Soviet military ghost town under the hammer

Latvia's state privatisation agency is putting an entire garrison town up for auction today which has lain empty since the departure of Russian troops from the ex-Soviet republic a decade ago.

A starting price of 150,000 lats (€216,000) has been set for the once-secret Soviet military community of Skrunda-1, which is now a ghost town, when it goes under the hammer.

The lot includes 45 hectares of land, 10 apartment blocks, two nightclubs, a shopping centre, kindergarten, barracks and a sauna complex.

Lack of maintenance over the years has taken its toll on the empty buildings, but a handful of would-be buyers have been eying the site, located 150 kilometres west of the Latvian capital Riga.

"We already have several companies who expressed an interest in the property," said Anete Fridensteina-Bridina, a spokesperson for the privatization agency, adding that she was hopeful the sale would go through.

Skrunda-1 was one of the closed communities dotted across the Soviet Union that housed military or scientific facilities, plus employees and their families.

Located just outside the regular town of Skrunda, Skrunda-1 was an anti-ballistic missile radar base set up in the 1970s.

But after the end of the Cold War, Skrunda-1 became a symbol of the post-Cold War "peace dividend", as Latvia and Russia signed an accord on dismantling its two radar sites.

One was demolished in 1995 and the other - the largest in the Baltic - ceased operations in 1998.

The last Russian soldier left Skrunda-1 the following year.

Moscow took over Latvia during World War II, and kept it in its grip until the Soviet Union crumbled in 1991.