Mudflow protection dam, a unique structure of engineering protection against mud and stone flows in the Medeu tract, is located 15 km south of Almaty in the mountain valley of the Malaya Almatinka River (1750 m above sea level).
Monument of architecture, engineering art.
The project was developed by the Kazakh branch of the Hydroproject Institute (Chief Engineer G.I. Shapovalov). Academicians M.A. Lavrentiev, M.A. Sadovsky, N.V. Melnikov and L.I. Sedov acted as consultants for the construction of the dam. The Medeo dam was created in two stages. The first phase of the dam, 110 m high, with a mudflow storage capacity of 6.2 million cubic meters, was created for the first time in world practice with the help of directed explosions in October 1966 and April 1967 (8.5 million cubic meters of soil were laid into the body of the dam; explosions of more than 2.5 million cubic meters). The author of the project is the senior engineer of Soyuzvzryvprom A.N. Itter. On September 27, 1966, the first convoy of cars with explosives passed through the streets of Alma-Ata to the site of the future dam. It was supposed to build a dam museum, where visitors could listen to all the nuances of the explosion on October 21, 1966, recorded for posterity on tape, see all the delights of the explosion from films and photo panoramas.
The second explosion on April 14, 1967 was less successful. Half of the work had to be carried out mechanized, by the method of people's construction, with the involvement mainly of the military reserve. Thus, mudflow protection measures provoked a catastrophic mudflow on July 15, 1973. The mudflow, which in its power surpassed all the glacial mudflows on Malaya Almatinka and was close to the storm mudflow of 1921 and the glacial mudflow of 1963, which passed along the Issyk River. The completion of the construction of the 2nd stage of the dam in 1980 significantly increased the capacity of the mudflow storage (up to 12.6 million cubic meters), the height of the dam was raised to 150 m, the length along the crest is 530 m, the width at the base is 800 m. According to calculations, it can delay the flow, three times the volume of the mudflow in 1973.
When a 17-meter gabion dam was breached in Mynzhilki (a.s. 3,000 m), the maximum water flow reached 250 cubic meters per second (when passing the Gorelnik camp site, it was already 3200, and at the entrance to the mudflow storage - 5180 cubic meters per second). The mudflow of 1973 with a mass of 5.3 million cubic meters cut off the road under construction, equipment, electricity, people who intended to fight nature. At 18 hours and 17 minutes, the “dragon of the mountains” reached the dam, and for three hours tried to break through it. A mud-stone sea was formed. The movement of the stream was accompanied by a strong roar and shudder of the slopes. It is clear that after such a furious work, the mudflow did not leave intact more than one hydraulic structure, supposed by the project to stop the flow. For example, through mudflow protection traps, special structures that were fastened with concrete. The trusses themselves, welded from steel 40-centimeter two-tee beams, each weighing 27 tons, fixed with eight pairs of steel cables to anchors embedded in the rocks, were torn out during the mudflow, like rotten threads. After the passage of the stream, due to the strong deformation and instability of the slopes of the valley, the mudflow hazard of the Malaya Almatinka River sharply increased. Mudflow protection rockfill dam took the brunt of the disaster, however, there was no free volume left in the mudflow storage to delay new catastrophic mudflows. The picturesque mountain gorge has turned into a deserted canyon. The mudflow destroyed the residential buildings of the Gorelnik camp site, caused great loss of life (in fact, after the tragic event, the sports and recreational tracts were forever closed).
In the history of Alma-Ata, geological disasters are known that occurred on May 28, 1887 and December 22, 1910 (old style), devastating mudflows in 1921, 1956, 1973, which significantly influenced the development of architecture and urban planning, the construction and operation of mudflow protection structures (Kazglavselezashchita). The construction of the dam began in 1964. Three large mudflow-retaining dams were built, incl. The 150-meter rockfill dam Medeo with a mudflow storage capacity of 12.6 million cubic meters. The length along the crest is 530 m, the width along the base is 800 m. A significant amount of work was carried out by powerful directed explosions. The dam withstood in 1973. the pressure of the mud-stone mass and flood waters, some of them were diverted using a system of artificial structures (water intake, metal siphon, etc.). For guaranteed discharge of the liquid component of the mudflow, two tunnel spillways were laid in the left part of the dam. In addition, the dam has a tower-slit spillway. Avalanche hedgehogs are installed on the slopes of Mount Mokhnatka. The dam has three consecutive height levels. On the site of the first, highest point of the dam, a panorama was built, the so-called. "swallow's nest". A staircase, known to residents of the city and tourists, leads to the dam, consisting of 842 concrete steps with verandas. City running competitions are regularly held to climb this unique staircase.
In the river basin Malaya Almatinka (Sarysai river, Kimasar river) a set of mudflow protection measures is being carried out to preliminarily drain water from mudflow-prone moraine lakes, stabilize river channels with systems of deaf and through structures, strengthen river banks, and eliminate mudflow sources. However, residential construction is underway, the laying of automobile and chairlift roads in the subalpine and forest zones, on the slopes of the Chimbulak and Tuyuksu ski resorts, and the high-mountain Talgarsky pass.
Photos: Vyacheslav Kamorsky
Mudflow completely destroyed the camp site "Gorelnik".
On July 7, 1963, the Issyk disaster happened. Then the mudflow destroyed the most beautiful mountain lake and killed up to one and a half hundred residents of Alma-Ata, who rested on its shore on Sunday (cm. ).
Vyacheslav Kamorsky.
This was the last call that made the leadership of Kazakhstan think about the fact that a mortal threat hung over Alma-Ata.
It was decided to build a powerful mudflow protection dam in the Medeo tract. The chronicle of its construction led photojournalist of "Evening Alma-Ata", who left Kazakhstan a few years ago and now lives in Kaluga. He sent for Forbes. kz a series of archival photographs with their signatures - about the construction of the dam, about the village that took place more than 40 years ago and about the elimination of its consequences.
For the first time in the world, it was decided to create a dam with the help of directed explosions. The first one rumbled October 21, 1966.
The second explosion raised clouds of earth and dust into the sky April 14, 1967. Famous Kazakh local historian Vladimir Proskurin, who now lives in Berlin, believes that he was less successful and, in the end, flaws in mudflow protection actions provoked mudflow lava that went to the city July 15, 1973.
“When a 17-meter dam broke in the town of Mynzhilki (3 thousand meters above sea level), the maximum water flow reached 250 cubic meters per second, when passing the Gorelnik camp site it was already 3200, and at the entrance to the mudflow storage - 5180 cubic meters per second, - writes Proskurin.
- A mudflow with a volume of 5.3 million cubic meters cut off the road under construction, equipment, electricity, people who intended to fight nature. At 18 hours 17 minutes, the "dragon of the mountains" reached the dam, and for three hours tried to break through it. A mud-stone sea was formed.
- The movement of the stream was accompanied by a strong roar and shudder of the slopes. It is clear that after such a furious work, the mudflow did not leave a single hydraulic structure intact. For example, through mudflow protection traps, special structures that were fastened with concrete. The trusses themselves, welded from steel 40-centimeter beams, each weighing 27 tons, fixed with eight pairs of steel cables to anchors embedded in the rocks, were torn out during the mudflow, like rotten threads.
- After the passage of the stream, due to the strong deformation and instability of the slopes of the valley, the mudflow hazard of the Malaya Almaatinka river has sharply increased.
Mudflow protection rockfill dam took the brunt of the disaster, however, there was no free volume left in the mudflow storage to delay new catastrophic mudflows. The picturesque mountain gorge has turned into a deserted canyon.
Mudflow destroyed the residential buildings of the camp site "Gorelnik", caused great loss of life. After this tragic event, the sports and recreation facilities of the tract were closed forever.”
The construction of the mudflow protection dam "Medeo" in the Medeo tract in the valley of the Malaya Almatinka River began in 1964 and was carried out with the help of blasting. The first blast (right-bank) was made in 1966. The second blast (left-bank) was in 1967. The rockfill dam of the first stage, 107 meters high, formed a mudflow storage with a capacity of 6.2 million cubic meters and was put into operation in 1972. In 1973, the dam held up a mudflow with a mass volume of 5.3 million cubic meters.
Creation of the Medeo Dam. The first right-bank explosion on October 21, 1966.
The tract Medeo. Everything is ready to explode. The initial phase of the explosion. Apogee of the explosion. Rocky soil is laid in the body of the dam.
The mudflow took place in the early evening of the weekend on July 15, 1973. At an altitude of 3500 meters above sea level, there was a breakthrough of the natural bridge of moraine lake No. 2 on the Tuyuksu glacier. The resulting mudflow in a few seconds destroyed a light dam in the Mynzhilki tract, in a matter of minutes it swept past Chimbulak and demolished half of the Gorelnik camp site. Unfortunately, most of the tourists were at that moment on that site, and they all died.
The tourist center "Gorelnik" was broken with such stones. 
Then scientists calculated that the strength of the 1973 flow was 4 times the strength of the 1921 flow. Then a quarter of the entire urban development was destroyed, more than 500 people died.
Fragments of an anti-mudflow trap on Gorelnik (above the Medeo dam). 
