Soviet Air Force Base - Zagan, Poland
 

This airbase is located 5 miles NE of Zagan in poland. It was used during WW2 as sagan Kupper Airfield and transferred to the Soviets at the end of WW2 through the duration of the Cold War. Up to 1981, it was the home of 42 Mig 21's. These were then replaced with SU-24 Fencers - these were given a dual fighter / tactical bomber role and could have carried nuclear weapons. Interesting, a Fencer was shot down last week (5th March) during the Libyan uprising by the rebels. The Soviet air squadrons left on 5th May 1992 an the base was finally handed back to the Polish Government on 30th July 1992. Although, there are 197 numerous buildings on the 935 hectare base, it hasn't been used since closure as an airfield and the runway is in a dire state now. I was informed that when the Russians left there bases and barracks in Poland, they would well and truly trash them to prevent / hinder them being used by Poland or subsequent NATO forces. There were many examples of the grenade down the bog demolition technique - must have put a few smiles on the faces of the departing soviet forces!

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Typical hardened aircraft shelter - dispersed liberally to prevent destruction by surprise attack

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Internal View of HAS - crew quarters to rear

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Limit switches on doors - presumably linked to some former security system

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Blast door (removed) from hangar to crew quarters

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Crew Quarters

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Several hangars were linked together with these type of tunnels

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Void space between crew accommodation and HAS wall

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Control Tower

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Runway

Wow, this looks pretty cool.

Really cool find :) From what i have read there is quite a lot of these sorts of places dotted over Poland. Keep meaning to go touring lol

the one the top gear found in albania was superb, the mig graveyard that is

Link me up, dude!

er http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode..._16_Episode_3/
that should do it, if you like tg watch the whole thing, if not then its about 50 mins in :)

Excellent, great post.