Zemaitija NP - Lithuania

Trip Start Oct 30, 2007

165

Trip End Nov 20, 2009

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Flag of Lithuania Zemaitija NP - Lithuania, Lithuania
Thursday, August 28, 2008

And now to one of the most bizarre things we've gone to see on this trip. In 1960 the Russians, who occupied Lithuania at the time, built a nuclear weapon facility in the middle of a forest. It took 10,000 people to build it over 2 years, all done in secret. Much of it had to be done by hand because of the noise factor - in fact it was so secret the local population didn't even know it was there. They built four silos, each housing nuclear missiles, each of which was 10x the power of Hiroshima or Nagasaki, and being in Western Lithuania, had enough range to reach anywhere in Europe or Turkey. It was mobilised, ready to launch on a few occasions during the cold war. In fact during that time the Russians had so many enemies (perceived or otherwise) the positioning of the missiles had to be changed several times.

All this lay hidden until 1976 when satellite imaging technology got better and the Russians were busted by the Americans, who saw the four slide back mounds. The Russians then secreted out the warheads back into Russia (not the kind of things you can hide in a car boot either!). Even so, it was never revealed publicly until the late 1980s. So, although not many people know, you can go and ask the ranger to show you the remains of the base, the control room and the massive diesel generator used to run it, the 25m deep silos, and the slide back mounds on top (yes, very Bond in Thunderball!). Awesome. Imagine trying to see that prior to 1991 when the country was under Russian rule.