The conflict in Ukraine resulted in the active proliferation of weapons from the warehouses of military units, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Security Service of Ukraine and other structures. The armament of self-defense forces in eastern Ukraine is being scrutinized especially closely in connection with accusations of arms supplies from Russia. However, so far no types of weapons unusual for Ukraine have been noticed in the arsenals of the militia.
Trophies from the field
This is the most common source of weapons for militias. Weapon rooms in army barracks, police stations, SBU, and other security forces, captured by self-defense forces in Lugansk, Donetsk, Slavyansk, Kramatorsk and other cities, contain a standard set of weapons that we can see today.
The basis, of course, is Kalashnikov assault rifles. AK-74, sometimes AKM, occasionally airborne modifications of both of these assault rifles with folding stocks, as well as shortened AKS-74U - these “barrels” can be found in almost any weapons store former USSR from Lithuania to Kyrgyzstan.
This also includes Dragunov sniper rifles (SVD) and the two most common machine guns - the modernized Kalashnikov machine gun (PKM) chambered for 7.62x54 and the RPK-74 light machine gun chambered for 5.45x39. Its predecessor, the RPK, chambered for 7.62x39, is much less common. In addition to light machine guns, in army units you can also find heavy machine guns type DShK or NSV.
In the same weapons rooms you can see Makarov pistols (PM) and (in the case of army or internal troops units) anti-tank grenade launchers - RPG-7 or later disposable devices, known to ordinary people under the general name “Fly”. You can also find hand grenades there - the Soviet-made RGD-5 is seen quite often in photographs.
Arrived trophies
The capture of six airborne combat vehicles from the 25th airmobile brigade of the Ukrainian armed forces gave the militia their own armored vehicles, but most importantly, the ability to fight aircraft. All BMDs were standardly equipped with anti-tank missile systems (“Fagot” or “Konkurs”); In addition, each company (10 vehicles) relies on at least four man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS) with a supply of missiles, and a certain number of MANPADS could end up in captured vehicles.
However, judging by the available information, helicopters in Slavyansk were shot down with the help of anti-tank weapons guided missiles, grenade launchers and machine guns.
Today, almost 100% of available military weapons militias were obtained from these two sources, and judging by the available photographs, the opponents of the new Kyiv government have nothing beyond what could be found in the surrounding military units and units of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the SBU. However, the arsenal available to the rebels is not limited to these types of weapons.
Hunting and sport
In Ukraine, including in the east of the country, gun ownership is quite widespread. People buy smooth-bore guns for hunting, sport and self-defense; experienced hunters and athletes also own rifled weapons. In total, according to various estimates, there are up to six million units of hunting and sporting weapons in private ownership in Ukraine, from ordinary smoothbore shotguns to quite rare and expensive rifles, including those made in Ukraine.
Of course, there are a certain number of guns purchased for hunting or sporting purposes in the rebel cities. At the same time, with the exception of fairly rare rifles, such weapons are very conditionally suitable for combat against soldiers in bulletproof vests and helmets.
Potential Klondike
After the collapse of the USSR, Ukraine received a very rich military inheritance: the army numbered about 700 thousand people. Nuclear weapons, thousands of armored vehicles, more than a thousand aircraft, and many millions of small arms made Ukraine one of the most armed countries in the world. Ukraine renounced its nuclear status at the end of 1994, when the Budapest Memorandum was signed, and most of the rest of the Soviet legacy - in the process of further reducing its armed forces. Warehouses with weapons of reduced units, although largely sold out, represent a real Klondike for those who know how to use them. However, the likelihood of such a warehouse being captured in the east is not very high: the bulk of Ukrainian military units are based on Soviet infrastructure, located mainly on the western borders of the country. The largest ones are also located there. weapons depots.
There are almost no such warehouses in eastern Ukraine, except for the arsenal that became famous in March 2014 near Artemovsk, in the closed salt mine named after Volodarsky. The current state of this warehouse is unknown. It was reported that Ukrainian army is trying to remove weapons from there, but given its transport capabilities, such an operation would take many months.
