They did not make it to blowing out their 87 birthday candles. The transmission towers (215 metres high), also known as Radio Comintern located in the transmitting centre in Moscow, were packed with dynamite and demolished. Inaugurated on May 1st, 1933, it was the world’s most powerful (500kW) radio station in a period when radio was the only means of propaganda. After broadcasting for seventy years, it was closed in 2003 and became an attraction because the dilapidated towers were being climbed, even by free climbers. An article on Mediaradio.info recounts its history with images of the site.
Radio Comintern was named after the Third International, an organisation that advocated World Communism.
SRI LANKA: Covid-19 patients on ex-transmitter site
In order to increase the number of hospital beds, the Government of Sri Lanka has converted the buildings left by the Voice of America in Iranawila, located on the western coast of the island, 70 km north of the capital Colombo. The VOA, the American international broadcaster, after having relocated their equipment to Kuwait and to Greenville (North Carolina), returned the land back to the Sri Lankan State in 2017. The original intention to develop the site as a tourist resort had been shelved due to protests by local residents. In the interim period before developing the area, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa appointed the army commander to use the buildings for Covid-19 patients in March 2020. The new hospital can take in fifty patients and was completed at the beginning of April 2020.
25 years of propaganda
The ex relay station of the Voice of America spans an area of 1.6 km² and includes four large buildings with seven high power transmitters: four 500kW transmitters and three 250 kW transmitters, that currently broadcast programmes of Radio Free Asia. RFA was set up by the American Congress in Washington DC with the aim to transmit news and information to listeners in Asian countries ‘where complete news was not available, accurate or timely’. In 2014, RFA transmitted in 47 languages, including a large number of local dialects, to about 236.6 million listeners all over the world.