A steel barrier, concreted into the walls of a narrow gorge, fixed with ten steel ropes each as thick as an arm, delayed the mudflow for only a few seconds. A shaft almost 30 meters high, breaking through a fifty-meter-deep canyon here, rushed further - to the dam in Medeo.
Rapidly escaping from behind the last turn, disintegrating along the foundation pit, it collapsed with all its weight on the shield of Alma-Ata - the dam. The dam survived. Shielded the city.
July 15, 1973, 6:15 p.m. Entrance of the first wave of the mud-stone flow into the mud storage in the Medeo tract.
The mudflow hit the body of the dam and choked, filling the pit with itself. 
The waters of moraine lakes brought almost 4 million cubic meters of mud and stone mass to the dam. Three hours later, a second mudflow descended from the mountains, raising the water level of the formed lake even higher.
Mudflow Canyon. 
The next day, July 16, at 5:25 pm, from the post near the Sarysai River, they reported: mudflow started again. The same news was received at 9:10 pm from a post near the Chimbulak River. Mudflows from Sarysai and Chimbulak went for an hour and a half in total.
Having tamed the mudflow avalanche, the dam kept almost 5 million cubic meters of mudflow mass in its basin.
The tract Medeo. Mudflow lake, dam, mountain ice stadium "Medeo" (left to right). 
The dam withstood the first assault, but now its siege has begun. Mudflow clogged drainage pipes. There was a real danger of overflowing the mudflow lake, which every second received up to 12 cubic meters of Almatinka water.
Work on the dam began as early as 5 am on 16 July. It was necessary to use at least 12 powerful pumps, lay kilometers of pipelines. They started installing them right away. At least 10 dredgers were needed, which were not available in Alma-Ata at all, they were delivered by cargo planes from Moscow, Chelyabinsk and Orenburg, and on July 20 they began to work.
Mudflow lake behind the dam. 
The urgently formed emergency government commission to combat mudflows took emergency measures to conduct emergency work. Hundreds of dump trucks, bulldozers, excavators, pipe-laying cranes were sent to the dam.
Construction headquarters. 
The army took on a lot of work (pontoons, construction battalion). Divers - there were civilians, from the Volga, there were also military men, from the Baltic, specialists in working in conditions of almost complete lack of visibility (plunging into the mudflow mass, the team of divers tried to break through to the flooded intake of the dam).
Meeting with army commanders. 
They began to urgently import equipment and people in order to arrange the pumping of water from the mudflow storage. 
Cranes were driven to the very edge, stood on unreliable soils, but experienced people worked on them. 
Pumps on pontoons. 
It was necessary to carry out the installation of three lines of the pipeline with a diameter of 1420 mm and a kilometer long, and the welding seam must be perfect - there is no way to fix it during pumping. We chose the best welders throughout the headquarters, they cooked day and night, at night the construction site was illuminated by searchlights.
Main working platform (left side). 
Main working platform (right side). 
On July 18, water filtration began in the body of the dam, to put it simply, leaks formed. It was necessary to urgently concrete. But concrete cannot be placed on a wet surface, and even if placed, it must dry for a certain time. On July 19, they began to spray the oozing streams with the help of ventilation ducts, and immediately concreted the surface of the dam, using the same fans for drying - the work of the Promventilation trust played a big role here.
Filtration - leaks in the dam (filmed in the evening, blurry). 
With each passing day, the water in the mudflow reservoir arrived, hiding in its depths the tops of fir trees growing on the slopes. By 00:30 on July 20, it reached its maximum level. Only 6 meters remained to the top of the dam.
Work site. 
The pumps started, the water was discharged. 
When the pumps drove water through the pipes, the stream did not want to go down the channel prepared behind the dam. He began to destroy the rocks, trying to rush to the ice stadium. And then Ugudey Akaev, Gennady Kupriyanov and Valery Gomonov made a "jewelry" explosion, which removed the threat from the sports complex facilities.
Discharge of water along the rocky slope of Mount Mokhnatka. 
One and a half kilometers above the dam, the builders of the Alma-Ata-promspetsstroy trust built a water intake in record time, laid a water conduit capable of receiving the raging Almatinka into a steel channel, and, bypassing the mudflow storage, direct it beyond the dam. At noon on August 2, the blocking of the river began, and after a few hours its conquered waters went at great speed along the channel laid by the builders.
Pumping water from Malaya Almatinka. 
The fight against the consequences of the mudflow went on both sides of the dam. It was still hot in the mountains, even near the glaciers. Every day they melted faster and faster, and thousands of jets rushed along the slopes, filling the river beds to the brim. To prevent a new mudflow from the Tuyuksu moraine, a special team from helicopters dropped blocks on the glaciers, creating a dense smoke screen from the scorching sun.
