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 Garrison "Camp III"

I've always found the relics of the Soviet Army in Germany very interesting places to explore, so when the opportunity came up to explore the huge garrison that had originally been built by the Wehrmacht from 1934 under the name "Camp III", of course we had to go and check it out.

It was only a few minutes from the hotel that we had used as our base of explorations for a few days during our summer vacation in 2018, so after a short breakfast, we loaded our gear into the car and drove to where we expected the best access point into the area.

We tried to park inconspicuously enough, which meant having to walk about 15 Minutes from the car to the main entrance of the garrison. On the way, right in front of the old barrier that blocked the road, we saw a small car, which we assumed belonged to some other explorers that weren't as prudent with their parking as we were. As we reached the main gate, there was a large hole in the fence (one of many, I presume), so the access was easy enough, and we started with our exploration right away. 

A few minutes later, we could already see a group of young people with a drone. They were rather loud and running around - the kind of behavior that lots of times will get you caught in locations patrolled by security...

It was a very hot day, so we moved slowly and tried to stay in the shade, taking little breaks every now and then to drink some water. About an hour after we started our exploration, the security guard found us. All of a sudden, a white car was standing right in front of us with an older man sitting at the wheel. It was too hot to run away, so we did what we always do in these cases: Smile, wave and say hi. I think that the guy was a bit surprised that we didn't run away and told him that he got us and we knew that it was forbidden to be there, but we still wanted to explore the place.

The security guard looked at us from top to bottom, saw our gear, safety shoes and everything and said, "I can see you're not doing this for the first time, are you?".

We answered truthfully, told him about what we're doing and for how long we've been doing it. We had a really nice talk with him for about half an hour. He asked us if the small car in front of the barrier was ours, and we said that our car was parked about 15 minutes away. The security guard said, "Well, at least you parked correctly, and the small car belong to the other crew I've seen running around here."

He even told us a few tricks he uses to catch explorers. For example, he takes off his security jacket, takes a small camera and asks groups of explorers how they got in, and after they tell him, he shows his ID and escorts them off the premises.

Well, to cut a long story short, in the end the security guard told us where in the garrison we could find more interesting buildings before he left us and let us go on with our exploration.

I can tell you, this was one of the most pleasant encounters I've ever had with a security guard!

We spent a few more hours exploring the garrison, and as we left, we crossed paths with the security guard again. He had caught the other guys (the ones who had parked badly) and was giving them a rather angry lecture.

When he saw us, he turned around, waved and wished us a nice day - so there's the difference between running away from security or staying for a nice little chat. Well in some instances anyway ;)

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

Tour Report: Hotel "Borderline"

Late in March of 2018, we undertook a short tour to Eastern Germany together with our friend Pixelcracker. It was a very spontaneous excursion, so there wasn't a lot of time for extensive planning, and we just took the locations that came our way, so to speak.

The first location that we visited was an abandoned hotel. The building used to be a garrison of the East German border troops (Grenztruppen), and it could easily be identified as such - most of these garrisons look identical.

The hotel was in one of four buildings that are left of the garrison; the others have been turned into apartments and storage.

We parked a few hundred meters away and took a little stroll down the road to the hotel. A few truck drivers were using the area to park their trucks for the weekend, so there were a few people around, but they weren't really interested in what we were doing.
We walked across the lawn and along the side of the building to find a way in.
Surprisingly enough, the door was open.
The next surprise was the condition of the place. There wasn't a lot of vandalism or graffiti, and apparently, the copper thieves hadn't discovered the hotel yet.
Due to the relatively short time of abandonment, there was no real decay, and the hotel didn't seem to have bothered with expensive furniture, so there really weren't any neat scenes to be photographed. It was a bit disappointing, but in the end, it was another location we explored together with a good friend - and I think that in the end, I managed to squeeze one or two nice shots out of my camera ;)

It took us about an hour to explore the hotel. When we were finished, we went back to the car, had a quick breakfast and drove off to the next location.

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

Tour Report: Soviet Officer's Casino R.

The first day of our tour had been successful. Together with our friends Torsten (North Urbex) and Freddy (Nordgriller Urbex) we had explored a command bunker of the East German Army (NVA), and we had discovered the remains of an anti-aircraft shooting-range.
Torsten had to part ways with us after the second location, because he had to be on standby for his job the next day and therefore couldn't continue touring with us.
Freddy and we had planned to spend the night at our favorite "Urbex Hotel Petra" - a dear friend who lives in the area and loves to have us around for a couple of drinks ;)
Said friend had made a reservation for one of our favorite restaurants - the Stadtmühle Teterow - where we enjoyed an opulent meal along with various types of liquor. The liquor part of the evening continued for a while after we'd gotten back to Petra's house before we went to sleep to gather our strength for the next day.
We had to get up rather early for breakfast - after all, we planned to check out three locations before we had to drive back home about 300 kilometers...

The first spot that we had decided to check out that day was the officer's casino of a Soviet garrison that we had already visited some time before.
My wife and I had also tried to explore the casino a few months earlier, but at the time, there was no way in. This time, it was different!
We parked the car on a public spot down the street and went towards the old building. It was a cold and windy January morning, and the clouds looked as if they were just waiting for us to open the floodgates and rain down on us - they didn't.
As we walked up the steps to the entrance, we could see that there was a small hole in the walled up doorway behind the main door. I put down my backpack and tripod and crawled through to see if I'd fit through and to check out if this was in fact the way in.
It was.
The other two handed me the gear and crawled through the hole as well. Inside, it was pretty dark because most of the windows were boarded up, so we mostly had to work with floodlights. In addition, most of the rooms were completely empty. Only a few relics were found pointing towards the former use of this place.
Still - it was a successful explore and a valuable addition to my perception of an area that is riddled with relics from World War II as well as the Soviet occupation.

After about an hour, we left the casino to be on the way to the next location - a Soviet bunker facility...


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