Soviet secret bunker

So cool (snore)

Just outside the town of Sigulda, deep in the heart of Gauja National Park you will find the twilight zone town of Ligatne. You really feel like you have travelled back in time to when the country was occupied by the nasty USSR. The buildings look cold and functional, you see people walking on the roads in the strangest places, middle of the woods pushing a wheel barrel of mushrooms. Who are they, where are they going, where have they been...nobody knows...well maybe the KGB.

The USSR built a secret military base in the town and nobody knew about it until 2003 when it was discovered. Construction started on the 2,000 sq/ft bunker in 1966 and was completed five years later. The OBJECT as it was called was located 9 meters underground and was used as a communication facility or early warning centre until 1991 when the Russians left.

It was an interesting tour led by our Lativan tour guide Helga (names have been changed for to protecting information (said with Russian accent)). Helga was an interesting character, this tour was a la Tunnels of Moose Jaw minus the pizzazz or intonation or emotion. Again when reading this please speak in your head with a Russian accent. 

Helga (in front of a flimsy iron door with an old plastic crank phone) "You must cranking the phone and say secretly password". "Then maybe door will opening."

Francois: " I don't want to do this it's scary, Ed you do it..I don't know what the password is?? How am I suppose to know, did I miss something here. Should I have read a brochure or something before the tour started"

Helga (rolling her eyes): "you must cranking the phone and saying secretly password".

Francois (looking frightened) "????"

Edward: (cranking the phone in frustration) "Open fucking sesame".

Helga: "You have clever brain".

The "object" was built underneath a rehabilitation center for persons with special needs in order to camouflage the fact that they were doing all this stuff underground. The furniture and artifacts that remain are pretty cool. (not really)

Seriously, if you saw some of the equipment in this "high tech" military bunker you would have to ask yourself why we ever feared the Russians? Helga gave us a great tour and chatted to us about what it was like back in the day of the Russian Empire. It was very amusing and she knew her stuff, as I am sure she had delivered the exact same tour thousands of times in four different languages to annoying tourists like us.

We managed to take a few secret photographs, please keep them to yourselves, I fear for our safety.

Nasdrovia Helga.