters for the troops and a communication station with original electronic gear have been reconstructed based on original footage and pics. Communication with the military headquarters was clearly an essential task – it was the only way an order to launch could be issued – and the serviceman on duty was responsible for assuring a permanent link with the chain of command. In other words, he was instructed not to leave his headphones under any circumstances, during a several hours-long shift!

On the sides of the corridors you can see holes for the extensive network of cables and pipes. Further on, you meet the most ‘hardware’ part of the exhibition. First, the original diesel-fueled power generator has been refurbished and is standing in its original room. The underground complex was designed not only to withstand a nuclear blast, but also to provide shelter for all servicemen for several days following an attack. This meant air filters, food, water, technical supplies and of course electrical power, were all essential assets. Oil for the generator was stored in a container in an adjoining room.

Finally, you get access to one of the four silos. You need to go through a tight door opened on the wall of the concrete structure of the control center. Writings in Cyrillic can be spotted on the walls in this area. From there, you will see the cylindrical shape of the metal structure of the silo from the side. This metal canister is really big, the ‘Dvina’ silos featured a much greater diameter than the SS-4 missile they were built for. This was somewhat different from their US counterpart (see this post), where the missile diameter fits the size of the silo without much margin.

You can get access to the silo via the original hatch, cut in the metal wall close to the rim on top of the silo, just beneath the external cap. Going through this hatch is incredibly difficult – it is extremely narrow, much longer than the size of a human step, and tilted upwards! It is hard to understand why the Soviets built it in a size so small – this applies to the control center too, for all corridors are really narrow and the ceiling in the rooms is so low you may easily need to bend forward! For those who don’t want to try the original entry to the silo, there is now a non-original door cut in the side of the canister.

The inside of the silo can be observed from an original service deck, immediately under the external cover. From here you can clearly appreciate the size of the construction – the missile was more than 70 ft long, and sat here in a vertical position. The SS-4 was among the first missiles to make use of a storable liquid propellant, which allowed it to stay in almost-launch-ready conditions for a prolonged time, if resting in a silo. Nonetheless, the time for opening the armored caps was about 30 minutes, which meant this was not exactly quick to launch. The understructure of the armored caps can be clearly appreciated from inside the silo.

Photographs Before Restoration Works – Ghost Base

When I visited this site for the first time in 2009, it was open only by appointment. Unfortunately, I had only a compact camera at the time, and the very low light inside plus a rainy day outside, meant I could take only a few acceptable pictures.

However, they provide an idea of the state of the ‘Dvina’ complex before it was decided to reconfigure it as a museum.

As you can see, the armored silo caps were in a worse shape than today, yet not heavily damaged. The barbed wire fence around the four silos was probably original Soviet.

Inside, the control rooms were basically empty, except for some communist emblems and flags. Green wall paint and Cyrillic writings could be found even at the time, so what you see today is likely original. The generator, whilst in bad shape, was there.

The silo could be accessed only via the original hatch, and except for the partial darkness, its appearance is similar today.

It is out of doubt that the ‘Soviet ghost aura’ of the base was somewhat lost in the restoration process, yet credit must be given to the effort of the local government in preserving a rare and relevant trace of military history through an expensive restoration process.

Getting there and moving around

The Cold War Museum (Šaltojo karo muziejus in the local idiom) is located in the Zemaitija National Park, northwestern Lithuania, east of lake Plateliai. Access is via the road 2302. The place is totally accessible and well advertised locally. Visiting the outside of the armored caps and inside is possible only with a guided tour, offered in many languages including English, and lasting about 50 minutes. No fee is required for climbing on top of the observation deck. Full information through the official website here.

The Estonian Aviation Museum

A nice and lively university town in the heart of the Estonian countryside, Tartu has really something for every kind of tourist – including those interested in aviation history. The Estonian Aviation Museum, or ‘Eeesti Lennundusmuuseum’ as they write it in the tricky local idiom, boasts a substantial and heterogenous collection of aircraft preserved in exceptionally good condition, which will not leave indifferent even the most knowledgeable aviation expert.

Having being for long a socialist republic in the realm of the Soviet Union – and today sharing a border with Russia – Estonia had access to massive surplus reserves after the end of the Cold War, so it is no surprise that Soviet aircraft are well represented in an Estonian museum. This already might appeal to western tourists, for the exotic, menacing silhouettes of MiGs and Sukhois are not often to be found except in less accessible spots in the former Eastern Bloc. Yet some more unexpected and rare models have been added over the years, including some SAAB aircraft from Sweden which are authentic collectibles.

The following photographs cover almost every plane that was there in summer 2017.

Sights

Most part of the collection has been preserved in a cleverly designed structure, made of small open-walled hangars with translucent canopies. The aircraft are illuminated by natural light, helping much when taking pictures, but they are not exposed to direct sunlight, rain or snow, which tend to damage both metal and plexiglas on the long run. Furthermore, the lack of doors and frames allows you to move around freely, and the place is not suffocating nor excessively warm.

The aircraft are basically all from the Cold War era, but some of them have outlived the end of the USSR and were retired more recently. The portraits are grouped here roughly based on the nationality of the manufacturers or aircraft mission.

Designs from the US

The American production is represented in this museum firstly by a McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II, operated by the West-German Luftwaffe. The General Electric J79 turbojets have been taken out of the airframe, so you can see them separately.

A pretty unusual sight, also the antenna and electronic group in the nose cone have been taken out and are on display. This Phantom is a F-4F, a version specifically developed for West Germany from the basic F-4E. The former inventory number was 99+91.

Another iconic model on the menu is a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter, formerly from the Italian Air Force. This exemplar is actually an Italian-built ‘S’ version, and among the latest to be retired by the Aeronautica Militare. The engine, again a J79, is on display elsewhere in the museum. An unusual crowd of instruction and warning stencils populate the external surface of the aircraft.

Soviet Military Models

The majority of the aircraft on display were designed in the Soviet Union or other countries of the Warsaw Pact.

Two aggressive aircraft include a MiG-21 and a MiG-23. The first, present here in the colors of the Polish Air Force, is a MiG-21bis Fishbed, the latest development of this fast delta-wing fighter/light-interceptor.

Possibly one of the most ubiquitous fighters of the jet age, the MiG-23 Flogger is part also of this collection. The aircraft you see in the pictures is a MLD variant, representing the last upgrade of this iconic fighter, which was also the basis for the very successful MiG-27 design.

It bears the markings of the Ukrainian Air Force, therefore it is likely an ex-USSR aircraft. The engine is sitting besides the aircraft, and two rocket canisters are placed beneath the fuselage, close to the ventral GSh-23 twin-barreled cannon.

A less usual sight is a MiG-25 Foxbat, a super fast interceptor/recce aircraft. Conceived in the late Fifties when the race for speed was in full swing, it was developed into a high performance platform to counteract the threat of the SR-71 Blackbird. It was built around two massive Tumansky R-15 afterburning turbojets, rated at a pretty high wet thrust of 110 kN, resulting in an incredible top speed around Mach 3.2! The aircraft is pretty sizable, and you can appreciate that looking at the picture of the main landing gear – search for the cover of my Canon wide lens close to the ground and compare sizes!

The menacing silhouette of this huge bird, with red stars on the vertical fins and a bare metal fuselage, will likely make relive in you an ‘Iron Curtain feeling’!

One which will not go unnoticed is a Polish Air Force Sukhoi Su-22M4 Fitter in a flamboyant, very colored livery. This massive fighter-bomber represents the export version of the Su-17M4 built by the USSR for domestic orders.

Despite the shape, roughly similar to that of the MiG-21 also on display, the size of this aircraft is much bigger – you might think of Su-22 as a case for a MiG-21…

Soviet bombers are represented by a pretty rare Sukhoi Su-24 Fencer, which is today still in service in Russia. The example on display bears the markings of the Ukrainian Air Force, meaning it was once a Soviet aircraft.

This massive twin-engined beast outsizes all other military aircraft on display. The aircraft is on display with three support tanks under the fuselage and the inner wing pylons.

A less common sight is a Yakovlev Ya-28P Firebar, a long-range intercept version of this multi-role platform from the early Sixties. This design is very interesting, with a four-points undercarriage and a very long nose cone, where a radar system for a target-tracking and missile guidance system was located. The two turbojet engines are mounted in cigar-shaped underwing pods. The relevant sweep of the wing suggests a significant speed capability, yet many variants of this aircraft were developed to exploit also its good range performance. The antenna originally placed in the nose cone is on display besides the aircraft, which bears original Soviet markings.

Soviet Transport Aircraft

Two aircraft which could not find their way in covered shelters mainly due to their bigger size, are a Tupolev Tu-134A-3 and a Yakovlev Ya-40. Both can be accessed, so you can get a view of the inside, including the cockpits.

The Tu-134 twin jet, with its distinctive glass bulge in the nose ahead of the cockpit, has been for long a ubiquitous aircraft in the USSR and in many countries of the Eastern Bloc. The exemplar on display was taken over by the Estonian company Elk Airways, created after Estonia left the USSR.