It is believed that this mine contains between one and three million small arms, including weapons from the Second World War: Mosin rifles, PPSh submachine guns, Maxim machine guns and others. It is not known whether it is from there or not, but one legendary “Maxim” appeared in Slavyansk back in April.
Strategic warehouses like Artyomovsk, storing weapons produced from the 70-80s to the world wars, can ensure their supply for civil war for many years, while it must be taken into account that the spread of small arms is only part of the danger. In such warehouses, intended to equip newly deployed formations in the event of a new great war, it is mainly not antiques from the First and Second World Wars that are stored, but quite modern weapons, produced during the Cold War. In addition to small arms themselves, military warehouses can become sources explosives, mines, guided weapons, including the above-mentioned MANPADS, and other lethal products. At the same time, there is no guarantee that in the event of further degradation of the Ukrainian state and security forces, this product - even portable anti-aircraft guns missile systems- there will be no buyers from other warring regions.
The country's main defense department says that today Russian armories are literally overflowing with machine guns, sniper rifles and pistols that were produced more than 30 years ago. According to some data, the number of small arms in military arsenals at the beginning of 2012 was about 16 million guns, of which about 35-40% had expired. By the end of 2015, Anatoly Serdyukov’s department plans to dispose of about 4 million weapons.
This was received ambiguously in Russia. Some people are confident that maintaining and increasing the number of small arms in the country is a matter of national security, and therefore no disposal mechanisms in relation to the military arsenal are simply appropriate. Others say that the disposal of old small arms that expired a decade ago is long overdue.
There is a rather remarkable expert opinion, which boils down to the fact that reducing the number of military small arms by 4 million is too small a figure. It is necessary to carry out a larger reduction, leaving no more than 3-4 million units in the reserve arsenal.
All sides have their reasons. Representatives of the first side are confident that the Ministry of Defense is involved in a dubious project that could affect the army’s ability to solve a whole range of problems. The arguments in this case look something like this: weapon was created for the benefit of the Fatherland, and therefore its mass disposal is a blow to the security of the Russian army, which may be faced with the need to participate in a large-scale conflict.
The Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper directly states that the large-scale disposal of small arms launched by the Ministry of Defense Russian Federation This is not similar to an episode from more than 100 years ago, when Minister of War Sukhomlinov signed an order in which he authorized the disposal of about 400 thousand rifles of the Berdan No. 2 system. Adjutant General Sukhomlinov said in 1910 that these weapons only cluttered warehouses, and therefore they needed to either be sold or disposed of. However, after the outbreak of the First World War, problems appeared with the armament of the Russian army, which indicated the “flaw” of V.A. Sukhomlinov. Soon the head of the military ministry of imperial Russia was arrested and convicted of treason. Apparently, “MK” makes it clear that the disposal of small arms of the present times can lead to the same consequences as the disposal after the order of V.A. Sukhomlinov in the second decade of the 20th century.
Supporters of plans for the disposal of small arms, announced by Anatoly Serdyukov, are not inclined to dramatize. In their opinion, it is simply incorrect to compare the situation in 1910 and 2012, especially since we are talking about the disposal of small arms that have exhausted their service life. According to these people, if the industry does not work to actually support the army, but to stock exclusively warehouses, and without replacing old types of weapons with new ones, then there is no need to talk about modernizing the army.
Both positions are worthy of respect. Indeed, the permanent storage of old weapons does not fit into modernization plans. However, before mass disposal of anything, it is necessary to conduct an analysis of the production industry. If our enterprises are ready to fulfill all the points of the State Defense Order in terms of creating ultra-modern small arms that can become competitive, including on the world market, then the disposal of old weapons does not look scary. But it often happens that we first carry out total destruction, and then conversations and reflections begin on the fact that the idea was not reasonable and, therefore, began to be implemented in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Well, who will be accused of treason there, and whether such a person will be found in the event of unpleasant events, this is already a big question...
