Skrunda-1 - the Ghost Town
Skrunda-1 is the ghost town located about 150 km west side from Riga on A9 road Riga-Liepaja. This Soviet Union secret military town was used for location of Dnepr and Darjal Radio Station (RS). Abandoned about 70 buildings of various purposes in the territory of 45 hectares haven’t been used since October 1999 when all inhabitants left the town. In this mysterious area it seems like the air is different, as it would be saturated with sense of war, danger and fair.
Soviet Union, during the time of Cold War, created more than 40 closed secret towns that provided the technical foundation for the Soviet military. One of these secret towns was located in Latvias` territory and was named Skrunda-1, by a name of the nearby located Skrunda town. Usual way of giving the name for secret towns was to take the name of ones that is near and add a number e.g. 1. In 1964, Radio Station (RS) in the area of Skrunda-1 was built to fulfil the Soviet Army needs of major radar station. Construction of Radio Station “Dnepr” was completed in 1971. The RS was located in 4 buildings of 250 meters long and 17 meters high. Radars of Dnepr Radio Station could observe objects at a distance of 6000 km and at height of 3000 km.
In 1980, Soviet Army decided to build a secret military town in the area of RS. Skrunda-1town which would include residential buildings, hotel, club, nursery, warehouse, greenhouse, barracks, garages, workshops, underground bunkers and other facilities. In this territory there lived about 5.000 people, 110 of which were civilians, 72 soldiers and the rest of them were constructing and operating on RS.
Later in 1984 Latvian Ministry agreed to construct Radio locator Station “Darjal” that was more powerful and sophisticated. The station consisted of transmitter and receiver buildings. Transmitter building had 8 floors and was of approximately 52 meters height and the Receiver was a 19 floor building of 117 meters height. In 1990, Kuldiga citizens protested against further constructions and renovations of Dnepr and Darjal and insisted on suspending works of Radio Stations. As soon as Latvia recovered its` independent in 1991, Soviet military bases one by one were closed and Russian troops expelled out of the territory of Latvian Republic. In 30 April 1994, the agreement "On the Legal Status of the Skrunda Radar Station During its temporary Operation and Dismantling" was signed between Latvia and Russian Federation. According to this agreement, Russian Federation had to stop “Dnepr” RS work after 18 months and march its troops from Skrunda-1 town.
As RS operation of “Darjal” was interrupting work of other local channels and stations, on 4 May 1995 the huge terminal and receiver were exploded using 360 kg explosives that were located in 430 places of buildings. The later destiny of RS Dnepr was quite similar. According to the signed agreement, Dnepr RS continued its work until August 31, 1998 when it was completely dismantled.
Lives of Skrunda-1 inhabitants were totally based on Soviet Union nuclear RS construction and work. According to the agreement, signed in 1994, as soon as Dnepr was destructed, Russian troops had to leave the city. In October 1999, all to one man of Skrunda-1 inhabitants departed from the town. Since that moment, Skrunda-1 left with hundreds of empty apartments and dozens of buildings, without one soul of human. There were beautiful plans of one company in Latvia to turn Skrunda-1 into recreation centre with restaurants, hotels and an amusement park. However, the words were forgotten and Skrunda-1 today is a ghost city with derelict houses. Today personal tours are made in this town to explore the living conditions of Skrunda-1 inhabitants and to get a great dose of adrenalin by walking inside the rooms of empty buildings.
As no investments were made to rise up the town, Latvia government decided to sell Skrunda-1 and in 2010 put up for an auction. The winner was a representative of an Aleksejevskoje-Serviss, a Russia-based firm with an offer of 1.55 million Ls ($ 3.1 million EUR). This is quite an interesting situation as nationalists of Latvia look quite leery in to Russian capital buying real estate in Latvia.
Location
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