Northern Forts

The Northern Forts are one of the most famous and unusual parts of the Liepāja Naval Fortress in Karosta. This vast complex of defensive fortifications was built at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century by order of the Russian tsar to protect the military base from possible enemy attacks.

The story of the forts is dramatic – just a few years after their construction, as strategic plans changed, the fortress was deemed the result of a tactical error, and in 1908 it was ordered to be dismantled. Attempts were made to blow up some of the bunkers, but the quality of the concrete used in tsarist Russia was so high that many structures survived almost intact. Today the forts are irreversibly shaped by another force – the waves of the Baltic Sea, which over the decades have washed away the shore, causing the enormous concrete bunkers to majestically slide and collapse right into the water.