Here comes another lost place tour, as already indicated in my last post. The idea for this tour had been in my head since at least 1 or 2 years. For a number of lazy excuses and a few real reasons it did not materialize until this late spring 2021.
What is new here, is I was not alone on this ride. And that was the particular challenge of this tour: could my occasional riding buddy Lars join me for this tour on his 2-Stroke hard enduro machine. Would we be able to get a 300 km+ tour out of this little Beta 250 Xtrainer?
For the WR that was supposed to become another routine operation, business as usual. But for the Xtrainer we spent quite bit of time with concerns and considerations, but eventually decided to give it a shot anyways. We geared that thing as tall as we found sprockets in Lars' parts boxes and I changed the routing to more back up fill station points, that could be approached, if need be. Each of us carried another 2 liters of fuel, exclusively for the Xtrainer. Safari tank on the WR does not require such shenanigans.
Early May we eventually found a day that was suitable for both of us. Weather forecast looked good, some rain possible, temperatures in the moderate range.
At around 5 AM we gathered at the agreed rendezvouz point just outside our little mountain village in order to avoid waking up too many neighbours.
We were headed eastwards, and I tried to cover as much as possible transit route in the early hours of the day, which allowed to use all kinds of field tracks and even hiking trails, which later during the day would be crowded with angry people potentially giving us troubles. The downside was, as I focused on GPS and pushing forward, I did not take any pictures whatsoever on the transit sections. We crossed the Elbe river using a bridge just north of Dresden, had a planned stop at a certain Shell station to fill up on their totally overpriced fuel (that aspect was not planned) and headed out again, now more northwards.
In a forest near the state border between Saxony and Brandenburg, we approached a first secondary target and had breakfast there.
With sandwiches in hand we stumbled around in a yet lazy mood (maybe we should bring coffee next time) to explore the nearby surroundings. Immediately we ran into what we were generally looking for on this tour:
Yes! this started off well.
After this motivational teaser we quickly gobbled up our sandwiches, boiled eggs and apples. This place was quite large by my map data and we had to explore more, but on the backs of the horses.
So we pushed deeper in the woods:
We found that huge hangars type structure.
Eventually we found an unspectacular looking building...
...which to our childish joy could be easily accessed with bikes, straigt through the main door (which itself was absent, courtesy to the usual interested parties).
A mess room and kitchen:
Some silly shit needed be done and Lars managed to print some donuts on the mess floor. Since no windows were left in the building I was able to film that without dying on 2-smoke fumes. Now I found that I should upload videos to YT to make them available here, which again, is a business I do not intend to get into in general. Sorry guys, YT is too much publicity for my taste (and these grey zone activities).
I should not forget to provide you some serious contents too: The object we were in is the former SAM site FRA 316 Lampertswalde of the NVA (no, not the North Vietnamese Army, but the "Nationale Volksarmee", the army of cold war East Germany or the German Democratic Republic). This site was still under construction / incomplete, when the 1989 Revolution interfered. It was never finished and abandoned in 1990 due to liquidation of the NVA and lack of necessity with the Bundeswehr. (For those unfamiliar with military terms/cold war tech, a SAM site means a Surface-to-Air-Missile place)
However, we had some more important business to do yet this day. So we left the site and stealthily infiltrated the state of Brandenburg. At the time we viewed this as hostile territory due to different (i.e. stricter) Covid rules than in our home state. However, it wasn't that bad, in those rural areas, the same shits were (not) given as at home.
After sorting some minor navigational issues in the deep dark Brandenburgian forests (miles and miles of nothing but sand roads and pines, looks the same everywhere) we eventually approached the primary goal of the trip.
The mighty bunker gates of the Soviet Armed Forces in Germany Special Arms Depot Finsterwalde.
Those gate doors! To give you an impression, the thickness is about 45 cm or 18 inches. They are said to weigh 25 metric tons. Not sure wether this is one wing or the entire system.
Back in the day this place was named officially no. 2952 Technical Repair base of the Soviet Air Force. That was just cover. We will get to the dark secret of what it really was.
The entry area and front part of the structure is full of waste and garbage now. It used to hold various utilities, cranes for unloading, air venting and conditioning systems, including filters and such.