Notwithstanding this, the aircraft betrays its Soviet ancestry and ownership in every particular, from the all-Cyrillic writings to the hammers and sickles here and there, from the design of interiors to the exotic cockpit, painted in a typical lurid Soviet green and with prominent unframed black rubber fans for ventilation.

The Yak-40 is an interesting three-jet executive/small transport aircraft. The one on display went on flying for at least some good 15 years after the collapse of the wall in Berlin.

The internal configuration features an executive room ahead of a more usual passenger section and tail galley. The style of the cabin and of the pure analog cockpit is really outdated for todays standards!

A rugged workhorse still flying today in many countries is the Antonov An-2, a single propeller, radial-engined, biplane tail-dragger transport. There are two of them in the collection. One is under a shelter and can be boarded. The interiors are very basic, but the visibility from the cockpit is very good especially for a tail-dragger with an engine on the nose.

Swedish Aircraft

An unusual chapter in air museums except in Sweden is that of SAAB aircraft, which are represented in this collection by two iconic models, a Draken and a Viggen, and an extremely rare, very elegant Lansen. All are in the colors of the Royal Swedish Air Force.

The Saab 35 Draken features a very distinctive double-delta wing, and was developed in the Fifties for reaching a high supersonic speed. The design turned out to be pretty successful, and was operationally adopted primarily as a fighter by Sweden and other European countries as well.

The one in the collection is painted in a bright yellow livery. The infra-red pod under the nose cone of this aggressive attack aircraft looks like the lidless eye of an alien!

The Viggen is a an attack aircraft from the late Sixties, developed for the domestic military needs into some sub-variants. With the JA 37 version displayed here, the Viggen went on to constitute the backbone of the intercept fleet of neutral Sweden, and was retired only in the early 2000s. The aerodynamic configuration features a prominent canard wing, and the Viggen was notably the first in such configuration produced in significant numbers.

The most unusual of all three SAAB designs on display is surely the SAAB 32 Lansen. A very neat design from the Fifties, loosely recalling the Lockheed P-80 and the Hawker Hunter, the Lansen was a jet fighter of the early Cold War developed specifically for Sweden and gaining a good success. The ‘E’ version on display was converted from the original fighter variant (‘B’) for the ECM role, and kept flying almost until the end of the 20th century. The green painting of the Royal Swedish Air Force is really stylish, definitely adding to an already elegant design.

Soviet Surface-to-Air Missiles (SAM)

Curiously enough, an extensive collection of SAMs is part of this rich collection. All major missiles from SA-2 to SA-6 are represented, some of them in multiple exemplars. The size of these missiles, especially the oldest, is really striking. They are stored outside, besides some cases for missile transportation, deployable radar antennas, and what appears to be a flak cannon from Hitler’s Germany – a bit of an outsider…

Jet Engines

Many of the engines of the aircraft on display have been taken out of the corresponding airframes and put on display besides the plane where they used to belong, or in a dedicated part of the museum together with others. The J79 belonging to the Italian-built F-104 can be recognized from the Italian plaques on many components.

Many soviet engines bear markings in Cyrillic, and one of them, a larger turbofan which does not fit in any bird on display, has been cut to show all components.

More…

More aircraft in the collection include some Mil and Kamov utility helicopters, a BAe Hawk of the Finnish Air Force and other trainers mainly from countries of the Warsaw Pact, some of them now on the civilian register.

A further notable aircraft is a Dassault Mirage IIIRS from the Swiss Air Force – with multi-language French and German stencils all over.

There are also some anti-aircraft guns, armored vehicles, tanks, and other curios items to whet your appetite!

Getting There and Moving Around

The museum can be reached 10 miles south of central Tartu on road 141, about 15 minutes by car from there. There is a free parking area nearby the entrance. As remarked, the collection is well-kept and somewhat publicized locally. There is a website with all information in English. The time required for visiting may vary from 45 minutes for a quick tour to 2.5 hours for photographers and those with a specific interest in the matter.

Soviet Leftovers in Latvia

Similar to the neighbor republics of Estonia and Lithuania, Latvia was occupied by the Soviets a first time in 1939 and again in 1944, when after some years of occupation by Hitler’s forces the Red Army started to successfully repel the German Wehrmacht from within Russia back towards Poland and central Europe. Differently from other European Countries later to become satellites of Moscow’s central communist power, the three ‘Baltic States’ were directly annexed to the Soviet Union.

History – in brief

As a matter of fact, the process of annexation was not a very peaceful one. Having had already a short but intense experience of the Stalinist dictatorship as a consequence of the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact before the German invasion in 1941, as soon as it became clear that Stalin’s forces would regain power hundreds of thousands from the Baltics left the Country for abroad, while the communist regime rapidly started to put in practice its deadly ideas, with the collectivization of all private activities, abolition of free elections and non-communist associations, and the imprisonment and deportation of all who disagreed with this plan.

The reason for the different fate of these Countries – annexed – with respect to those of central Europe – which became satellites of the USSR – may be understood on one side looking further back in history – the territories of the three republics had been for long under the direct influence of the Russian Empire. On the other hand, as testified by the relevant military presence in these areas since immediately after the beginning of the Cold War, the government of the USSR considered the Baltic region of high strategic value. Taking control of the coast of the Baltic States, and also thanks to the annexation of the region of Hanko in Finland, the USSR could protect the access to the Gulf of Finland and Leningrad, profit from military and commercial ports which do not freeze in winter and deploy strategic military resources – especially aircraft and missiles – within range of most European capitals.

Bases for all branches of the military flourished in all three new Soviet Socialist Republics. Soon after the fall of the Wall in Berlin, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were the first of the USSR states to declare independence from the Union in 1990 – almost two years before the actual collapse of the USSR – following massive protests which unveiled the high level of intolerance for the Soviet rule. As a result of the withdrawal of Soviet/Russian forces, these three small republics found themselves in control of many military installations, totally disproportioned to the new size and needs of the new states, and making for a not-so-welcomed memento of many decades of hardship – as a matter of fact, some measures to limit the spread of Russian influence in culture and politics have been implemented in all three states, which also joined NATO and the European Union as soon as possible.

Sights

The attitude assumed towards the huge military assets left from the Cold War has been slightly different in the three republics. All three are basically getting rid of them, Estonia being the quickest – not much remains there of the many missile bases, and the once prominent strategic air base in Raadi has been totally closed down and partially converted into a museum on national history. Until some years ago many missile sites remained in quite a good shape in Latvia, but most of them have been actively demolished in recent years, including the most iconic Dvina silo sites – as of 2017 the job was completed and no Dvina complex remains in Latvia. Yet visible remains of surface bases and many ghost towns and bunkers are reportedly still there, and while some can be visited ‘officially’ as museums, many are left to urban explorers and archaeologists, while some hardware like warehouses and service buildings has been reused by local companies for storing logs, gravel and other raw materials. Lithuania bolsters possibly the last surviving Dvina missile complex in Europe, which has been turned recently into a museum on the Cold War, totaling 20’000 visitors per year. The demolition process is perhaps slower there.

Prisons constitute non-military but possibly more disturbing leftovers from the communist era. There are some in the Baltics – as basically everywhere in the former eastern bloc including Eastern Germany – all opened as museum, and in one instance also partially turned into a curious and evoking ‘jail hotel’.

This post presents some highlights and examples of remains from the Cold War era from both military and non-military sites in Latvia. Photographs were taken in 2017, during a visit to this lively and nice country in Northern Europe.

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Zeltini Nuclear Missile Base

This missile base is one of the best conserved in the three republics. The storage and launch complex was originally built for the R12 liquid fueled, 2.3 Megaton single-warhead nuclear missile, known in the West as SS-4 Sandal. This missile system – the same deployed to Cuba in 1962 – was pretty modern for the end of the Fifties, yet it lacked the extra range required to reach strategic targets in Europe from deep within Russia. This made the Baltic region very interesting for the military, and a place of election for installing missile complexes in that age.

The base of Zeltini is one of three missile launch sites around the town of Aluksne, in northeastern Latvia. This base was updated and kept in an active state until the end of the Soviet Union and the withdrawal of the Red Army towards Russia, who obviously carried away all the weapons and technical rigs. Soon after, the locals started to take away anything of any value, including extensive piping, cables, any metal and so on, leaving basically the empty buildings and bunkers. More recently, as typical also to other such places in Latvia, private businesses were allowed on the premises of the former installation. A timber storage and processing facility today occupies the area where the nuclear warheads used to be stored, separate from the missiles.

The complex in Zeltini could accommodate four missiles in two couples of neighbor storage bunkers, built about .3 miles apart, and launch them from two twin surface launch pads. At least two launch pads can be seen today. They are large flat area with a pavement made of concrete slabs, recognizable by a steel crown on the ground with an approximate diameter of 5-6 feet. This was used to anchor the low gantry holding the 72 ft long missile in vertical position when being readied for launch.

One of the pads is in the center of the best preserved part of the site – the southeastern one -, but the position of the missile gantry is today occupied by a pretty big head of Lenin, reportedly moved here from Aluksne after the end of communism, sparing it from being blown up.

