On a gusty Saturday afternoon in March, two men crack open a Soviet-made hangar, then scramble to slow the door’s movement as gravity takes over. The 33-ton blast door rumbles along a steel track tilting gently downhill. Inside the vast bomb-resistant cavern, a jumble of light aircraft are flooded with daylight.

The armored aircraft hangar is part of the Milovice Aeroclub, which has established itself on an abandoned Soviet air base 40 kilometers northeast of Prague.

Today, in shelters designed for Soviet fighter jets, small sports planes are kept in some of the most secure conditions in Europe.

The Milovice military facility began as a barracks and training ground for the Austrian Army in 1904, and was later used by Czechoslovak, then occupying Nazi, forces during World War II.

After the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, occupying Soviet forces equipped the base with armored hangars and other war-ready infrastructure.

A city for tens of thousands of Soviet soldiers and their families was set up near the air base, connected by a direct train from Moscow to Milovice, which ran daily.

“They were like a state within a state,” Tomas Nosek, the chairman of the Milovice Aeroclub told RFE/RL, adding that the only significant remnants of the Soviet military presence that remain today are the “eight hangars that we currently use,” and the reinforced runway.

Nosek says the armored hangar doors are "very impractical," for the hobby pilots and the club has swapped out several with lightweight entrances. "For now, we have actually replaced the doors at five of the eight hangars," but he adds, "one is designated as a cultural monument, so nothing will change there."

Soviet troops began withdrawing from Milovice in February 1990 amid the collapse of communism in Europe. By June 1991, the last soldier had departed.

After the Soviet departure, locals discovered remnants of destroyed aircraft and other detritus. Several unexploded munitions have been discovered on the territory of the former Soviet base since 1991.

Since the Soviet withdrawal, several plans have been floated to revive the area. A wildlife reserve has been successfully established on a forested section of the territory, where bison and wild horses now roam.

So far, however, only the Milovice Aeroclub has been able to give new life to the military infrastructure left behind by the Soviet troops.

“It’s an ideal place,” Nosek says, inside the hardened hangar where his light aircraft sits waiting for its next flight, “the temperature is constant inside, which is good for us.”