Submarine bunker Balaklava
The submarine bunker in Balaklava on the Crimean peninsula was a nuclear - bombproof submarine base for boats of the classes Project 613 , Project 633 and Project A615, including arsenal and shipyard. The facility, located near Sevastopol , the main base of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet , was one of the Soviet Union's most secret military projects at the time .
Planning and construction
The bay of Balaklava is strategically located particularly favorably. Due to the surrounding mountains and the S-shaped exit to the Black Sea , the port cannot be seen from either land or sea. Thus this port was well protected from enemy reconnaissance.
In 1947 Stalin ordered the construction of a submarine base that would still be operational after a nuclear attack. Because of the geographic features mentioned above, Balaklava was chosen as the location. Between 1954 and 1963 (other sources speak from 1957 to 1961), army engineers set up the facility, supported by civilian experts.
The total area of the facility covers 15,000 m² and should withstand direct hits with an explosive force of 100 kilotons of TNT (around eight times the force of the Hiroshima bomb ). In the event of a nuclear war, 3,000 people could survive self-sufficient in the facility for up to 30 days.
The entire facility was divided into two areas.
The shipyard: Object 825 GTS
Object 825 GTS comprised the actual submarine bunker, a dry dock with workshops for the maintenance and repair of submarines and a department for maintenance and testing of sea mines and torpedoes. The abbreviation GTS stood for "hydrotechnical system" ( Russian г идро- т ехническое с ооружние ) or as a camouflage "urban telephone system" ( Russian г ородская т елефонная с танция ).
Submarines drove from the Black Sea into the Bay of Balaklava and then into the camouflaged entrance to the bunker. Inside the bunker there was a 602 m long canal with a width of 10 to 22 m and a water depth of 8 m. The boats were serviced and re-equipped in this canal and then left the bunker on the opposite side of Mount Tawros. The entrance and exit of the tunnel were protected with heavy retractable pontoons and optically camouflaged during the Cold War. In this tunnel there was also a 102 m long and 10 m wide dry dock for the repair of submarines. The docking time for a complete maintenance and repair of a boat was about three to four weeks.
In the northern area of the bunker, right next to the entrance to the canal, there was a department for checking and testing torpedoes.
According to some sources, the project was originally planned on a larger scale. It should be possible to maintain and repair up to four boats at the same time. The then leader Khrushchev visited the facility in 1960. He was shocked by the high construction costs (some sources speak of 67 million rubles for the shell and another 65 million rubles for the equipment). It was also foreseeable that the bunker would be too small for the modern nuclear submarines. Therefore, he announced a construction freeze. Only the 90% operational readiness of the system by then convinced him to have the bunker completed to the current state of development.
The arsenal: Object 820
The second part of the complex was the arsenal. It was used to store, maintain, repair and test the ammunition needed in the boats, including nuclear warheads. For the transport of the ammunition, tracks were laid on which flat side cars were pushed. About 150 people worked in the arsenal. Up to 9,500 tons of fuel and lubricants were stored here.
confidentiality
The Sevastopol area itself was a closed city as the base of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet . For this base, however, the secrecy around Balaklava was tightened again. Visiting the city was seldom possible even for close relatives of the residents. The place and the bay were not shown on maps. The excavation during the construction of the bunker was only dumped at sea at night . The entry and exit of the submarines was later coordinated with the overflight times of foreign satellites. Since the sea is at least 30 m deep almost directly at the exit, the instruction was given to dive immediately after leaving the port.
Todays use
The base remained in operation until the dissolution of the USSR in 1991. By 1993 at the latest it was abandoned and unguarded and was gradually looted. In 2003 the President of Ukraine gave the order to hand over the object to the Central Museum of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and to convert it into a branch office.
Similar plants
A similar object is said to be in Severomorsk , but this city is still closed today , so further information is not known. In addition, there is the largely completed facility in Pavlovsky Bay in the Far East.
swell
Information material and display boards in the museum
Web links
- Известия Науки: ОБЪЕКТ 825 ГТС (Russian)
- Зеркало недели: Музей "Объект 825 ГТС" ( Memento from September 14, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) (Russian)
- Балаклава - бухта символов и военных тайн (Russian)
- Фотографии из военно-морского музейного комплекса "Балаклава" ( Memento from September 6, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) (Russian)
- The Super Secret Factory in Balaklava (English)
Coordinates: 44 ° 29 ′ 56 " N , 33 ° 35 ′ 46" E