Secret objects of the Soviet Union. Made and forgotten in the USSR: abandoned cities, factories and military installations. "a zone in the forests of Russia"

A secret submarine base, an abandoned missile silo, giant excavators, the Duga over-the-horizon radar station, a sea city on the Oil Rocks platforms, a Soviet hadron collider - accelerator elementary particles and a station for studying the ionosphere. The once mighty communist empire spared no expense either for defense or for science. And from the Pacific Ocean to the middle of Europe, huge antennas aimed into space towered, and secret military bunkers hid in the forests. With the collapse of the Union, the maintenance of many of these objects was too expensive for the heirs. And the newly formed young states were not interested in science, and the task of defending the borders was assigned to powerful neighbors. Here are just a few of the thousands of secret and not so secret objects hidden in the mountains and forests that characterize the full power of the collapsed empire. But these are only the least valuable ones, which turned out to be unclaimed during the division of property between the once fraternal republics.

Balaklava (Ukraine, Crimea)

The secret submarine base in the small Crimean town of Balaklava is one of the largest military facilities abandoned after the collapse of the USSR. Since 1961, a complex has been located under Mount Tavros where ammunition (including nuclear) was stored and submarines were repaired. Up to 14 submarines of various classes could hide in the docks of the base, and the entire complex was able to withstand a direct strike from a nuclear bomb with a power of up to 100 kT. Abandoned in 1993, the object was taken for scrap by local residents. Without accurate maps, it was dangerous to walk through the numerous tunnels of the base, since there was a real danger of getting lost or falling into one of the many hatches (they are open, since the locals handed over the covers for scrap metal). In 2002, it was decided to make the remains of the submarine base in Balaklava museum complex dedicated to the confrontation during the Cold War.

Abandoned missile silo (Latvia, Kekava)

After the collapse of the empire, the young republics inherited a lot of military property, including ballistic missile silos scattered through the forests. Not far from the capital of Latvia 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 a visit to the launcher without an experienced guide is not recommended. Residues of poisonous rocket fuel also pose a danger.

Giant excavators (Russia, Moscow region)

Until 1993, the Lopatinsky phosphorite mine was a completely successful operating deposit, where the most necessary for the Soviet Agriculture fossils. And with the advent of a market economy, abandoned quarries with giant bucket-wheel excavators have become a place of pilgrimage for tourists. Lopatinsky mine interesting place near Voskresensk. There are interesting things - giant excavators (paragraphs) and prehistoric fossils (ammonites and fragments of marine reptiles). Until recently, it was possible to climb ownerless paragraphs, but now they have been dismantled and only the active ones remain, which are guarded.

Over-the-horizon radar "Duga" (Ukraine, Pripyat)

The titanic structure, built in 1985 to detect ICBM launches, could still function successfully today, but in reality it has worked for less than a year. A giant antenna 150 meters high and 800 meters long consumed such an amount of electricity that it was built almost right next to Chernobyl nuclear power plant, and, of course, stopped its work along with the explosion of the station. At the moment, excursions are being taken to Pripyat, including to the foot of the radar station, but only a few risk climbing the 150-meter high.

Sea City "Oil Rocks" (Azerbaijan)

The Union needed oil, and in the 40s of the last century, its offshore production began in the Caspian Sea, 42 kilometers east of the Absheron Peninsula. And around the first platforms, a city began to grow, also located on metal overpasses and embankments. During its heyday, power plants, nine-story hostel buildings, hospitals, a cultural center, a bakery and even a lemonade shop were built on the high seas 110 km from Baku. The oil workers also had a small park with real trees. Oil stones are more than 200 stationary platforms, and the length of the streets and alleys of this city in the sea reaches 350 kilometers. But cheap Siberian oil made offshore mining unprofitable and the village began to fall into disrepair. Today, only about 2 thousand people live here.

Abandoned elementary particle accelerator (Russia, Moscow region)

In the late 80s, the agonizing Soviet Union decided to build a huge particle accelerator. The ring tunnel, 21 kilometers long, lying at a depth of 60 meters, is now located near Protvino, near Moscow, the city of nuclear physicists. This is less than a hundred kilometers from Moscow along the Simferopol highway. 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 to rot underground.

