The Wandering Scot

An occasional travel journal

Tag: USSR

  • Balaklava: Giant Secret Lair

    In Balaklava, Ukraine, I visited one of the USSR’s super-secret  bases, “Facility 825”.  This is a giant semi-submerged underground lair, where submarines could enter, be refueled or repaired, and be entirely invisible from the air.

    Oh yes, and it was designed to survive a 100 kiloton direct hit.

    The base seems to have been conceived in the early 1950s. It was constructed by the teams who had built the Moscow and Kharkiv metro systems, so it isn’t too surprising it takes the form of a giant tunnel, with a concealed entrance in the Balaklava harbor and an exit into the Black sea.  The tunnel is wide enough to allow subs to be docked at one side for maintenance, while others slid past in the main channel.

    The base is also chock-full other tunnels, for the supporting humans and for the various arsenals.

    Facility 825 was super-secret in its day. The entrance is designed to be invisible from the air.  They were initially worried about spy planes, but of course this also worked well against satellites.  The Soviets apparently hoped to keep even the existence of the base entirely secret, using various ploys to conceal the construction work.

    But where are the nuclear wessels?

    It was decommissioned in the early 1990s, but even today it’s hard to find reliable data on what was actually based there.  It is generally cited as a “nuclear base”.  But as far as I can figure, it was only used for Whiskey and Romeo diesel powered subs (the tunnel was probably too narrow for the later nuclear subs).  There were probably nuclear warheads, but even that is a little unclear.

    It’s all a wonderful relic from the Cold War.  It’s rather sad to see it turned into a rather desultory museum.  Where are the international super-villains when you need them?  Why aren’t aspiring megalomaniacs bidding frantically to “borrow” it for “historic renovation”?  Alas, we live in banal times.

  • Sevastopol and the Black Sea Fleet

    Russian Warship, Sevastopol
    Russian Warship, Sevastopol
    Russian Warship, Sevastopol
    Russian Warship, Sevastopol

    I’m in Sevastopol, Ukraine.

    The city was formerly host to the Soviet Black Sea Fleet. After 1991, the fleet was partitioned between Ukraine and Russia and both halves are still based at Sevastopol, although most of the warships I spotted had Russian ensigns.

    Like Vladivostok, Sevastopol was a closed city during the Soviet era, so it feels strange to be able to wander freely and admire the once guarded fleet. I kept expecting the heavy hand of Soviet Power to suddenly grab me by the shoulder.

    The city also hosts an eclectic mix of memorials from the Crimean War, WWII and Soviet periods.

    Crimean War Cannon, Malakhov Mound.
    WWII Artillery, Malakhov Mound.

  • Brest Fortress, Belarus

    The Brest Fortress complex commemorates the heroic defence of the Soviet garrison against the German invasion of June 1941.

    Brest Fortress Entrance

    I entered the Hero Fortress at its new ceremonial entrance: a giant concrete slab with a Soviet star cut into it. Stirring martial music plays as you enter. The gateway was rather grayer and drabber than I expected, but still very impressive. It looks better seen from inside the fortress than from outside.

    I arrived just in time to see a set of local teenagers do a “changing of the guard” ritual at the eternal flame, complete with high-stepping precision marching. In a small concession to the intense cold, they had their ear flaps folded down.


    “Thirst”

    The fortress complex includes various large Soviet-era memorials. There is a fine concrete sculpture “thirst” of a soldier reaching his helmet out to gather water.

    Obelisk

    The main monuments are a giant obelisk (100 m) in the form of a Soviet bayonet and an enormous concrete head of a scowling Soviet soldier. Unfortunately while the head is large, it is poorly formed and unsympathetic.

    I also ambled through the Fortress Museum, which has some displays of the 19th c. fortress, and even a very short display on the 1939 Polish defence, but which is naturally focused on the 1941 defence, with many photos of the defenders.

    Commentary: In 1941 the Soviet Union desperately needed some heroic myths, and the “Defence of the Brest Fortress” fit the bill.  A small group of heroic defenders, stemming the flow of the German invasion.  It’s a good story and I don’t doubt the defenders were truly heroic.  However the German advance seems to have been focused on deep penetration and encirclement, which implies bypassing fortresses and fixed defence points and leaving those to be mopped up later by secondary forces. So the leisurely siege is unlikely to have impacted the main invasion.

    The following day: At the Brest station, I met three unhappy travelers, two Americans and a Dane.  They had been taking the train from St Petersburg to Warsaw and hadn’t realized that their train took a non-obvious detour through Belarus.   There are no immigration checks at the Russian-Belarus border, so they had been able to enter Belarus, but then when they were exiting at Brest they were caught by Belarus immigration.  Traveling in Belarus without a visa: not a good situation!  They were removed from the train and delayed for two days in Brest.  They were finally allowed to exit after signing “a big stack of forms” and paying moderate fines (about $200 for the American couple) for having entered Belarus illegally.

  • Baikonur: Soyuz TMA-20 Launch

    I was at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to watch the Soyuz TMA-20 launch.  It was spectacular.  I strongly recommend it.  (Tour Logistics.)  (More Baikonur photos.)

    I found myself in a tour group of six: our guide told us we were all the tourists visiting the launch. There were also some press, and various Roscosmos/ESA/NASA guests, but it looked like there were still well under 200 observers in total. So it was a much more intimate event than a shuttle launch at Kennedy.

