My own little corner

On saturday we went for out longest trip to Ventspils. Our destination was Irbene, abandoned town near the VIRAC - Ventspils Radio Location Center, the last available and working one,was 3 of them, one not working,one was distracted by Russian army when they left, and one is still working.

"Near Ventspils, a city on Baltic Sea, in Irbene there is a 32-meter fully steerable parabolic, centimetre-wave range antenna RT-32 and a 16-meter diameter antenna RT-16. They were taken over by the Latvian Academy of Sciences after withdrawal of the Russian army from Latvia in 1994. On the basis of these antennas and accompanying facilities of the former Space Communication Center, the Ventspils International Radio Astronomy Center (VIRAC) has been established.
The main purpose of the VIRAC is to take part in observations of cosmic sources of natural and artificial radiation in order to accumulate observational data for fundamental and practical research programs in radio astronomy, astrophysics, cosmology, geophysics, geodynamics, geodesy, coordinate-time service and other.
Currently one of the main VIRAC goals is to become a member of the European VLBI Network (EVN)."

"Irbene radioastronomy centre with abandoned military village.
Ex-soviet army top secret military radio spying centre with two RT-32 and RT-16 radio satellites surrounded by abandoned military village. RT-32 antenna is renewed, and is used by scientists from baltic countries, and by Ventspils university students, open for an excursions also. Great place to see, and wonderful feelings when climbed up to RT-32antenna. RT-16 locator is in renovation process and is closed for tourist groups or individual explorers."

Was a funny trip, we went throught the small village POPE,where we got lost, then we gone for a small ecscursion to the Locator, and to the abandoned village, then to Ventspils, and back to Riga.
The village reminded me a pictures of Pripjat, same big lost buildings, old books on the floor, parts of a doll, funny banners with russian PSSR sayings, the paintings on the walls... and none alive. Althought people took everything they could take from that place, such a wooden windows,and other wooden things, metall, etc. the place still looks interesting and exciting to explore.