Karosta KGB Prison

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Before we went to Latvia, I have well prebooked ahead the Behind The Bars night stay at the Karosta Prison in Liepaja, Latvia.

Back in the Soviet days, before 1990, it was used to hold political prisoners, they shot more than 150 into death during the Soviet days, and the city of Liepaja was a sealed major military base for the Soviet era.

Needless to say the prison is no longer running and became famous scary red brick tourist attraction in the Baltics, but we were quite disappointed that, even thou I was become a prisoner and given a cell to sleep for a night, that night was only two of us staying in this KGB Ghost House, this jail game certainly only for a group thing or school children training but not for a solo backpacker like me to join the famous Behind The Bars game, the staffs told us there was not an opportunity to pay for the "trainers" to fool us around, force us to clean the toilet and beat the crap out of us all night.

Part of the KGB tour was a museum tour, before I was check in, and given a cell and linen, a young Latvian girl showed me what it looked like during Soviet times but when there is a real show at night, I have to pre-arrange with a group of 15 to become a real prisoner for a night, we were waiting in the cell until 7am but nothing was happening outhere. Thought I was well prepared to clean the shitty toilet at night.

This red brick house was pretty scary, sleeping on aluminium bed as the prisoners did in a cold, bloody, dark and scary jail cell was an experience compared with the mixed dorm bed in Singapore and beers session in Khao Sarn Road.

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