Vatega (also Onega Andozero (US)), ''Ватега авиабазы'', is an abandoned air base in

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

located 16 km east of the port town of

Onega, Arkhangelsk Oblast Onega (russian: Оне́га) is a town in the northwest of Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia, situated at the mouth of the Onega River, a few kilometers from the shore of the Onega Bay of the White Sea. Population: History The Pomor village of Ust ...

and 127 km southwest of

Arkhangelsk Arkhangelsk (, ; rus, Арха́нгельск, p=ɐrˈxanɡʲɪlʲsk), also known in English as Archangel and Archangelsk, is a city and the administrative center of Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia. It lies on both banks of the Northern Dvina near ...

. It was designed as a highly modernized, large airfield for the Soviet Union's heavy bomber fleet. The earliest available Western intelligence documents identified the airfield in 1977 as under construction. Some Russian sources claim the airfield was intended to serve as an alternate landing site for the Soviet 'Buran' space shuttle. Construction ceased in the mid-1980s due to the slowdown in the Russian economy, and the military abandoned the property in 1995.Vatega Village
in Russian, accessed 2019-01-09. During the late 1990s and early 2000s, Vatega was extensively dismantled and sold for scrap. Around 2004 some of the guilty parties were reportedly convicted and either sent to prison or forced to pay heavy fines.
via archive.org

References

Russian Air Force bases Soviet Air Force bases Buildings and structures in Arkhangelsk Oblast Aviation in Arkhangelsk Oblast {{Russia-mil-stub