The grounds around this launch pad are rich with interesting bunkers, which once hosted support machinery and control gears, including anything necessary for missile servicing, launch preparation and control.

There are bunkers of basically two types – smaller ones with a single entrance on one side of a cusp-roofed tunnel and a lower height, and bigger ones, much roomier, longer, and with doors on both sides of the barrel-vaulted tunnel.

A ubiquitous feature of these missile complexes are concrete T-shaped frames planted in the ground. These were used to carry miles of pipings at the time when the base was active.

Aligned with the main axis of the launch area it is possible to spot the corresponding missile bunker ‘N.3’, which is unfortunately locked. The construction and size are like those of the bigger support bunkers, the only visible difference being the slightly wider doors on the front façade, and the absence of a back door on the other end of the bunker.

Many traces of plaques with mottos and citations in Russian from Lenin & Co. can be found on the exterior of the bunkers, whereas tons of ‘Warning!’ signs and other technical information are painted in the inside.

A second launch pad can be seen in the in the northwestern part of the military grounds – with no Lenin’s head. Here traces of stripes on the ground for easing maneuvers or indicating the place to park ancillary rigs – like generators, gas tanks,… – can still be seen. Also here the corresponding ‘N.2’ missile bunker is locked.

In a land strip where nature is growing wild between the two main launch areas, it is possible to spot a little bunker with a kind of concrete sentry-box. This was presumably a storage bunker for light weapons, a small reinforced shelter for watchmen, or something similar. Wooden shelves can still be found inside.

Another interesting sight is what appears to be a ‘living bunker’. This is half interred, with small doors on both ends and a sequence of rooms aligned on a long corridor. The center room is the biggest, and may be a canteen or something alike. There are traces of a decorated white and blue linoleum pavement, but there are also very unique frescoes on the walls. These include an artist impression of the SS-4 Sandal missile and also of the typical mushroom-cloud produced by a nuclear explosion!

A conspicuous part of the Zeltini base is the command area with living quarters for the troops. This is the part you see first when entering the base. The buildings here are totally abandoned and possibly dangerous to access.

There is not much left inside, but relevant remains of plaques with inscriptions and artistic drawings can be found on the walls outside. A highlight of the area is a former small park with a typical communist monument – a distinctive feature of all Soviet bases. The small park is a bit creepy, there are still benches around a former flowerbed, and a rain shelter, all now emerging from a field of nettles! The monument is basically a long wall with the silhouette of a stylized head. The inscription is fading, but the face painted on the red head can still be seen.

Getting there and moving around

The former missile base of Zeltini can be easily found driving on the P34, about 1.2 miles west of the town, exactly where P44 leaves from P34 to the north. There is also an official sign on the P34 pointing the way in. The area is preserved to some extent, and some of the former connection roads inside can be seen on Google Street View, yet the grounds are unfenced and there are no opening times. You can go in and move with your car, the only risk is that of getting a flat due to the road not being very clean.

Close to the head of Lenin there is also an explanatory panel with some quick notes and a basic map. A museum can be found in Zeltini, which was not opened when I visited, and they reportedly offer also guided tours of the place. This might be interesting especially for those less used to exploration activities, and possibly also to get access to the missile bunkers, which are usually closed. I couldn’t arrange a guided visit though, so I don’t know what they are offering on guided tours.

Some timber companies work in the former base, and you should not interfere with their operations, nor intrude in those parts of the base which are now used by them. Apart from this, this installation is rich of interesting sights and not much risky nor too big or difficult to explore, and it will make for a good 2 hours (minimum) exploration even visiting on your own, without accessing the locked or forbidden parts.

Note: Nearby Dvina Missile Site, Tirza – Completely Destroyed

There used to be other two ‘sister sites’ of the Zeltini complex in the area around Aluksne. One was in Strautini, a design very similar to the one in Zeltini. To my information this has ceased operations but is still today part of a military installation, so it cannot be approached. The second one was built in Tirza, and it was a Dvina site, i.e. a complex of four interred silos built for a suitably modified version of the R12 missile, called R12U. This kind of missile site started to be installed in 1964. Standing to the Google map of early 2017 the Tirza site should have been still in relative good shape. Unfortunately, in very recent times the local government hit very hard, having the site totally destroyed, flooded and buried under a monumental pile of land. The photographs below show what remains of this site – literally nothing.

Even though the silo may have represented an uncomfortable reminder of the relatively recent occupation by the Soviets, as the only remaining site of the kind in the country it should have deserved possibly a different treatment – similar to the site in Siauliai, Lithuania, recently turned into a museum on the Cold War. Another option – probably the most obvious – would have been to leave the site to nature, as it happened in most cases to former Soviet installations scattered around Europe, at no cost and without any relevant risk for the local population – the site in Tirza was extremely remote, hidden deep in the trees, far from the main road and from any village of appreciable size, in a part of the country of limited touristic interest. Only those interested, like explorers and historians, would have looked for it. The choice of the government, which judging from the proportions of the demolition work must have implied the use of a very relevant amount of money for the job, appears really hard to justify – especially in face of an infrastructure system still well below the European standard.

Anyway, as a practical suggestion, don’t waste your time trying to reach the Tirza site – Dvina missile complexes are not to be found in Latvia.

Skrunda Military Ghost Town

Located in the hilly countryside of southwest Latvia, about 50 miles from the port town of Liepaja, the area around the village of Skrunda has been for long a primary strategic site for the USSR. Due to the geographical position on the northwestern border of the Union, this place was selected for the construction of an early warning radar device – a system capable of detecting incoming enemy ballistic missiles, leaving enough time for deploying countermeasures and for retaliatory actions. The type built in Skrunda was called Dnestr-M, and was the first early warning system type deployed by the USSR. Actually, the Skrunda radar site, codenamed RO-2, was the first to become operative in 1971, marking the foundation of the entire Soviet ABM (anti-ballistic missile) system. This was just a component of a series of similar sites intended to cover the entire border, constituting a ‘invisible fence’ against missile attacks from the US and their Allies.

Early warning radar systems are not just small radar antennas like those you can see in airports. Instead they are very (very) big and powerful systems, digesting a huge flow of electric energy to stay alive, and where all the required hardware – including the antennas – is often stored in suitably designed, tall and imposing buildings. The RO-2 system was made of two Dnestr-M fixed antennas, each assembled in a special construction 650 ft long and 250 ft tall!

The staff required for running the facility and all connected businesses was numerous, so a military village was built anew in Skrunda deep in the years of the Cold War just a few miles north of the old town. The village was intended for troops, technicians and their families. The relevance of the Skrunda site is testified also by the selection of that area for the installation of another antenna of the type Daryal-UM, with a range of almost 4’000 miles, 1’000 more than the Dnestr-M system. The decision was taken in the late Eighties, and the Daryal-UM system in Skrunda was never operative.

Following the collapse of the USSR an agreement was made between the governments of Latvia and Russia to gradually phase out the early warning systems in Skrunda, which had to be kept under Russian administration for some more years. As a result, the village of Skrunda was inhabited until 1998 by Russian troops.

After the demolition of all early warning hardware formerly agreed upon and the withdrawal of the Russian army, the military town of Skrunda was left in a state of disrepair. The Latvian government tried to sell the property in more instances, while some of the worst conserved buildings have been demolished. More recently the local municipality took control of the area, and there are plans to find a new function for the remaining part of the ghost town. Also the Latvian army is active on it. In the meanwhile you can tour this ‘domesticated’ ghost town – which can be accessed officially paying a small fee at the entrance – you are even given a map of the site!

The fact that you pay for a visit takes away much of the ghost-town-aura typical to other similar places in the former Eastern Bloc – here you know you are not alone. Nonetheless, what makes this place impressive is the size of the buildings, now totally empty, and the imposing ensemble they form together.

Besides the residential buildings, the bulkiest and more numerous, there are a hotel, a school – which cannot be accessed due to the collapsing roof -, a market and many other services you may expect to find in a typical modern neighborhood.

Also impressive are the club with a big gym and the frescoes in it. An obelisk monument can be found in the square ahead of the gym.

On the tiles on the blind side of one of the residential buildings it is possible to spot a giant, now fading portrait of a Soviet soldier.

The residential and service complex with its distinctive tall buildings occupies the northern part of the ghost town of Skrunda, while the southern part is composed of lower buildings formerly for barracks and military services, including a canteen, a command building and a small military prison.

The face of the command building bears inscriptions in Cyrillic, which are now barely visible. From historical pictures it is possible to see that at some point the Red Banner was changed into the Russian flag you can spot today.

Most of the buildings in this area are in a really bad shape, and many are inaccessible due to piles of waste material packed inside. Among the most unusual sights here, stickers of ‘Western propaganda symbols’ – including an iconic Arnold Schwarzenegger in James Cameron’s ‘Terminator’! – inside the door of a small cabinet, likely from the Eighties.

At the time of my visit there were some Latvian troops busy moving light material between some of these buildings.

