Kolka Coast Guard Observation Tower
Hidden in the last pine trees of Cape Kolka is a border guard tower, where a border guard post was constantly located during the Soviet era, and the small stone building next to it is now abandoned and falling into ruin.
The top of the tower now looks a little worn, although after the declaration of national independence, our border guards also observed the sea coast up there, which now, it seems, have been replaced by modern electronic radar equipment, which probably meets all NATO standards. In the USSR, border guards observed and controlled the waters of the Irbe Strait from this tower, and in those days it was said that even a duck could not swim through this strait without the knowledge of the border guards. The Irbe Strait separated the Small Sea, or the Gulf of Riga, from the Great Sea, or the open waters of the Baltic Sea. Such a concept as the Open Sea has long since disappeared from our vocabulary with the departure of the Soviet army and has been successfully forgotten. The open sea was a concept that arose during the so-called Cold War and designated the territory from which a threat to the mighty Soviet Union could arise and come, or, what was no less bad, someone could decide to cross the Iron Curtain and get across the sea to the decaying West, taking with them some important and undisclosed secret of the Soviet Union. Therefore, this strait, which was so similar to a bottle neck, was very closely controlled and monitored. And these functions were performed not only by the border guard armed with a telescope and a Kalashnikov assault rifle at the end of the Kolka Cape tower and the radar station located nearby, but also by the border guard patrol ships that were constantly in this strait. Every boat and ship that crossed this strait was carefully checked if necessary. These sailors especially did not like sailors, whom they probably considered to be chasers in the style of capitalist rich people. That is why border patrol ships have often deliberately approached very quickly and, while mooring, have broken the sides of yachts with their sides – they say, there is no one to mess around with here! Many yachts that have passed through the Irbe Strait have been deliberately harmed in this way. It is also worth noting that in Soviet times, appearing at Cape Kolka to enjoy the roar of the sea and the Kolka lighthouse in the distance was not so easy, because there was a special territory here that could not be entered so easily, you needed passes. And if someone pulled a camera out of their bag here, it could end in the best case with forced exposure of film or in the worst case with detention, identification of the person and maybe even interrogation....
About sailing - Egons Stieģelis, former captain of the yacht "Spaniel".
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German army coastguard searchlight site in Usi and border guard post in Kolka
No military infrastructure was planned in Cape Kolka, except for several offshore lighthouses that were rebuilt over a long period of time, either before World War I, during World War I or during World War II. Coastal defence batteries were planned for the narrowest part of the Irbe Strait, between the Sirves Peninsula and the Michael Tower Lighthouse.
The only fortifications of a military nature appeared at the end of 1944, when the German Army Group North was preparing to repel possible landings by the Soviet Baltic Fleet. In the spring of 1945, after the ice retreated, two batteries of the 532nd Artillery Division defended the coast at Cape Kolka. Battery 7 with four 75 mm guns and three 20 mm zenith guns. Battery 8 with four 88 mm mortars, three 20 mm mortars and an 81 mm mortar. The anti-deserter infantry garrison consisted of one of the most famous coastal defence units of the German Navy, the 5th Company of the 531st Artillery Division. Although it was an artillery unit by name, it was an infantry unit by deployment, which started its war in June 1941 at Liepāja. The unit was then garrisoned on islands in the Gulf of Finland and later took part in the fighting on the island of Saaremaa. The remnants of the division were reformed into one company and, reinforced with seven anti-tank guns and three 20 mm anti-aircraft guns, deployed at Cape Kolka.
The Soviet naval landing operation never took place and the German units capitulated in May 1945.
The military infrastructure in Cape Kolka began to be built after the Second World War, when Soviet border guard posts were deployed here and Kolka, like the entire Kurzeme coast from Mērsrags to the Lithuanian border, became a closed zone
