During the Cold War, the Soviet Union produced a huge amount of various military equipment. The country was preparing for the Third World War, but it did not happen. With each passing year more and more of the machinery and equipment became obsolete.

A lot of the machines were dismantled or conserved at special bases. Sometimes, for unknown reasons, large bases full of military equipment simply stopped functioning. The following photos were taken on one of these abandoned bases by saoirse-2010.

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Tags: Abandoned · base · Soviet

On the territory of Torzhok (small town in Tver oblast) the 344th Training Center of Army Aviation Pilots is located. The center includes the 696th instructors’ helicopters testing regiment. The regiment conducts the testing of all current models and modifications of Russian military helicopters.

Since 1989 there is a helicopter museum on the territory of the center. The unique collection of the museum has 14 machines representing the history of the helicopters in the USSR. Photos by Denis Mokrushin.

Mi-1. The first Soviet helicopter constructed in 1948. It was used for training in flight schools until the mid-1970s.

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Tags: helicopter · museum · Torzhok city · Tver oblast

Not long ago, there were explosions in the arsenals of Udmurtia and Bashkortostan.
Currently, the storage and transportation of ammunition in Russian army often violate all sorts of safety rules.
Here is just one example of open storage of shells. There are about 90 railroad cars of 125 mm high-explosive shells in this dump. Not surprising that something always explodes in such storages. Photos from Yaplakal.com

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Tags: ammunition · shells · storage · transportation

Vozdvizhenka is an airbase located in Primorsky krai. Heavy bomber aviation regiment was deployed at the airbase armed with supersonic long-range strategic bombers Tupolev Tu-22M3.

In 2010 the regiment was disbanded, some aircraft was transferred to other airbases. The airframes of others are waiting to be cut for metal. The airfield is abandoned. The photos by KFSS.ru

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Tags: Abandoned · airbase · bombers · Primorye krai

June 2 about 23:30 MSK at the military unit in Udmurtia Republic near the village of Pugachevo an explosion occurred, which led to the detonation of ammunition. More than 28 thousand people were evacuated from nearby settlements. Real hell on earth.

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Tags: explosion · Udmurt republic

Commemorating the 66th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany in the central square of Moscow.

Full version of the parade:

The parade of military vehicles:

Tags: Moscow city · parade

What a nice example of Russian military genius :)

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Tags: church

The following pictures show the remains of Soviet military base located on Kolskiy peninsula (Murmansk oblast). Photos by miph.

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Tags: Abandoned · Kolskiy peninsula · military base · Murmansk oblast

According to one of the aspects of modernization of Russian army it will receive numerous inflatable dummy war machines of all types to confuse the possible enemy. The officials say it is almost impossible to find the difference even at the distance of about 100 meters.

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Tags: inflatable · war machines

Russian Black Sea Navy base located in Sevastopol city of Ukraine was one of the main issues of Ukrainian-Russian relationship last years. Today there is an agreement that the base will stay in Sevastopol till at least the years of 2042—2047.   The following pictures of some of the Navy ships were captured by Sergey Dolya (the photos are clickable).

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Tags: Black Sea · Navy