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
[Music]
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
and uh 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
chansk in ukrainian volcansk 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
both chance 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 and 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 to 10
years from now there won't be anything
left
[Music]
just my luck it is raining
oh
[Music]
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
um 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 um
the actual coordinates to put into
google maps and how to find it so i'm
gonna hope that that was uh 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
yes we need you
[Laughter]
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
bill gorad
is uh 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
of 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
[Laughter]
bingo
[Music]
do
[Music]
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 um 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 okay no i can't do it while
filming one sec
oh wow look at this
okay i'm gonna 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
some of the buttons
are still intact
a lever that says stop gran
stop the
crank
i don't know what that means but uh
yeah
interesting i've actually thought about
getting my pilot's license uh
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 is even
an echo
a little bit of an echo
and just a drop out of the plane
um 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 uh
i think i'm just gonna get the heck out
of here
[Music]
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 uh
my work here is done i'm gonna get on
the next bus
to hardcove and i hope you enjoyed this
video i'm sending you lots of love and
keep being your own kind of beautiful
[Music]