An abandoned Soviet ‘secret city’ near Skrunda, Latvia, once housed an advanced radar installation along with apartment blocs er, blocks for base workers.

Riga Mortis

They called it “Skrunda-1”… that is, when they called it anything. Back in the Soviet Era, it was customary for Eastern Bloc “secret cities” not to have actual names nor appear on maps. Instead, a numeral was appended onto the name of the nearest town. Thus the remains of Skrunda-1 lie 3 miles (5 km) north of the historic town of Skrunda, roughly 95 miles (150 km) west of Latvia’s capitol city, Riga.

Them Negative Waves

The former LSSR (Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic) was a puppet state established in July of 1940, following the Soviet Union’s invasion, occupation and annexation of the independent Republic of Latvia. The fall of communism in September of 1991 saw Latvia regain its sovereignty but subsequent negotiations over base closures and the withdrawal of thousands of Red Army troops stationed on Latvian soil dragged on for years.

Your Base Are Belong To Us

Skrunda-1 was one such base the USSR (and its successor state, the Russian Federation) was reluctant to relinquish. Opened in 1964 at the height of the Cold War, Skrunda-1 boasted a variety of advanced radar installations capable of monitoring air traffic across the width and breadth of Western Europe. Facilities there were continually upgraded over the years, right up to the time a formal base closure agreement was signed between Latvia and Russia in April of 1994.

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Radar Offline Abandoned Secret Soviet Base In Latvia

Tirana soars wrecks, anyone? The Kucove Air Base in south-central Albania houses dozens of historic Soviet aircraft dating back to the time of the Korean War.

Kucove Air Base, built in the Cold War years of the early 1950s, was quite advanced for its time. A trio of underground hangars carved out beneath nearby mountains and linked to the main runways by dedicated taxiways offered unprecedented security from potential NATO air raids. It’s no wonder dozens of Soviet- and Chinese-built jet fighters were based at Kucove… it’s definitely a wonder that in October of 2018, no less than 88 obsolete MiG fighter jets could still be found at the once state-of-the-art Albanian aerodrome!

Surely You Jets

In 1997 the base was captured by rebels during the Albanian Crisis (a civil war prompted by the collapse of nation-wide, government-sponsored Ponzi schemes). Both the aircraft and base’s infrastructure incurred damage and vandalism; as many as seven MiG jets were destroyed and their parts sold on the black market. Damage to the base was not completely repaired until the 2002-2004 renovation to NATO standards. The country officially joined NATO on April 1st of 2009… no foolin’.

Props For Good Defense

In 2005 the Albanian Air Force retired all 224 of its various MiG jets, including Shenyang J-5 and J-6 fighters (MiG-17 and MiG-19 jets built under license in China) and even a few propeller-powered trainers purchased in the late 1950s. The planes were mothballed but not immediately replaced, as Albania’s NATO neighbors Greece and Italy began monitoring the country’s airspace.

Capital Flight

From the time Albania retired its MiGs and MiG-variants, efforts have been made to auction the decommissioned airplanes, either individually or in batches. These images snapped by Flickr member Rob Schleiffert in April of 2007 show Kucove Air Base and its rolling (but not flying) stock in various states of completion.

Train in Vain

Many of the jets, including rare trainer versions, are in excellent condition considering their advanced age and the increasing difficulty of sourcing replacement parts. This may be a function of the corrosion-resistant aluminum alloys used in their construction combined with minimal actual hours in service – Albania withdrew from the Warsaw Pact in 1968 and as such, did not participate in the East Bloc’s frequent exercises.

Guerrillas in the MiGs

By 2007, Kucove Air Base was looking a tad rough around the edges as funding from Albania’s impoverished government was severely rationed. Retirement of the country’s air force (and the withering of support services) had a correspondingly deleterious effect on the region’s economy as well. Authorities began to explore a range of solutions that went beyond the sales of obsolete aircraft.

Scrapping Scrappy Fighters

Finally, in August of 2018, a deal was struck with NATO allowing the organization to modernize Kucove Air Base and subsequently use the base for training, support, logistics, drills, and supply storage. NATO’s footing the bill as well – someone tell President Trump – and the agreement will see an initial investment of 50 million Euros. “The base is the first footprint of NATO in the Western Balkans,” stated Albanian Defense Minister Olta Xhacka to Reuters, “as it will transform Kucova into the first NATO air base for the region.”

Go Red Wings!

“A NATO base there will boost the country’s defense capacities, and foreign investors will have more confidence in Albania,” according to Klement Alikaj, a 68-year-old retired Albanian Air Force commander. “It will also be good for employment in the area.” All well and good but the future doesn’t look quite as rosy for the base’s 88 remaining MiG, Shenyang, Yakovlev and Nanchang aircraft, however. Expect NATO planners to expedite the auctioning-off and scrapping of the old war-horses – there’s truly never been a better time to acquire a vintage Cold War jet fighter!

