Aviation Museum “SKY ZOO” Military equipment
65
The Aviation Museum “Sky Zoo” is located in Smārde parish, Tukums municipality, in the territory of Jūrmala Airport that was once the Tukums Military Airfield. The exhibit includes aircrafts YAK-40, AN-2, SU22M4, PZL TS-11 Iskra and a helicopter MI-24. Tour of the airfield includes hangars, caponiers and engineering equipment. The airfield was used by both the German and Soviet armies. During the Soviet occupation it was one of the most important military airfields in the territory of Latvia. The fighters stationed there were intended to attack enemy ships and bomb coastal fortifications. On the night of 9 November 1975, a battle alarm was received at the Tukums airfield – there was enemy warship in the territorial waters of the Soviet Union (in the Gulf of Riga), and it had to be destroyed. Several planes took off from Tukums. However, it turned out that it was the Soviet naval warship ‘Storozhevoi’ (Guardian) on which an armed mutiny against the existing Soviet regime took place. When the planes reached the warship, the battle was still ongoing. Later the rebel leader Valery Sablin, a Soviet naval officer, was wounded and the mutiny ended. He was sentenced to death for treason. This was one of the most dramatic events showing the discontent with the regime and marking the approach of its collapse.
Used sources and references:
Official website of Jurmala airport. Available at: https://jurmalaairport.com/lv [Reviewed: 27.03.2021.].
Čimurs, P. Tukums militarists do not obey. Day, No.57. 1992
Ozola, A. Tukums. Old Town. Streets and houses, their inhabitants. Tukums Museum. 2007.
Шигин В. В. Мятежный “Сторожевой”. Последний парад капитана 3-го ранга Саблина. Вече, 2013.
Related timeline
Related topics
Related stories
Were nuclear warheads buried at Tukums airfield?
Former commander of the guard Aivars Skurstenis has applied for an open conversation to the Tukums district newspaper "Neatkarīgās Tukuma Ziņas". He was once a reserve officer and a front-line bodyguard, who in 1993 was offered a guard position in the agricultural company "Durbe" headed by Laimonis Mucenieks. The office - Līvāni house - had to be guarded there. That is the beginning of the story.
War airfield near Tukums
Today, in Soviet times, army destroyers stood in barely visible, overgrown hangars on the highway to Tukums. Even in those days, the airfield with hangars was disguised and ignorant people did not know about it.
Tukums reserve aerodrome management in the 90s.
With the departure of the Soviet occupation forces, the looting of many former war bases began. Soviet soldiers tried to take out as much as possible and leave the degraded infrastructure. After the departure of the troops, these bases continued to be looted by civilians and to exploit former military infrastructure.
The secret of Tukums airfield
Tukums airfield keeps a secret that no one has solved yet - is there really a nuclear missile warhead in the territory of the airfield, which is ordered there by the special service of the Russian army, I left the airfield in the 90s?
The story of Cīrava airfield
Cīrava airfield - created during the Second World War, used by the Soviets as a DOSAAF airfield, currently used for agricultural purposes and recreational trips, as well as Soviet-era aircraft on display in the hangar