In this regard, so that no double judgments arise on the announced matter, the Ministry of Defense must provide a guarantee that all activities carried out do not go beyond the modernization framework and do not affect the country’s defense capability. And in this case there is only one guarantee - long-term contracts for the production of new high-precision, effective and reliable weapons, which must certainly be implemented.
By the way, at a time when 16 million guns are virtually abandoned on army warehouses, in modern schools, in life safety (BZ) lessons, it is generally prohibited to conduct lessons devoted to the study of training weapons... And if just recently a school graduate could take credit for the fact that elementary lessons military training taught him the basics of handling small arms, today many high school students have seen a Kalashnikov assault rifle, perhaps only depicted in numerous computer games...
Behind the fence under a voltage of 6000 volts there are hundreds of self-propelled guns, guns, mortars, other military equipment. There are also warehouses with small arms here. different eras and states. They say that with machine guns, machine guns, rifles and grenade launchers, which are stored, repaired and serviced here, you can arm the army of a small country. Few people know that all this beauty is located within the boundaries of Gomel, a few minutes drive from the center.
Gomel residents who live nearby are accustomed to calling this place “The Third Regiment”. They say the name comes from the civil war, when the 3rd cavalry regiment of the Red Army was stationed here. Official name military unit 63604 - artillery weapons base. But, as it turns out, the matter is far from limited to howitzers and self-propelled guns. Everything is much more interesting.
The unit was born on July 12, 1941 as the 582nd front-line field warehouse. Since September 1945 it has been located in the Novobelitsky district of Gomel.
The tasks of the base are repair, storage, maintenance and distribution of missile and artillery weapons to the troops. All small arms are also within the competence of the Gomel military.
On the wall of unit commander Alexander Mikhailov there is a whole exhibition of souvenir symbols of military units of different states. “Everything that is larger than 100 millimeters in caliber is subject to accounting in accordance with international agreements,” explains Alexander Mikhailov. - And these signs are left by officers who come to us for inspections. Accordingly, ours go to check their parts.
In addition to officers and warrant officers, civilian specialists work here. In Soviet times, conscripts also served. They inherited a barracks - it is now used to house “partisans” when they come to military training. “The only thing we don’t have at our base is rocket artillery,” says Lieutenant Colonel Gennady Goncharov, deputy commander of the military unit for ideological work, accompanying us. - We have everything else that is in service with the army. And also what has been removed from service.
By the way, this “what was filmed” is of particular interest. But more on that below. Administrative buildings, a guardhouse, and a barracks are separated from the territory where, in fact, weapons are stored and serviced.
Inside the technical zone there are several more perimeters guarded by armed people, cameras, and electricity.
A stern woman in camouflage at the checkpoint of the technical zone is armed with a rubber stick and a TT pistol.
No, I haven’t had to use a pistol or a baton yet,” he looks at us appraisingly. Everyone goes through inspection, regardless of position and rank.
The security here is civilian. The controllers have pistols, the sentries are armed with Simonov carbines. They say machine guns are only for military personnel. And at the next turnstile the fun begins. We move through the area where equipment is stored and serviced. The first gun barrel peeks out from behind the trees. Then a couple more. Then several dozen... And here is the first “Gvozdika” - a 2S1 self-propelled artillery mount. And there's more. Soon a whole plantation is discovered... (As it turns out later, there is more than one. And in general, a rich herbarium, a botanist’s dream.)
Senior Lieutenant Oleg Lyakhovets, acting in the missile and artillery weapons storage department, explained: some vehicles have recently arrived from units and are awaiting repair. Others have been served and preserved. It takes about an hour to unseal the crew seats, reinstall the batteries, refuel the car and start the engine.
Where this equipment served is not clear from the documents attached to it. Perhaps some self-propelled guns went through Afghanistan.
The landing “Nonas” perched on the sidelines.
At a distance are guns.
Hiding among the trees are “Peonies” 2C7 - a legacy of the USSR. In Belarus, these weapons can only be seen in warehouses: they are not used by the troops.
More and more military equipment is arriving for storage. There are no longer enough sites, new ones are being cleared and equipped. In the meantime, guns, armored personnel carriers, and cars are placed on the ground.
Several airborne armored personnel carriers have exhausted their service life. Now only for scrap.
This is what the eyelets to which the parachute system should be attached look like:
GAS with awnings look quite peaceful. Can be mistaken for ordinary support vehicles. But under the tarpaulin something is bulging. These are "Vasilki" - automatic 82-mm mortars.
Something larger is hiding in a GAZ-66 nearby. This is a heavily lubricated 120mm 2B11 mortar.
It's hard to believe, but this forty-five went through the war. The barrel and lock are in disrepair, but the gun is listed as “on the balance sheet.” The carriage is in good working order, the mechanisms work.
There are rich reserves of auxiliary equipment. Autonomous repair shops based on ZILs allow you to repair missile and artillery weapons in the field. Of course, they don’t look as impressive as armored personnel carriers, self-propelled guns and mortars, but you can’t live without them.
Having arrived at the Gomel base, the equipment that has suffered in the fields is repaired, put in order and preserved - until the moment when it needs to be sent back to the troops. Senior artillery weapons repair engineer, Captain Oleg Yagovdik, says that the missile and artillery weapons repair shop is one of the main ones in the unit. Self-propelled and towed artillery are being put in order here. Both the mechanical part and, in fact, the firing part. Including radio stations, electronics of missile systems with which combat reconnaissance and sabotage vehicles are armed
Currently in the workshop there are several Akatsiya and Gvozdika missiles, as well as BRDMs with removed missile launchers.
This is where the optics are “aimed” rocket launchers, which are on BRDMs.
By the way, we were not allowed into the small arms storage area: the regime is very strict. Samples for shooting were taken out of the gate. - In the area where small arms are stored, there must be a so-called non-lethal system electrical influence, explains the deputy unit commander for ideological work.
So these signs about 6 thousand volts are reality, not a sham? - What a sham this is. It won’t kill a person, but it will throw them off... Local cats know how to read such signs.
In the background, the last Soviet rare weapon from the Great Patriotic War is being loaded. Three-line guns and PPSh, which managed to fight, were serviced, repaired and lubricated according to all the rules, will go to the museum of one of the units of the mobile forces. Before this, the barrels and bolts became unusable. Previously, shipments of genuine military weapons from the Gomel base had already been transferred to Belarusfilm. We are shown one sample of what is in storage (in fact, the range of personal and collective weapons in the warehouses is richer; we were not shown all of them).
There is a German Sturmgewehr MP-44. True, his condition is not so great, he has suffered enough.
Thompson submachine gun. This is not a massive scale model, like in other civilian museums. A real Tommy gun from the arsenal of American police, marines and gangsters. Also serviced, repaired and entered into boring forms.
But in general, nothing unusual: such machines were supplied in small quantities to the Lend-Lease Union. There are more interesting specimens. For some reason this unsightly Romanian Orita assault rifle was captured in Japan. Condition - like new. It looks like a toy in the hands of a huge senior warrant officer.
It’s the same with our PPSh - convincing, stylish, youthful.
There were once a lot of Shpagin submachine guns here. Now they're sending me to someone else's military unit remnants of luxury... Actually, there are also pre-revolutionary weapons. This Browning is the same age as the Browning that Kaplan used to shoot Lenin’s grandfather. But the model is different.
Maybe you also have “Maxims”? - we’re just asking for the sake of order. “Not anymore,” Lieutenant Colonel Goncharov answers. - They were transferred to museums. I should have also asked about muskets... Polish officers, tank crews, and cavalrymen were armed with such VIS.35 pistols since 1935. Wikipedia says that the Germans also used these Polish pistols during the occupation.