Completion of work. Mudflow brought a large amount of silt and mud, it was necessary to restore the capacity of the reservoir. The soil was excavated and hauled away. 
"Medeo - days and nights of courage". A documentary film about the events of those days.
(Link to the video if the built-in does not open: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1phOWYxMDBc)
Oraz Bisenov, one of the liquidators of the mudflow, in 1973 the head of the department "Glavalmaatastroy":
“When we worked on the dam, we didn’t think about fame or, as they say now, about PR - I generally drove filmmakers and television people from the construction site so that they wouldn’t interfere with work, as a result of which I never got into the frame of the film that we have now been viewed, although this film is a valuable document on the history of Alma-Ata, the city in which I have been building all my life.
At that time I was very proud that we have such a city that we protect from mudflows, such a republic and such a country - such a powerful centralized state that it can concentrate when someone is in trouble. I don't know if it could be now if this happens again?"
Website materials used:
Big mudflow 1973: thirty-five years later
Walk along the Maloalmatinsky gorge.
"Nature's idle spy,
I love, forgetting everything around,
Follow the lancet swallow
Over the Evening Pond"
Afanasy Fet. "Swallows".
A trip to the Medeo dam from Almaty.
Dam in
rises immediately behind the alpine. In 1966, to protect against mudflows, two unique directed explosions blocked the Maloalmatinskoye Gorge. A complex hydraulic structure rose to a height of 150 meters. On the south side of the dam there is a huge mud storage facility, and the river flows through the tunnel. The mudflow protection facility in , is located 15 kilometers from Almaty. Construction began in 1964 and was carried out with the help of blasting. The first explosion took place in 1966, the second in 1967. Rockfill dam of the first stage (height 107 meters, body volume 5,000,000 cubic meters) formed a mudflow storage with a capacity of 6.2,000,000 cubic meters and was commissioned in 1972. In 1973, it delayed a powerful catastrophic mudflow with a mass volume of 5.3,000,000 cubic meters, which significantly exceeded the capacity of the mudflow storage.The dam withstood the pressure of the mud-stone mass and flood waters, some of them were diverted using a system of siphons and locks.After this mudflow, it was decided to build the 2nd stage of the dam, which was completed in 1980 and significantly increased the capacity of the mudflow reservoir to 12.6,000,000 cubic meters.The height of the dam above sea level is 1750 meters above sea level and was raised to 150 meters, the length along the crest is up to 530 meters, the width at the base is 800 meters. 
multi-ton boulders polished by water and wind. You meet them not only high in the mountains, they are piled up in the vicinity of Alma-Ata and even in the city itself, on the streets leading to mountain gorges. These are the marks of the mudflow, which managed to reach here, to the city blocks…
STONES TALK
Giant granite "nuts" are hidden in the ground. They are discovered by excavators who have to prepare foundation pits for new houses or pipelines. These are already signs of mudflows, earlier in age, but apparently no less cruel.
Alma-Ata residents are well aware of the nature of mudflows, their insidious nature. Born far in the mountains as a result of rapid melting of snow or heavy rains, masses of water, saturated with mud, rush down the channels of mountain rivers at the speed of a courier train.
A rapid mud-stone flood, washing away narrow gorges, captures trees and boulders on its way, which, like ice floes, float in a mudflow. Large mudflows cause enormous destruction.
Here is some information about the mudflows that raged in the Malaya Almatinka river basin over the past 80 years.
Year 1887. As a result of the earthquake and heavy rain at the headwaters of the Bolshaya and Malaya Almatinka and other smaller mountain rivers, a mud-stone stream was born - a mudflow. A large number of loosened rocks were transferred. The city of Verny (as Alma-Ata used to be called) did not reach the mudflow.
Year 1888. The melt waters, having broken through the reservoir formed by the blockage of the snow avalanche, rushed into the valley of the Malaya Almatinka River. Mud-stone removals disfigured several quarters of Verny.
Year 1889. Heavy rain rolled a mudslide that covered several streets of the city.
Year 1918. The mudflow demolished buildings and bridges in the upper reaches of Malaya Almatinka.
Year 1921. Catastrophe. The downpour overflowed the tributaries of Malaya Almatinka - Sarysay, Chimbulak, Gorelnik, Komissarovka, Kazachka, Battery and Butakovka. Having absorbed their strength, Malaya Almatinka threw a mudflow sweeping away everything in its path onto the city. The enraged stream carried about 7 million cubic meters of water and 3,250,000 cubic meters of stone, sand and clay from the mountains in six hours. The naturalist V. N. Shnitnikov, who witnessed the catastrophe, described its consequences in this way. Behind the first mud flow, “at night, a high shaft of semi-liquid mud rushed into the city, carrying huge stone blocks and destroying everything in its path: houses, trees, fences. Everything caught by this rampart was destroyed and torn off the face of the earth. The first wave was followed by the next, and so, at intervals, several such grandiose mud banks passed through the city. Dozens of houses were destroyed by the elements, a large number of livestock died.
Mudflow in 1921. The Head Ditch (now Abay Avenue) is broken through by a mudflow
Mudflow 1921 Destruction on Kopalskaya Street (now Kunaev Street)
Then the mudflow reminded of itself 11 more times.
Year 1956. August 7. The collapsed moraine of the Tuyuksu glacier splashed down a mud-stone stream, which destroyed hydrometeorological structures, bridges, and the road leading to Alma-Ata. The river roared with huge boulders. It was strange: there was no rain, but there was water in the city, saying the proverb, "at least a dime a dozen." True, these streams ran through the streets for a short time, dried up as quickly as they flooded.
Year 1963. July 7th During the day there were showers and thunderstorms in the mountains. In the afternoon, a mountain flood born under the tongue of the Zharsai glacier, breaking through the moraine, brought down its furious power on Lake Issyk. For eight hours, the mud-stone stream inflicted crushing blows on the most beautiful lake, which existed for thousands of years in the granite frame of the mountains of the Trans-Ili Alatau.
The waters of the lake, breaking through the barrier, rushed down into the valley. Two streets were demolished in the Issyk settlement, many houses, shops and other buildings were destroyed. The world-famous eight-thousand-year-old Alpine miracle was destroyed in a few hours. Fortunately, the mudflow has made its way far away from Alma-Ata. In the city, he could do even more destruction.
After this tragedy, the question of protecting the capital of Soviet Kazakhstan from the formidable elements arose with particular urgency.
ADDRESS: MEDEO STORE
This road, firmly gripped by asphalt, is like a magician: it can show you spring and winter in half an hour, in September you will find August on it, and in March - February ...
... Passing a dozen and a half kilometers, you find yourself in Medeo. This picturesque tract, rightfully called the pearl of Alma-Ata, is located a thousand meters above the city. This explains the “magic” of the road, which shows several climatic zones at once in a short time.
... But Medeo is also the gate of the mudflow. Here, in the narrow gorge of the gorge, more than once mud-stone streams gained their destructive power.
Sel threatened the city. People were waiting for him, making attempts to avert this threat.
The first project to protect Alma-Ata from mudflows was developed in 1934-1935. It provided for the creation in the river valley of a number of large mudflow protection pits, fascine barriers, and land reclamation work. In the thirties, a dam was erected in the Malo-Almatinsky Gorge, which performed a kind of role of a traffic controller: it directed mudflows into the channel of Vesnovka. Then a water divider was built.
In 1964, by decision of the Council of Ministers of the Kazakh SSR, the construction of a gabion dam at the foot of the Tuyuksu glacier began. At an altitude of 3017 meters above sea level, the first barrier arose - a dam made of gabions - cells made of metal mesh filled with cobblestone. Of course, this dam is too weak to stop the mudflow, but it can slow down the movement, make the formidable flow slower, and therefore more accommodating. Workers of SMU "Vodokanalstroy" also installed three rubber-fabric pipes. During the day, they pumped out up to 20 thousand cubic meters of water from the moraine lake of the glacier, thereby preventing it from overflowing.
Down the gorge, in the area of the Gorelnik tourist base, civil engineers erected several mudflow protection traps that were original in design. Design work on their construction was carried out for the first time in the Soviet Union by the Kazakh branch of the Hydroproject Institute named after S. Ya. Zhuk and the Kazakh branch of "Proektstalkonstruktsii".
Traps at the base and on the slopes of the gorge were fastened with concrete, and all steel trusses on the high side were fastened to special anchors embedded in the rocks with eight pairs of steel cables. The weight of each truss, welded from steel 40 cm I-beams, was about 27 tons, and in general each trap consisted of almost a thousand tons of metal, a thousand cubic meters of stone and almost seven hundred cubic meters of concrete.
The construction of these traps was carried out in the shortest possible time by employees of the Gidrospetsstroy department, the Kazakhvzryvprom trust, the mechanization departments of Kazstalkonstruktsii and Kazmekhanomontazh of the Ministry of Construction of the Republic.
Well, what if all these facilities are insufficient to hold back the pressure of the mudflow?..
WHY THE EXPLOSION!
