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“Cold War tourism has a lot of potential in our country. Lithuanian tourists often seek unusual, rare, and even intimidating experiences and become familiar with the history through such activities. The aim of “Travel in Lithuania” is to help travelers discover the Cold War experience and increase the flow of tourists, which in 2019. institutions that offered to visit similar sites contributed more than 2.2 million. income ”, Dalius Morkvėnas, director of“ Travel in Lithuania ”is quoted in the press release.
This year’s Cold War study commissioned by “Travel in Lithuania” showed that the flow of visitors to Cold War objects has been growing recently. Last year, the main objects of the Cold War in Lithuania – Vilnius TV Tower, Museum of Occupations and Freedom Struggles, Grūtas Park, Vytautas Great War Museum – received more than 320 thousand. visitors from Lithuania and abroad. And according to a survey commissioned by Travel in Lithuania, 7 out of 10 Lithuanians have similar objects of interest. The most attractive places for tourists are the least accessible places, leaving the secret services and tasting food and drinks. The Travel in Lithuania team offers to visit places that are quickly catching up to the most popular objects from the Cold War in Lithuania.
1. Atomic hideout under the feet of the residents of Naujamiestis
Travel in Lithuania photo / Hide automation
In the underground reinforced concrete hideaway, with only a reflector and an audio guide. The recently opened bunker of the former Lietuvos Automatika company in the Naujamiestis district of Vilnius offers not only guided tours, but also private tours. In the hideout, isolated from the outside world, you can see the air filtration device, surviving food, medical equipment, and even the books that were once brought here. A chill is caused by a gas mask on display for a baby. The bunker owners invite you to organize photo shoots, movie screenings, trainings or even secret meetings of the Masonic lodge here.
During the Cold War, more than 300 civil defense shelters (bunkers) were installed in the basements of the Lithuanian capital to protect the population from radiation, chemical and biological attacks, aerial bombardments and other similar threats. After the collapse of the USSR, the vast majority of the Vilnius hideouts were sold, remodeled, demolished or reached the state of emergency. However, some of the hiding places still exist. More information here.
2. Secret encryption manual in the old missile base
Photo by Andrius Aleksandravičius / shaft of the Cold War Museum
A look at the shaft of the 30-meter deep combat missile and the click of a “nuclear button” to simulate an explosion are in the forest of Plokštinė, a secret underground ballistic missile launcher based in the Soviet Union that currently houses a Cold War exhibition.
1962 The construction of the underground thermonuclear missile launch site, which was completed in 2006, lasted only 2 years, and the underground wells were dug with shovels by 10 thousand people. soldiers. During the Cold War, four R-12 thermonuclear missiles, also known as SS-4 by the Americans, were fired here. Until 1978. At the secret military base that operated in the 19th century, missiles, together with nearby ground firing ranges, formed a joint group of Soviet nuclear weapons in Lithuania, which historians say could have destroyed all of Europe .
The former missile and internal control hardware now houses a historic exhibit with weapon samples, a restored bunker commander’s cabinet, and an interactive educational program for those who want to try and decipher secret number encodings. Here too, exclusive tours of the Cold War exhibition take place in a different way, visiting the base in an isolated space from the world, which has never been open to tourists! More information here.
3. The KGB Espionage Museum is what has only been seen in movies about Agent 007
Travel in Lithuania photo / Atomic bunker in Kaunas
The persecution of ordinary people in the Soviet Union both formally and informally by the KGB during the Cold War was a reality. Covert search and hacking equipment, KGB phones and phone call scramble and eavesdropping equipment, portable covert radio equipment, radio transmitters and receivers, communication jammers, remote interception equipment, interception “bugs”, interception equipment night vision, covert voice recorders and masked video cameras … Unique specifications of all the most sophisticated equipment used by the NKVD, the KGB and the military. The collection of services, so far seen only in films about James Bond, is open to all visitors to the nuclear bunker in Kaunas. More information here.
4. To the underground printing house – under the greenhouse
In 10 years, almost 140 thousand. Patriotic and religious publications. Both were printed at the underground “ab” press in 1980-1990. It is the only hideout of its kind in Lithuania that was not detected by Soviet security for its entire existence. And no wonder, the press machine worked underground under the greenhouse! The ab press is included in the international list of historically valuable facilities and sites of the Cold War. Today, a branch of the Kaunas Vytautas Great War Museum was established in the printing house. More information here.