Station for studying the ionosphere (Ukraine, Zmiev)

Almost just before the collapse of the Soviet Union, an ionospheric research station was built near Kharkov, which was a direct analogue of the American HAARP project in Alaska, which is still successfully operating today. The station complex consisted of several antenna fields and a giant parabolic antenna with a diameter of 25 meters, capable of radiating a power of about 25 MW. For some time, the station was abandoned and was an object for tourists and hunters for non-ferrous metals, but fortunately, now everything is functional and the station even has a website: //www.iion.org.ua/

There were secret projects in the union, about which the authorities did not tell the people, closed cities, where only scientists and the military were allowed, as well as secret objects. Of course, they became known after the collapse of the USSR, but still not everyone knows about them.

Oil stones

In 1949, a whole city was built in the Caspian Sea. Initially, Stalin planned to completely drain the reservoir in order to extract oil, but that project was very long and expensive. Therefore, the authorities decided to build a city that is still supported by metal overpasses and embankments. During the heyday of the oil industry, hospitals, dormitories, a cultural center, a bakery and a lemonade shop were located in Oil Rocks. Now the city functions, but not on such a scale.

Station for the study of the ionosphere

Almost just before the collapse of the USSR, a whole station was built near Kharkov to study the ionosphere. It has become an analogue of the American project, which operates in Alaska. However, after leaving Soviet power expensive equipment turned out to be useless, so now only stalkers and tourists are interested in the station.

missile silo

In the 1960s, the Dvina complex was built here, which consisted of four shafts 35 meters deep and bunkers. All this was guarded by a concrete fence with barbed wire and the military. Residents of the surrounding villages did not even know what was located next to their homes. The military left the base back in the 1980s and took the most secret. In the 90s, local residents came there and plundered what was left. Now most of the underground facilities are flooded.

This list could be endless, but exactly 10 positions fit into the top ten. This review presents 10 of the rarest, most amazing and, to some extent, paradoxical of modern military objects.

For example, the place where the aircraft of the first largest air force in the world are stored in conservation - more than 4,400 units of aviation and rocket-space equipment are arranged in even rows in the middle of the Arizona desert. Like terracotta warriors from the tomb of Qin Shi Huang, the planes froze in anticipation of their hour X.

Giant open-air aircraft storage

This is none other than Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, home of the US Air Force 309th Aerospace Repair and Maintenance Group (309th AMARG). Each "mummy" of the aircraft stored here is carefully wrapped in plastic film, the insides are carefully removed - decommissioned aircraft serve as an object of "cannibalization" and a source of spare parts for combat vehicles.

Serious work is in full swing in the hangars of Davis-Monthan - outdated Falcans and Phantoms are being converted into unmanned drones and QF-4 and QF-16 aerial targets. Specialists in "aviation archeology" scrupulously poke around in the remains of old machines, the most "fresh" samples are selected for subsequent modernization and sale to third countries.

The air base is a source of considerable income - according to the Pentagon, every dollar invested here brings 11 dollars in profit. And the fantastic landscapes of Davis-Monthan themselves are in great demand among Hollywood directors (Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man).

Siachen

The world's highest theater of military operations, located on the body of the Siachen glacier ( mountain system Karakoram, Himalayas). The main danger of these places is 6000 meters above sea level, according to scanty statistics, 95% of the soldiers who died on the Siachen glacier became victims of unbearable natural and climatic conditions in this realm of scorching frost and rarefied air.

Even grass does not grow here, but two irreconcilable opponents continue their insane confrontation at the maximum height. The number of military casualties in India and Pakistan is already running into the thousands; people die en masse during avalanches, get frostbite by the thousands, suffocate and go missing in the bottomless abysses of the glacier.

A quarter of a century ago, a real battle on the ice took place here, and most of the Siachen glacier came under the control of India. The conduct of hostilities in such extreme conditions annually sucks 300 million dollars from the Indian treasury, but the Indians continue to stubbornly push the enemy. To date, the Indian fortified area has about 150 outposts - the highest mountain checkpoints are located at altitudes up to 7 kilometers. Fear and icy horror.