When did they first talk about the explosion? The author of the directed explosion project, the senior engineer of Soyuzvzryvprom, Alexander Nikolayevich Kobzev, tells about this:
I remember the spring of 1954. The days were warm, the earth breathed widely, rejoicing at its awakening. On one of these days, Doctor of Technical Sciences Mikhail Moiseevich Dokuchaev, then also a senior engineer at Soyuzvzryvprom, and I wandered through the gorges of Malaya Almatinka. Our walk was not aimless, we were looking for the most profitable and convenient place for the construction of a dam in an explosive way, which would become the shield of Alma-Ata. The choice fell on Medeo.
The first draft of a directed mass explosion on a "dump" was drawn up in 1957. It was planned to build a dam 93 meters high and 60 meters wide at the top. The volume of the projected dam was to be 2,250 thousand cubic meters. Only an explosion could produce such work in a short time. Why was it necessary to resort to it?
The fact is that the mudflow hazard for Alma-Ata in recent years has been especially great. Mudflow could bring great trouble and destruction in any spring, summer or autumn. The protective structure had to be created in the interval between two mudflow-prone seasons. It would take at least four years to build a dam that reliably protected the city in the usual way. But during this interval, a catastrophic mudflow could pass, which would also capture the unfinished dam, multiplying its furious power many times over.
That is why specialists and scientists settled on using the explosive method of building a dam.
But the builders could not immediately pick up the pace. Some scientists proposed their own ways to deal with mudflows and rejected the main one - the creation of a shield by the force of an explosion. Their objections were carefully listened to: in essence, an experiment was being prepared in Medeo.
There were questions: whether the explosion would violate the integrity of buildings in the immediate vicinity of it and in the city, whether it would cause landslides, whether the dam would become a source of irreparable disaster. The answers to these questions were given by outstanding Soviet specialists in the field of mining and hydraulic engineering, who had deeply developed this question theoretically and had already used explosions for "discharge" and "ejection" in construction practice.
... The project for the construction of the dam was considered in detail and approved by the Scientific Council for the National Economic Use of the Explosion at the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences on February 17, 1960 in Novosibirsk and June 23, 1960 - in Alma-Ata.
When developing the issues of the stability of the dam in Medeo, the S. Ya. Zhuk Hydroproject Institute adopted parameters with a huge margin of safety, as for a first-class dam.
The expert commission of the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in 1966 again considered the issue of the explosion in Medeo and concluded: “There will be an explosion! Start an active struggle against the mudflow!
THE FEAT STARTED LIKE THIS...
... The Malaya Almatinka whips the rocks with white fire. Every Almaty resident knows about the unbridled nature of this mountain beauty. But the uncontrolled rampage of the river, its insidious companion - mudflow comes to an end.
But where will the waters of the river go when its channel is blocked by a dam created by an explosion in a matter of seconds? This was taken into account in the project: long before the explosion, Malaya Almatinka should turn into a tunnel punched in the granite thickness of the mountains.
... On the driving of the main mine chamber for a charge of 3600 tons, there were many examples of the labor heroism of the workers of the complex brigades of the Alma-Ata special department of the Kazakhvzryvprom trust. Explosive tunnelers Yuri Varava, Valentin Gladyshev, Vladimir Zagarin, Vasily Kubchenko, Boris Medvedev, Yuri Glinsky, forklift drivers for cleaning up blasted rock Alexei Uzbaev and Alexander Shumilov, railway workers Boris Kudryavtsev and Sergei Lukashenko ... Can you list all the workers, engineers and technicians, selflessly working underground! In strong granite rocks, they passed a chamber with a volume of more than 5000 cubic meters for the main charge. This unique chamber is 93 meters long, 8 meters wide and 7 meters high. The difficulty of sinking was that the work had to be carried out in disturbed rocks with a significant influx of groundwater. This required creative searches, bold technical solutions for the construction of rod, arched and campfire mounts. Due to the high height of the chamber, it had to be passed in two tiers.
By the beginning of charging the chambers, more than 3,000 meters of tunnels, galleries, chambers had been covered and more than 10,000 cubic meters of rock had been excavated.
On September 27, 1966, the first convoy of cars with explosives passed through the streets of the city, heading to Medeo to the site of the future dam. Special vehicles, accompanied by motorcyclists, had to transport several trains of TNT. The best drivers of Alma-Ata bases, such as Vladimir Lapshin, Mikhail Svetlichny, Vladimir Abeidulin, Mikhail Pechenykh, were entrusted to deliver it to the adits. Employees of the Alma-Ata ORUD had to perform an unusual role for them as escorts. About six hundred flights. Not a single failure, everything is strictly on schedule.
The mine chambers were charged round the clock. 250 leading specialists from twenty departments of the country came to the aid of the Alma-Ata bombers: Moscow and Leningrad, Tashkent and Novosibirsk, Murmansk and Karaganda and many others.