Getting there and moving around

Getting to the Soviet ghost town of Skrunda is easy with a car. You can reach the old town of Skrunda along the A9, connecting Liepaja and Riga. Once there, take the P116 going north to Kuldiga. The entrance to the site will be on your left about 3 miles north of the center of old Skrunda.

I have to admit I had prepared my visit as a ‘usual’ wild exploration, and I discovered the place is actually a tourist attraction only when I was there. My first approach was from the side of the village opposite to the P116, to reduce the chance to be spotted by locals. To my great surprise I was soon met by a young lady walking along the main street of the ghost town. I thought she was there for picking mushrooms or something in the wilderness, instead she came closer and politely told me there was a ticket to pay! Then I spotted other visitors around in the distance. I moved my car to the P116 and accessed the place as a normal visitor. An old lady at the former control booth of the military village asked for a few Euros – no credit cards, obviously – and gave me a ticket and a map.

The reason for my error was the lack of information available online, also due to the very limited penetration of English in that part of Europe, even on websites. For the same reason, unfortunately I can’t provide an official source site nor opening times.

Due to a very tight timetable, I could only dedicate about an hour to the visit of the ghost town – I also wasted some time moving my car from the back to the official gate of the base. The site may deserve 1.5-2.5 hours depending on your level of interest, especially if you want to take pictures.

As written above, Skrunda is in the center of a renovation program, and the place may not remain visible for long.

Karosta Military Prison & Liepaja Port Town

The port town of Liepaja is the third most populated center in Latvia. It bolsters an ancient tradition as a commercial port, built along trade routes very active since the early years of the Hanseatic League. More recently, in the second half of the 19th century the port was greatly developed also for military purposes under the power of the Tzars. This time saw the construction of conspicuous fortifications in the northern area of the town, and the development of an extensive military district named Karosta.

The military port was destined to play an important role in WWI, when the agonizing Russian Empire was fighting against the forces of the Kaiser, and again in WWII, when the Soviets, who had just annexed the Latvian territory in 1939-40, started fighting against Hitler in 1941. The German Wehrmacht actually occupied Liepaja until 1945.

Back in the hands of the Soviets, the port was developed step by step into a major base of the Soviet fleet, headquartering the Baltic branch tasked with tactical dominance of the Baltic Sea. Since the 1960s until the collapse of the USSR Liepaja was turned into a closed town for military personnel only, and all commercial activities were interdicted.

Nowadays the commercial port is again very active, and the town, even boasting a university, is trying to reestablish its original status as a center for commerce and tourism.

Most notably, the former military district of Karosta can be toured along a well designed historical trail, showing the old quarters of the military town from the years of the Tzars. A distinctive feature of Karosta is the breakwater pier, protruding into the Baltic for about 1 mile, which can be walked in its entirety. Another very suggestive sight is the dome of the Orthodox church, recently refurbished after having being closed for years in the Soviet era.

Another unusual sight in the Karosta district is the coastal fortification built by the Tzars in the late 19th century. The cannons are gone, but the mighty fortifications look still impressive.

The additions by the Soviets in terms of housing are clearly recognizable by the depressing style and poor building technique, making these buildings look worse than their older predecessors.

The military district of the Tzars included a military prison, today known as Karosta Prison (or ‘Karosta Cietums’, in Latvian). This prison has been turned into a museum only recently, and is now advertised as a local attraction.

This prison is unique in many senses. From a historical perspective, for instance, it was managed by six different military powers in its history – the Russian Empire, the newly constituted Latvian government soon after WWI, the Soviets between 1940 and 1941, the Nazis until 1945, then the Soviets again and finally the Latvian government of our days after the independence from the Soviet Union!

The place is rich of sad memories, especially from the years of Nazi occupation, when the prison was not intended to reeducate – whatever this might have meant in Soviet times -, but acted more as an antechamber for captured spies or subversive elements to be shot – something that reportedly happened in the courtyard in several occasions – or deported to Nazi lagers. Of course, the beginning of the Soviet period was a very harsh one too for Liepaja and all Latvia, thanks to Stalin’s unscrupulous deportation plans which hit hard in the region, but that was a business the small military prison of Karosta was not much involved in.

The brick building of the prison is composed of two floors. The museum offers guided visits to the small complex. The first sight is the office of the director on the ground floor, preserved from the Soviet era, and enriched with tons of collectible items. Really an impressive sight.

Another very unique room is packed with weapons, uniforms and other military gear from the years of WWII. This collection, albeit small, is extremely valuable especially for what remains of the Nazi period – somewhat paradoxically, in Germany similar collections are basically impossible to find.

I explicitly asked more than once about the originality of the pieces on show, and was punctually reassured. The prison and what is in it, with the exception of the arrangement of the ticket office and the rooms nearby, is 95% original, and what was not originally there when the prison was finally closed – like a portrait of Stalin and a wooden silhouette of Lenin’s face – is still original, relocated for exhibition purposes. No fakes.

Next, the guided tour will drive you to the cells on the top floor, which were intended for soldiers, where the ground floor was for officers. The only difference is in the color of the walls – black on the top floor, brownish on the lower floor.

Karosta is the only military prison you can visit in the Baltics… and probably the only one in the world where you can sleep, if you dare to! The standard treatment is not so rude as you may expect, and spending the night in provides also the advantage of a dedicated evening visit of the prison after the closing time, along with the other ‘inmates’.

The rooms where you sleep are the cells of the ground floor – originally intended for officers. There are two possible configurations, i.e. rooms with iron beds, or empty cells, where you assemble your ‘bed’ taking a wooden board and a mattress from piles in a deposit. Then you are given a pillow, sheets and a blanket. The sheets are marked in Cyrillic, and probably belong to the original supply of the Soviet prison.

The door of the cell is left open, so you are totally free to move around all night, and even go out in the courtyard if you need. Toilets are in common, placed in the original toilet room. They are clean, even though basic, and there are no showers. There is a guard – who is also the guide on the evening tour – on the top floor, and the external perimeter of the prison is locked, so you feel reasonably safe. You can also park your car inside the perimeter. That said, spending the night in the cell is surely unusual and provokes strange feelings and thoughts… but that’s what you were probably looking for when you decided to sleep in a prison!

The prison offers more intense experiences where you are ‘disturbed’ during the night and treated more harshly by the guards, but these are only for groups. These packages are advertised also for companies, for team-building purposes.

The small restaurant has been put in the original canteen for the guards, and they offer a full Soviet-themed menu for dinner and for breakfast. The ‘hotel’ manager speaks English, and she can help you out with the menu, written in Latvian only.

All in all, a unmissable pick for those interested in authentic Soviet experiences.

Getting there and moving around

The museum in the prison of Karosta is an official tourist attraction in Karosta, which is part of Liepaja. The website provides much practical information about the museum and the many special activities they promote, plus you can find the contacts for arranging a stay in case you want to. You may inquire with your intended arrival date. In my case the answer was quick and punctual, and I was asked about usual details. The only ‘stressful’ thing was the check-in limit – 5 pm – but this turned out to be more flexible than initially expected. I had the deadline extended to 6 pm by e-mailing the staff earlier on the day of arrival, and a group of six arrived well after 8 pm, by prior arrangement.

On check-in you are shown the two cell types mentioned above – this happens before payment, in case you realize this is not for you and decide to leave! The fare for my 1-night stay was very low, 15 Euros or so, plus coins for dinner and breakfast.

After check-in I was invited to have dinner before taking possession of the cell-room, and then go downtown and come back well after the closing time of the museum. I was given the number of the guard, who opened the gate letting me in with my car when I came back.

The hotel office acts also as a tourist information point for the military district of Karosta and for the town of Liepaja. They provide maps, schedules of cultural activities and general information for the whole area.

As pointed out, if you are interested in spending the night in the prison you will have the chance to park inside a locked external fence. The rooms will not be locked, nor the prison building, so you should not experience any discomfort in that sense. You should not expect the room service, and be ready to make your bed, but the staff will treat you kindly and professionally. I was so tired for the trip I fell asleep with no difficulty – average light, average temperature, low humidity, no noise, unidentified ‘background smell’, but not excessively annoying…

Klavi Nuclear Missile Base

Similar to the base of Zeltini (see above), the base of Klavi was a surface missile base. Differently from Zeltini, Klavi is totally abandoned.

What remains there makes for a quick interesting visit. The characteristics of the complex are very similar to those of Zeltini, perhaps a bit more regular, for in Klavi all four launch pads are placed side-by-side in a single array. The most notable feature of the installation is the many bunkers, which include missile bunkers and smaller support ones. Some of the bunkers bear visible traces of the original Cyrillic writing.

The launch pads with the metal crown on the ground can be found also here – but the crowns are gone, probably the metal was resold. The exploration is somewhat complicated by some ditches and flooded areas, obstructing the access to part of the grounds. Nature is growing wild in the area, but garbage and waste material can also be found in significant amounts.

Similar to Zeltini, besides the storage and launch area there are a series of support and living bunkers, plus a technical area which is today occupied by some form of business, including a soft-air training ground.

The base testifies the double attitude towards these former missile sites adopted in Latvia, which on one side are left in a state of disrepair, but are not totally abandoned, and are often being used in our days for various kinds of business.

