We found some interesting things in the ruins of this Superior Civilization™
Conscripts at this top secret spy facility in Latvia were supposed to be eavesdropping on NATO, but preferred tuning into German synth pop.
A post by 'the Marxist Research Collective' caught our eye.
The photo on the right was taken in East Berlin in 1979 at the 30th anniversary parade of the GDR.
The dignitaries are standing just 2km from their heavily fortified Berlin Wall. That same year, their own records show 3,688 people risked their lives attempting to flee beyond it, including an 18 year old Russian soldier they shot dead.
No evidence of that Superior Civilisation™ just yet.
Let's talk telescopes though.
The photo on the left is an RT-64 radio telescope in Russia.
It caught our eye because it's similar to the RT-32 radio telescope built by the Soviets at Irbene on the Western coast of Latvia to spy on the West.
It was left in ruins because the Soviets wrecked the place themselves on their way out. Despite agreeing in the terms of their withdrawal to leave facilities intact, they did everything possible to put the station permanently out of use.
They set off explosives inside, cut cables, poured acid into motors and cogs, and shred all schematics, manuals, and wiring diagrams.
They still left plenty of junk inside though, including some old tapes.
Here's the funny thing though. Some of those tapes were actually found to contain Western pop music.
As documented also by many people who worked at the facility (who were conscripted from across the Baltic countries), the disillusioned workers stationed at Irbene were using the Superior Civilization’s most advanced tech to circumvent the censorship imposed by.. er, that same Superior Civilization™.
About those ruins though
...which we mentioned in past tense.
The Soviets withdrew in the confident belief that the Latvians could never possibly use the station again. But Latvian scientists and engineers got down to work reverse engineering the whole facility.
They managed to restore it, then gave it an actual useful purpose.
They pointed the dish at the stars instead to advance humanity’s understanding of the cosmos.
The facility is now at the frontier of civilian science internationally, currently undergoing its fourth modernisation, led by nearby Ventspils University.
After we posted about all this, several keen readers asked why the Latvians couldn't build their own better telescopes instead.
Actually they did exactly that too.
This here below is the new Latvian-built LOFAR antenna array, next to the old RT-32.
It’s a massive upgrade in deep-space capabilities, more than 100 times as sensitive as previous telescopes operating at its frequencies and, unlike the old dish, it observes multiple areas of the sky simultaneously without mechanically repositioning.
It's now integrated into the world’s largest low-frequency radio telescope network, forming part of one giant array
Fortunately, they can focus on this kind of useful work because they don’t have to attend those dull parades and they have easier ways to listen to decent music.
Top secret synth pop
You can now take a tour of Irbene and see it all for yourself, including some of the tapes recorded while the Soviets were running the place.
It's not clear why a Superior Civilization™ would be so fearful of its people hearing music like "Ballet Dancer" by synth-pop duo the Twins, which reached 19 in the German charts in 1983:
