A sea of birch trees and Baltic pines sways in the wind as the road goes deeper into the forest. Here in the peaceful depths of western Lithuania’s Žemaitija National Park, an area of idyllic lakes, wetlands, old villages and forests 30 miles inland from the Baltic Sea, Soviet missile operators once waited in secret, poised for the destruction of Western Europe.
Today, the once-classified complex known as Plokštinė Missile Base is the park’s most-visited attraction, the Cold War Museum. In 2024, 35,000 people from all over the world came to explore this eerie underground world, including subterranean rooms, passages and a missile silo, plunging 100 feet beneath the ground.
Several lines of barbed wire greet anyone arriving at the facility. Four white domes then come into view, contrasting with the green of the forest — the bunkers that once housed weapons of mass destruction. The structures stand there like parasitic mushrooms that don’t belong in their surroundings.
The history of the base reflects the logic of the Cold War and the nuclear arms race. Western Lithuania — at the time, part of the USSR’s Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic — was a perfect location for storing warheads targeting NATO countries.
Squaring off against Scandinavia across the Baltic Sea, Lithuania was turned into a highly militarized zone with rocket bases, military towns and garrisons. Neighboring Latvia and Estonia — also part of the USSR — suffered the same fate.
The Plokštinė forest, in the middle of nowhere, offered ideal conditions for building a secret underground complex. The 4.6 square mile Plateliai Lake nearby provided water for cooling systems, the population of the surrounding villages was small, and the soft, sandy soil was easy to excavate.
Inside Lithuania’s Cold War bunker
Plokštinė missile base was completed in 1962 after two years of construction, involving more than 10,000 workers from all around the Soviet Union. Such an immense job didn’t go unnoticed by the local population.
“People didn’t know what kind of weapons were stored there, but we knew about this place,” says Aušra Brazdeikytė, a guide at the Cold War Museum.
Brazdeikytė was born in a village not far from the base and spent her whole life in the area.
Soldiers became a fixture of local life, and hearing heavy machinery transporting military equipment was a regular occurrence.
“We worked alongside soldiers from different Soviet republics at collective farms, but never discussed military topics,” she remembers. Asking the wrong questions could end tragically in the Soviet Union.
The complex was heavily secured, with an electric fence stretching for two miles around the base. The dense forest made it even harder to reach, so the locals made no attempts to access it.
All this secrecy paid off. US intelligence only discovered the base in 1978 through satellite reconnaissance. By then, the Soviets had decommissioned the facility as part of the rocket disarmament agreements between the USSR and the US.
The entrance to the facility is — as it always was — through a hole in the ground.
“Please, wipe your feet,” reads a sign in Russian above the hermetically sealed door. Cleanliness is important in a workplace, especially if you work at a secret underground facility with nuclear warheads.
Plokštinė missile base was an elaborate military project, an exemplary facility of its kind in the Soviet Union. Centered around an underground command center with a network of corridors, it also had four 100-foot shafts housing R-12 Dvina surface-to-surface missiles. There was even a subterranean power plant to generate energy in emergencies.
After Lithuania declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1990, and the subsequent fall of the Iron Curtain, the base was completely abandoned and pillaged for its metal. Thanks to EU funding, local officials were able to create a superb museum, which opened in 2012, giving the public access to the command center, electric plant, and one silo.
Walking through the dim underground maze gives you an eerie feeling — not least because it is filled with Soviet paraphernalia: statues of Lenin and Stalin, military awards, and hammer-and-sickle ceramics and flags. Visitors pass through thematic interactive halls devoted to various stages of the Cold War and learn about the propaganda produced during the second half of the turbulent 20th century. Here and there, lifelike silicon mannequins of grumpy soldiers send you to a Soviet-flavored uncanny valley.
The most impressive attractions are the abandoned remains of military technology. The skeleton of the former electric plant would be an ideal background for a computer game. There’s a gargantuan hall where the tank with missile fuel was stored.
But the centerpiece is the silo. You will feel small and dizzy standing at the edge of the 100-foot hole into the abyss. Although missiles never left this shaft to sow destruction, there have been casualties over the years.
“A soldier fell to his death when his [safety] belt broke during a routine service check,” says Brazdeikytė, her words echoing somberly in the darkness.
“Two other soldiers died during a nitric acid spill while trying to refuel the missile,” she adds. The darkness thickens.
Steps away from the four silos is the ghost town that was never named. Originally it housed around 300 soldiers and officers who worked at the missile base.
Bizarrely, after the decommissioning of Plokštinė base, some administrative buildings in the town were converted into a children’s summer camp. Called Žuvėdra, meaning seagull, it ran from 1979 to 1990. A bus stop right behind the entrance gate is painted with a colorful mural that shows a gnome on a mushroom holding a flower.
Today, not much is left of the military town. The most compelling sight is a series of former storage hangars. Covered in mud and grass, they look like ancient pyramids lost to the forest.
Heaven and hell
The juxtaposition of the somber abandoned nuclear missile base and the beautiful region surrounding it could be an allegory of modern Lithuania.
The country has successfully overcome decades of Soviet occupation and turned its Cold War scars into teachable moments.
Away from the base, Žemaitija National Park is one of the most gorgeous places in the Lithuania, filled with attractions. Visiting the park takes you to the heart of Samogitia — a region with rich local culture. Pagan and Christian traditions coexist here – it’s thought this land was the last part of Europe to be converted to Christianity in the 15th century.
Žemaičių blynai, or Samogitan pancakes, are the local food superstars — hearty potato pancakes with meat inside. Cepelinai, a potato dumpling stuffed with cottage cheese or ground meat, is another Lithuanian comfort food. And nobody leaves without sampling šaltibarščiai, a cold, pink-colored beetroot soup.
The town of Plateliai, 15 minutes north of the nuclear site, is home to the Church of Apostles Peter and Paul, an awe-inspiring 18th-century wooden building. A restored manor in town is now home to a Mardi Gras Museum with distinctive wooden masks.
Lake Plateliai itself is one for nature lovers, with cycling and hiking trails, waterside campsite spots and scenic restaurants next to the shore.
Once, the biggest secret of Žemaitija was the Plokštinė nuclear missile base. Today, the region itself is a hidden gem of slow European travel.
Correction:
This story has been updated to correct that the former base is located near the Baltic Sea.
