Aircraft engine testing laboratory

During the Soviet era, there was a strange object north of Spilves Street, if the memory is not wrong - with two low rectangular "mega-chimneys" built of red bricks, from where a reactive sound similar to the roar of aircraft engines was quite often heard.

The people said that there was a place to repair or test the engines of warplanes. The noise from the terrible chimneys was so loud that it could be heard and even "felt" within a radius of several kilometers. How often did this happen? Hard to remember, but either once a month or two for sure. Already in independence, I had the opportunity to stay in the area officially - then the owners told me that there are still tanks with aviation fuel or some other chemical substance underground. The former military territory (between Spilves and Dzirciema streets) can be viewed very well from the remains of the dunes, which are located south of Spilves Street, both “in them” and nowadays. Across Dzirciema Street was a huge tractor repair factory, where the army's rolling stock was also repaired.

Wrote down this story: Juris Smaļinskis