Anyone peering into a disused F15 hangar at the Cold War-era Soesterberg airbase in The Netherlands might have spotted this bizarre black structure and imagined that it was some kind of secret, high-tech aircraft project. They would have been half correct. The angular behemoth, with its wing-like appendages, is an imposing sight upon the airstrip as it rolls slowly out of Shelter 610.

But look a little closer. It’s crawling so excruciatingly slowly for a reason. It’s not an aircraft at all – it’s moving on military treads. Secret Operation 610 is both a sculpture and a functional research station for aerospace engineering students at Technical University Delft who are developing ‘no noise, no carbon, just fly’ technologies .

Created by Rietveld Landscape, Secret Operation 610 deliberately mimics the look of science fiction aircraft. The point, essentially, is for it to look a bit scary. “The object revives the mysterious atmosphere of the Cold War and its accompanying terrifying weaponry,” say the designers.

The old runway serves as an ideal test site for state of the art aviation experiments, so this mobile research shelter enables students to become immersed in the atmosphere of the airbase as it rolls around. “The unconventional combination of nature and Cold War history offers an exciting environment for the development of knowledge about nature, technology and aviation.”

Back in the 1950s, Cold War tensions ran high and so did the DEW Line: high above the Arctic Circle, that is. Though many of the original 63 radar stations have been re-purposed or dismantled, many still remain in place, remarkably preserved by some of the coldest temperatures found outside Antarctica.

How DEW You Do?

(images via: Tundra Daisy and 50before50)

The Cold War didn’t get much colder than the chain of 63 lonely radar stations strung across the 69th parallel, roughly 200 miles (300 kilometers) above the Arctic Circle. Ironically, the DEW Line was meant to function as a sort of “trip wire”, providing us with a Distant Early Warning of an impending Soviet nuclear airstrike.

(images via: Tundra Daisy and 50before50)

Though the DEW Line was rendered mainly obsolete by the mid-1960s when speedy Soviet ICBMs supplanted slow bomber aircraft, the stations were officially kept in operation from April 15th, 1957 through to July 15th, 1993. Some of the stations were then incorporated into the DEW Line’s successor, the North Warning System or NWS; many others were left to slowly decay beneath drifting snow, howling winds and the ghostly aurora borealis.

(images via: DEWLine Adventures)

One significant DEW Line station isn’t located quite as far north as the others: northern Illinois, to be exact. A prototype station was set up in a cornfield outside Streator, Illinois, where technical functions of the radar equipment could be tested and human operators were sent to be trained. Above are views of the facility in its heyday and just below, the current remnants.

(images via: Paul Malon and WIX.com)

In late 1954 the USAF contracted the design and construction of the DEW Line stations to Western Electric, who were given until July 1957 to build 63 separate stations stretching from northwestern Alaska to the east coast of Greenland – a distance of over 6,200 miles (10,000 km). Against all odds and despite the challenge of constructing sensitive electronic installations in mostly uninhabited, prohibitively cold and nearly inaccessible locations, Western Electric handed the “keys” to the DEW Line over to the Air Force almost three months ahead of schedule.

The (Polar) Bear Necessities

(images via: Yvon from Ottawa, WFNS and Zone Interdite)

Not all 63 stations were identical in appearance, functionality, number of on-site staff or all of the above. Some of the Auxiliary (“AUX”) and Intermediate (“I”) sites had as little as a half-dozen staff while the keystone MAIN stations housed dozens.

(images via: Hallbeach.com, DEW Line History and The Kraalspace)

The locations of the DEW Line stations are also evocative of the High Arctic: Icy Cape, Cold Bay, Storm Hills and of course, Point Lonely. On the other hand, Hall Beach (above, top) sounds positively summery but don’t bother bringing a surfboard.

(images via: Idlewild Expedition, UT Systems Ecology Lab and Wikipedia)

The Air Force’s relative lack of experience in arctic warfare didn’t impact on the design of the DEW Line stations, which ended up being remarkably low-maintenance facilities regardless of the main problem: drifting snow.

(images via: Przystanek Grenlandia and Radar-Junk)

The average DEW Line station consisted of two long rows of connected metal huts for equipment and staff. The rows were laid out along the direction of the prevailing winds and parallel to one another. They were connected by a raised “bridge”, making the station itself take on the appearance of a spindly letter H.

