Tour Report: Asylum for the Insane

After exploring two Cold War bunkers on that beautiful day back in September 2018, we decided to finish the day off with an above-ground location - a pretty well-known spot that neither we nor our friend Toeppi had explored before. It also kind of fit nicely into our topic of the day (Cold War), since this abandoned asylum had been used as a military hospital for the high command of the Soviet armed forces and their relatives from 1945 until 1994.

We arrived at the spot sometime towards the late afternoon and parked our car by the road a couple of hundred meters from the location, since we knew that the area was regularly patrolled by a security service, and we didn't want to arise any suspicion. Going here had been a relatively spontaneous decision, so we were unprepared in terms of how to get in, so we had to search for an entry. As we walked along the fence, we noticed a small opening in the fence right near an open door into one of the buildings. No one was watching, so we hastily slipped through the fence and quickly walked into the building.

Of course, there wasn't much left to see from the various uses this place has had over the decades, but at least a few Soviet writings could be found that pointed to the Cold War era. There was a large number of buildings that had various uses - even a typical car repair workshop had been built by the Soviets. More than 25 years of abandonment had taken their toll on the once beautiful buildings. Vandals have stolen most of the metal appliances, light fixtures and electrical installations. Wind and rain have made the structures deteriorate, so more than a few buildings are so dangerously ramshackle that we didn't enter them or at least didn't climb on any of the higher floors.

At some point, we heard voices moving towards our location. Naturally, we thought that it was the security service, but it was just two people that were exploring just as we were - with the exception that they unpacked a drone to get some footage from above. As the drone started, the place was filled by the typical buzz that sounded like 1.000 hornets, and that was the point where we decided to call it a day. Not only was it getting late and we still had a bit of a way to drive, but also the noise the other guys were making with the drone might attract some people that you don't want to meet while on an exploration ;)

We didn't want to walk the long way back to the part of the fence were we had entered the area, so we just walked up to the main gate and climbed over it.

Toeppi dropped us off at our hotel, and that was the end of another memorable day of exploring the relics of the Cold War.

To find hout about the history of this place and to check out all the photos, click the button below:

Tour Report: Bunker "The Defensive Command"

As I've said in my last post, there was another bunker to be explored together with our friend Toeppi in September 2018. This second bunker complex was the rear command post of the MfNV (East Germany's Ministry for National Defense). Most of the huge bunker complex that was originally made up of more than thirty individual bunkers has been demolished between the years 2003 and 2005, but the main command post can still be found deep in the forests.

We had to walk for about thirty minutes until we arrived at the facility, and it took another couple of minutes until we had found way in. The main command post has been built completely underground, and it can't really be seen if you're not looking for it. We found an access that had obviously been sealed using concrete slabs, a few of which had probably been smashed by copper thieves in an attempt to enter the bunker.

As we entered, we were shocked to see the bunker in such terrible condition. Vandals and copper thieves had really done a "marvelous" job leaving no stone untouched. Even a fire had scorched some of the rooms, probably when copper thieves burnt off the cable insulation to get to the copper wiring. I didn't even take out my camera and only made a few shots using my cell phone, and I made a video to document the sheer size of the facility.

The overall length of the connecting tunnels between the individual bunkers of the command post was about 700 meters, so it was actually pretty easy to get lost in the place and/or walk in circles before finding the way out...

Due to the bad condition the place was in, it didn't take too much time to explore everything, so we went back to the car after about an hour underground.

You can find the video I made at the end of this post.

You can check out the short video I made of our exploration here: