The confines of the motherland. Top-secret storage of Soviet nuclear warheads in Poland What is stored in weapons depots

Hundreds of self-propelled guns, cannons, mortars, and other military equipment stand behind the 6,000-volt fence. There are also warehouses with small arms from different eras and states. They say that with machine guns, machine guns, rifles and grenade launchers, which are stored, repaired and maintained 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.

The Gomel residents who live nearby are used to calling this place "The Third Regiment". They say that the name came from the civil war, when the 3rd Cavalry Regiment of the Red Army was stationed here. The official name of military unit 63604 is an artillery armament base. But, as it turns out, the matter is far from being limited to howitzers and self-propelled guns. Everything is much more interesting.

The unit was born on July 12, 1941 as the 582nd field front-line warehouse. Since September 1945, it has been located in the Novobelitsky district of Gomel.

The tasks of the base are the repair, storage, maintenance and issuance of rocket and artillery weapons to the troops. All small arms are also within the competence of the Gomel military.

On the wall near the commander of the unit, Alexander Mikhailov, there is a whole exposition of souvenir symbols of military units of different states. “Everything that is more than 100 millimeters in caliber is subject to accounting in accordance with international agreements,” Alexander Mikhailov explains. - And these signs are left by officers who come to us with inspections. Accordingly, our people go to check their parts.

In addition to officers and ensigns, civilian specialists work here. In Soviet times, conscripts also served. They inherited a barracks - it is now used to accommodate "partisans" when they come to military training camps. “Only rocket artillery is missing at our base,” says Lieutenant Colonel Gennady Goncharov, deputy commander of the military unit for ideological work, who accompanies us. - Everything else that is in service with the army, we have. And also what is removed from service.

By the way, this “what is filmed” is of particular interest. But more on that below. Administrative buildings, the guardhouse, the 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 men, cameras, electricity.

A stern woman in camouflage at the checkpoint of the technical zone is armed with a rubber stick and a TT pistol.

No, we have not yet had to use a pistol and a baton, - he looks at us appraisingly. Everyone goes through the screening, regardless of position and rank.

The security here is civil. Controllers - with pistols, sentries are armed with Simonov's carbines. They say that only the military rely on automatic weapons. And behind the next turnstile, the most interesting begins. We move around the area where equipment is stored and serviced. The first gun barrel peeks out from behind the trees. Then a couple more. Then a few dozen ... And here is the first "Carnation" - a self-propelled gun mount 2S1. And out there. Soon a whole plantation is discovered ... (As it turns out later, there is more than one. And in general, the richest herbarium, the dream of a botanist.)

Senior Lieutenant Oleg Lyakhovets, Acting Department for the Storage of Rocket and Artillery Weapons, explained: some vehicles have recently come from parts and are waiting for repairs. Others have been serviced and mothballed. It takes about an hour to unseal the crew seats, reinstall the batteries, refuel the car and start the engine.

Where this technique served is not clear from the documents attached to it. Perhaps some self-propelled guns passed Afghanistan.

Landing "Nonas" perched on the sidelines.

Away - guns.

Peonies 2C7 are hiding among the trees - 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 arrives for storage. There are no longer enough sites, and new ones are being cleared and equipped. In the meantime, guns, armored personnel carriers, cars are put on the ground.

Several landing armored personnel carriers have worked out their resource. Now only in scrap.

This is how the eyelets to which the parachute system should be attached look like:

Gases with awnings look quite peaceful. Can be mistaken for regular support vehicles. But under the tarp, something is bristling. These are "Cornflowers" - automatic 82-mm mortars.

Something bigger is hiding in the GAZ-66 nearby. This is a thickly greased 120mm 2B11 mortar.

It's hard to believe, but this forty-five went through the war. The barrel and lock are rendered unusable, but the gun is listed "on the balance sheet". The carriage is in good condition, the mechanisms work.

There are rich stocks of auxiliary equipment. Autonomous repair shops based on ZILs make it possible to repair rocket and artillery weapons in the field. They look, of course, not as impressive as armored personnel carriers, self-propelled guns and mortars, but without them, nowhere.

Arriving at the Gomel base, the equipment that has suffered in the fields is repaired, put in order and conserved - until the moment when it needs to be sent back to the troops. Captain Oleg Yagovdik, senior engineer for the repair of artillery weapons, says that the repair shop for rocket and artillery weapons is one of the main ones in the unit. Self-propelled and towed artillery are put in order here. Both the mechanical part and, in fact, the shooting one. Including radio stations, electronics of missile systems, which are armed with combat reconnaissance and sabotage vehicles

Now in the workshop there are several "Acacias" and "Carnations", as well as BRDMs with removed rocket launchers.

Here, the optics of the rocket launchers that are on the BRDMs are “shooting”.

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 should be a so-called system of non-lethal electric influence, - explains the deputy commander of the unit for ideological work.

That is, these inscriptions about 6 thousand volts are a reality, not a props? - What a props here. It won't kill a person, but it will knock you back... Local cats can read such signs.

In the background, the last Soviet rare weapons from the Great Patriotic War are being loaded. Three-rulers and PPSh, who managed to make war, serviced, repaired and lubricated in accordance with all the rules, will leave for the museum of one of the units of the mobile troops. Before that, the barrels and bolts were rendered unusable. Previously, batches of genuine military weapons from the Gomel base have already been transferred to Belarusfilm. We are shown one sample each of what is in storage (in fact, the assortment of personal and collective weapons in the warehouses is richer, we were not shown everything).

There is a German stormtrooper MP-44. True, his condition is not so hot, he has suffered.

Thompson submachine gun. This is not a weight and size model for you, as in other civilian museums. The real Tommy gun from the arsenal of the American police, marines and gangsters. Also serviced, repaired and listed in boring forms.

But in general, nothing unusual: such machines were supplied in small quantities to the Union under Lend-Lease. There are more interesting examples. This unsightly Romanian Orita submachine gun was captured for some reason in Japan. Condition - like new. It looks like a toy in the hands of a huge senior ensign.

Whether it's our PPSh - convincingly, stylishly, youthfully.

There used to be a lot of Shpagin submachine guns here. Now they are sending the remnants of luxury to a foreign military unit ... Actually, there are pre-revolutionary weapons. This Browning is the same age as the Browning with which Kaplan shot Lenin's grandfather. But the model is different.

Maybe you have Maxims too? - We are interested just for the sake of order. - Not anymore, - Lieutenant Colonel Goncharov answers. - Transferred to museums. I should have asked about the muskets… Since 1935, Polish officers, tankers, and cavalrymen have been armed with such VIS.35 pistols. Wikipedia says that the Germans also used these Polish pistols during the occupation.

That's what after the war there was no shortage - it's in such parabellums:

The owner of this may have been killed - but the gun is as good as new. Only the plastic cover is cracked. Rifles and carbines from different countries, by and large, are variations on the three-line theme. However, one should be careful here: figuring out what is better and what is primary, weapon fans are able to unleash a third world war.

On Walter's captured rifle, you can see the mark of the Third Reich.

It feels like you are in a museum. But hardly any museum can boast of such a variety of real weapons, not models. And everything is stored here not for public display. 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 weapons.

Some people believe that not so many things better and more beautiful than PKM have been created in the world.

Protecting all this is the most important task. Technical means are developing, methods of guard duty are being improved, but the good old guard house with live people is a mandatory attribute of any decent part. In the guard town, all situations that may arise at the post are worked out.

A paramilitary security team is serving here. These are civilians who have been trained in the protection of military installations.

They say that weapons capable of automatic fire are reserved only for the military. Therefore, VOKhR got Simonov's self-loading carbines.

The security system in memory of sentry failures has not yet given. Several levels of protection are provided. Video cameras “shoot through” the perimeters of each protected area. At the disposal of sentries - towers, searchlights, loudspeakers, trenches, walkie-talkies, wired telephones. And, of course, carbines, which, according to folklore, “pierce the rail” (along, along with the armored train). With intimidating bayonets.

All gunpowder robots were issued with an urgent order to laugh at the statement of Russian lawyers in the Hague court that "the militia found weapons in the mines." Ah-ah-ah, I'm laughing all over.
The gunpowder bots, salivating at the sight of the “Roshen” contraption shown to them, rushed to perform it in unison. Plots on television, articles, cartoons, posts on Twitter and social networks - in general, a complete propaganda package.
I just didn’t understand one thing: what’s so funny, saucepans?
Really, no one told you, wretched ones, for example, about the underground armory of Soledar, located just in the salt mines?

Well, yes, the tank will never enter such a mine. She's small bgg

Millions of mothballed weapons are stored in these mines, starting with Maxim and PPSh machine guns (which, by the way, I also saw with the militias at the beginning of the conflict) and ending with AK-47s.
In addition to Soledar, there are similar underground warehouses, for example, in Artyomovsk, from where, in particular, the militia initially took out shots for Gradov.
And this list of underground warehouses is not exhausted.

Underground warehouse in Artyomovsk

There are also storage facilities of the State Reserve, created in Soviet times. My dad, who served in the Soviet Army, talked about many kilometers of underground storage facilities, in which everything was loaded by trucks, from weapons, chocolate and stew to frozen cow carcasses.
They were created to overcome possible crises. And is it any wonder that when the crisis came, they were reactivated?
Are you still laughing "weapons in the mines, ahaha", Maidan fools?

In addition, weapons were taken from the warehouses of military units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine located on the territory of the DPR and LPR. The garrisons were disarmed, and the contents of the armories and garages went to the militias.
Plus huge army warehouses near Lugansk. In early May 2014, all the contents were taken out of there (now you can already tell), and then the empty warehouses, by agreement with the local officers, were blown up (to comply with formalities, such as they did not give weapons to the "separatists"). Ask the headquarters of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine what was stored in these warehouses, if you don’t believe me.

Plus a cartridge factory in Lugansk. The same one, which, according to the junto media, was repeatedly "sawed up and taken to Russia." Regularly continues to produce cartridges and shells.
Still funny, deceived fools?

The fourth source of replenishment of the militia with weapons and equipment is the "voentorg". But not mystical Russian, but real Ukrainian. The one that Bezler talked about. When it was possible to buy an armored personnel carrier for 5 thousand dollars from ensigns of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and a tank for 10 thousand (bulk discounts).
Then your idol idols, Avakov and Turchinov, launched a whole caps competition, which of them would sell more weapons and equipment to the militia through their structures. I'm still not sure which one won. Keep jumping.

Well, the fifth source of technology is boilers. Portal "Lostarmor" recorded (with photo and video) 421 units of captured equipment that the militia got from the boilers. Laugh, fools, why aren't you laughing anymore?

As a result, only Colonel of the Information Operations Troops A. Rogers laughs - stupid gunpowder robots were again given a broken training manual.

If you drive along Highway "P35" from Simferopol to Sudak, approximately not reaching 10 km to the last, an inconspicuous,very worn out by timeasphalt path.She leads to no time classified military city - Krasnokamenka, situated in the Kiziltash gorge,away from other points. Here, in Soviet times, in conditions of the strictest secrecy, in underground workshops built in the depths of the mountain, atomic warheads were assembled, and then transported to launch sites throughout the central part of the USSR and some Warsaw Pact countries. For almost half a century this placeovergrown with numerous myths and legends, butafter the formation of Ukraine as a separate state, and then the adoption of the "Nuclear-Free Status" on its territory, the city wasdeclassified, and all warheads were taken to Russia. At present, aOn the territory of the city there is an elite special-purpose regiment "Tiger" of the Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine.The main part of the galleries has been converted into an ammunition depot and is under heavy guard.

As is known, the United States, having adopted the atomic program in 1941, realized the results of the work performed on it in August 1945 by destroying the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The world has seen the threat of the use of terrible nuclear force. Naturally, the leadership of the USSR posed a state problem for scientists - to create their own atomic weapons as soon as possible and to protect the country from the use of such weapons by a potential enemy. To solve this problem, the state provided scientists with everything necessary, 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 nuclear weapons storage bases (CBH), which were supposed to assemble and store the produced ammunition.It was decided to build one of these central storage facilities 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 pierced 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 assemblies 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 overhead electric crane, several lifting hoists and special assembly places for fixing the assembled products with the possibility of their rotation in a vertical plane. The entire underground complex of structures had power supply 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 goods on special trolleys along a narrow gauge railway. The portals to the object are blocked by hermetic shutters weighing several tens of tons, which are rolled back into the niche with the help of an electric drive.

How do you like the door? :)

Due to its specificity, the object was nicknamed by the people “Theodossky metro”. The construction was supervised by the Leningrad metro construction division, and the tunneling work was carried out by specially selected prisoners with mining experience. Many of them, after serving their terms, were offered to remain as civilian workers to service the facility.
Assembled nuclear items were transported from here to launch sites in the central part of the USSR and some countries of the Warsaw Pact. Later, obsolete first-generation warheads began to be delivered to Krasnokamenka for disposal and processing.
Objects of this kind were actively erected right up to the very peak of the Cold War in the late 80s, but perestroika broke out, during which Ukraine became an independent state, and also adopted a nuclear-free status and the entire nuclear arsenal was distributed to the Central Bank on the territory of Russia. The empty adits were handed over to the Ukrainian troops and converted to other needs, 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 №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 small galleries, horseshoe-shaped in plan, with two halls. The first was intended directly for the storage of warheads, and the second housed the air conditioning system of the first. After all nuclear weapons were removed from Ukraine, the first two storages were abandoned, and the third remade into the "burial ground" for luminous equipment and tools used when working with nuclear warheads.

Object 712 A. One of the portals.

The first vault is the worst preserved. Almost all the metal was seized by marauders, and the walls and vaults are covered with soot.

All that's left of the ventilation system.

Air conditioning room. On the left is a 10-meter collector leading to the storage room for products.

There was a turning point here.

Object 712 B.

This vault survived a little better, since it was apparently not abandoned immediately. The photo shows a brick wall near one of the portals. Most likely, it was erected after the storage 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 either.

Paint has been preserved on some walls and hermetic gates.

The torn floor is also the work of looters to remove the rails.

All premises of the object were lined with metal insulating material, which was fastened on iron arcs.

Somehow we got really carried away with photography, the morning is already in full swing on the street :)

Watchtower.

The Kiziltash gorge is a piece of paradise. The people who lived here in Soviet times speak very positively about this place and the service itself, even despite the high level of responsibility. If you are interested in this topic, I advise you to read the memoirs of a resident of the city. The story is very emotional and educational.
After spending 2 days in the gorge, we continued to conquer the Crimea further. Krasnokamenka with civilization is connected by only one bus to Feodosia, passing several times a day.

Since we did not plan to go to Feodosia, we had to get out as soon as the bus pulled onto the highway.
It was the longest hitchhiking of the whole trip. After spending four whole hours under the hot sun, she finally deigned to stop the minibus in the direction of Sudak.

In Sudak, we had to climb to the highest point of the Genoese fortress, but we also had a surprise in the form of a trance music festival taking place near the city. More on that in the next review. There are many other interesting places ahead of us! To be continued...

The main defense department of the country says that today the Russian armories are literally overflowing with machine guns, sniper rifles and pistols, which were produced more than 30 years ago. According to some reports, the number of small arms in military arsenals at the beginning of 2012 was about 16 million barrels, of which about 35-40% have exhausted their resource. Until the end of 2015, the department of Anatoly Serdyukov is going to dispose of about 4 million weapons.

This was ambiguously perceived in Russia. Some people are sure that maintaining and increasing the number of small arms in the country is a matter of national security, and therefore no disposal mechanisms for the military arsenal are simply not appropriate. Others say that the disposal of old models of small arms that have exhausted their resource a decade ago is long overdue.

There is a rather remarkable opinion of experts, which boils down to the fact that a reduction in 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 spare arsenal.

All parties have their own arguments. Representatives of the first side are confident that the Ministry of Defense is involved in a dubious project that could affect the ability of the army to solve a whole range of tasks. The arguments in this case look something like this: small arms were created for the benefit of the Fatherland, and therefore their mass disposal is a blow to the security of the Russian army, which may face the need to participate in a large-scale conflict.

The Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper directly says that the large-scale disposal of small arms launched by the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation is similar to an episode more than 100 years ago, when the Minister of War Sukhomlinov signed an order in which he allowed the disposal of about 400 thousand rifles of the Berdan No. 2 system . Adjutant General Sukhomlinov in 1910 stated that these weapons only clutter up warehouses, and therefore they must either be sold or disposed of. However, after the start of the First World War, problems with the armament of the Russian army appeared, 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 resource. According to these people, if the industry does not work for the real supply of the army, but only for packing warehouses, and without replacing old types of weapons with new ones, then there is no need to talk about modernizing the army.

Both positions deserve respect. Indeed, the permanent storage of old weapons does not fit into the modernization plans. However, before something is massively disposed of, it is necessary to analyze the manufacturing industry. If our enterprises are ready to fulfill all the points of the State Defense Order in terms of creating ultra-modern small arms capable of becoming competitive, including on the world market, then the disposal of old weapons does not look frightening. 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, and who will be accused of treason there, and whether there will be such a person in the event of unpleasant events, this is already a big question ...

In this regard, so that no ambiguous judgments arise on the announced occasion, the Ministry of Defense must guarantee that all the measures taken 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, efficient and reliable weapons, which must be implemented without fail.

By the way, at a time when 16 million barrels are actually ownerless in army warehouses, in modern schools in the lessons of life safety (BZ) it was generally forbidden to conduct lessons devoted to the study of training weapons ... And if more recently a school graduate could add to his asset the fact that the lessons of basic military training revealed for him the basics of handling small arms, today many older students have seen a Kalashnikov assault rifle, perhaps depicted in numerous computer games ...

After the collapse of the USSR, the young states inherited many once powerful military and scientific facilities. The most dangerous and secret objects were urgently mothballed and evacuated, and many others were simply abandoned. They were left to rust: after all, the economy of most newly-made states simply could not pull their maintenance, they turned out to be of no use to anyone. Now some of them are a kind of mecca for stalkers, "tourist" objects, visiting which is associated with considerable risk.

"Resident Evil": a top-secret complex on the island of Renaissance in the Aral Sea

During Soviet times, a complex of military bioengineering institutes was located on an island in the middle of the Aral Sea, engaged in the development and testing of biological weapons. It was a facility of such a degree of secrecy that most of the employees who were involved in the maintenance infrastructure of the landfill simply did not know exactly where they worked. On the island itself, there were buildings and laboratories of the Institute, vivariums, equipment warehouses. Very comfortable conditions were created in the town for researchers and the military to live in conditions of complete autonomy. The island was carefully guarded by the military on land and at sea.

In 1992, the entire facility was urgently mothballed and abandoned by all the inhabitants, including the security of the facility. For some time it remained a "ghost town" until it was scouted by marauders, who for more than 10 years removed everything that was thrown there from the island. The fate of the secret developments carried out on the island and their results - cultures of deadly microorganisms - still remains a mystery.

Heavy-duty "Russian woodpecker": radar "Duga", Pripyat

The Duga over-the-horizon radar station is a radar station created in the USSR for the early detection of launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles by launching flashes (based on the reflection of radiation by the ionosphere). This gigantic structure took 5 years to build and was completed in 1985. The cyclopean antenna, 150 meters high and 800 meters long, consumed a huge amount of electricity, so it was built near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

For the characteristic sound on the air emitted during operation (knock), the station was named Russian Woodpecker (Russian Woodpecker). The installation was built to last for centuries and could successfully function to this day, but in reality, the Duga radar station worked for less than a year. The object stopped its work after the explosion of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

Underwater shelter of submarines: Balaklava, Crimea

According to people in the know, this top-secret submarine base was a transit point where submarines, including nuclear ones, were repaired, refueled and replenished with ammunition. It was a gigantic complex built to last for centuries, capable of withstanding a nuclear strike, under its arches up to 14 submarines could be accommodated at the same time. This military base was built in 1961 and abandoned in 1993, after which it was dismantled piece by piece by local residents. In 2002, it was decided to arrange a museum complex on the ruins of the base, but so far things have not gone beyond words. However, local diggers willingly take everyone there.

“Zone” in Latvian forests: Dvina missile silo, Kekava, Latvia

Not far from the capital of Latvia in the forest are the remains of the Dvina missile system. Built in 1964, the facility consisted of 4 launch silos with a depth of about 35 meters and underground bunkers. A significant part of the premises is currently flooded, and visiting the launcher without an experienced stalker guide is not recommended. Also dangerous are the remains of poisonous rocket fuel - heptyl, according to some information, remaining in the depths of the launch silos.

"Lost World" in the Moscow region: Lopatinsky phosphorite mine

The Lopatinskoye phosphorite deposit, 90 km from Moscow, was the largest in Europe. In the 30s of the last century, it began to be actively developed in an open way. At the Lopatinsky quarry, all the main types of bucket-wheel excavators were used - moving on rails, moving on caterpillars, and excavators walking with an "added" step. It was a gigantic development with its own railroad. After 1993, the field was shut down, leaving all expensive imported special equipment there.

