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USSR Missile Silo (Sept. 2003)
Lithuania Diary: We arranged a trip on Friday with Jurga from the hostel, who served as driver, translator, and guide, taking us on an all day roadtrip to sites in Western Lithuania. We climbed down into an abandoned Soviet missile base, peered down into the silos, some thirty meters deep. It's deep in a forest, and it took some time to be discovered by the Lithuanians after the soviet troops abandoned it. It was stripped of anything of value, and thereafter just open for the exploring. Now they've installed fluorescent lighting and you need to get a key from the national park office, but, well, in Kenny's words, "The lack of concern for safety is refreshing."
This particular missile complex is located somewhere in the middle of Lithuania. Built in secret by the USSR, four silos here housed missiles aimed for the United States, until those missiles were removed—and allegedly shipped to Cuba, precipitating the Crisis. Abandoned, the complex was discovered by locals, who stripped away just about anything of value that could be carried off, from machinery to scrap metal. About the only thing left is a huge diesel engine block.
The whole complex is underground except for the silo lids. There are four missile silos surrounding an underground living area and control center. Here's what it looks like on the surface.
One of the four silos:
Entrance to the command center:
Warnings on the door:
Inside:
Electrical generator:
Some more warnings:
Entering one of the missile bays:
The silo:
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I took a tour of a missile silo in Arizona a couple of years ago. It was the one used in that semi-recent Star Trek movie. Anyway, it was really cool in a this-thing-was-designed-to-obliterate-people sort of way. I remember there being a fenced-in lockdown area before the control room which was designed so that anyone coming in who shouldn't be could be shot before reaching the control room (which was mounted on giant springs to absorb a nuclear explosion).
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Am I correct in the impression that you could pretty much just walk around and look at all this stuff, without being charged admission or shown around or anything? I thought that was one of the most interesting things when I went to Panama--certain sires that, in the US, would be super touristy, were just sort of sitting there unattended. There was a pirate fort built out of coral blocks that you could just walk around in.
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Er, actually, I think you're supposed to get a key from a local office or something.. but that was a new development. I know what you mean, though. A guy I met in Jordan was telling me about all the cruisader castles out in the middle of nowhere in Syria that you could climb around to your heart's content.
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how'd you find this journal, btw?
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Very interesting
BTW, do you know what's written above the entrance to the command center?
Re: Very interesting
Re: Very interesting
Re: Very interesting