Borshchovo Airstrip

Primarily economic reasons. The airstrip was part of the vast Soviet agricultural aviation network. Its purpose was to serve the local collective farms (kolkhozes) and state farms (sovkhozes). With the collapse of the Soviet Union, this state-supported agricultural system was dismantled, and the state airline, Aeroflot, was broken up. The agricultural aviation division became economically unviable, leading to the abandonment of thousands of similar small airfields across the country.

The site is completely abandoned and defunct. Satellite imagery shows the faint outline of a single, unpaved runway (approximately 400-500 meters long) which is now heavily overgrown with grass, shrubs, and small trees. There is no visible remaining infrastructure such as hangars, control towers, or service buildings. The land is unused and is slowly being reclaimed by the surrounding natural environment.

Borshchovo Airstrip was a local, unpaved airfield used for agricultural aviation ('Selkhozaviatsiya' in Russian). Its significance was purely functional and local, supporting the agrarian economy of the Oredezh region. Operations would have typically involved light utility aircraft, most notably the Antonov An-2 biplane, which was the workhorse for crop dusting, aerial fertilization, and pest control. It was not a military base or a passenger airport and held no strategic importance beyond its immediate agricultural support role.

There are no known plans or prospects for reopening the Borshchovo Airstrip. The economic model that supported it no longer exists. Re-establishing the airfield would require complete reconstruction of the runway and construction of all new facilities, for which there is no current demand or economic justification. Its reopening is considered highly improbable.