Guns? Check. Tanks? Check. Earplugs? Eh? Earplugs? Eh?

This past weekend Melissa and I, along with a half dozen others, took a trip out to Modlin Fortress to see a reenactment of the Battle of Berlin. The fortress itself was fascinating, the reenactment was... well, we'll get there.

Modlin is over 200 hundred years old and has the interesting distinction of being built by four nations: Poland, Russia, France, and Germany. The fortress is situated on a slope above the mouths of the Narew and Vistula rivers. The fortress itself (the building Melissa is standing on and which can be seen in the background to her left) is about 2.5 km long, which makes it one of the longest buildings in Europe. For an impressive picture of the fortress you can click over to their official website¹.

The entire military base around the fort once occupied more than 100 square kilometers and contained, among other things, its own airfield. Currently the airfield is not in use, but it is in the process of being converted into an international cargo and civil airlines hub.

The building across the river is not a part of the fortress, but actually predates it. Originally a granary, it was used by more than one nation as a storehouse for plunder stolen from the Polish people until a German plane dropped a bomb on it in World War II.

This is a section of the outer walls of the fortress. Apparently the large hooks in the ceiling were actually used to hang (and fire) cannons. Another interesting fact: when these walls were being constructed each individual brick was soaked in water and then weighed to verify their consistency was identical. If a brick didn't pass the test it was thrown out.

Melissa entering an underground section of the walls. This area is completely open to anyone who just wanders in, which would never fly in U.S. God I love Europe.

A picture I took sans flash while we were underground. There is no installed lighting anywhere in the complex. The only illumination we had came from the two flashlights various members of our group had. We were no where near those group members.

This is what the catacombs (for lack of a better word) look like when all lit up. The scary thing is we didn't know what it looked like until we were out and could take a good look at this picture.

Celine. One of the two flashlight carriers. She loved that headlamp so much that Pan Jan (her father) had a hard time convincing her to give it back to our tour guide, or, as Celine referred to her, "the red lady."

I'm standing in front of the base's watertower. It's a little overgrown now, but you can still see its unique architectural style peeking out above the brush. This is design with a purpose at its best: this water tower was designed specifically to look like anything other than a water tower, especially from the air. The enormous basin is completely enclosed within ornately designed stone walls and the soldiers were prohibited from congregating around it during the day. The idea being to avoid drawing attention to the base's only supply of water.

We now come to the reenactment. The costumes were good. The acting was fine. The narration was done via a loud speaker and was in Polish so we had a hard time catching enough we could understand to have any clue as to what was going on, but that was hardly the fault of the organizers. The problem was the location.

You can see 50% of the problem in this picture: the building. What you can't see is the hill that we're standing on across the street from the building. Unfortunately, the hill is very steep and runs the length of the building. The end result is something not unlike a very large, very echoey hallway. Okay, so we're basically all standing in a huge hallway. Fine. Good. Whatever. Then the men with the guns showed up.

Alright, so now we've got a long echoey hallway that we're all trapped in and men are firing guns. Loud? Yes. Headache inducing? Yes. Unbearable? Only for the dogs who had the misfortune of being there.

Then the tank² arrived and we all suddenly wished that we were dead.

In the end it was a successful trip. A little loud towards the end, but we survived somehow. And for those of you who are wondering, the Russians won. The side with the tank often does.

-Dave

¹The website still lists Modlin as the longest building in Europe. However, our guide assured us that this is no longer the case.

²That's a T-34 tank for those who, like my father, were wondering.