The world's highest helicopter base. 6400 meters above sea level.

The HAARP research project is not deprived of attention from various conspiracy theorists, schizophrenics and other overly impressionable citizens who see climatic, geophysical or psychotronic weapons in a strange design.

Officially, the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program is a program for studying the Earth's ionosphere using high-frequency radiation. The scope of the program is grandiose: at the US Air Force training ground Gakona (Alaska), a whole complex was built, consisting of 180 radio antennas located on an area of 13 hectares. The antenna field is complemented by an incoherent radiation radar with a wavelength of 20 meters, a set of laser radars (lidars), magnetometers and a powerful computer center.
The declared radiation power of HAARP is 3.6 megawatts, the facility is powered by a gas-fired power plant and six additional diesel generators.
A powerful tool allows you to stimulate individual sections of the ionosphere, like flashes auroras. Officially - for studying the nature of the ionosphere, solving applied problems of radio communication at long waves, etc. innocent jokes with nature.

However, funding under Pentagon articles and a thick veil of secrecy around HAARP cast doubt on the true purpose of the American "plasmagun". According to Russian experts, HAARP is designed to disrupt radio communications and radio navigation in any selected area of the Earth. With the help of HAARP, it is possible to disable the equipment of ships and aircraft, to burn the radio-electronic filling of spacecraft. Also, the possibility of manipulating the weather on a global scale is not ruled out.
Critics of conspiracy theories, on the contrary, refer to the insignificance of the energy capabilities of HAARP - the energy of processes in the earth's ionosphere (for example, under the influence of the "solar wind") exceeds the declared power of the antennas of the American installation by several orders of magnitude.
Worldwide hysteria around secret base in Alaska ended in an unexpected way - in May 2013, due to a reduction in funding, the termination of the HAARP project was announced.

SBX (Sea-Based X-band Radar)

The strange design is nothing more than a marine self-propelled radar base built as part of the US missile defense program. Nominally, the SBX is assigned to the port of Adah in Alaska, but to date, the radar platform has never appeared there. Instead, SBX cruises in the Pacific Ocean, where it performs missile defense missions.
The SBX is based on the CS-50 semi-submersible oil platform. Installation length - 116 meters. The height from the keel to the top of the radar fairing is 85 meters (from a 25-storey building!). Displacement - about 50,000 tons. The platform is able to move independently over short distances - it is equipped with six 12-cylinder Caterpillar diesel generators with a capacity of 5000 hp each. everyone.

The main intrigue is hidden inside - under the white casing there is a giant radar with an active phased array with an area of 384 square meters. meters! The radar operates in the X-band, emitting pulses with a wavelength of 3.75 to 2.5 cm. The power consumption of the SBX AFAR is estimated at 1 megawatt.

It is reported that the vigilant station is able to "see" the warhead of a North Korean ballistic missile from a distance of 2000 km, and the unique mobility of the SBX allows you to deploy a missile defense radar installation in any corner of the oceans.

Norfolk
"Harbor of a Thousand Ships" The world's largest naval base, whose countless berths and piers stretch for 17 kilometers along the Atlantic coast.
Employees of the GVMB (main naval base) Norfolk provide more than 3,000 maritime operations per year related to the meeting, mooring and departure of ships and vessels from dozens of countries around the world. Every six minutes, an aircraft takes off or lands from Naval Station Norfolk Airlift Command aircraft and chartered private airliners annually carry 150,000 passengers and deliver 260,000 tons of mail and various cargoes necessary for the operation of the base.

Norfolk is the main base of the US Navy's Atlantic Fleet, from here operations are carried out in the Atlantic, the Mediterranean Sea and Indian Ocean. In addition to numerous berths with loading and unloading facilities, warehouses, arsenals and oil storage facilities, Norfolk has a solid infrastructure for the maintenance and repair of marine equipment. Near the base there are 8 shipbuilding and ship repair yards with seven dry and three floating docks, as well as 16 slips - inclined coastal platforms for launching ships from the slipway or lifting them out of the water using rail carts.
The water area of the naval base and port reaches 26 sq. kilometers. The depth of fairway passages is 13-14 meters, which makes it possible to provide basing for ships of all existing classes.
Naval Base Norfolk is currently the home base for 75 US Navy warships, including: five Nimitz-class nuclear aircraft carriers, nine amphibious helicopter carriers, 29 missile cruisers and destroyers, as well as six nuclear submarines and 15 ships of the Sealift Command.

