An abandoned U.S. missile base.
An abandoned Soviet missile base.
Be it the deliberate destruction of something or its sheer neglect, what transgresses is rarely the complete story. I photograph the visual footprints that the human race leaves on the landscape during its march through time. When the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union signaled the end of the Cold War, the holdings of American and Russian nuclear armaments were significantly reduced with many of the supporting facilities being closed and abandoned. All that now remains are decaying reminders of the might once exhibited by two opposing forces heading towards an unimaginable end. Just like time, photography can strip away the extraneous distraction of life to leave a meditative stillness. Sometimes silence speaks the loudest.
Soviet and American Nuclear Missile Bases by Brett Leigh Dicks.
Oh man… I know of at least three abandoned nuclear missile bases in this country alone, and access to them is not exactly restricted. One, I think, is part of an abandoned airbase and now a museum; one does tours, but I’ve had friends go to the less publicized ones and just wander around inside (with a geiger counter, of course, haha…. ha… ha……..). I’ve always wanted to go.
I’m curious about the more specific locations of the bases in the photos, because several of the shots are so typically Soviet, they could be from here.
(Here’s a series of articles/photos from around the country. The one at Zeltiņi has the only Lenin-head sculpture viewable in the open-air. Because.)
Oh, I’d love to go wandering about such places, taking photos. You have to take those opportunities when you can.