Trying remember info on the two former Soviet "closed cities" that I saw, I've finally had my memory jogged as to their names.
I'm not sure if there were other closed cities but I imagine that there could very well have been more.
The two that I visited are located in the same region of Poland and are, relatively speaking, close to the German border.
Borne Sulinowo: This is the place I was thinking of when I mentioned that the townsfolk were using one of the barracks buildings as a storehouse. I went there to see a military vehicle show, the International Gathering of Military Vehicles (an event well worth attending if you're a military vehicle fan, they had plenty of Eastern European vehicles but also some rarities like a West German SPz 11 in running order).
Wiki page for the town
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borne_Sulinowo
Another webpage:
http://www.intopoland.com/what-to-se...-sulinowo.html
This town was apparently an important location for the Soviet's Northern Group of Forces according to the following website: -
http://coldwarsites.net/country/pola...-military-town
That website also lists another Soviet town, Legnica although I never visited the city so I don't personally know anything about it: -
http://coldwarsites.net/country/pola...-military-town
There's also an aeroclub based in the town now and they can make use of a large strip of grassed land near the former barracks area. I don't know if the Soviet base actually had an airfield or not but this grassed strip easily accommodates smaller aircraft such as the An-2 (someone was operating An-2 flights during the military vehicle show when I was there).
There is a small cemetary outside the town that was exclusively for Soviet personnel (it's located in a wooded area but not in the same area as the graveyard currently in use by the townspeople since the town was handed over to Poland in 1992). Looking at Google maps I can see that the Soviet cemetary is further down the road from the local cemetary and on Google maps it's listed (in Polish) as Radziecki Cmentarz Wojskowy and can be found at the junction of the main road Wojska Polskiego and a side road with the alphanumeric title of 1299Z.
Photo webpage:
http://it_bornesulinowo.republika.pl...lder/index.htm
Some of the Soviet personnel buried there are from the 1940s-50s and some of the grave monuments are... interesting...
There's a good picture here of what I mean: -
https://www.tripadvisor.com.au/Attra...rn_Poland.html
Many, many more photos to be found here: -
https://www.tripadvisor.com.au/Attra...rn_Poland.html
Kłomino: A smaller closed city that can be found in the same region as Borne Sulinowo but largely abandoned now with many of the buildings demolished by the nearby town council for use in making base material for road repair. Everything that could be looted has been and was probably done in the 1990s after the Soviets left. Another former Wehrmacht military town that was taken over by the Soviets.
Wiki page
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C5%82omino
My friend had suggested the town because he thought it would remind me of one of my favourite computer games, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and in many cases it did!
Another website for the town (note that the buildings with roof tiles are some of the original German buildings):
http://sometimes-interesting.com/201...lomino-poland/
Another:
https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/...st-having-one/
http://www.worldabandoned.com/klomino
One of the interesting things about Kłomino was that some of the former German buildings had large basements. One ruined former German building that was apparently used by the Soviets as some sort of admin building had an extensive basement that had a tunnel running from it to the basement of another building nearby (that was also in the same state of neglect as the first). The tunnel ran for about 20 metres I think and was wide enough for two people to walk side-by-side. This second building also had what I assume was a communications tunnel running from it's basement to places unknown - because while it was wide enough and just high enough for one person to explore if lying on their back or stomach, it was so long that the mini-maglite I had could not illumintate the far end and we had no idea where it would come out (or even if the end was still viable as an exit).
Even the Soviet era soldiers barracks had large semi-basements under them. I say semi-basement because they were half below ground level. The picture of the "Abandoned building in Kłomino" is one of them. We didn't get to explore much of the inside of these buildings because someone (the local council?) had destroyed the stairs above the ground floor but I assume they were pretty much replicas of the ground floor. The semi-basements were big open areas, just one large space with no obvious subdivisions but again, my mini-maglite was not up to the task of really showing anything other than a small space at a time. I don't know what these basements would have been used for, probably storage for the building but nobody we asked seemed to know.
According to some Poles, the town had an artillery range, this page makes that statement but provides a satellite view of the range:
http://maps.pomocnik.com/former-sovi...europe-poland/
That page is worth looking over too because the contributor links to other former Soviet military sites in Poland (although the page layout is not particularly intuitive).
Borne Sulinowo is reasonable well spread out as can be seen on Google maps when using the satellite view but Kłomino was much smaller and more compact, covering a much smaller area than Borne Sulinowo.
These two places are of interest because during the T2k timeline they would have both still been in Soviet control and being used as military towns. I'd be speculating if I said that NATO knew about them and whether they would have been targeted for low yield nuclear attack. Both towns where only ever listed on Soviet military maps during the Cold War and Polish people were forbidden from entering the towns and so it's likely that only those Poles who lived nearby would even be aware of the towns existence.
The closed cities were mostly self sufficient, having their own schools and other community services for the families living their such as a hospital, cinema, swimming pool and library but also including the more military oriented things such as garage and workshop facilities, communications (such as long range radio), small arms firing range as well as storage for spare parts, fuel, food and ammunition.
This could provide some interesting gaming situations if the towns weren't destroyed by NATO attacks:
1. the towns could be abandoned by their Soviet owners and the PCs are lucky enough to find small amounts of various supplies still on site, including possibly vehicles or vehicle supplies, tools, medical items, Soviet ammunition and/or weapons,
2. the towns could be in the hands of locals who are grabbing everything they can but in the free-for-all spree of looting the PCs might be able to find some needed supplies,
3. the towns could be strongholds for the remaining Soviet forces in the area (or Polish forces either pro- or anti-Soviet, slavers or a local bandit lord),
4. the towns could have been abandoned (and extensively looted) and are now home to displaced people trying to survive,
5. the towns could have been abandoned and local Poles moved in to establish themselves away from devastated areas.