    Before the launch we got to see lots of cool toys from the Soviet space program, including a lot of the machinery for the Energia/Buran shuttle. This included sitting in the pilot seats of a full-scale Buran mock-up, clambering over a giant Buran transporter vehicle and then waking around a launch pad. The transporter and launch pad felt like relics from some alien civilization: enormous, exotic, and standing mysteriously abandoned.

    Our hosts still suffered from a little Cold War competitive spirit: we were vigorously assured that the N1 rocket was the most powerful launcher ever, and that Buran was much larger/better than the shuttle. (This is not quite how Western sources see it!)

    They let our little group into the Soyuz assembly building, so we got to see some Soyuz boosters and then a complete Soyuz launch vehicle up close. A lady guard wagged an indulgent finger when I dared to reach over and touch an engine.

    The TMA-20 launch itself was striking. On the pad, the Soyuz sits slightly below ground level, with about half of the first stage boosters below ground. So we couldn’t directly see the initial ignition, just a sudden out-pour of smoke and spreading fire across to one side, which for a fraction of a second made me fear an accident, but no, the craft started to rise and then abruptly there was an intensely bright flame, presumably as we could now see the engines directly for the first time, a dazzling bright fireball, rising very quickly into the sky. Then a few second later a very loud rumbling sound arrived. After we first saw the engines, I never saw the craft itself – the engines were far, far too bright.

    It was spectacular. Much more striking than the STS-129 shuttle launch I saw, probably both because we were so much closer (0.9 miles versus 6 miles) and because this was a night launch.

    They let us visit close to the launch pad (which was the original Gagarin pad!) about an hour after the launch. So we could see the re-assembled launch gantries and the launch pad itself up close. But they wouldn’t let us into the flame pit, so we couldn’t actually feel the residual launch heat. Drat.

    If you are a space buff, I highly recommend this tour.  I’ve posted a page on Baikonur Logistics to provide more information on entry formalities, flights, tour companies, etc.

  • Moscow: Museum of Cosmonautics

    I took the Metro out to the VDNKh stop. As you emerge, you see the stunning soaring tower of the Monument to the Conquerors of Space. 100 meters of titanium clad concrete, thrusting a rocket ship into the cosmos. Build back in 1964, as a tribute to the bold new Soviet Cosmonauts and the Brave New Soviet Future, it seems like a strange relic of an almost forgotten past, but it is also truly striking: sometimes Soviet art could make the leap to inspirational.

    The base of the Monument has a much more mundane example of Soviet art: a dull triumphal parade of heroic workers, with Lenin pointing the way.

    Nearby are busts of the early Cosmonauts and a full statue (in almost Lenin-like splendor) of Sergei Korolev, the legendary Chief Designer of the Soviet rocket program.

    Gagarin
    Korolev
    Vosotok 1

    Underground, below the Monument, is the Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics.  This has a large and impressive collection of spacecraft and cosmonaut paraphernalia.  There are many models and replicas, but also some startling original pieces.

    In the entry hall is a replica of Gagarin’s Vostok-1 capsule.  (The original capsule is at the RSC Energia Museum outside of Moscow.)   The capsule was more spacious than I expected – it seemed significantly bigger than John Glenn’s in the Smithsonian.

    And their spaceship.

    Nearby, the stuffed doggies are Belka and Strelka, the first Space Dogs to return safely from orbit, posing beside their little capsule.

    With authentic Soyuz re-entry capsule

    Several of the Soyuz capsules were clearly authentic, with real re-entry burns.  I particularly liked the dramatic layout of “Cosmonauts in the Snow” with the cosmonauts awaiting their recovery helicopter.  The accompanying Soyuz craft boasts some extremely authentic looking re-entry scars.

    And there is a wide assortment of later artifacts, including Michael Collins’ Apollo suit and a replica MIR space station.

    Overall, definitely a Five Star museum!!

  • Moscow: Armed Forces Museum

    Lenin and the Red Army

    Moscow’s Central Museum of the Armed Forces doesn’t specify a country in its title, but the answer becomes clear when you step inside. This is the Armed Forces of the USSR, comrade!

    Allowing for the Soviet focus, it is an excellent museum of its kind, well laid out, with many shiny artifacts. Outside are arrays of planes, tanks and missiles.

    The center piece is a hall celebrating the Soviet WWII Victory.  Two standard Soviet victory images are the raising of the Red Banner over the Reichstag and the throwing of Nazi banners into the dust in Red Square.  Provincial museums must make do with photographs or paintings, but this is Moscow and the Holy Relics themselves are on display!

    A perspex case houses the Banner of Victory from the Reichstag. While I was watching, several groups of school age children in military uniforms were herded in to pay their somewhat puzzled respects.

    A special floor-level display case houses a sample of the captured Nazi banners from the 1945 Victory Parade, arranged in artful disarray, just as if they were freshly thrown into the dust.

    The Museum has many other halls. In one, I found the remains of Gary Power’s U2, as recovered after being shot down over the USSR in 1960. Of course the room tells the history from the Soviet perspective, focusing on the Soviet pilots who brought down the plane.

    Soviet Museums tend to ignore the Western front in WWII (just as Western museums tend to underplay the Eastern front) so I was pleased to find a display on the D-Day Landings. There is also a propaganda painting showing happy celebrations as US and Soviet troops link up in Germany. Even more unusually there is a small display commemorating the US material aid to the Soviets, with a photo celebrating the 5000th US plane (!) being delivered from Alaska to Siberia.

    Practicalities: Open Wed-Sun 10 to 5. GPS 55.784956,37.616669. Take the metro to Dostoevskaya then go about 100m North on Ul Sovetskaya Armee and look for the ICBM.