When the United States started building underground military missile bases, the Soviet Union felt it had to maintain its military advantage. For that reason in September 1960 in the village of Ploksciai, the Soviets with a construction force of ten thousand soldiers began to build rapidly an underground missile base, one of the first in the Soviet Union. In 1962 the construction was completed. The first Soviet nuclear medium range complex has 4 underground launchpads. The site was armed with 4 R-12U missiles The site was disarmed and now tourist can visit the underground missile complex at the Military exposition at Zemaitija National Park in Lithuania