Getting there and moving around

The place can be found with a nav using the following coordinates, 56.661370, 24.128137, pointing to the access road of the launch complex. All roads around the site and reaching to it are unpaved – but this is the standard in Latvia. The point can be reached with a car. Going further may be easier by foot, for the road is not maintained and turns pretty narrow.

The former technical part with the soft-air facility is located 0.3 miles from that point moving northeast, and can be clearly spotted on a satellite photograph. Approaching the launch part from the south you will not pass through it, and you will more likely go unnoticed – the launch area is abandoned with no prohibition signs, so this is just if you don’t like to attract any attention.

I would say this place should be of interest for more committed urban explorers, as you should go with at least a basic consciousness of the general plan of a missile base to understand where you are and for moving around, due to wild nature obstructing the view in many instances.

Note: there is a sister site, almost a clone of this base, located south of the village of Zalite, about 5 miles south of the Klavi complex. Apparently not in a bad shape, the area has been taken over by small private businesses and marked with clear signs of prohibition. Strangely enough, there are apparently some people living in the rotting buildings of the former technical area. I went to the Zalite site also, but I was greeted by angry watchdogs moving around freely as soon as I approached the former launch area, and I could not even step off my car. Soon after I was spotted by a small group of people, like a family with elders and children with a ragged, disturbing appearance, including a woman with only one leg and a prominent metal prosthesis – the whole scene looked like some low-budget horror movie. They were clearly not happy to see me. I had a very bad feeling and decided to leave immediately.

The Corner House – KGB Prison in Riga

As soon as they landed in the territory of Latvia in the early Forties, the Soviets started to implement their regime in all its features. These included forced collectivization of private businesses, de-facto abolition of all political parties and free elections, and prosecution of non-communist elements of the society. The state security office monitoring the life of all citizens and assuring their adherence to the communist ideology and way of life was the local section of the NKVD, later to evolve into the famous KGB. This was tasked with the collection of information, arrest, interrogation, sentencing, detention and often times also deportation and execution of anybody suspected of ‘counter-revolutionary acts’ or ‘anti-Soviet crimes’ – the meaning of which was very generic and often used to prosecute people on the basis of scant or absent evidence of any type, and basically for political opinions.

It is still not clear for what particular reason this secret political police found a suitable home base in a nice apartment building in central Riga, which until the time of the Soviet occupation had been a normal residential building. Behind the elegant façade, the Soviets moved in an impressive quantity of offices and archives, plus a complete prison, located on the ground floor and in the basement, with cells and rooms for interrogation, with separate branches for women and men. The prison ceased function during the Nazi occupation, when it was opened to the public for propaganda reasons. Not discouraged nor impressed, the Soviet secret police reopened it as soon as it regained control of the region in 1945. After the secession of Latvia from the USSR, the building, which over the decades had become a symbol of communist terror, was closed up and left there, nobody reclaiming that haunted property, associated with fear, sad memories and negative feelings of hardship and oppression. Only a few years ago an association aimed at preserving the memory of the deadly function of the building, and of those who were touched by the violent ideological repression carried out by the Soviets in Riga and Latvia, started to offer regular tours of the prison.

The place is preserved as it was when it was shut down, much of the original furniture, lighting and paint being still there.

The entrance is by the door on the corner, as it used to be in the past for the ‘general public’ – typically relatives of people mysteriously disappeared, going there to check whether they had been arrested by the KGB. What strikes most in these first rooms is the incredibly shabby, ragged, purely Soviet appearance of these public offices. A nice introductory exhibition with much info and data on the history of the place and of political repression in Latvia can be toured for free in this part of the building.

Here it is also where the guided tour of the prison will start. You will be driven through the corridor reserved to KGB employees and arrested people. From there you soon reach the prison – particularly disturbing even for Soviet standards, very dark and narrow.

Close to the entrance there is a control room for the whole prison, with original furniture from the KGB inventory – still tagged. A mix of terror and sadness, a really depressive ‘something wrong’ feeling can be clearly perceived there still today.

Interrogation rooms with a fake mirror glass and preliminary detention rooms as large as a phone box, with no windows nor ventilation, are among the first sights of the tour.

Along the walk the guide gives you a description of the life condition of inmates and an idea of the function of some special places in the prison.

Part of the tour is the caged courtyard intended for the few minutes of walk inmates were allowed per day.

During the visit you will see also the basement, where the kitchen for the inmates can still be found, together with service rooms and further cells.

Finally you will have a look at the inner courtyard, reportedly where many inmates had their last walk, soon before entering a dark room nearby where they were shot in the head, as mostly typical in the years of Stalin. The shabby room where this happened can be observed from the door, and is preserved with respect.

All in all, a true must see not only for the committed Cold War historian, but for everybody interested in the recent history of Latvia.

Getting there and moving around

The building of the KGB prison is located in Brīvības iela 61 in central Riga, and can be conveniently reached with a pleasant 10 minutes walk from the central historical district.

The Corner House is professionally managed as an international-level museum. It is possible to visit the informative exhibition for free, where for touring the prison you can either go there and reserve a visit, or buy an electronic ticket online in advance. Access to the prison is by guided tours only, but tours are offered in English, German as well as Latvian and other languages – website here.

The guided tour lasts just less than 1 hour, and I strongly recommend it as a very suggestive experience which will not leave you indifferent, also thanks to the lively approach of the very knowledgeable local guides.

A Walk in Murmansk – A Soviet Industrial Port of Our Time

Murmansk is a port town in the northwestern corner of todays Russian Federation. It bolsters the biggest population among the centers north of the Arctic Circle in the world. It was founded in 1916, just months before the Revolution, and developed rapidly thanks to its strategic position for the needs both of the Navy and of maritime commerce. Actually this is the only Russian port on the Barents Sea which is not blocked by ice in winter, and it is in a region rich of substantial natural deposits, including nickel and coal. Furthermore, the coast in the vicinity of this town and along the Kola peninsula features countless coves and bays, providing an ideal setting for stationing a military fleet.

Probably the highest point in the history of Murmansk, which also contributed greatly in forming its current shape, was in the Great Patriotic War, i.e. WWII as they call it in Russia and the USSR until the Nineties. Murmansk was a key port on the supply line between the Western Allies and the USSR. A railroad linking Murmansk and St. Petersburg – some 900 miles south – existed since before its foundation. For this reason, and for the abundant raw materials in the region, the area was a dramatic theater of war, the German Wehrmacht relentlessly hitting there from both Norway and Lapland, the northernmost region of Finland. As a matter of fact, the resistance of the Soviets around Murmansk meant that the town was never conquered by Hitler’s forces, which where stopped just some tens of miles away to the west.

The damage and destruction brought by the war, acknowledged by the Soviet government with medals and the title of “Hero of the Soviet Union” awarded to Murmansk, meant that today the city has a mostly ‘modern’ appearance – in the Soviet sense. From the viewpoint of architecture, Murmansk has been rebuilt with industrial and military activities in mind, as most cities all around the USSR and differently from the most famous Moscow and Leningrad (today St. Petersburg). During the Cold War Murmansk developed into a huge port town and industrial center, with a population reaching almost half a million at some point. At the same time, military ports and shipyards multiplied in the region. The Soviet Northern Fleet has been stationed there since its foundation in the Thirties, and during the Cold War it was tasked with patrolling the Atlantic up to the northern coast of the USSR. The Northern Fleet was supplied with many iconic firsts for the USSR, including nuclear submarines and strategic nuclear missiles.

A trip to this industrial city is probably not in the list of many tourists, and even less from abroad. But for those looking for a full immersion in the atmosphere of an authentic Soviet town of the Cold War days, conveniently located not far from the Russian western border and still populated and very active, Murmansk has really much in store. Furthermore, if you care about the history of WWII and the Cold War, then this is definitely a place to go. The closed town of Polyarny, from where Marko Ramius sets off in Tom Clancy’s memorable fiction ‘The Hunt for Red October’, is just miles away from Murmansk.  If you would like to see something in this region which still retains much of its ‘CCCP aura’, unless you are from Russia Murmansk is one of the few towns in an extensive region which has been opened to foreign visitors – Polyarny, as well as Severomorsk, where the headquarters of the Northern Fleet are, and other military centers nearby unfortunately are not accessible to foreigners even today.

This post shows a possible itinerary touching some Soviet- or war-themed highlights in town. At the end of the chapter you can find information about reaching Murmansk, which itself may turn an interesting part of the trip. Photographs were taken in August 2017.

Map

The Google map below shows the itinerary I followed during my visit. All sights pinpointed on the map are mentioned or portrayed in the post. I covered the whole itinerary with a long walk, resulting in a very requiring 24 miles which I walked in one day. Despite the great photo opportunities you can get walking around alone, this distance can be definitely too much for the majority of visitors, so you may choose to hire a taxi or move with public transport for at least a part of the itinerary. Or you may decide to explore the town in one and a half or two days instead of just one.