What there was no shortage of after the war was the following parabellums:
The owner of this may have been killed - but the gun is like new. Only the plastic cover is cracked. Rifles and carbines different countries, by and large, are variations on the theme of the three-ruler. However, one should be careful here: by figuring out what is better and what comes first, gun fans are capable of starting a third world war.
On Walter's captured rifle you can see the mark of the Third Reich.
There is a feeling that you are in a museum. But it’s unlikely that any museum can boast such a variety of real weapons, not models. And everything is stored here not for display to the public. Don't get lost in this variety of rifled weapons. Even a specialist will find something new.
Modern weapons arriving for repair or storage are serviced by civilian specialists. Including optics for sniper rifles and other types of weapons.
Some people believe that there are not many things created in the world that are better and more beautiful than PKM.
Protecting all this is the most important task. Technical means are developing, methods of performing guard duty are being improved, but the good old guard with living people is a mandatory attribute of any decent unit. In the guard town, all situations that may arise at the post are worked out.
A paramilitary security team serves here. These are civilians who have been trained to protect military installations.
They say that weapons capable of automatic fire are reserved only for military personnel. Therefore, VOKhR received Simonov’s self-loading carbines.
The security system has not yet caused any failures in memory. Several degrees of protection are provided. Video cameras “broadcast” the perimeters of each protected area. The sentries have at their disposal towers, searchlights, loudspeakers, trenches, walkie-talkies, and wired telephones. And, of course, carbines, which, according to folklore, “pierce the rail” (along with the armored train). With terrifying bayonets.
Technolirik writes:
My post today is dedicated to an object that, despite the close work of metalworkers, is of great historical interest and was top secret until the 1990s; only 12 people from the top Polish leadership knew about the Soviet nuclear weapons storage facilities located in Poland, and the Soviet Union itself until of his death, he denied the fact that his nuclear bombs were located in Poland, although for NATO intelligence this was known fact back in the 1970s. In this post I will show in detail what remains of the once impregnable military base, including the heart of the base - two underground bunker, which contained atomic bombs capable of wiping Europe off the face of the earth. The post turned out to be voluminous and very interesting, so take some time and sit back.
The object we are looking for is located in the forest on the forestry territory. The fact that the forest in these places is not easy is evidenced by the Soviet concrete road extending from the highway - a clear sign that something interesting is hidden in the thicket. It will lead us to our goal.
Soon the concrete road ends next to a large platform of concrete slabs.
If you look closely at the uneven terrain, you can see among the trees and bushes man-made objects that are clearly for military purposes.
Also, the forest for hundreds of meters around is dotted with evidence of the military past of these places.
The remains of the perimeter, which was triple here.
Also not far from the bunkers there are pits like these, in the place of which military unit structures recently stood.
Now it is no longer possible to determine what kind of buildings were located here.
The military unit was in the reserve of the Polish army until 2000, then the guard was removed, and in 2009, the 300 hectares of territory occupied by the unit were completely cleared of all structures and concrete buildings.
Not even the foundations of the buildings remained, so thoroughly did the Poles clear the territory before handing it over to the forestry department. Only numerous trenches, coils of barbed wire and a couple of bunkers - that’s all that reminds us of the once highly protected military unit.
In addition to the perimeter, numerous firing points and a concrete fence, a trench surrounded the perimeter of the object. Of all the above, it is the only one that has survived to this day.
In some places you can still find concrete bridges across the trench for the passage of equipment.
In addition to two underground storage facilities for atomic weapons, there was another Granit type bunker. Actually, we came here for it, but after combing dozens of hectares of forest, we did not find the slightest sign of granite, which looked like this:
Only when preparing this post did I learn from Polish Internet sources that “Granit” was dismantled along with the rest of the area in 2009. “Granite” was built in 1975 from concrete tubes sprinkled with earth on top. On both sides, the entrance to the vault was closed by massive armored doors. The diameter of the granite was 6 meters, length 30 meters. Tactical equipment was stored inside nuclear weapon - artillery shells with nuclear warheads of 152 and 203 mm caliber. Each of the three Soviet nuclear storage facilities in Poland was equipped with a Granite bunker in the mid-1970s.