Balaklava
Another example of a naval theme is the secret anti-nuclear shelter for Soviet submarines, officially known as Object 825GTS.

In the early 1950s, the leadership of the USSR decided to build a super-protected submarine base. In the event that the US Air Force succeeds in inflicting a nuclear strike on Soviet cities, thereby ending the existence of the Soviet Union, the festive banquet in the White House will not last long - from under the foot of Mount Tavros (Balaklava, Crimea) 7 "hell's avengers" will crawl out with nuclear torpedoes on board, and will go on a return visit to the shores of Europe and North America.
The underground complex was built for 8 years - from 1953 to 1961. The work was complicated by the strictest secrecy - the removal of the soil mined from adits was carried out late at night, on barges to the open sea. In total, thus, it was possible to take out 120 thousand tons of rock. Class A cover capable of withstanding a direct hit from a 100 kt warhead.

An additional condition for the security of the underground base was secrecy - the entrances to the adits were skillfully closed with camouflage nets, if necessary, blocked by floating hydraulic gates weighing 150 tons.

To date, the object has largely lost its significance - the dimensions of modern nuclear-powered ships do not allow them to pass inside the adit. Ten years ago, on the site of the former underground submarine base, the Balaklava Naval Museum Complex was organized. The areas around the artificial canal that runs through the mountain, several workshops of the shipyard and the nuclear arsenal where torpedoes and warheads were stored are open for inspection. Domestic and foreign tourists from Europe, the USA and other countries call the underground base "an engineering marvel".

Edwards AFB

Don't feed the Yankees hamburgers, just let them set some kind of record. And the bottom of the dried salt lake Rogers (California) is ideal for setting records.
Here, in 1932, a specialized Air Force test facility was built, which later became the Edwards Flight Test Center. The Yankees cleared the bottom of the dried-up lake, drawing 13 runways of incredible length on its smooth, table-like surface. The main attraction was runway 18/36 (L, C and R) - the longest runway in the world with dimensions of 12,000 x 290 meters.

During World War II, the Bell XP-59A Airacomet jet and captured German V-2s were tested at Edwards Air Force Base. In 1959, a 6-kilometer rail track was built to test ejection seats and Polaris ballistic missiles. During one of the “races”, the rocket sled accelerated to 3.3 the speed of sound, after which it derailed and crashed.
A number of world speed records were also set here:
On October 14, 1947, Chuck Yeager's Bell X-1 rocket plane achieved supersonic flight for the first time.
- in the period from 1959 to 1970, X-15 hypersonic rocket planes were flown. After separation from the carrier (B-52 bomber), the plane plunged into the sky, rising to a suborbital height and developing a speed of 5-6 M. desperate "dynamic jump" height of 107.9 km! After a crazy 15 minute flight, the X-15s landed on the bottom of Lake Rogers.

The SR-71, YF-12 and Valkyries were tested here, the Have Blue (predecessors of the F-117), B-2 stealth bombers, prototypes of the YF-22 and YF-23 of the future Raptor fighter took off from here.
On April 14, 1981, an unusual guest arrived at Edwards Air Force Base (although what can surprise the employees of the Flight Test Center?) - at 10:20 local time, the Columbia shuttle flopped heavily on the bottom of the salt lake, opening a new space page in the history of the record-breaking base.

