Riga-Spilve

56°59'28"N 024°04'30"E

(officially uncertified in March 2017)

Runway: 14/32 - 1600x50meters/...feet - asphalt (1000x23m usable)

Air field Spilve (also known as Riga-Spilve, ICAO: EVRS) was a civilian airfield in Northwest of Riga, Latvia.
The airfield was built in 1915, and the first use was by 12th Fighter Squadron flying Moranes, Sikorsky and Nieuport. They were later joined by a reconnaissance squadron with Voisin two-seaters. 
Initially the airfield was unusable each spring when the nearby Daugava River would flood the entire airfield. This changed later with the addition of drainage, pumps and sluices, but it never completely went away. On at least one occasion the airfield was flooded by massive chunks of ice, so aircraft had to be hauled up in their hangar to avoid damage.


No photos pre-1930s of the airfield have been located

After the Russian Revolution the Bolsheviks briefly held Riga. During this time they based their 1st Aviation Division ar Spilve, between December 1918 and February 1919. Their Nieuports used Riga as their primary base, with satellites at Sigulda, Cesis and Valmiera. Just before the Bolsheviks were driven from Riga three pilots and their aircraft defected from the Red Air Force. Three days later the German Sachsenberg Squadron was based at Spilve, until June 1919.
In November 1919 the airfield became the primary air base for the fledgling Latvian Air Force. During the 1920s affairs were relatively quiet, aside from the crashes that were frequent in aviation in those days. Besides being a military air field it also served as an international airfield, being a stopover in the Berlin-Moscow line, as well in lines to Talinn, Helsinki and Leningrad. Polish airline LOT used the airfield in its Helsinki-Tallinn-Riga-Vilnius-Warsaw-Lviv-Bucharest-Sofia-Thessaloniki-Athens route, with an extension to Palestine. Swedish Aerotransport (later called ABA) and Soviet Aeroflot used the airfield on the Stockholm-Moscow route. 
In the mid-1930s Spilve received upgrades. The airfield grew rapidly: from 40-50 passengers daily in 1936, to over 100 passengers in 1938. An administration building with control tower had been tendered in 1931, and construction finaly began in 1937. Construction of a new headquarters was begun in 1936, right next to the hangars, and additional hangars were erected in 1938.


1930 view of the station building at Spilve


An airship approaching Riga before World War II (source: Yandex.Fotki / Посмотреть на Яндекс.Фотках).


1939 Sales poster for the ABA-Aeroflot Stockholm to Moscow route

On 17 June 1940 Latvia was occupied by the Soviet Union and Spilve became a Soviet air base. A year later the Germans attacked the Soviet Union, including occupied Latvia. During the attack they bombed the airfield, blowing up a fuel depot. The ensueing fire spread to the new admin/control tower building, burning it to the ground. The Germans occupied Latvia and used Spilve as a German military airfield. 
When the Soviet troops reached the outskirts of Riga in October 1944 German artillery took up positions at the edge of Spilve airfield. While their artillery shelled the Soviets, German sappers exploded buried explosive charges every 20 metres along Spilve's runways. Then they dynamited the control tower, hangars and all other buildings on the airfield. Civilians still in Riga reported they heard detonations and watched large fires burning, starting very early in the morning and continuing for hours until the demolition was complete. The Soviets captured the city and its airfield on 13 October 1944.
In the end, all the Latvian buildings were destroyed during the war.

After the war, Spilve remained under control of the Soviet Ministry of Civil Aviation. Initially only on Baltic services, Riga Central Airport soon became an national airport to the entire Soviet Union. 
In May 1954 a new station building was completed at what was now known as Riga Central Airport, designed in the Soviet neoclassical style by architect S. Vorobjevs. Until 1975 airport Spilve was one of the largest airports in the western part of the USSR, receiving more than 50 airplanes daily. When a new airport was completed in 1975, Spilve lost its meaning and until 1986 it was only used for local flights.
Until the late 1980s it was used as a training airfield for students of the Riga Civil Aviation Intitute.


Nikita Khrushchev arriving at Spilve in 1960 with a Soviet Li-2 (licence built DC-3) in the background (source: Yandex.Fotki / Посмотреть на Яндекс.Фотках).


Aeroflot Tu134 SSSR-65645 at Spilve in September 1994 (Aviamuseum, Riga)


The Soviet designed neoclassical terminal building as photographed in 2007 (Wikipedia).

In the 1990s the airfield became known as the Spilve Aviation Center. After Latvian independence it was was used as a private flight and parachute training airport. 
Early in the 21st century the airfield was closed however, and the owner -the city council of Riga- began looking for an investor for the airport. It's architecturally interesting airport terminal building is in critical condition.


The Soviets liked grandeur wherever foreigners could see it, such as inside the Riga Spilve airport terminal (photographed in August 2010, via Wikipedia).


Spilve airfield in 2009 (Google Earth)

On 14 July 2011 a notice on the airfields website claimed the airfield was open. The message read: "Despite the notam A0177/11, airfield is open and fully operational. Cancellation was purely legal paperwork problem." The news section of the page said: "14.07.2011 AD inspection was successful, the license will be renewed very soon." MyAirfields describes the airfield as 'Good'. The airfield is strictly 6HRS PPR (by e-mail: info@spilve.org is required) for pilots not based in Spilve; for operations outside AD operational hours 18HR PPR is required. 
In March 2017 the English website of the airfield displayed the following message: 

Spilve airfield chart (EVRS AD 4.2, July 2011, pending approval)


Spilve airfield map (EVRS AD 4.2, July 2011, pending approval)