Today, only two underground nuclear storage facilities have survived from the former facility, and this post is dedicated to a review of them.
But I’ll start with the history of the emergence of Soviet nuclear bases on Polish territory, which dates back to the mid-1960s.
In 2007, the Polish Minister of Defense declassified Warsaw Pact documents, among which a folder was discovered containing materials related to Operation Vistula. These materials contained evidence that 180 Soviet nuclear warheads were located on the territory of the PRN, of which 14 had a yield of 500 kilotons of TNT (the bomb dropped on Hiroshima had a yield of 15 kilotons). In the event of a military conflict with the NATO bloc, nuclear weapons were subject to transfer to special missile and aviation units Polish troops, who were supposed to strike with them the states that are members of the NATO bloc. These 180 nuclear warheads were stored in three storage facilities specially built for this purpose, one of which we will look at today.
The portals to the vaults are covered with soil, but each of them has a hole through which you can easily get inside.
The construction of nuclear weapons storage facilities was preceded by exercises conducted by the Soviet Union in 1965 to transport nuclear weapons to western Poland during military operations. All options were tried - by water, land and air, and they all ended in failure. The road took too long and the risk of the enemy's destruction of the transport was too high. After these exercises, it became obvious that atomic weapons must be located in Poland near airfields and missile units in order to be ready for use in the shortest possible time. After this, it was decided to build storage facilities for Soviet nuclear weapons on the territory of five countries of the Warsaw Treaty Organization (WTO) - in Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and Hungary.
In February 1967, a meeting was held in Moscow between Polish Defense Minister Marian Spychalski and USSR Defense Minister Marshal Andrei Grechko, which resulted in the signing of an agreement on the construction of three arsenals for storing nuclear weapons on Polish territory. This document was top secret - in Poland, only 12 senior military officials, whose names are stored in a folder with declassified documentation, were allowed to know this secret, and the operation itself to place nuclear warheads on the western border of the empire received the code name "Vistula".
According to the ATS strategy and declassified documents, the Eastern Bloc planned to be the first to launch a nuclear strike against NATO states in the event of a military conflict. According to the calculations of Kremlin strategists, the NATO counterattack was supposed to destroy up to 53% of the troops of the USSR and its allies. The western border of the empire in the Third World War was given the honorable role of taking the first blow and turning into “radioactive ash.” For more than two decades, the PPR has maintained that it does not have nuclear weapons on its territory and, in international forums, has actively sought the elimination of American military bases with nuclear weapons in Western Germany.
It can be seen that the bunkers are often visited by diggers - they even built some kind of steps on the embankment covering the entrance.
Based on the signed agreement, three nuclear storage facilities were built near the western border of Poland in the strictest secrecy in 1967-1970, each of which was located next to military training grounds so as not to attract undue attention from the population. Each of the objects received its own code name: 3001 was located near the Podborsko aviation training ground, 3002 near the Brzeźnica-Kolonia training ground and 3003 Templewo near the Wędrzyn training ground. At the same time, similar facilities are being built on the territory of other ATS countries - the GDR, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Bulgaria, with which top-secret agreements were also signed.
The "3000 series" warehouses were built according to Soviet designs, but construction works performed by Polish engineering troops, who were informed that they were building secret communications bunkers. The equipment inside the storage facilities was delivered from Soviet Union. The financial costs for the construction of storage facilities, amounting to 180 million zlotys at the 1970 exchange rate, were borne by Poland. After completion of work in January 1970, the finished objects were transferred Soviet army and they soon housed the Soviet nuclear arsenal, which remained there for twenty years. Each of these warehouses was designed to store 60 nuclear warheads and was maintained exclusively by Soviet personnel. From 1970 to 1990, no Pole set foot on any of these objects.