Sights

Ploschad Pyat’uglov

The central square of Murmansk – ‘Five Corners Square’ in English – is where the two oldest hotels are, the ‘Azimuth’ and the ‘Meridian’. If you are staying at the Meridian – a good level executive hotel  – you can enjoy a good view of the Azimuth, a typical modern Soviet building, a section of the port and the northern districts of Murmansk. Your view will reach to one of the most famous Soviet monuments in Russia – Alyosha, the gigantic statue of a Soviet soldier.

On the façade of the building to the left of the Meridian you can see a sculpture of some Soviet decorations attributed to Murmansk. Not far cross the road is a similarly themed obelisk.

To the southeast of the square, Tsentralnyy Park is a nice park frequented by Russian families with children. On the southeastern side of the park are a statue of Kirov – a friend of Stalin, who killed him at some point, as he often used to do with friends – and a couple of neoclassic Soviet public palaces with Soviet-themed decoration.

To the northwest of the Ploschad there is another smaller park with monuments and fountains, and the Regional Art Museum of Murmansk in one of the corners (website here). The latter is a nice little art museum, where works of many regional artists from the 19th century and well into the Soviet era can be found.

Among the elements helping to remember you are in the 21st century and not any more in the Soviet Union, there is a McDonald’s – possibly the northernmost in the world – and some banks around the square.

Prospekt Lenina

One of the two traffic arteries in Murmansk, describing a large arch crossing the central district. Moving south from Ploschad Pyat’uglov, you can walk down the full length of this boulevard. In the most central district, closer to the square, you will find many buildings with typical Soviet facades. Soon after leaving the square, on the eastern side there is a statue of Lenin, creating a nice scenery with the wings of the stately building behind it.

One of the most notable buildings along the boulevard apparently belongs to the heir of the KGB, and still retains a monument with the sword and shield close to the entrance. The façade is adorned with prominent hammer and sickle symbols.

On the eastern side of the boulevard another interesting sight is the Monument to the Border Guards of the Arctic. This is placed in a small, well-kept and quiet park. Close by, a theater can be recognized by the frieze on the front – this was undergoing renovation at the time of my visit, and nothing more could be seen.

Moving further south, the road turns markedly to the southeast, and correspondingly the quality of the buildings starts to decrease sharply, with some exceptions, including some bulky modern buildings. One of them is really imposing, fenced and guarded. It may be a tribunal or a military command of some sort, given the level of security. As the road starts to climb uphill, a monument connected to WWII is clearly noticeable, with and anti-tank cannon prominently standing on a pillar. From that place, it is possible to spot some Soviet decoration on lower profile residential buildings.

In this part the panorama changes rapidly, with wild vegetation and poor housing coexisting side by side. Some buildings look as they are just waiting to collapse, and you think they are abandoned until you see two well dressed clerks coming out of a decrepit door. Hammer and sickles can be found on the façade or to the side of every other building.

Somewhat unceremoniously, Prospekt Lenina comes to an end forming a sharp angle with Prospekt Kirova.

Prospekt Kirova and Ulitsa Shmidta

Turning northwest on Prospekt Kirova the road starts to descend. Here you can find a significant number of Soviet style apartment buildings. Looking carefully, you can see that the construction of the buildings is modular and the style is very repetitive – there are only about five or six variations in the basic module.

As the street turns north changing name into Ulitsa Shmidta you have on the southern corner a building connected with the Navy, possibly an academy, with some strange instrumentation on the roof. Cross the street there is a small park, with a modern church, clearly built after the end of the Soviet period.

From around this point it is possible to get some good pictures of a still working power plant, which is located basically in a block of this district, not far from the city center and surrounded by apartments. The proximity of the chimneys to the apartment buildings is typical to Soviet towns, much harder to find in the west, unless you’re running out of money building your town when playing SimCity. Furthermore, the power plant in Murmansk is really huge and the funnels really monstrous!

Proceeding north on Ulitsa Shmidta, on the eastern side it is possible to spot many Soviet facades, where on the western side you may have problems getting a view of the railway and the port down below, due to the vegetation strip obstructing the view. At some point on the eastern side you will find a military building, recognizable by the red stars on the gates – the same model of gates and stars you can find in many abandoned military sites all over the former Eastern Bloc.

A block south of the last bend to the northeast where Ulitsa Shmidta changes its name into Ulitsa Kominterna, it is possible to find a small nice park with a monument to the Soviet Navy, just ahead of a stately building which may have been a former military headquarter.

The monument is modern in design, and perhaps made after the end of the Soviet Union, yet looking very exotic if you are from the western side of the Iron Curtain.

Railway Station

Possibly one of the oldest buildings in Murmansk, and surely one of the most iconic thanks to the pinnacle with the red star on top, is the railway station. The façade and entrance are on Ulitsa Kominterna, but the building is built on multiple levels, for it is on the rim of a small coast. The passenger railway is at the bottom of the coast, and very close to the building. An old steam locomotive with a big red star is placed on one of the passenger platforms.

On the northern side of the station building it is possible to get access to a footbridge, passing over the passenger terminal and the huge cargo terminal. The latter offers a really impressive show, with countless coal trucks unwinding along endless railways. The railway basically ends in Murmansk, and the port is specialized with taking coal from the trains and putting it on the ships – plenty of dedicated cranes are always active in this transfer work. The railway yard is always very busy.

In the evening you can watch the assembly of the empty convoys, being set up for their travel back to inland Russia. This is a pretty violent and noisy show, as they usually form a train by kicking a car on a railway track against the rest of the convoy waiting at the other end. When the car hits the convoy a very loud bang is produced, which can be heard from a great distance everywhere in town.

Given the number of convoys and cars, this unusual concert goes on for quite a while every evening.

Port of Murmansk and Icebreaker Lenin

Descending from the far end of the footbridge towards the sea you reach the platform of the port of Murmansk with a short walk. You can walk only a small part of the port area, including two piers. The famous icebreaker Lenin (website here), the first nuclear-propelled non-military vessel in the world, is permanently moored here and can be visited as a tourist attraction – in theory.

[NOTE: Obviously the dates of my trip had been chosen accounting for the opening times of this museum ship, one of the most relevant sites in town. I was very unlucky, experiencing the harsh treatment Russia still reserves to tourists this day – in spite of a published timetable of the tours available online, even though in Russian only, I found a printed paper in Russian on the entrance to the pier, basically telling ‘no tours for today and tomorrow’, full stop. Unfortunately, you can experience similar issues even in cities with a touristic vocation like St. Petersburg, so this happening in the remote Murmansk was not unbelievable. Yet considering I visited from quite afar, tuned my trip specifically for this attraction standing to the available information and came during the peak season, this shows a very low-level preparedness for tourism and especially a generally bad attitude towards foreign visitors, both parts of an unwanted heritage of the Soviet times. You’d better go ready to similar problems when traveling to Russia.]

Anyway the icebreaker can be admired also from the pier. The size is really stunning, especially if compared to the older and glorious Krassin, which can be found in St. Petersburg (see this post). Along the Lenin, on another pier a modern icebreaker can be seen. Murmansk is also a well-known starting point for arctic cruises.

A monument remembering the Great Patriotic War closes the square ahead of the piers on one side. Cross the bay from this point it is possible to spot another war monument, including a jet aircraft and a cannon.

Kursk Monument and Church of the Savior on Waters

Going back to Ploschad Pyat’uglov and restarting northeast along Prospekt Lenina after some walk and more interesting buildings, including the local government of Murmansk adorned with all the decorations earned by this town for the effort during WWII and the Regional Museum (website here) – which unfortunately was closed on the day of my visit -, you reach Ulitsa Papanina. Taking it to the northwest you soon cross Ulitsa Chelyuskintsev.

Again, here the quality of the housing and parks decreases sharply. Ulitsa Chelyuskintsev climbs aggressively uphill. After a distance the main road takes slightly to the left, and a building resembling a beacon can be seen further uphill, reachable with a flight of stairs. This beacon is a monument to the seamen lost at sea, and it includes a chapel which is closed most of the time irrespective of the published opening times.

Just behind the beacon there is a monument to the ill-fated nuclear submarine K-141 Kursk, a new strategic ship of the Northern Fleet launched in post-Soviet times, which in the year 2000 sank following two accidental explosions, killing all on board. Thanks to the shallow waters where this accident happened, it was later possible to recover the wreck. Part of the turret was taken away and transformed into the monument you see, which is actually a piece of the original vessel.

Proceeding further uphill, it is possible to reach the small nice Orthodox church of the Savior on Waters, which is operated regularly and is probably the most central temple in Murmansk.

Leninskiy Okrug and Museum of the Northern Fleet

To the back of the temple it is possible to reach again Ulitsa Chelyuskintsev. Keeping the Museum of the Northern Fleet as a destination, located close to the northern border of Murmansk, you can walk some miles crossing the district called Leninskiy Okrug, which is a very populated residential area of the ‘working class’. Here you can see by yourself the very low-level of the housing, roads, walkways and services of this industrial town, where most of the population is living today. This standard of living appears to be in striking contrast with what you see in Moscow and St. Petersburg, and you can imagine how the neighborhood must have looked like when all cars around where Soviet made and there were no services like banks and cell phones retailers giving a modern touch to the scene.

