HRADČANY Airport

The airfield, along the edge of which you can walk, run, skate or cycle, is huge at first glance. After all, the airport built by the Germans at the end of World War II is one of the largest of its kind in Europe. But the Wehrmacht was no longer able to finish the concrete runway, which seems to stretch out infinitely in front of you. It was finished thanks to Czechoslovak soldiers in the early 1950s. On the morning of 21 August 1968, airliners, fighter aircraft and helicopters of friendly armies landed here.

Hradčany Airport basically became a Soviet base. At the time, the runway was extended to its current length of 2,800 meters (with a width of 90 meters), because Soviet pilots allegedly had difficulty landing between the rocky outcrops and pine forests. Runway heating was also established, because the airport was used as a backup for the landing of the unmanned Buran spacecraft. After Soviet soldiers left 1991, it was left to its fate.