Tour Report: Railway Repair Factory "Green Desert"

In June 2019, we visited a good friend in the northeastern part of Germany, and on the second day of our weekend vacation, we went to explore a few abandoned locations.

Since the first location was only twenty minutes away, we took our time and had a nice long breakfast before leaving at around 11am.

The place was easy to find, and we quickly found a parking place that didn't kake us look suspicious. The problem was getting in. On the one sinde was an active railway area, and on the other sides were industrial buildings. There was a fence, and we hoped for an opening somewhere, but there was no way in.

We had to climb over the main gate. Of course, this was the least preferred, because most public, option, but we wanted to explore that place, so we had no choice.

Once on the premises, we didn't run into any problems and were able to take our time to explore all the remaining buildings of the old railway repair factory. It had been really dry the weeks before, but there was still beautiful green growth all over - outside of the buildings as well as inside. The old factory was in its final stages of decay. A lot of the roofs were already gone, others bravely fought against their collapse, and yet others already had collapsed, but were hanging by a thread, so to speak, to form a kind of tunnel for us to walk through.

What I found really interesting was the absence of trash. Usually, these old industrial areas are used by the locals to dump tons of trash, old furniture or unused construction materials. This was not the case here, most of the stuff lying around was just debris from the decaying buildings.

Although it was really hot (it was around noon, and it was a really sunny day), we thoroughly enjoyed our exploration of this place, and we took our time exploring every room that we could find. In the end, we climbed out undisturbed the same way we took to get in.

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

Tour Report: Soviet Garrison H. [Revisit]

The second location that we explored during our spontaneous tour in May of 2019 was an abandoned Soviet Garrison. I had visited the place, which had been built as part of an airfield by the Nazis in 1935/36, twice before in 2014 and 2015. For me, it is always interesting to see what happens to an abandoned building in long periods between visits. Is it still accessible at all? Has demolition or renovation started? If not, what is the condition, and how did the decay develop over the years? These are always the questions that I ask myself before a revisit.

In this case, not much had changed in the four years since my second visit.

The more or less "official" parking spot was still there, and there still were no real fences around the building. However, a lot of the windows and doors on the lower floor had been boarded up, so we had to look a little longer until we found an opening.

We climbed through a window and started walking the hallways of the curved, 500 meter long building.

The afternoon sun and the green trees in front of the windows projected beautiful patterns of light, shadow and color into the rooms. The decay was more intense than before - but then, after almost thirty years of deterioration, you can't really tell...

Towards the end our walkthrough, I decided to check out the basement one more time - and it was a good thing, too, because I did find a few Soviet documents as well as some propaganda posters. This was yet another proof that you really have to check everywhere if you want to find all the interesting stuff :)

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

Tour Report: Soviet Airfield LT [Revisit]

For a spontaneous tour in May 2019 together with two friends, who were relatively new to the hobby of urban exploration, we decided to revisit two abandoned Soviet military facilities that were pretty easy in terms of access and had only little potential of encountering a security service patrolling the place.

The first spot that we drove to was an abandoned former airfield that I had first visited in 2016. I do like revisits, because they give you the chance to see what effect time (and people) has had on buildings, and because you can take shots that you may have missed the first time.

After a drive of a little more than two hours, we arrived at the location. It was exactly like I remembered: A parking space right in front - and no fences around the hangars. Only the former reconnaissance school had been surrounded with a game fence, but that fence had already been pushed down in a lot of places, so we were free to move around.

It was late in May, so compared to my first visit, which was in November, the place was much greener, and the decay looked much more intense and colorful, which I really enjoyed. We took our time exploring every small building that we could find, checking out all the rooms and looking into every basement. It took about two hours, then we got back to the cars - we had yet another Soviet place to visit...

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