(image via: Seldon’s Gate)

Inside one of the H’s three-sided courtyards was a round, geodesic radome that housed and protected a pair of radar dishes mounted back to back. The radome was mounted of steel stilts that raised it as much as 50 feet off the permafrost. The stations also featured other radar dishes and reflectors that facilitated communications with neighboring stations and also to command and control centers hundreds of miles to the south.

Drawing a Line in the Snow

(images via: Wild-A, Roclar.net and Paul B Jones)

DEW Line installations were built to last; environmental concerns came last, for the most part. Asbestos insulation kept the manned modules warm, PCB lubricants ensured the radar dishes spun easily in the cold, and lead-based paint kept rust at bay. All well and good until the stations were decommissioned and their components left to decay or worse: be salvaged by local Inuit for building materials.

(image via: BS Keyhole.com)

Getting equipment OUT of the High Arctic can be just as difficult, time-consuming and expensive as getting it there in the first place. How’d you like to be the guy whose job it is to dismantle the main radar station at Cape Dyer, on the rugged (to say the least: above) eastern shore of Baffin Island?

(images via: Radar-Junk, Polar Star and Ruud Leeuw)

Other original DEW Line sites are more accessible but have their own issues. Take the LIZ-3 DEW Auxiliary site at Wainwright, Alaska, closed in 2007 due to soil erosion. Unlike some of the northern Canadian and Greenland sites, Wainwright can be TOO warm at times leading to subsidence of the permafrost and severe shoreline erosion unhindered by ice-free seas.

(images via: Tundra Daisy)

Without the preservation afforded by sub-zero temperatures, structures and equipment can decay and corrode alarmingly quickly – that’s a typewriter above right (or at least, it was). Corrosion exacerbates pollution problems as well. Most of those 55-gallon oil drums typically dumped in rusty mounds contain residual fuel and lubricants that can (and do) leach into the soil, contaminating groundwater.

(images via: J P Newell and Polar Star)

Cleanup costs skyrocketed when the realities of arctic environmental remediation became apparent and the cleanup completion date has been extended from 2011 to 2018.

(images via: ThisBlogIsMyBlog and Dew Line History)

The DEW Line served a noble purpose in its heyday, drawing a line in the snow against Soviet aggression that was never crossed in anger. In doing so, the long and lonely chain of isolated radar stations forced both Americans and Canadians to see their far northern territories in a different light. With post-Soviet Russia taking a greater interest in the real roof of the world these days and Global Warming setting the stage for a scramble for arctic resources tomorrow, our erstwhile line in the snow north of 69 degrees may have been the shape of things to come.

Formerly spark plugs of the cold war, dozens of decades-old, decommissioned underground nuclear missile silos are slowly slipping into disrepair and decay. Not all of these relics are destined for the ash heap of history, however, a precious few are taking on new life as post-apocalyptic family homes – without the apocalypse. The best thing about living in a refurbished missile silo? Telling your kids, “You can’t fight in here, this is the war room!”

Home, Home On The Firing Range

(images via: UP-HAA, Arms Control Wonk and Pyjamas Media)

Why would anyone want to live in an old missile silo? Let’s look at the positives, starting with the best construction work government money can buy. Then there’s the feeling of security that comes with living in a structure built to withstand tornadoes, hailstorms, wildfires and the odd Soviet pre-emptive nuclear strike. Home handyman types will find little to do besides changing light bulbs.

A Real Fixer-Upper?

(images via: Think Or Thwim and Artificial Owl)

There are negatives, of course, that go beyond the lack of skylights, picture windows and kidney-shaped swimming pools. Though they were built to last, missile silos and their associated infrastructure did require maintenance of the preventive variety. The oddly beautiful installation above is the Stanley R. Mickelsen Safeguard complex in Nekoma, North Dakota: the only operational anti-ballistic missile (ABM) base ever completed and dating from the late 1960s. ABMs were designed to protect ICBM sites from attack by enemy missiles, in other words protecting our protectors.

(images via: English Russia, Getty Images and Telstar Logistics)

A missile base that was completely neglected for years may have a number of daunting issues any new owner must deal with before moving in such as flooding, mold and structural settling. Got a sticky set of blast doors? That’ll require more than just a few shots of WD40.

Blasts From The Past

(images via: Gypsy Journal and Wikimedia)

Most nuclear missile sites comprise much more than the actual missile silo. Underground control complexes attached to the silo by tunnels provided personnel with long-term living facilities (kitchens, bathrooms etc.) and these are the portions most often chosen for home conversion. Even so, life at an updated missile base isn’t a bowl of cherries – and there are usually few stores or supermarkets nearby from which to procure said cherries.

