Exploring An Abandoned Soviet Airfield (near the Ukrainian/Russian border)

This is possibly one of the most random places that I have ever felt called to go. And to be honest, I don't know why I even feel called to go to an abandoned airfield on the border of Russia. So I've still got at least a half hour until my bus leaves, so I'm going to try and find some kind of coffee place in this market. We made it to the station with 10 minutes to spare. I did want to get a proper Americano, not just an instant coffee, so it took a while to find a place. But yeah, this is the little station, Avtostantsiya, and I think my bus will be coming to the third platform and we will be off. Today's adventure, my friends, is brought to you by my intuition and randomly scrolling on Google Maps, zooming into random places along the Ukrainian-Russian border, until I came across a little town called Vovchansk in Ukrainian, Volchansk in Russian, and there was just something about it that piqued my interest, and with more research, I really did find it had a lot to offer. I wouldn't say that I'm a person that's deeply interested in history, but there is something to be said of actually going to see history in real life. From 1956 to 1969, Vovchansk hosted the aviation technical center called DOSAF. Cadets from all 15 republics of the USSR studied at this flight school, primarily men from ages 17 to 21. After the fall of the Soviet Union, a lot of the aircrafts were left abandoned, primarily the Aero L-29 Delphin and the Antonov An-2. So as a Soviet Union baby myself, I was born at the very tail end of it all, I thought that I would go pay my respects to this airplane graveyard because there is a very good chance that in 5-10 years from now, there won't be anything left. Just my ******* luck, it is raining. Well I guess it's not fair to say that I have the worst luck after going to get something to eat and coming back out, it looks like the weather has taken a turn. And I will say from first glance, there is definitely more going on in this city than I expected. It is about a population of 18,000 people. Now as far as the abandoned airfield, I think I know how to find it. There was one article online that actually gave me the actual coordinates to put into Google Maps and how to find it, so I'm going to hope that that was correct, but we still have a ways to go, so I'll give you guys a little tour of the town as we get there. Excuse me, could you tell me if I should go to the old airfield? Yes. Yes? Yes. And is it a long way? Yes, it's a long way. Yes? Yes. Okay, thank you. It's straight, straight, straight. Well, I can go there, right? Is there no guard or something? No, I can take a picture? Okay, okay, thank you. Well, the good news is that I think I do have the right place and I should be able to film and take pictures there, no problem, because somebody had actually commented on one of the threads about this place that there were guards there, that there was like some kind of guard dogs, so I don't need to be in some abandoned airfield and get attacked by a German shepherd or something. If I'm not mistaken, Belgorod is in Russia, which translates to White City, basically. What I would actually like to know is how easy it is for Ukrainians to get into Russia right now. Obviously, there hasn't been any public transportation or even planes that go directly between the two countries ever since 2014, but with COVID going on, I don't know how that has actually affected the whole situation. Well, crap. I just saw a literal German shepherd go down into the bushes. Oh, Lord, please be friendly. I don't know what the smell is that's in the air, but it's very strong and it reminds me of paint. Paint or some kind of other really weird chemical. And I'm wondering what the two sort of buildings that I just passed are, because it had like big signs that like, do not enter without permission and all that kind of stuff. I really don't know what is in this area, because there's nothing that gives you any information on the map. Ha ha ha ha. Ah ha ha ha. Bingo. Number three. Three, for those of you who don't know, is my lucky number. It always has been. So this must be the plane for me. They did say that you are allowed to climb these. You know, it's not exactly well taken care of, so let's see if we can climb on top of this bad boy. Oh, Lord, this is actually a bit slow. OK, no, I can't do it while filming. One sec. Oh, wow. Look at this. OK, I'm going to stand up and hopefully not slip. Whoa, that is cool. Look at that. So now we're inside and I'm hoping there's nothing in here that could possibly explode. But this is really cool. So some of the buttons are still intact. A lever that says stop the crank. I don't know what that means, but yeah, interesting. I've actually thought about getting my pilot's license at random intervals in my life, but to be honest, I don't think it's for me. Like, it actually really scares me to be the one in control of an airplane, even if I'm like the only one in it. It just seems really scary. Now I think we're about to get into something a little bit different. These kinds of planes I have absolutely never seen before. I mean, I think I've actually seen these kinds in old movies, you know, the two tiered sort of wings. Wow. This plane is huge. There's even an echo. A little bit of an echo. And just a drop out of the plane. Let's take a look. Oh, Jesus. So there is actually a shed right behind me that has a really cool looking helicopter inside. But there was this car of two guys that just pulled up and is still there. And I could be wrong, but I'm getting like bad vibes. Bad vibes from them. So I'm just gonna head out. I think we've seen plenty. We've seen a lot. And I think I'm just gonna get the heck out of here. So I have one last surprise for you guys, which is also abandoned. An abandoned pilot school that they had here in the Soviet Union. I already see one of the murals here right in front of me. Hello. Hi, baby. We have made a friendship. Oh, you want some love too, huh? Yeah. I have some bad news, guys. I'm almost certain that this is the building, but everything is barricaded. I'm gonna still look on one more side, but somehow I doubt it. It is kind of crazy to think that I am 10 kilometers from Russia. Like, I could actually walk to the border from here. Of course, they wouldn't let me in because, first of all, Canadians need a visa, which I don't have. And right now, Russia's not even accepting Canadians to enter. It's such a strange thing, isn't it? Like, how do we decide that this part of the world is this country, and this border right here divides us, and people have one kind of culture on this side, and people have a totally different one on the other. It's a really strange thing when you think about it, how we've kind of divided up the world. A few moments later. Oh, no. Why? Okay, guys, I think my work here is done. I'm gonna get on the next bus to Kharkiv, and I hope you enjoyed this video. I'm sending you lots of love, and keep being your own kind of beautiful.