5. Play a war on a secret missile base
Trip in Lithuania photo / Cabbage rocket base
Already in 1958-1988. this area was surrounded by a 2 m high barbed wire fence in the middle of forests near the city of Ukmergė, surrounded by a minefield and observed from the air day and night. It was here that Cabbage Missile Base No. 32158 was located with the most powerful missiles in the Soviet Army of that time. They were able to hit a target 3,000 kilometers away. Now, during the sightseeing tours with a military car, you can see the relics of the Cold War still hidden in the forest: hangars, rocket launch sites, bunkers, barracks … Education, camps and active entertainment too they are organized in the territory. More information here.
6. After Kėdainius: with a military history guide
Many city dwellers or visitors who spend time with children in Kėdainiai City Park or Babėnai Forest do not suspect that their favorite places to walk were once top-secret Soviet military objects, which still hold the secrets of the Cold War.
The historian and guide Vaidas Banys, who studies the history of war, currently offers 4 themed excursions. During sightseeing tours and car trips, you can see the graffiti “gallery” of “mats” on remote military buildings, illustrating the impressive geography of Soviet soldiers who served in Kėdainiai, the remains of a rocket base city and the underground hangars in the Josvainiai forest.
And in Kėdainiai you can see various territories of closed military and civil cities of the former Soviet Union: a “garrison” of soldiers, a city designed for the families of officers (“gorodok”), a closed urban complex of regiment personnel military aviation transport (airfield) and personnel service with a pilot stadium, a Headquarters squadron and other structures. More information here.
7. Echoes of the Soviet maneuvers near the Nemunas
During the Soviet period, various military maneuvers were carried out very often near the Nemunas: military equipment was transferred across the river by pontoon bridges, tanks ran in arches, and helicopters flew. 1971 an international military training camp was established near Jurbarkas.
Now a thematic excursion “Soviet Maneuvers of the Nemunas. Jurbarkas – Smalininkai ”. Tourists are invited to inspect the remaining military equipment, learn about how the various military media worked at the Smalininkai Museum of Ancient Technology, and hear a witness’s story from those events about mimicking nuclear war. In the village of Palankinė (Šakiai district) it is possible to scale a mound, which was poured 40 years ago and covered with asphalt, so that high-ranking soldiers could observe the battlefield. For lunch, the participants of the tour wait for a military porridge cooked over a campfire, the opportunity to take a photo with a Soviet camera. More information here.
8. Thematic excursions in the footsteps of the Cold War
Travel in Lithuania photo / Vilnius with Locals Tours
A battalion of liaison officers with a selection of bullets and projectiles, a nuclear missile launch base and an abandoned military city, an underground nuclear warhead assembly workshop … Travel through these top secret Soviet military objects and experience the History Outside the Glass Museum offers explorations of the past. By the way, during the full day tour, participants also receive a military food ration.
The next stop is the capital. Vilnius is not just the baroque old town. The Soviet occupation left a bright scar on the face of the city. Dark Tourism (after the KGB prison, the Soviet Vilnius), as well as Vilnius with the locals, as well as independent tours with part-time Vilnius, are invited to excursions to places of dark tourism.
9. For barzdą drip: from chebureks to cones
Travel photo in Lithuania / Cafe Planeta at Skalvija Cinema
In some cities, restaurants continue to function, as if frozen in time: the legendary “Spurginė” in Kaunas continues to boil a donut with meat or jam according to a four-decade recipe. Žaliukė, the oldest barbecue town in the city, has been running since 1966, and the canteen on Laisvės Alley near Sobor has been running for half a century. The Soviet interior has also been restored in the Godo Bar and the Moon Retro Café.
It has been available in Vilnius since 1969. Broth with cakes in the soup house “Sultiniai” (Jogailos str. 8), Chebureks “Čeburėkinė” (Šopeno str. 3), drinking tea in the Vilnius cafe “Planeta” from the 70s in the oldest cinema in the capital “Skalvija” or visit one of the dining rooms that have been fed more than once.
You can find more tourist objects from the Cold War on the official Lithuanian tourism website www.lithuania.travel. Visit here.
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