Pstrąże

The first mention of Pstrąże comes from the year 1305, when it belonged to the estate of the Kliczkowskis and its name was recorded as Pstransse. It is estimated that at the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries, a small defensive castle stood here.[6] In 1865, many of the village's structures were destroyed by a fire. Until the end of the 19th century, inhabitants of Pstrąże made a living by grazing cattle and sheep as well as smelting iron.[9]

In 1901, due to the creation of a proving ground in Świętoszów (then Neuhammer am Queis in the German Empire), renovation and reconstruction efforts to turn the village into a place of use for the German Imperial Army began. Military barracks and stables were built, a railway siding was connected from Leszno Górne, and a concrete bridge over the river Bóbr was constructed. After World War I, the stables were converted into garages.[9]

Toward the end of World War II, during the retreat of the Wehrmacht, the old bridge was blown up to prevent Soviet armies from pushing onward. Pstrąże, or Strans as it was known in German at the time, was captured by the Red Army on 10 February 1945. The place was initially inaccessible to Poles even after the forced resettlement of Polish families from the former Polish territories in the east, since, to make the movement of Polish civilians in the military area more difficult, the road section of the bridge had not been rebuilt.[9]

From that point, Pstrąże was not officially listed on the maps. The military part of the city was separated from the civilian part by a wall. Everything inside the military section was kept top secret. Urban legends as well as assumptions based on partial evidence have it that the Soviet troops kept nuclear weapons in the secret section of the village.[2] The military part was fully equipped with hangars and garages for trucks, whereas the civilian district had many amenities of a normal town: not only residential tower blocks, but also shops, a school, a cinema, a theatre, etc.[5]

It was mostly the following units that were stationed in Pstrąże, which became known as Strachów during the years of the Polish People's Republic, when Poland was a satellite state of the Soviet Union:

• 14th Heavy Artillery Brigade of the Polish People's Army (from 1948 till 1951)
• 510th Independent Training Tank Regiment (JW 74858) (in July 1989 transferred to Kamenka in the Leningrad Oblast)
• 76th Orsha Tank Regiment (JW 52801) (partly, from July 1989 to 1991, earlier in Świętoszów)
• 255th Mechanised Regiment of the Guards (JW 61412) (on 30 October 1982 transferred to Volgograd)
• 144th Mechanised Regiment (JW 61412) (from 30 October 1982 until 1992)
• 27th Mobile Missile and Technical Base (JW 81859) (until 1990)
• 8th Orsha Guard Tank Regiment (unknown period)
• Independent Repair Battalion, subordinate to command in Legnica (Military Unit 31728) (in the years 1989–1991)

Despite Strachów's relatively secret status as a zone of strategic importance, and even though it was surrounded by a series of fences with barbed wire and guard dogs, trade between Soviet soldiers and Polish locals bloomed. It became known in Polish as Mały Związek Radziecki (Little Soviet Union). Poles entered side passages and used the village shops; small chocolate sweets were reportedly in great demand, as well as fuel that was cheaper and of higher quality than what was available to Polish citizens at the time, as recalled by locals.[4] Reportedly, over 100 T-72 and T-64 tanks were based in the military area.[1]

Until 1992 the town was occupied by the Soviet Army, but Russia continued to consider it an object of strategic importance and did not officially hand it over to Polish authorities until 1994.[1] Over 10,000 soldiers with their families lived here before it became a ghost town,[9] with the total number of inhabitants potentially reaching up to 15,000 people.[1] After Russian troops had completely left the village, the Polish Army began guarding the town on 10 April 1993 to secure the property for purposes of later settlement. In 1995, following the decision of the Head of the District Office in Bolesławiec, the settlement plan was abandoned, guarding was cancelled, and the town was incorporated into the proving ground. Skeletons of the buildings were then used by GROM, the special unit of Polish commandos, for military exercises and training.[5] Regular armed forces, the fire brigade, search and rescue, and police also trained here from time to time.[3] However, explorers and looters visited the town too and took anything left of any value that could be sold for profit.[4]

Finally, in October 2016, demolition of the abandoned buildings began and continued through 2017; the local authorities could no longer afford to upkeep the ruined structures, which had become dangerous to the public over time (Pstrąże had become a destination for enthusiasts of urban exploration as well as occasional vagrants). The area is to be eventually levelled, cleaned, and allocated for new investments.[5]