Kolka: Naval radio communications facility

Hidden deep in the pine forests of Cape Kolka is a border guard tower which was constantly used during Soviet times. There’s a small brick building alongside it, and both it and the tower have been abandoned and are falling apart. The top of the tower appears to have collapsed a bit, even though our Border Guard used it to observe the shoreline after the restoration of Latvia’s independence. One supposes that they have been replaced by modern electronic radar systems which are in line with NATO standards. During Soviet times, border guards used the tower to watch the Irbe narrows, and it was said that even a duck could not pass through the narrows without the Border Guard’s knowledge. The Irbe narrows separate the Bay of Rīga from the open waters of the Baltic Sea. The concept of the “open sea” has been forgotten since the Soviet military withdrew from Latvia, but during the Cold War it was used to describe any territory from which threats against the mighty Soviet Union might emerge or, no less terrifyingly, at which someone might cross the Iron Curtain and cross the sea to get to the rotten West, perhaps bringing along important state secrets. That’s why the bottleneck of the Irbe narrows was monitored very carefully, indeed. There was always a border guard at the top of the tower with binoculars and a Kalashnikov, there was a radar system, and Soviet naval patrol ships constantly circled the area. The naval personnel particularly disliked people with sailboats, apparently thinking that they were aping capitalist and bourgeois style. The Soviet patrol ships often approached sailboats at a great speed and crashed into them. Many yachts passing through the Irbe narrows were damaged that way. It is also worth noting that during Soviet times, no one came to Cape Kolka to enjoy the sea and the distant Kolka lighthouse. It was a closed territory, one that was open only to authorised personnel. People who dared pull out a camera either had the film exposed to light or were arrested and perhaps even interrogated