The building hosting the Museum of the Northern Fleet is no exception – it looks like an abandoned building from the outside. The entrance hall is purely Soviet style, too large and very grim. An old lady stands knitting in one corner, watching a TV show. She will instruct you about the ticket price – very low, only cash accepted – and the way to go. The building must have been a former clubhouse for officers or retired staff.

The museum (information here) covers the history of the Navy at least until the creation of the Northern Fleet. There are about ten small rooms, packed with tons of memorabilia items, documents, flags, parts of ships, photographs, paintings, portraits, uniforms, medals, models, maps, weapons and so on. Notwithstanding the old-style exhibition and the plenty of information mainly on the facts of WWII and the Cold War period, the museum is fairly up to date, mentioning also post-Soviet history and the current status of the fleet. It is noteworthy that most of the descriptions are in Russian only, so you should go with some knowledge of the topic if you don’t know the language.

Some Soviet memorials and the portraits of all commanders of the fleet from its foundation to the present day can be found on the stairs.

Monument to the Waiting Woman

Setting the course back to downtown Murmansk, it is possible to reach the monument to the Waiting Woman, dedicated to the women of the seamen, with a multi-miles walk from the Museum of the Northern Fleet, again crossing Leninskiy Okrug.

The monument is an example of Russian ingenuity, yet somehow evocative. The place where the small sculpture is located is a vantage point from where it is possible to have a look to the northernmost part of the port of Murmansk, invisible from the town center. Much precise information about the home port of the vessels of the current Northern Fleet is not easy to get, anyway in the pictures you can see the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov, the only Russian aircraft carrier, recently deployed to the Black Sea and now returned to the bay of Murmansk – somewhat mimetic, carefully look at the pictures below.

Alyosha

The most famous monument in Murmansk and in the region surrounding it, the monument to the Defenders of the Soviet Arctic during the Great Patriotic War, informally known as Alyosha – ‘little Alexander’ in English -, is a gigantic statue to the Soviet Soldier, commemorating the battles fought by the Soviet Army against the Third Reich during WWII. Not only is this monument placed on top of a hill, but it is some 115 feet tall, making it the third tallest monument in the former USSR, after Stalingrad, now Volgograd, and Kiev, today in Ukraine. It is visible from many places in town and from the area around Murmansk.

It can be reached easily from downtown with a taxi, or if you are coming following the itinerary, climbing uphill at a short distance from the Monument of the Waiting Woman (see the map for a detailed trail to follow).

The monument is surely worth a visit. The size is impressive, and the eternal flame still burning ahead of the statue adds to the authenticity of the ensemble as a place of remembrance.

There are also two anti-aircraft guns and some ancillary parts to the back of the monument. The square ahead of it, possibly made for ceremonies, is not very well-kept and infested by mosquitoes in the warm season.

Leaving from the monument towards the city center can be done cutting through a wild green area along a well-marked trail. A mystery communication central can be found at some point. I met people grilling meat on a barbecue in this partially wild park.

From here you have a good view of the industrial port and of the central districts of Murmansk. Upon reaching Ulitsa Chelyuskintsev there is a small modern memorial showing some pictures of Murmansk soon after the devastation caused by WWII.

From here it is possible to go back to the city center where your hotel will probably be and where you can find some very good local restaurants.

Getting to Murmansk

Notwithstanding the interesting ensemble and some noteworthy monuments, this city alone can hardly motivate a trip from abroad even for dedicated enthusiasts. On the other hand, it makes for a quick and easy detour from a travel to scenic Lapland (Finland) or northern Norway. After some investigation about going there with a car I abandoned the idea – too complicated in terms of papers and risky – and elected to go there starting from Kirkenes, a small town in northern Norway just a few miles from the only border crossing point between Norway and Russia. There is a local Norwegian travel agency called Pasvikturist selling on the Internet the tickets of a bus service operating between Kirkenes and Murmansk with no stops. The service is operated once per day in both directions. They also sell travel packages of one or two days to Murmansk including a part-time guide and accomodation.

The bus is actually a comfortable Russian registered minibus. The pick-up point in Kirkenes is by the Scandic Hotel, where there are some possible pick-up points in Murmansk, which is much larger, typically by all the biggest hotels.

You must have the visa for entering Russia, and you can get the necessary invitation from both the Azimuth and Meridian hotel. I noticed not all hotels in Murmansk offer this service, so be careful if you want to opt for a smaller hotel. Getting the invitation involves an easy electronic procedure worth a few dollars. Passport control – both Norway and Russia – takes a while, about 45 minutes in total for all on the minibus. Restrictions on the goods you can transport apply, but are by far less stringent than when traveling by air. You are not required to pass a metal detector, and bags are inspected only sporadically. My small army knife and all photographic gears passed without trouble.

The trip from Kirkenes to Murmansk can be very interesting. The region you cross is full of military installations. Extensive areas along the road are fenced and under surveillance. Going to Murmansk we had to stop to let a number of tanks cross the road. There is at least one military checkpoint where all passports are quickly inspected again by military staff!

Among the unusual sights along the road are the huge nickel mines between Nickel and Zapolyarny, the countless memorials of WWII along the valley of the Pechenga river, the military town of Sputnik, and a ropeway built by the German Army to carry supplies to the front. The background scenery is that of an endless sequence of hills with arctic vegetation.

Getting closer to Murmansk you will see directions to many ‘closed towns’ – connected with military activities, and where foreign visitors cannot enter – including Polyarny, cited in ‘The Hunt for Red October’. This surely adds to the atmosphere and prepares you to the visit of the town.

Entering the town you will pass over the bay on a bridge and you will get a view of the southern part of the port and of the city, otherwise difficult to reach by foot.

Murmansk is clearly served also by an airport, so if you want or need you can surely reach the city by air – and also by train – from within Russia, but you will not get a view of the region, which may be very interesting if you are traveling as a tourist.

World War I Trenches in the Saint-Mihiel Salient

Not so well-known to the public as the ‘fort city’ of Verdun, the region between that town and the baroque city of Nancy, France, was theatre of fierce fighting in WWI. German troops poured in the area immediately in 1914, and the Fifth Army conquered the region while the advance of the Kaiser’s forces was in full swing almost everywhere between Belgium and the Alps. By the time the line of the front was consolidated at the end of 1914, a salient was established between the villages of Les Eparges and Pont-a-Mousson, extending about 12 miles to the west into French-controlled territory, reaching the small town of Saint-Mihiel. This anomaly in the shape of the front line would be hard to clear, and in spite of several brave actions by the French armed forces, it was to last in place until the closing months of WWI in 1918.

Coincidentally, the United States had started deploying their forces to help those of France, the British Commonwealth and their Allies on the German western front. The silencing of the Saint-Mihiel salient was part of the final assault to the German lines, leading quickly to the end of the conflict, and the first campaign the American Expeditionary Forces of General Pershing were in charge of. The attack was launched on September 12th, 1918 and lasted one week. It involved both ground artillery and troops and the US Army Air Service, and it turned out highly succesful, the salient being totally taken over.

Today the place represents a less-known, highly interesting field of exploration for war historians. This section of the front was the stage of a prototypical static war of attrition, lasting the full duration of the war. French and German trenches faced each other at a distance of a few yards, and they were consolidated and fortified to last for long. Today some of these trenches are still visible, and the region is pointed with memorials erected after the war, just like the theatre of the Somme and that around Ypres (Jeper), north of Verdun (see this post). The difference is the very much lower number of people visiting, which allows a more ‘concentrated’, less ‘touristic’ visit.

A distinctive sight in the region is the imposing memorial to the US forces, commemorating the succesful action against the German army in the salient, and those who died in the operation.

The following photographs were taken during a visit to the area in August 2016.

Getting there and moving around

The area of the former salient is extensive and located in a nice, relaxing countryside, making for a good destination for a bike tour. If you like to concentrate on war relics, I would suggest moving by car from site to site, accessing each site by foot – this was my choice. The war sites are all freely accessible with no restrictions, and none of them requires special physical ability for touring. The only danger to be noted is that of unexploded shells and explosives, which albeit remote is always real in this and all other former WWI theatres of operations. It will suffice avoiding touching any suspect item you may come across. Local explanatory panels and maps can be found in many of these sites, but directions for reaching them only appear very close to the sites themselves.

I listed the sites I’ve explored in this area on the map below. I spent more than half day exploring these sites. I approached from Toul and drove directly to Flirey, which I suggest adopting as a starting point. Then I moved westward via Montsec to Saint-Mihiel. Finally I left north, following the trench of the Calonne and the old service road reaching Verdun (see map).

Your exploration may take less or more than mine depending on your level of interest. There is not a great ‘hardware difference’ between the various trenches, so if you get bored after the first one don’t expect to regain interest from the others… If you – like me – have an interest in retracing the history of the salient and the attacks in its different sectors, then you will likely enjoy your stay in the region.