(image via: Expedition Portal)

For obvious reasons, nuclear missile bases were located in places with sparse population and negligible infrastructure. The image above shows an old Titan -1 Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) launching base located east of Denver, Colorado. Electrical power, gas & water, waste disposal and the lack of friendly (or often ANY) neighbors are serious considerations for anyone contemplating living in a renovated silo.

My Home Is My Subterra Castle

(images via: Jiaju and Trip Advisor)

When luck is on their side, homeowners can acquire a decommissioned missile silo in good repair at a decent price. Take the Subterra Castle in Dover, Kansas. Edward and Dianna Peden originally purchased the former Atlas E ICBM site for around $40,000 back in the 1980s – presumably at the bottom of the market.

(images via: Roadside America and Subterra)

The Pedens proceeded to renovate & revamp the 34-acre site to the point that organized tours now visit their home. With 6,500 sq ft of underground living space, an 11,000 sq ft underground shop/garage, his & hers side-by-side toilets and a hot tub, the Cold War is just a fading memory.

Check out this video that introduces the Pedens and their upcycled silo home:

Cold War, Hot Properties

(images via: MissileBases.com, RedGypsy1969 and Roadside America)

The Pedens love living in their renovated missile silo so much, they’ve gone into business finding and selling similar properties. The couple set up a real estate company named 20th Century Castles and run it from their home in a decommissioned Atlas E missile site. “This has been the best investment of our lifetime, we love our home,” say the happy silo-dwellers. “We sold our first missile site in 1995 and as of January 2010, we have sold 49 of these properties.”

(images via: MissileBases.com)

One problem the Pedens face is that prime sites are becoming difficult to find. Many of the newer bases built in the early 1960s are being destroyed by the government due to international treaty obligations while the older sites dating back to the 1950s are considered by long-time owners to be “hard assets” that are steadily rising in value.

Underground Titanic

(images via: Think Or Thwim, Wikimedia and O’Reilly/MacDevCenter)

Some of the largest missile silo bases were those constructed to house and protect Titan II ICBMs. The base depicted above features three missile silos and associated command & control facilities that take up a total of 47,000 sq ft spread over (under, actually) 57 acres. One of these bases recently was offered up for auction at eBay for a cool $1.5 million.

From Launch Pad To Bachelor Pad

(images via: Oddity Central and Wired.com)

America’s nuclear deterrent evolved over time, as did the bases built to store and – if need be – launch the ICBMs at the evildoers. This gives homebuyers some leeway in terms of size: both of their investment and their, er, new digs. Bruce Townsley decided to go the more modest route after seeing Ed Peden discuss his missile silo home with Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show.

(images via: Oddity Central)

In 1997, Townsley plopped down $99,000 for an Atlas F missile base near Abilene, Texas. While Atlas E sites like the one the Pedens converted were built to store multiple missiles, Atlas F sites stocked just one, along with about 2,200 sq ft of living space. By the time Townsley was finished his renovations, his new home boasted just 1,000 sq ft of space but is bright, white & cozy.

Down The Hatch!

(images via: Silohome)

Got a hankering for the missile silo lifestyle but can’t be troubled to whip an old base into shape? Silohome knows what you’re thinking – they’ve done most (if not all) of the whipping so you don’t have to. You DO, however, have to plunk down $2.3 million but what you get is a true turn-key special… not THAT turn-key! Whew, that was a close one, and so is Silohome’s “model home”, as it were: just a few miles from Lake Placid, NY. Who knew an Atlas ICBM missile base was in, er, shooting distance of the 1980 Winter Olympics?

(images via: Silohome and Moviemuse Reviews)

In any case, Silohome has domesticated the former base inside and out, below ground and above. It’s even got a small private airstrip in case you want to invite like-minded fellow travelers over for some pinocle or fly out rolls of microfilm hidden inside pre-Columbian art ala Hitchcock’s North By Northwest.

Sleeping With The Enemy

(images via: WebUrbanist, Martin rolle and Truthdig)

Perhaps the Pedens and others like them will have to set their sites beyond the border… catch my drift? You guessed it, Mother Russia! The successor state to the former Evil Empire has just as many nuclear missile bases as the USA (more or less) and a series of treaties dating back to the mid-1980s has resulted in many of them being abandoned to various degrees. Better act fast, potential homeowners, lest we fall prey to a missile silo home gap!

(image via: WorldChanging)

You may be wondering just why the military, after going to great expense to build a huge network of missile silos, now sees them as obsolete? Blame technology – the development of inertial guidance systems in the 1960s turned the bases into sitting ducks. Much better to have mobile ducks, such as submarines. Maybe someday, somebody will be selling obsolete nuclear subs as high-tech houseboats… and we wonder what sort of deterrent will replace them?