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 "Hunter's Game"

We had successfully found and explored the command bunker of the local fighter division and were ready to head through the woods to explore the garrison part of the airfield. The bunker was at the far end of the airfield, so we had to walk for a while.

After a few hundred meters, we could see a figure between the trees. There was also a car not too far away. At first, we thought it was a forestry worker, but when we saw a few more men in the distance, we realized that there was something going on. There really wasn't any way to hide or take a long way to not be spotted, so we decided to play it openly and walk up to the guy as he saw us.

Our usual approach of being friendly didn't work, however. It turned out that there was a hunt going on, and we had just stumbled into it. The guy was pretty mad at us and became rather unfriendly. To make one thing clear: On the path that we used to enter the area, there were no locked gates, no "Do not enter" signs and no signs that there was a hunt going on - although the guy insisted that there were. His statements varied from "You've broken in!" over "You've ignored the signs!" (to which we answered that we would gladly show him that there were no signs) to "I'm calling the police!". We told him that he can surely call the police, but there were no grounds since it was an openly accessible area. Then he told us that if we each gave him twenty Euros, he would let us go. At that point, we just laughed and went back to the car. On the way, we checked if we had overlooked any signs, but there positively weren't any.

So much for exploring the garrison. But we didn't want to go home empty-handed, so we drove around to the other part of the airfield with the runway, airplane shelters and various workshops. This part of the area, too, was easily accessible, so we took our time to explore everything we could find - making sure that we stayed far away from the hunting party.

Well, at least we saw parts of what we had come for - and some parts of the airfield hopefully still remain to be explored some time in the future.

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

Tour Report: Soviet Command Bunker P.

Our second tour in January of 2019 took us yet again into the realm of the Cold War. We had planned to explore an abandoned Soviet airfield in the former GDR along with two command bunkers together with our friends from Urbex & Lost Places, North Urbex and Lichtbeschatter.

We met early a few kilometers away from the airfield for a first strategy meeting, and we decided to try the front entrance first. There is a museum on a part of the old airfield, and although it is closed during the winter season, there may have been a chance to take an easy way in. We didn't get lucky. The gate was locked, and there wasn't anyone to be seen that we might have asked if we can have a look around, so we had to find another way in. It was the long way; we had to take a dirt road alongside a field until we got to the outer perimeter of the airfield. We walked along the concrete wall until we found an opening, and we were in. We suspected that we were pretty close to the bunker that was on the premises of the airfield (the other was a few kilometers away), so we started looking. Since we didn't have an exact location, we had to search for a while, but then we found it.

The access structure wasn't easy to spot if you weren't looking for it - I think that if you'd look for it during the summer, it would be completely covered by vegetation. The bunker had apparently been sealed at some point, but had later been opened again by copper thieves. There was only a small hole to slip through to get in. Inside, we had to climb over some concrete rubble, and we were in.

There was a little bit of water in the bunker, and I guess that if it had been raining more in the weeks before, there would have been a lot more - in the summer, this must be a breeding ground for mosquitos. The copper thieves had really done their "job"; nothing much was left of the communications or ventilation equipment - and everything else was moldy and decayed due to the water inside the bunker.

Still, we took our time to check out all the rooms, before we climbed back out and started making our way through the forest to the remains of the airfield's garrison.

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

Tour Report: Military Airfield P.

On Good Friday of last year, my wife and I met up with our good friends Nordgriller Urbex, Pixelcracker and North Urbex for a nice exploration of an abandoned former airfield in the Eastern part of Germany.
This airfield had been built in 1936 and was used by the Soviets after World War II, who stationed their 21st motorized riflemen division here.
That is what makes this location so interesting - you an find remains of the WWII period when this was used as an actual airfield, and you can find tons of relics from the time when the Soviets used this for their tanks and anti-tank-training.
Luxuriously enough, there was a public parking spot pretty close to our proposed entry route. So after parking, smoking a cigarette and stretching the legs from the three-hour drive, we grabbed our gear and went to enter the area and meet up with Pixelcracker and North Urbex who were already there.
The place is pretty big, so we conducted some research in advance to have a good plan which route would take us along the most interesting spots.
We met with the two guys right along the way to a small shelter that was used as a generator house.
After that, we definitely wanted to find the rusty old ammunition in the forest that we had seen photos of. We had rough coordinates, but it still took us some time to find it.
We took our first short break there before leaving the forest and walking along some overgrown roads passing various tank garages, parts of old cars and some barracks until we reached the original airfield's hangars.
Near those hangars is also an earth-covered garage.
During the Cold War, this earth-covered garage contained Soviet tactical ballistic missiles of the type SS-21 "Scarab" that can be equipped with nuclear warheads.
After passing the hangars, we explored the building of the fire brigade and the control tower.
On the way to our exit point, we passed more buildings with residential, administrative and recreational purposes until we reached the last of the large hangars before exiting through the front door of the former airfield, so to speak.


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

Garage for SS-21 "Scarab" Missiles and Transport Systems

Station of the Airfield's Fire Brigade

Control Tower

Cinema