Ventspils: Border guard facility

During Soviet times, the Ventspils port was home base for border patrol ships which prowled the waters of the Baltic Sea so as to prevent anyone from crossing the border in either direction. In the 1970s, however, there was an extraordinary incident about which the people of Ventspils whispered and laughed for a long time afterward. There was a young man who just loved cutters, and he manufactured and tested many motors. That was something that attracted certain suspicions in a coastal town next to the open sea, and so the guy made friends with Border Guard officers. They often got together for some booze. The young man didn’t hide the fact that he enjoyed engines and water sports. At one point he found the engine of an old Volga automobile and installed it on his motor boat. The engine was not small, and the boat was fairly big, too. Came an evening when the guy was drinking vodka with the Border Guard officers, and he bragged about his fast boat. Apparently the officers were not entirely sober at that point, and one of them proposed a bet to see which was faster – the boat or a patrol ship. The loser would have to buy a crate of vodka. The young man agreed, and off they went. The sea was calm, and the patrol ship fell behind the motorboat. The officers returned to the port, put together their money, and bought the crate of vodka. Only then did they realise that the winner had disappeared. They drank the booze and forgot about everything. Meanwhile, the young man and his boat were so far away that they couldn’t be caught. Apparently he prepared very carefully for the operation, and his friendship with the vodka-loving officers was a fine trick. The case was hushed up, but many officers responsible for the security of the country’s borders lost some of the stars from their epaulets.