Mount Cheyenne

An anti-nuclear bunker in the Rocky Mountains, a key control point in the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) system. It was intended to coordinate the actions of the American armed forces in the event of a nuclear attack by the USSR

The bunker is designed to protect against thermonuclear explosions with a yield of 30 megatons. The entrance is a 1400-meter tunnel leading to the main lock - a pair of 25-ton gates that maintain tightness at an excess external pressure of 40 atmospheres.
Inside there is an underground base with a computer center, meeting and recreation rooms, a canteen, a medical unit, as well as an autonomous power plant and a water supply system. At the lower levels of the bunker, 1,500 tons of diesel fuel are stored, there are also 4 groups of batteries. Four reservoirs pumped 6.8 million liters drinking water and 20 million liters of water for technical needs.
To prevent the walls from collapsing during powerful shaking, 1380 springs weighing 450 kg each are integrated into the design of the bunker. Also, the integrity of the complex is ensured by 115 thousand steel pins twisted into granite to a depth of 2 to 9 meters.
The over-the-horizon radar "Duga" (5N32) of the missile attack warning system was able to control the airspace over North America. For its characteristic sound on the radio, it received the nickname Russian Woodpacker (“Russian Woodpecker”) in the West.

The height of the masts of the low-frequency antenna is 150 meters; the length of the antenna array is about 500 meters. With such dimensions, the "Duga" is visible from almost anywhere in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.
The proximity of the Duga construction site to the nuclear power plant is sometimes explained by the high power consumption of the radar (according to declassified data, the Duga consumed about 10 MW).
However, it is worth noting that the presented object is only half of the Duga radar station. Chernobyl-2 is a receiving station with a phased array antenna. The Duga transmitter is located in a completely different place, 60 km from the receiver.
The tragic accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant put an end to the further operation of the Chernobyl-2 system - most of the equipment was dismantled and taken to Komsomolsk-on-Amur, where a similar station operated.
And the metal structures of the “Chernobyl radar” shot up to the sky continue to amaze desperate tourists who ventured to look at the once sensitive military facility of strategic importance.

Echelon

A global electronic intelligence system approved by an alliance of five Anglo-Saxon countries - Great Britain, the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand (the Five Eyes project). With the escalation of the Cold War, many NATO countries joined the project - Norway, Denmark, Germany and Turkey.
To date, the Echelon system has developed into a gigantic network of listening devices. Large "field" stations look especially impressive - white clusters of "balls", whose shells protect the sensitive equipment hidden under them.

The exact description of "Echelon" is classified, however, according to a report from the European Parliament, to this project Dozens of ground interception stations on all continents of the Earth are related, including the British Menwith Hill complex, the Australian Pine Gap, similar objects on the territory of the Misawa airbase (Honshu Island, Japan), the radio engineering complex on the territory of the Buckley airbase (USA), etc. , etc.
The lead curator of the project is the former employer of the fugitive spy Snowden, the American technical intelligence agency NSA.
"White domes" are able to intercept the signals of commercial and military communications satellites, listen to any radio channels in the selected wavelength range, including mobile phone calls (however, this is possible only at a short distance, in the line of sight).
In the Western media, there are regular accusations that the Echelon system, in addition to fighting terrorism, tracking drug trafficking routes and conducting “usual” electronic intelligence in the interests of the military, is often used for other purposes. The impressive capabilities of the global wiretapping system allow NSA employees to conduct large-scale operations in the format of international commercial espionage and invade the privacy of US citizens. The version of secret contacts with UFOs using these devices is quite popular.

However, how it actually is is unknown. After all, even the name itself - "Echelon" - is nothing more than an invention of the media. NSA officials do not comment on the "white ball" fields.

In the Russian Federation, the successor to the USSR, de-Sovietization is proceeding at an accelerated pace, the post-Soviet elites, who destroyed and plundered the Union, and now parasitize on its ruins, are mortally afraid of the awakening nostalgia of the population, once the Soviet people, for a state that has long sunk into oblivion.

Not a day goes by that the proteges of the West, who seized power by deceit and have been holding it for 27 years, do not take the next steps to denigrate the memory of a mighty state, destroyed due to the meanness of some and the naivety of others, out of evil will and a combination of tragic circumstances, because of betrayal and venality, lust for power and greed, stupidity and treason ...

After this state, the perished Soviet Atlantis, not only fragments of industry, science, culture remained, but also the ruins of some secret objects of its military power, which was supposed to guard its sovereignty, but did not help ...
The enemy destroyed the great country from the inside then, exactly the same thing he is trying to do now, so I propose to remember, to restore, at least from separate fragments, the picture of those defensive fortifications that were erected by generations of Soviet people, but did not save them from the betrayal of the elites .. ..