At dawn on October 13, the loading of the largest mine chamber was completed. The head of the chamber, Gennady Ivanovich Tsoi, reported to the headquarters of the explosion: "3,604 tons, 126 kilograms of explosives were placed in the chambers."
The charge, unprecedented in the world practice of explosives, was ready.
On the night of October 16, under the leadership of the deputy head of the charging section, Vladimir Ivanovich Petrov, the last 494 tons of TNT were laid.
Under the rocky right slope of the gorge, five peaceful charges - 5291 tons of explosives - were waiting for their appointed hour. Cars with sand went to the adits, which clogged the underground corridors leading to the cells.
The Alma-Ata explosion is not a record in terms of the weight of the charge system of 5,291 tons. At the construction of the Amu-Bukhara Canal, 9,352 tons of explosives were simultaneously blown up by many charges. The weight of one concentrated charge, which discovered the Altyn-Topkan ore deposit in Uzbekistan, amounted to 1640 tons. It was a world record. The uniqueness of the explosion in Medeo was that 3604 tons of chemical explosives were concentrated in one of its five charges. World practice has never known such a quantity of explosives in one charge.
... Attaching great importance to the uniqueness of the explosion, about a hundred researchers and leading specialists from various institutions and organizations of the country were preparing to conduct numerous studies.
For a comprehensive study of the explosion, major scientific centers of the country were involved: the Institute of Physics of the Earth of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, the Hydroproject Institute named after S. Ya. Zhuk, the Moscow Civil Engineering Institute named after V. V. Kuibyshev, the construction laboratory for drilling and blasting of the Soyuzzryvprom trust , Kazakh Research Hydrometeorological Institute, Institute of Geological Sciences of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic, Institute of Exploration Geophysics, Kazakh Institute of Mining, Kazakh Polytechnic Institute, Kazakh Institute of Regional Pathology.
Numerous devices sensitively listen to the voice of the mountains. Only a special expedition of the Institute of Physics of the Earth of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, within a radius of up to 300 kilometers, equipped more than 30 temporary points for recording the processes of explosion development. More than 50 kilometers of different types of wires and special cables were installed, automatically connecting the equipment. More than 130 seismographs have been installed. Aimed at eye explosion 12 cameras, which are "instructed" to make normal and high-speed shooting, recording devices are placed in special vans with good shock absorption. A group of operators and engineers of the Kazakh television studio under the leadership of I. K. Smirnov, I. N. Deltsov installed four cameras with remote automatic start. One of them in a metal frame was waiting for a signal three hundred meters from the epicenter of the explosion.
… Evening falls over the mountains. With violet fire he burns the clouds to gray ashes. Explosives leave the zone of the mine station. Only those who, headed by the head of the Alma-Ata department of Kazakhvzryvprom, Suren Aramovich Simonyan, must install 48 electric detonators remain. Jewelry precision work. It is complicated by the fact that during charging, for the first time, an original scheme for laying a detonating cord was used, penetrating the entire charge of the main and auxiliary chambers.
Electric detonators are attached to the "militants" located in the thickness of the explosive.
... At the start - an explosion!
SELL IN A TRAP
... The section of the road in Medeo from the stop "Most" to the site of the explosion is a dangerous zone. Anxious silence escorts you to the last police post. The windows of the empty houses look at the road with glass crossed out with paper tapes.
The population from this area, about 60 families, was evacuated and temporarily placed for security purposes in the central districts of Alma-Ata.
At the mine station, the head of the explosion, the manager of the Kazakhvzryvprom trust, Israel Yakovlevich Itter, and the chief of staff of the explosion, the manager of the Soyuzvzryvprom trust, Sergei Aleksandrovich Popov. They are experienced blasters, but the explosion that is to be made in a few hours is unique, and they are naturally worried.
At the control post, created near the rest house "X Years of Kazakhstan", the last consultations are given by the Minister of Public Order of the Republic Dmitry Alexandrovich Pankov, Commissioner of Police of the III rank Janispek Kusmangalievich Kusmangaliev, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Alma-Ata City Council of Workers' Deputies Yesen Duysenovich Duysenov.
A few kilometers from the mine station, you can still meet Kazakhvzryvprom vehicles, gas trucks of scientists and specialists who arrived from Moscow, Leningrad, Novosibirsk, and Tashkent. Everyone has a lot to worry about.
... At 9:30 am, the installation of an external explosive network is completed.
Deputy Chairman of the Government Commission for the Explosion, Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Kazakh SSR Kayum Mukhamedzhanovich Simakov checks the readiness for the explosion.
At the observation post, one hears: “Wave”, says “Mountain” ... “Volna”, “Volna” transmits: “The wind is favorable, northwest, at an altitude of 300-600 meters 2-4 meters per second. The temperature is 4 degrees below zero."
