Soviet Airbases tour

Another riding day in East Germany. In order to make it a bit more interesting, we've got a few more Cold War lost places on the schedule. Initially I just wanted to do a brief test ride to the Falkenberg AB, used to be home base of the 31st Guard Fighter Regiment. Once there, with plenty of daytime left yet, I made a spontaneous decision to go way further. But step by step.


This was probably the last day of 2021 with really great weather, as you can see. That gate is the main entry of the small strip that is left nowadays as sports / private airfield. So far so unspectacular.

I ventured around on the area of the former base, however I could not really access the runway. In places where it was accessible, it was demolished already. In other areas a huge solar farm had been build on it. However, I found this:

If you see aircraft shelters on this pic, well yes, those are the ones from the north western decentralization area. Took the pic sitting on top of one, just if you wonder. However, what was more interesting to me, was the contents inside. Only some Europeans will know the "yellow bin" recycling system I guess. What is in these shelters is shredded yellow bin waste. There where like 5 or 6 of these shelters full of this. Must be thousands of tons of this shit. Now we all know how recycling actually works...in Greeny heaven Germany.

This is how it is supposed to look like (take the bike for a Mig 29.. ):



(..and never mind the hay stacks..)

Since the whole affair was kinda disappointing up to this point, I checked the maps and came up with the crazy idea to go straight away for the real thing. That is: a well hidden huge place, that I planned to do someday, with a lot more preparation, time, friends, and so on. But I thought, F all that, why can't I do it just now?

So I went a long ways on a boring federal road, just to get near the area of interest. I had a few tracks from previous planning work on the tablet already. Not exactly the ones I needed from that particular angle of approach, but good enough to not get totally lost in the forest out there:


thanks God no witnesses so far, a first sign that we are on the right track, carefully made my way deeper into the danger zone..


Now we are in business! The sign says access forbidden to ex-military area, all kind of hazards, blabla - in plain adventure speak: go on, you're right on target!


There you go! the long northern taxi way. rode it a few hundred meters before broke south to the heart of the facility..




Sperenberg airfield. The central soviet air logistics hub in East Germany. More or less all air transport, including civilian passenger transport for military personnel families went through this place. There is no major road close to it. It remains hidden in the dark Brandenburg forrests south of Berlin. The particular historical significance of this place is the following: Erich Honecker, the last dictator of East Germany fled the country (and prosecution) to Moscow via this airfield, with help of his KGB friends, on the 13th March 1991.

So let's look around a bit:


Vandalism as usual. In this particular case it can be attrributed to the fact that the owner, the State of Brandenburg, cut it's budget for the security guard for a number of years entirely. Now there is some security again, but we will get to that in a second.
Another long taxiway:

..rode down that one to the eastern end of the base, where I eventually made it to the main runway, the southern most of the three east-west strips.

..the east end behind me..

..and the 2.55 km (1.58 mls) runway ahead of me, as seen from planes incoming from Moscow.

Here things got interesting. After looking at that above pic and comparing it to the reality, I quickly relaized that mobile phone cams are absolutely useless for the distances here involved. There was a black tree at least 1200 m ahead of me (those used to non-metric, just take yards for that matter, is within the accuracy range). I could clearly see it with my eyes, don't look for it on the picture, you won't see it. That tree at some point started to slowly move laterally from left side to ride side of the runway.  

I fired up the engine and went slowly down the runway. If you look down the row of tiles just right to my bike, right next to this row there are some birch trees and bushes in quite a distance. That is until where I got that way. I stopped slightly behind that birch and watched the moving tree. Now at maybe just 600 m distance left, the tree became what I suspected, a person. And he was not alone. The distance was still to great, to hear each other, but I could clearly sense the moment, when these guys became aware of my presence. They suddenly moved quickly, like in some hurry, towards their car parked on the right side of the runway (also invisible on above pic due to bushes).

Now, what to do? They could be the security service, that is supposed to patrol the object one time a day, as I learned from some insiders website. But it was impossible to tell who they were. Having my license plate on the bike (for reasons of laziness/recklesness), I did not feel the strong wish to find out. I turned around and went back the way I came to the central taxiway. The bet was, that they chase me eastwards, while I went west on the taxiway. The strips are so far apart from each other and separated by dense forrest, they would hardly hear me. It kinda worked. After arriving at the west end, I sneaked to the main runway, just to find that they where still there, but right about getting some stuff packed up into their vehicle. The distance from that point was way shorter. Hence I inconspicuosly left the scene to disappear into the wild Taiga of Brandenburg (and back to the less wild federal road).

These kind of encounters on forbidden ground are thrilling, as they happen in a different zone of reality, where the usual rules do not apply. I liked that.

The way back was long and boring, at least for the first part. Half way back I had to cross the Elbe river:


That ferry boat turned out super cheap, like 1.50 EUR per crossing with the bike. But it took its time...
First we had to wait for that river cruise boat to come around the river bent and pass by, the Captain already chatted with the other guy over radio, seems everybody knows each other on the river...



However this did not help with me getting home really late...

though, not without a bit of night rallye raid through the fields of central Saxony.


..not too bad for a brief test ride!