Soviet Ghost Town

The forest is slowly eating the crumbling buildings within this ghost town. Once a bustling Soviet military base, it now looks like an eerie post-apocalyptic wasteland.

Szentkirályszabadja was mainly built in the 1960s to house Soviet soldiers. It functioned like a tiny town for the soldiers and their families, forming an isolated, self-sustaining community. It had many fixtures you’d expect to see in any civilian town, like schools, a movie theater, pubs, and restaurants, though most of the base was dominated by large blocks of barracks.

After the Soviet Union fell in the late 1980s, many of the residents left the base. The Hungarian Defense Forces were gradually laid off, and the nearby war helicopter regiment became defunct in 2004. Now, the base’s only visitors are curious urban explorers and the occasional airsoft players, who dart and duck around the many neglected buildings.

It didn’t take long for the abandoned town to begin looking like a scene from an end-of-the-world action thriller. The buildings have begun to fade and fall. Greenery creeps over the unused streets and climbs the walls of the derelict structures. Nature is reclaiming the site from civilization, slowly clutching it within its grasp.