The mining of phosphorites has led to the emergence of an incredible "unearthly" landscape. The long and deep trenches of the quarries are mostly flooded. They are interspersed with high sandy ridges, turning into flat, like a table, sandy fields, black, white and reddish dunes, pine forests with regular rows of planted pines. Giant excavators - "absetzers" resemble alien ships rusting on the sands in the open. All this makes the Lopatinsky Quarries a kind of natural and man-made "reserve", a place of increasingly lively pilgrimage for tourists.

"Well to hell": Kola superdeep well, Murmansk region

The Kola superdeep well is the deepest in the world. Its depth is 12,262 meters. It is located in the Murmansk region, 10 kilometers west of the city of Zapolyarny. The well was drilled in the northeastern part of the Baltic Shield exclusively for research purposes in the place where the lower boundary of the earth's crust comes close to the earth's surface. In the best years, 16 research laboratories worked at the Kola superdeep well, they were personally supervised by the Minister of Geology of the USSR.

Many interesting discoveries were made at the well, for example, the fact that life on Earth arose, it turns out, 1.5 billion years earlier than expected. At the depths where it was believed that there was no, and could not be, organic matter, 14 species of fossilized microorganisms were found - the age of the deep layers exceeded 2.8 billion years. In 2008, the facility was abandoned, the equipment was dismantled, and the destruction of the building began.

As of 2010, the well is mothballed and is gradually being destroyed. The cost of restoration is about one hundred million rubles. There are many implausible legends about the “well to hell” associated with the Kola super-deep well, from the bottom of which the cries of sinners are heard, and the hellish flame melts the drills.

"Russian HAARP" - multifunctional radio complex "Sura"

In the late 1970s, as part of geophysical research, a multifunctional radio complex "Sura" was built near the city of Vasilsursk, Nizhny Novgorod Region, to influence the Earth's ionosphere with powerful HF radio emission. The Sura complex, in addition to antennas, radars and radio transmitters, includes a laboratory complex, an economic unit, a specialized transformer electrical substation. The once secret station, where a number of important studies are still being carried out today, is a thoroughly rusted and battered, but still not completely abandoned facility. One of the important areas of research carried out at the complex is the development of methods for protecting the operation of equipment and communications from ion disturbances in the atmosphere of various nature.

Currently, the station operates only 100 hours per year, while at the famous American HAARP facility, experiments are carried out for 2000 hours over the same period. The Nizhny Novgorod Radiophysical Institute does not have enough money for electricity - for one day of operation, the equipment of the test site deprives the complex of the monthly budget. The complex is threatened not only by lack of money, but also by theft of property. Due to the lack of proper protection, "hunters" for scrap metal now and then make their way to the territory of the station.

"Oil Rocks" - a seaside city of oil producers, Azerbaijan

This settlement on overpasses, standing right in the Caspian Sea, is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's oldest oil platforms. It was built in 1949 in connection with the beginning of oil production from the bottom of the sea around the Black Stones - a stone ridge barely protruding from the surface of the sea. There are drilling rigs connected by overpasses, on which the settlement of oil field workers is located. The settlement grew, and during its heyday included power plants, nine-story dormitory buildings, hospitals, a cultural center, a park with trees, a bakery, a lemonade production workshop, and even a mosque with a full-time mullah.

The length of overpass streets and lanes of the sea city reaches 350 kilometers. There was no permanent population in the city, and up to 2,000 people lived there as part of a shift shift. The period of decline of the Oil Rocks began with the advent of cheaper Siberian oil, which made offshore mining unprofitable. However, the sea town still did not become a ghost town; in the early 2000s, major repairs began there and even began laying new wells.

Failed Collider: Abandoned Particle Accelerator, Protvino, Moscow Region

In the late 80s, the construction of a huge particle accelerator was planned in the Soviet Union. The scientific center of Protvino near Moscow - the city of nuclear physicists - in those years was a powerful complex of physical institutes, where scientists from all over the world came. A ring tunnel 21 kilometers long was built, lying at a depth of 60 meters. He is now near Protvino. They even began to bring equipment into the already finished accelerator tunnel, but then a series of political upheavals erupted, and the domestic “hadron collider” remained unassembled.

The institutes of the city of Protvino maintain the satisfactory condition of this tunnel - an empty dark ring underground. The lighting system works there, there is a functioning narrow-gauge railway line. All sorts of commercial projects were proposed, such as an underground amusement park or even a mushroom farm. However, scientists have not yet given up this object - perhaps they are hoping for the best.