Look, think, draw conclusions - in front of you is the history and information for reflection in photographs of 10 objects ...

Top secret and forgotten
After the collapse of the USSR, the young states inherited many once powerful military and scientific facilities.
The most dangerous and secret were urgently mothballed and evacuated, while 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, on an island in the middle Aral Sea a complex of military bioengineering institutes engaged in the development and testing of biological weapons was located. 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, Ukraine

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 launch 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

As they say knowledgeable people- 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 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. (After joining the Russian Federation - a museum).

"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 ultradeep 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 earth's crust comes close to the surface of the earth. 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. A lot has been done on the well interesting discoveries, for example, the fact that life on Earth arose, it turns out, 1.5 billion years earlier than expected. At depths where it was believed that there was no, and could not be, organic matter, 14 species of petrified 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. Podmoskovny science Center Protvino - 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 given this object yet - perhaps they are hoping for the best.

---
And here is the whole city, which can be examined more closely, holding back quite natural emotions in the chest, striving to overwhelm any person who has a memory and a heart...

Gudym - Soviet secret city
At the sight of abandoned cities, a nagging feeling of longing often arises, an involuntary desire to revive them to life, one of such places is the Soviet city of Gudym in Chukotka.
A top-secret facility located just 200 km from America, a military nuclear base, one of the trump cards of the USSR in the Cold War.
Rockets launched from here could destroy the Empire of Good if it dared to attack the Soviet Union, turning half of the territory of the aggressor country into a desert.

Gudym is one of the many names of the secret city. Officially, the military was often called Andyr-1.
It was here that Soviet nuclear bases were located, and in the event of a aggravation of the situation, missiles from Gudym were supposed to destroy half the continent.
Outwardly, the city looks quite ordinary: several three-story houses, a school and a shopping center.
Now all this is completely abandoned and half destroyed.
However, the most valuable thing in Gudym was underground - a giant multi-level dungeon, where rockets and fuel were stored.

Rusted portrait of a soldier.

Posters in honor of the sailors of the Navy.

Gudym was one of 15 secret or closed cities in the USSR. This city was not marked on the map, and the entry of foreigners here was under the strictest ban. The city was built in the 1950s; since 1961, about 5 thousand people (military men and their families) have lived here. There were three RSD-10 missile systems at the base, the name "Pioneer". When nuclear war they were supposed to hit Alaska, Washington states, California and South Dakota.

Entrance to the park.

Despite the geographical remoteness and secrecy status, local residents were satisfied with the living conditions in Gudym. There were high salaries here, there was no deficit in anything, in mall Chukotka had everything that other cities of the USSR only dreamed of.

She was not saved by high-tech military and scientific bases, the genius of her scientists, the work of her builders, the courage of her military, the patriotism of her people - the betrayal of the greedy, cynical, corrupt and narrow-minded degenerated elites, "stupidity and treason" turned out to be stronger.
Russian - not yet, but how dangerously the situation today resembles the period of the last Soviet years and decades.
And the elites - the elites remained, in many ways, the same and their motives - remained the same ...

In the territory former USSR can be found a large number of abandoned objects that remind us of the greatness of the Soviet Union. Military facilities, equipment, factories, submarines and spaceships turned out to be unnecessary to anyone, and therefore their fate was not in the best way. Let's take a look at the legacy of the USSR cold war, which is found in Russia and neighboring countries.

Abandoned Collider. Protvino, Moscow region.

Aralsk-7, Renaissance island. A ghost town where biological weapons were rumored to be tested. A completely autonomous city was urgently abandoned in the early 90s.

Over-the-horizon radar station Duga (radar station Duga, Pripyat, Ukraine) was created for early detection of launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles. Construction was completed in 1985 near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

Radar Duga had cyclopean dimensions! Height - 140 m, length - 500 m. 200 thousand tons of metal were used for construction. The station was not on combat duty and did not pass the tests.

