Megra River

65°47'56"N 041°55'55"E

Runway: 08/26 - ...meters/...feet - steel plates

The story on this airfield is different from all other descriptions.
In fact, I am not sure if this airfield ever existed.
It keeps appearing in search results on Russian sites whenever you look for Luftwaffe airfields in Russia. By combining information I have come up with the following summary. If you know more about this (or a similar) airfield, please contact me!

In the summer of 1988 the wreck of a Soviet Pe-3 two-engined fighter was discovered in the marshy tundras of Archangelsk. A search in the Soviet archives by local historians revealed the aircraft had been piloted by Lt. Voloyda. He and his wingman were listed as MIA since November 1942.
While the search ended his mysterious disappearance, it revealed another mystery. The frontlines of World War II were a several thousand kilometers away, yet this aircraft was riddled with 30mm bulletholes. What had happened?
Soviet Air Force Navigators calculated it was possible to fly from a German Air Base in the Kola peninsula over the White Sea to Arkhangelsk. They would have a few seconds to fire on the Pe-3s, and then immediately have to head back, in order to have enough fuel to reach home. The timing to meet with the Soviet war planes would have to be perfect, without any coordination.
In other words: the scenario would be next to impossible.

In the east of the Arkhangelsk region, near Lake Okulov, members of the local population had stumbled upon a large sand plain packed with large steel plates a few years later. The odd discoverey became more clear when they discovered ruins of wooden buildings on the edge of the plain. Inside them they found a radio transmitter, aviation fuel drums and smaller artifacts of German soldiers during World War II. They appeared to have found a secret Luftwaffe airfield. The disappearance of Lt. Voloyda and his wingman began to make sense.


No photos have been located.

Ever since the end of World War I the Germans had been researching the Arctic region. By using airships like the Graf Zeppelin, aircraft and ships, they had been looking for locations to set up research stations. Weather stations were set up along the north coasts of the Soviet Union and Finland (before World War II, Finland had an Arctic coast). They also began building a naval support station (Basis Nord) large enough to handle cruisers northwest of Murmansk in what was then Finland. It featured an airfield, which was also used to suppport a secret German weather station on the Soviet Alexandra Land (Russian: Земля Александры, Zemlya Aleksandry). It seems like the airfields (plural) were part of a secret German plan to secure parts of a northern route to the Pacific.
During World War II the airfield was appearantly used to fly to Japan and to perform sting operations throughout the Soviet Union all the way to behind the Ural mountains. Russian internet sources suggest that a similar temporary German airfield existed on the steppes of Kazachstan for two weeks without being noticed. The airfield probably also took part in Operation Zeppelin, the German operation to drop operatives behind enemy lines by KG200 with Ar-232 cargo aircraft and lastly it was probably used for meteorological flights with Ju90s.


Satellite view of the airfield as can be found on Wikimapia

Due to its secretive nature it is not known when the airfield was closed. Soviet/Russian researchers that have been to the airfield did not some back with recognisable photos. To the best of my knowledge the only photo that exists of the airfield is the undated satellite photo shown above.
No expeditions were made to the airfield after 1990.

An article on the airfield was first published in 1990 in the Soviet magazine Техника молодежи (Technical Youth).