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Sights

Flirey – destroyed village

Most people know of the air bombing of Europe during WWII and of the destruction it caused to many cities on both sides. What is less known is that WWI brought a sometimes deeper and more complete destruction to villages and non-military buildings. Of course, differently from WWII, this was mainly the result of artillery shelling, and this happened only relatively close to the front, as a ‘side effect’ of firing against enemy troops. The village of Flirey ended up on the border between the invading German forces and the retreating French troops. When the line of the front was consolidated, the village was caught in a kind of ‘nobody’s land’, hence suffered the fate of many towns and villages in similar conditions, being rapidly reduced to ruins.

Today a small part of the planform of some of the original buildings is preserved in a dedicated small park. There you will find also informative panels about the history of the salient.

‘Sentier historique 1914-1918’ – historical walkway with preserved trenches

A local society of enthusiasts made a precious preservation work on a portion of the French and German trenches just a few minutes from northwest of Flirey, with the support of local institutions. Here you can walk in the original trenches, getting explanations from some panels placed along the trail. The German trenches are notable for the very advanced design with a serious use of concrete – making their trenches really durable and ‘fresh-looking’ even today.

In some points the French and German trenches are placed at a distance of a few yards from each other.

There is a map at the trailhead (see map above for the position of trailhead). I suggest taking a pic of it with your phone for moving around without difficulty.

Butte de Montsec – Memorial of the American Expeditionary Forces

The American Battle Monument Commission had this monument erected on top of  a hill, with a scenic view over Lac de Madine, a local lake, and the hills around it. This is an open air memorial, accessible all day. There is a local office offering explanatory leaflets, but it was closed when I passed by. Anyway, a placard with detailed explanations about the history of both the actions in the salient and the monument is placed at the base of the site. The memorial can be spotted also from quite far away, due to its size and location.

Bois brulé – German and French trenches

This is one of three sections of well-preserved trenches closer to the village of Saint Mihiel. Fighting in this area was particularly deadly on the French side from the first days of the war in September 1914 up to June 1915. A refurbished part of French trenches provides an idea of the harsh conditions soldiers had to withstand, especially if you go on a rainy day…

Also here the enemy trenches are located extremely close to each other. The ground is pocked with craters from artillery shelling.

Trench of the Bavarians and Roffignac

This site is next to the previous one, and you can walk from one to the other following the old trenches. A more heavily fortified section of the German trench lines can be seen here, with engraved German words over the entry to some underground deposits. This section of the trenches, despite being fairly well-kept, was very lonely when I visited, and I came across some wildlife.

‘Trench of the Thirsty’

This last portion of the trenches in the forest of Ailly (Bois d’Ailly) close to Saint Mihiel was the stage of a heroic battle in September 1914. Trying to gain a favorable position on top of the hills close to Saint Mihiel, in order to enable artillery shelling on the village, the French attacked the German trenches and occupied some of them. Later on, men of the 172th Infantry Regiment were caught in a trap and isolated by German troops, who had advanced to their sides into their former positions. The isolated French soldiers opposed a fierce resistance in very difficult conditions, having no food nor water supplies for three days, and fighting in very warm weather and in a smoky, suffocating atmosphere.

Albeit partially rounded off by time and rain, clear traces of long sections of these tranches remain today. Two monuments celebrating the heroism of the French troops involved in the battle can be found at the end of the visible line of trenches.

Calonne Trench

When leaving the area of the salient to Verdun, you may choose to follow the old road today numbered D331 (see map above). This dates back to the days of WWI, and is a quick, almost straight road in the trees, which does not cross any village for about 15 miles. It was used as a supply road for the trenches in the northern area of the salient from the city of Verdun. Unfortunately, I couldn’t take pictures, for I was driving in heavy rain.

Note

As remarked before, there are rather few signs for reaching the war sites, and unless you know of them elseway, reaching them may be difficult. I obtained much valuable information from the book “1914-1918 750 Musees Guide Europe”, a specialised guidebook with double text in French and English and maps. You can purchase it from various shops in more tourist-populated places like the Somme, Verdun or Jeper, or online from the Editor’s website. The book was edited by a group of enthusiasts, and together with its twin publication about WWII, they are must-have companions for war historians traveling Europe. I used these books extensively this year and I found the information contained in them very precise and extremely useful.

Flying over Moosehead Lake & Lobster Lake, Maine

Probably not so famous for bush-flying activity as other locations on the West Coast, especially British Columbia and Alaska, the easternmost state of the US – Maine – has still much to offer in this sense. Besides the beautiful coast going from Portland to the famous Acadia National Park and the border with New Brunswick, the central and northern part of the state are totally wild areas, with few roads and many lakes, forests, wildlife and breathtaking panoramas you can appreciate from the air.

Similarly to the Rockies in the West, the Appalachians constitute an ideal backbone of all states in the North-East of the US. Of course, being far elder than their western counterparts, the Appalachians seem less massive and their peaks are not so high, yet the almost isolated domes of the last mountains of this range in Maine make for very unusual sights.

The wild features of this land, as in other parts of the US and Canada, make it a perfect place for bush flying and related photo opportunities. Determined to explore this part of the country from the air, in a party of three we found a nice company to fly with, with a base in the nice town of Greenville, ME.

The following photographs were taken during our stay there in 2011.

Getting there

We booked with Currier’s Flying Service – website curriersflyingservice.com. The planes of this company are all beautiful floatplanes, and in summer they can be spotted resting on water in a protected cove – named ‘West Cove’ – on the western border of the town of Greenville, the largest town on the shores of Moosehead Lake.

The small nice wooden terminal of the company is clearly indicated and can be found besides the main road (West Street), just before passing a railway bridge leaving from downtown Greenville heading for N.15 and Quebec City.

Sights

We had booked in advance via phone, and we were greeted by Sue, the wife of the owner, Mr. Roger Currier, who is also the pilot. We profited of a short time waiting for Mr. Currier to have a look at his incredible mechanics shop and hangar, which looked like it had come out of a National Geographic’s documentary or a book on open range explorations!

Besides an array of radial engines, including one with a fully assembled two-bladed propeller, we could see a hangared Cessna 195 on floats – Mr. Currier owns two of these, we flew on the other white and blue painted one -, a canoe, a historic small truck, and tons of engine parts, propellers, deer antlers, tools and cabinets. Going to the nearby pier, we could see the other aircraft belonging to the company, the Cessna 195 we were to fly on – I had expressly asked for this, due to the extreme rarity of this model on a world scale -, a modern Cessna 180 Skywagon, and a larger and nice De Havilland Beaver, a more common site in the Northwest, as Kenmore Air operates some on a regular timetable even from downtown Seattle.

After meeting with Mr. Currier we boarded the 195, with me in the front right seat – I am a pilot, so I’m often offered the first officer’s seat on similar occasions, just in case! This aircraft has only one yoke, which can be shifted to the left or to the right, leaving the not-in-command seat with much room. This and the fact that 195 has a high wing with no struts, similarly to the Centurion and Cardinal models, make this airplane a perfect choice for observation and photography missions. Those in the front seats enjoy a great lateral visibility, but the huge radial engine limits the view to the front, at least on water – things improve a bit in flight.

Furthermore, the two seats in the back are arranged in a saloon configuration, with much legroom and very good, unobstructed visibility to the sides – optimal for photography.

We taxied on water to the north for a while and took off to the south, making a left U-turn over Greenville and setting course again to the north. Another seaplane hangar, larger than that of Courier, can be spotted close to the center of Greenville. It used to be the home base of another flying service company, named Folsom, once famous for operating one of the few Douglas DC-3 on floats ever manufactured. Also the hangar of Jack’s Air Services can be spotted nearby.

Following the eastern shoreline of Moosehead Lake stationing at a 1600 ft above sea level, hence at a convenient zoom-lens distance to the ground, I could take pictures of the many coves and bays, including Sandy Bay, Lily Bay and Spencer Bay. From the photographs, it is clear that soon after leaving Greenville you really get into the wild. Looking east you can see in the distance mount Katahdin, the easternmost peak of the Appalachians.

Approaching Spencer Bay you get a beautiful close view of the Spencer Mountains and Spencer Pond.

Further north we reached Lobster Lake, again a wild area.

Turning west and then south we moved along the western shore of Moosehead Lake. I faced the sun in this part of the flight, and the plexiglass canopy didn’t help with the light, so the pictures are a bit blue-filtered. The most prominent feature of this second part of the flight was Mount Kineo, with the distinctive knife-cut shape, and Kineo Cove nearby.

Getting closer to Greenville we could spot some beautiful homes with direct access to the water, some with a floatplane moored nearby.

Touching down on water is not softer than landing on a runway – this was my first time – but the aircraft stops quite more rapidly than on a runway.

After landing Mr. Currier set off for another trip with two couples from Florida on the Beaver, taking off to the north.

Before leaving Greenville we had a stop by the Folsom hangar and by the local general aviation airport, where we found Folsom’s famous DC-3. The plane has been converted to the usual wheeled configuration. Furthermore, it looks damaged, resting in a marked right-banked attitude.

The flight took about an hour, a very enjoyable experience I would surely recommend if you are visiting this part of the country!