The Kola superdeep well (Murmansk region) is the deepest in the world. Its depth is 12,262 meters; diameter of the upper part - 92 cm, diameter of the lower part - 21.5 cm. (Archival photo of 1974).

Kola superdeep well. This is how the object looks today. In 2008, the facility was abandoned, the equipment was dismantled, and the destruction of the building began.

Station for the study of the ionosphere (Ukraine, Zmiev). It was built as an analogue of the American HAARP project in Alaska in the late 80s.

Kyiv Electric Transport Plant has a long history. The opening took place on May 1, 1906. In the photo: Factory shop in the 80s.

During 1974 - 1985. about a hundred new KTG cargo trolleybuses rolled off the assembly line every year. And this is how the Kyiv Electric Transport Plant looks today.

Nuclear power plant in Shchelkino. There are many Crimean secret (and not so) abandoned objects, because the peninsula was a frontier of defense in the south of the USSR and the Russian Empire. This nuclear power plant, for example, was supposed to supply electricity to the entire Crimea.

Construction of the station began in 1974, and in 1987, after Chernobyl tragedy the building was frozen. The station had already managed by that time to take a place in the Guinness Book of Records as the most expensive nuclear reactor in the world.

Object No. 221, Crimea is a truly secret object. The photo shows a dummy building that hides a chain of bunkers underground. Fearing nuclear strike Soviet leadership built a bunker for the Reserve Command Post.

Tunnels of object No. 221 (Crimea). In addition to the command post, 10,000 people, officers and their families, were to be evacuated underground in the event of a nuclear threat.

The Crimean bunker was abandoned in 1992. According to some reports, he was 90% ready.

Object 825 GTS - underground submarine base in Balaklava. Secret military facility during the Cold War. The underground complex was built for 8 years - from 1953 to 1961. After closing in 1993, most of the complex was not guarded.

Object Object 825 GTS is located in Mount Tavros and is a structure of the first category of protection (direct hit atomic bomb 100 ct).

Object 825 anti-nuclear doors.

It's hard to believe, but there are whole cemeteries of equipment left for various reasons back in the days of the USSR. In the photo: Equipment involved in the liquidation of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. A familiar sight for fans of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

This sad picture in the photo is an abandoned hangar near the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. A few years ago, photographer Ralph Mirebs visited the hangar. Assembled space shuttles Izdeliye 1.02 "Buran-2" - the answer of the USSR to the American Shuttles.

In 1988, the space shuttle Buran (product 1.01) made an automatic flight into space. In 2002, during the collapse of the assembly and test building No. 112, Buran was destroyed.

The collapse of the USSR and the growth of budget cuts forced to reduce and space program.

Spaceships and remained frozen in time.

The building cannot be called destroyed, despite the deplorable state.

This is what the hangar looks like from the outside.

The Project 903 Lun ekranoplan missile ship is a Soviet aircraft carrier killer, as it was called in the United States. And that was not far from the truth. The ekranoplan was designed to deal with surface ships by launching a missile attack.

The harrier, due to its high speed of movement and invisibility to radars, can swim up to aircraft carriers at a distance of an accurate missile launch.

Lun has come a long way from the start of development in the 70s to the transfer to trial operation in 1990. And already in 1991, the operation was completed.

This is how the ekranoplan looks today. It was mothballed at the dock in Kaspiysk. All secret electronics have been put into storage.

Amderma, Lena-M radar. The settlement on the coast of the Kara Sea in Soviet times was the center of the largest military infrastructure in the Arctic. Large radar installations were installed here and fighter aircraft were based.

Amderma, control point of the radar complex.

Amderma. Spheres of radio-transparent shelters for mobile radars.

And this is the suburbs, our days. A whole arsenal of military equipment abandoned in the forest.

Such a picture, they say, is not so rare in our country. Entire military bases are completely abandoned.

Skrunda - once a secret military unit of the USSR - the whole city of Latvia is abandoned. There are many such ghosts throughout the former union.

The abandoned Eighth shop of the Dagdiesel plant in the city of Kaspiysk. test station naval weapons which was commissioned in 1939. Located at a distance of 2.7 km from the coast.