Each of the two storage bunkers has a similar passage through which you can easily get inside.
The territory of base 3003 Templewo covers an area of about 300 hectares and on its territory, in addition to storage facilities, there were also barracks for housing service personnel and security, fuel storage facilities, garages for transport and armored vehicles, as well as leisure facilities for military personnel (sauna, cinema, etc.). Although military materials officially refer to the base as Object 3003 Templewo, the Russians called it "Wolfhound". The facility's garrison consisted of 60 officers and 120 special forces soldiers. All this was protected from the outside world by a triple perimeter of energized barbed wire, between the rows of which motion sensors were installed, as well as paths for sentries with dogs who regularly walked around the perimeter. Inside the base, numerous fortifications were built, such as concrete pillboxes with machine guns, rifle trenches and anti-landing obstacles. In addition, the inside of the base was divided into three sectors by a concrete fence with barbed wire on top, around each of the three storage facilities, including Granit. Inside the base, in case of a possible enemy invasion, there were 12 BMP-1 armored vehicles. All premises of the facility, as well as the roads, were covered with camouflage nets, and coniferous trees were planted on the roof of the bunkers. Thus, it was impossible to detect the location of the object from the air or from a satellite.
In 2009, as part of the transfer of the base territory to the forestry department, all buildings, except the storage facilities themselves, were completely dismantled and not the slightest trace remained of them. You can see what individual elements of the database looked like in 2005 by following the link.
The second storage bunker is completely identical to the first and is also covered with soil, in which a hole has been dug.
Both underground warehouses are located at a distance of 300 meters from each other so that their longitudinal axes are perpendicular. This was done to increase protection from the shock wave in the event of a nearby nuclear explosion. Thanks to this location, no matter from which side the shock wave came, one bunker would have survived a nuclear strike in any case, if it had not hit directly on the territory of the unit. Containers with warheads were delivered to the warehouse by trucks, and ramps built in front of the warehouses were used to load/unload cargo into the warehouse. Containers were moved manually on trolleys. Considering that the largest warheads weighed more than 500 kg, considerable effort was required to transport them.
If you drive along the P35 Highway from Simferopol to Sudak, approximately before reaching 10 km to the last one, an inconspicuous branch departs from the highway,very time-worn,asphalt path.She leads to no time classified military city - Krasnokamenka, located in the Kiziltash gorge,away from other points. Here, in Soviet times, under conditions of the strictest secrecy, atomic warheads were assembled in underground workshops built deep in the mountain and then transported to launch sites throughout the central part of the USSR and some Warsaw Pact countries. For almost half a century this placewas overgrown with numerous myths and legends, butAfter the formation of Ukraine as a separate state, and then the adoption of “Nuclear-free status” on its territory, the city wasdeclassified, and all warheads were taken to Russia. Currentlyand an elite regiment is located on the territory of the city special purpose"Tiger" of the Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine.The main part of the adits has been converted into ammunition storage and is under heavy security.
As is known, the United States, having adopted the atomic program in 1941, realized the results of the work carried out on it in August 1945 with the destruction of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The world has clearly seen the threat of using terrible nuclear force. Naturally, the leadership of the USSR posed a national problem to scientists - to create their own atomic weapons in the shortest possible time and ensure the country’s protection from the use of such weapons by a potential enemy. To solve this problem, the state provided scientists with everything they needed, creating not only research centers, but also industrial enterprises equipped with the most advanced equipment and technology. Just 4 years later, in August 1949, the first Soviet atomic bomb was tested, andat the end of 1950, the Council of Ministers of the USSR decided to create the so-called central storage bases for nuclear weapons (CBH), which were supposed to assemble and store produced ammunition.It was decided to build one of these pulp and paper farms in the Kiziltash valley, where mountain spurs hid it well from prying eyes.