       The dynamics of the development of the explosion |
... In order to obtain data with the greatest accuracy, Mikhail Alekseevich Brusilovsky, engineer of the Ili geophysical expedition, goes on the air every five minutes. At his signal, the moment of the explosion will be marked.
An airplane is circling under the mountains. On board are specialists from the Hydrometeorological Service of the Kazakh SSR and the Scientific Research Hydrometeorological Institute, who will conduct special aerovisual observations.
Messages are sent to the headquarters of the explosion about the readiness of all operational posts. In a few minutes, the practical results of the hard work of scientists, engineers, technicians and workers who prepared this explosion will be received.
The chords of Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto are on the air. This is the password for ready to explode.
...A minute before the explosion. Mountain echo carries the hoarse voice of a siren. Hitting the jagged edges of the mountains, he rushes through the gorge.
There are minutes in the day when radio operators around the globe ring with silence. Radio operators listen to silence. There are also explosives. Five seconds of silence.
The explosive network is connected to the terminals of the KPM-2 capacitor blasting machine.
The first beat of the metronome. A neon peephole flashes red. There are 1500 volts.
The head of the explosion, Itter, commands: "Blow up!".
The second beat of the metronome. The button of the blasting machine is pressed by the chief engineer of Lenvzryvprom, Georgy Ivanovich Plakhov.
Located in front of the main one, the first four charges worked, which should create an artificial concavity in such a way as to make it possible to direct all the energy of the explosion into the “channel” determined by the calculations.
Four seconds of deceleration required to lift millions of tons of rock into the air. An instant burst of incredible energy. Flames shot up above the clouds. Piercing crimson lightning. The body of the mountains was torn by the main explosion, born at a depth of 150 meters. An unparalleled peaceful charge directed on earth, energetically throwing a mass of rock raised to a height of two hundred and fifty meters into the gorge. The earth shook softly. It can be seen how the torn part of the mountain lies tightly in a place predetermined by calculations. A huge capacity trap for mudflow is ready. The strength of mountain rivers, the furious power of mudflows have been tamed. And the mountain echo, picking up the booming thunder, still carries it through the gorges. Expanding at a speed of 100 meters per second, a swirling black explosion flower blossomed. Breaking through the clouds, he threw into the troposphere a gas plume with a volume of almost one and a half million cubic meters.
On October 21, 1966, at exactly 11 o'clock in the afternoon, Alma-Ata time, seismic stations of the world registered an artificial earthquake with an epicenter near Alma-Ata. This was one of the rare cases when the stations "tuned in" to the known epicenter of the Earth's respiration, and the inhabitants of the city, at the threshold of which the earth's surface oscillated, were warned about this in advance.
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Malo-Almatinskoe gorge before and after the explosion
The seismic station "Earth" of the Talgar expedition of the Institute of Physics of the Earth of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, located twenty kilometers east of the site of a unique explosion, registered a movement of the earth's crust of 3 points.
The head of the seismic station Rita Aleksandrovna Fogel, the senior laboratory assistant Gennady Gavrilovich Starchenko and the laboratory assistant Eleonora Dmitrievna Kalimulina, who were on duty at that time at the instruments in Alma-Ata, registered a 3-5 vibration of the earth's crust.
In the city, the explosion was hardly noticeable. Against the backdrop of snow-white peaks, Alma-Ata residents saw somehow unusually slowly rising dark, tight clouds of smoke with crimson marks. Growing every second, they went beyond the clouds. The explosive sound was muffled, and for many it caused almost disappointment. They were expecting a much "louder" explosion. But it just suited the experts. The energy of the explosion went not to "shaking the air", but to useful work.
GRANITE SHIELD OF ALMA-ATA
... 1,700,000 cubic meters of rock were laid in the body of the dam. The height of the dam at its lowest point is 61 meters, the width at the base is 470 meters and the same length at the top.
History knows the giant building of the past - the 147-meter pyramid of Cheops, which was built by 100,000 slaves over the course of a generation. The dam in Medeo, close in volume to the pyramid of Cheops, was created by an explosion in a matter of seconds.
On this day, a gigantic explosion thundered again in Medeo. A charge of 3,941 tons threw at least a million cubic meters of rock into the body of the dam. As on October 21, 1966, everything worked well, the new rock lay exactly on the crest of the anti-mudflow shield of the capital of Kazakhstan, making it even more durable and reliable - eternal.© G. BOGOMOLOV, Yu. KUKUSHKIN
An excerpt from the book "It was in Medeo", published in 1967 in Alma-Ata by the publishing house "Kazakhstan"