After we had thoroughly examined this utilities section of the BASALT type standardized Soviet bunker, we eventually entered the heart of darkness. It was shielded by another huge hydraulically operated pressure gate, the same type as the main entry:
40 meters x 9 meters blackness. Our shabby little torches turned out to be close to useless. Putting fresh batteries into my pit lamp before going on this trip would have been a good idea too.
Up to 80 nuclear warheads dwelled in these dark depths underground Brandenburg since the early 1960's. These were tactical nukes for the nearby 559th Fighter-Bomber Regiment, held in custody by the KGB, who were the actual operators of this secret place. In cold war times up to 600 KGB personnel manned this facility (it is overall more and larger than just this bunker), mimmicking airplane repair operations for the Finsterwalde airbase, which is located a few miles north. All that effort was maintained over several decades, in order to keep the weapons depot covered from NATO satellites and hence avoiding to make it a high priority target for NATO strike operations in case of the war becoming hot.
Off course this is by far not the only such place here on former Warsaw pact ground. However, this one holds a special story. Sometimes after abandonment of the facilities by the Russians during the 1990s, German TV-journalists who investigated the site, found the empty crate of warhead no. 38, a 360 kg tactical nuke. That raised the question, where the bomb had been taken without it's transport crate and how such was even possible. To this day, the Russians owe the answer, and there are no investigation results public whatsoever.
We stayed inside for a while, digesting the dark atmosphere of the place and trying to get a few meaningful shots on our mobile phones, which proved difficult to impossible.
It needs to be mentioned that the walls of this bunker were covered with soot, which absorbes any light. This was not the original state obviously. It's rather a consequence of the illegal waste deposition activities of more recent times - some very smart people burned plastic window frames and roof panels in the entry area...
After our eyes had re-accustomed to the daylight outside we climbed the top of the structure too.
We consumed the rest of our food and looked for the way to the Finsterwalde airbase. The airbase, however is to some part operational as small local airfield for pilot training and businesses. In cold war time the main runway used to be 2400 meters long, I think now they operate with much less. Most of the property is owned by farmers nowadays. This allowed us at least to get a brief peek into the former northern decentralization area. That is the zone where the planes used to be parked in hardened shelters dispersed over a wide area, in order to make for a difficult target. The shelters are used as sheep barns, hay stores and vehicle garages today.
The base was home to the 559th Fighter Bomber Regiment, part of the 105th Fighter bomber Division of the 16th Soviet Air Army. It used to be a Luftwaffe airbase until 1945. Before the closure in the early 90s the Soviets operated these bad boys there: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:MiG-27K_Fisterwalde_(22485521941).jpg
After this brief visit we hid back into the endless Brandenburg pine forests, with yet another target on the radar. Each Soviet airbase in Eastern Germany had their own dedicated SAM-site, always in a location some 3-10 km west of the actual base. Finsterwalde was no exception. We managed to find that place next to a small 5th order country road, however, it was turned into a private property, fenced and locked up. It was a bit of a disappointment, since on sat imagery one could still guess the former typical hexagon of the missile launch pads. We could not enter.
At this occasion Lars noticed that his mix oil warning light had come on. (The Beta is one of those 2-Strokes which mixes the oil with fuel for you, it got a seprate little tank under seat for that.)
We stood around the bike and tried to guess the oil level in the plastic tank. The tank is so oddly shaped that any guess of remaining range can only go wrong. (Thanked God three times for having chosen a WR).
Thus, we went to the next fuel station, which had been my plan anyways. At this point we were quite good on fuel yet. The 250 Beta did quite well on this part. We had way worse experience with other buddy's 300 ccm Xtrainers, who typically ran out of fuel within sight range of the home villages church tower...
I was so cocky not to fill up the WR at this far side point of the tour. However, I got home with about 1.5 liters remaining in the tank and the 2 liters carried for the Beta, which we did not need.
We had a short break yet before crossing back over the Elbe river at the foot of the ancient Albrechtsburg castle in Meissen.
From there we went home on too cocky a route for the given daytime, running exactly in the hikers and picknicking families mentioned earlier. We went by slowly, greeting everybody with the most polite and old fashioned phrases available (an old tactic of mine of keeping people speechless at least for the necessary seconds to get by..
) In the end nobody complained, everybody were just happy to move freely outside without being bothered by Law Enforcement on Covid grounds.
End of story for this time, hope you enjoyed it.
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