Object 51
The scale of the work was amazing. By 1955, almost to the very foot of the mountain, a tunnel was made in its thickness, not inferior in width and height to the subway tunnel. Its length is more than two kilometers.
An assembly hall and several storage facilities for the products themselves and their components were built under the top of the mountain. The height of the hall was about twenty meters, and the length was several tens of meters. The hall was equipped with an electric overhead crane, several lifting hoists and special assembly places for securing assembled products with the possibility of their rotation in a vertical plane. The entire underground complex of structures had power supply from the outside and autonomous power supply from emergency diesel generators inside.
All premises of the facility are connected by a developed transport network, which made it possible to move cargo on special trolleys along a narrow-gauge railway. The portals to the facility are closed with hermetically sealed shutters weighing several tens of tons, which are rolled into a niche using an electric drive.
How do you like the door? :)
Because of its specificity, the object was popularly nicknamed the “Feodosia Metro.” Construction was supervised by the Leningrad Metrostroy Division, and the excavation work was carried out by specially selected prisoners with experience in mining work. Many of them, after serving their sentences, were offered to remain as civilian workers to service the facility.
Assembled nuclear items were transported from here to launch positions in the central part of the USSR and some Warsaw Pact countries. Later, obsolete first-generation warheads began to be delivered to Krasnokamenka for disposal and recycling.
Objects of this kind were actively erected right up to the peak Cold War in the late 80s, however, perestroika broke out, during which Ukraine became an independent state, and also adopted a nuclear-free status and the entire nuclear arsenal was distributed among the Central Banks on Russian territory. Empty adits were handed over to Ukrainian troops and converted into other needed ones, or completely abandoned. The base in Krasnokamenka is one of the first.
Now based on the territory of the former base Special purpose regiment "Tiger" of the Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine. The elite unit is designed to protect public order.
The main adit under the mountain(object No. 51) , currently used for ammunition storage. However, in addition to it, there were 3 more storage facilities for finished products (No. 712 a, b and c), representing They are small horseshoe-shaped adits with two halls. The first was intended directly for storing warheads, and the second housed the air conditioning system of the first. After all nuclear weapons were removed from Ukraine, the first two storage facilities were abandoned, and the third redone to the "burial ground" for phonation equipment and tools , used when working with nuclear warheads.
Object 712 A. One of the portals.
The first storage facility was the worst preserved. Almost all the metal was taken by looters, and the walls and vaults are covered with soot.
All that remains of the ventilation system.
Hall air conditioning system. On the left is a 10-meter collector leading to the product storage room.
There was a turning area here.
Object 712 B.
This storage facility survived a little better, since it was apparently not abandoned right away. The photo shows a brick wall near one of the portals. Most likely, it was erected after the storage facility was no longer used for its intended purpose. It is quite possible that the adit was used as a household warehouse, however, it did not last long.
Paint has been preserved on some walls and pressure walls.
The torn floor is also the work of looters to remove the rails.
All premises of the facility were lined with metal insulation, which was attached to iron arches.
Somehow we got very carried away with photography; it was already mid-morning outside :)
Watchtower.
Kiziltash Gorge is a piece of paradise. Those who lived here in Soviet time people speak very positively about this place and the service itself, even despite high level responsibility. If you are interested in this topic, I advise you to read the memoirs of a city resident. The story is very heartwarming and educational.
After spending 2 days in the gorge, we continued to conquer Crimea further. Krasnokamenka is connected to civilization by only one bus to Feodosia, passing several times a day.
Since we didn’t plan to go to Feodosia, we had to get off as soon as the bus pulled onto the highway.
This was the longest hitchhiking of the entire trip. After spending four whole hours under the sultry sun, I finally deigned to stop the minibus in the direction of Sudak.
In Sudak we had to climb to the most high point Genoese fortress, but also a surprise awaited us in the form of a trance music festival taking place not far from the city. More on this in the next review. There are many other interesting places ahead of us! To be continued...