The now barren town Skrunda-1 was once a thriving community of 5,000 and an essential cog in the Soviet Cold War machine.
The sense of abandonment and decay is inescapable, but the ruins Skrunda is now characterised by belies its centrality to the USSR’s defence system. Without Skrunda, the iron curtain would have had a hole in it.
The brutalist outpost, around 45 miles from the Latvian west coast and the Baltic Sea, was home to two “hen house” early warning radar systems, responsible for alerting the Soviets to an incoming nuclear strike.
The town was built in 1963, the year after the Cuban Missile Crisis at the height of the Cold War. But now its giant communist housing structures sit empty; too costly to rebuild, too costly to demolish.
The ghost town is now part of a Latvian military base called Mežaine, after the Skrunda Municipality bought the land for little more than £10,000. Half of it was transferred to the country’s military for training purposes.
In 2016, visitors were able to visit the site for a measly £3.50, but by 2018 the site had closed its doors to the dark tourism industry.
During the Cold War, the Skrunda site was fitted with two Dnepr radar systems designed to alert the USSR to impending nuclear attacks. There were several other systems of this king installed all along the periphery of the Soviet Union.
Following the fall of the USSR in 1991, the site became obsolete and by 1999 the radar systems had been demolished.
Where scientists and Soviet military officials once operated safely ensconced inside Skrunda, itself surrounded by dense forest, the site is now used for urban conflict training by Latvian forces.
Lieutenant Colonel Andris Rieksts told NATO: “You see these buildings, they are almost the same as our villages. This is a very good opportunity to train as you fight.”
Speaking of the town’s use during the Cold War, he said: “During the Russian time here was everything. The troops lived here, they were independent from the surroundings. It was a huge radar locator.
“When we get our independence the locator was destroyed.”
According to NATO, US troops have also used the facility for training purposes.
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