Devinska Kobyla

Devinska Kobyla - darkometer rating : 6 - Devinska Kobyla is the name of a hill to the north-west of Bratislava , Slovakia , with the suburb/village Devin at its foot. At the top there used to be a Cold-War -era anti-aircraft missile base during the times of the CSSR . The base was eventually abandoned after the end of the East-West confrontation (although for many years it was still guarded) and has meanwhile fallen into a state of ruin and is mostly stripped bare. But it is still quite exciting to clamber about the old missile hangars and other buildings, especially if you have a taste for “urban exploration”. > What there is to see > Location > Access and costs > Time required > Combinations with other dark destinations > Combinations with non-dark destinations > Photos What there is to see: Before you can see anything of note beyond the (pretty enough) forest, you have to hike up the old approach road leading to the summit of the hill, which is closed to regular car traffic. It's a paved road, though, so quite an easy walk, even if it's uphill for about a mile. Eventually you get to the poles that once supported the fence around the military site, but now there is no longer any gate or any other form of security. You can just go in. To the side of the road you can already make out shapes of buildings and the odd partially overgrown entrance to underground tunnels. But we first carried on further uphill to get to the first set of former hangars in which the missiles used to be stored back in the day. These missiles were Soviet S-125 Neva surface-to-air missile (SAM) rockets, i.e. they formed part of the anti-aircraft defence system for the protection of Bratislava – which due to its location right on the edge of the Iron Curtain was the most exposed larger city in the whole Eastern Bloc during the Cold-War period.