If the name Chernobyl is familiar to almost everyone today, and after the disaster at the nuclear power plant it has become a household name that has thundered all over the world, then few have heard of the Chernobyl-2 facility. At the same time, this town was in close proximity to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, but it was impossible to find it on the topographic map. Exploring maps from that period, you will most likely find the designation of a boarding house for children or the dotted lines of forest roads where this small town was located. In the USSR, they knew how to keep and hide secrets, especially if they were military.
Only with the collapse of the USSR and the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, at least some information appeared about the existence of a small town (military garrison) in the Polesye forests, which was engaged in "space espionage". In the 1970s, Soviet scientists developed unique radar systems that made it possible to track ballistic missile launches from the territory of a potential enemy (submarines and military bases). The developed radar belonged to over-the-horizon radar stations (ZRGLS). Possessing the huge dimensions of the receiving antennas and masts, the ZGRLS required a large human resource. About 1000 military personnel were on alert at the facility. For the military, as well as their family members, a whole small town was built with one street, which was called Kurchatov.
Guides through the Chernobyl exclusion zone, who are accustomed to being called "stalkers", love to tell a story from 25 years ago. After the USSR recognized the fact of accidents at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, a stream of journalists from all over the world poured into the exclusion zone. Legendary American Phil Donahue was among the first Western journalists who came here, who were allowed to visit the crash site. Driving near the village of Kopachi, from the car window, he noticed objects of impressive size, which significantly rose above the forest and aroused quite justified curiosity on his part. To his question: "What is this?", The security officers accompanying the group only silently exchanged glances until one of them came up with a suitable answer. According to legend, he explained that this was an unfinished hotel. Donahue naturally didn’t believe this, but he couldn’t verify his suspicions; he was categorically denied access to this object.
There is nothing strange in this, since the "unfinished hotel" was a kind of pride of the Soviet defense industry and automatically one of the most secret objects. It was the over-the-horizon radar station Duga-1, also known as the Chernobyl-2 facility or simply Duga. "Duga" (5N32) is a Soviet ZGRLS operating in the interests of an early detection system for launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). The main task of this station was the early detection of ICBM launches, not only in Europe, but also "over the horizon" in the United States. In those years, none of the world's stations had such technological capabilities.
To date, only the American HAARP (high-frequency active auroral research program) possesses the technology that would be most similar to that used on the Soviet ZGRLS. According to official information, this project is aimed at studying the aurora borealis. At the same time, according to unofficial information, this station, located in Alaska, is a secret American weapon with which Washington can control various climatic phenomena on the planet. On the Internet, various speculations on this topic have not subsided for many years. It should be noted that similar "conspiracy theories" surrounded the domestic station "Duga". At the same time, the first station from the HAARP line was commissioned only in 1997, while in the USSR the first facility of this type appeared in Komsomolsk-on-Amur back in 1975.
While the inhabitants of Chernobyl, as they thought, worked with a peaceful atom, the inhabitants of their namesake city, more than 1000 people, were, in fact, engaged in space espionage on a planetary scale. One of the main arguments when placing the ZGRLS in the Chernobyl woodland was the presence of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant nearby. The Soviet super-blocker supposedly consumed up to 10 megawatts of electricity. The general designer of the ZGRLS was NIIDAR - Research Institute for Long-Range Radio Communication. The chief designer was engineer Franz Kuzminsky. The cost of work on the construction of this super-powerful radar in different sources is indicated differently, but at the same time it is known that the construction of "Duga-1" cost the USSR 2 times more than the commissioning of 4 power units of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
It is important to note the fact that the ZGRLS located in Chernobyl-2 was intended only for signal reception. The transmitting center was located in the immediate vicinity of the village of Rassudov near the town of Lyubech in the Chernihiv region at a distance of 60 km. from Chernobyl-2. Signal transmitting antennas were also made on the principle of a phased antenna array and were lower and smaller, their height was up to 85 meters. This radar has been destroyed today.
The small town of Chernobyl-2 quickly grew in the neighborhood of a top-secret construction project completed in record time. Its population, as already mentioned, was at least 1000 inhabitants. All of them worked at the ZGRLS station, which, in addition to equipment, included 2 giant antennas - high-frequency and low-frequency. Based on the available space images, the high-frequency antenna was 230 meters long and 100 meters high. The low frequency antenna was an even more imposing structure, measuring 460 meters in length and almost 150 meters in height. This truly unique miracle of engineering thought that has no analogues in the world (today the antennas are only partially dismantled) was capable of covering almost the entire planet with its signal and instantly detecting a massive launch of ballistic missiles from any continent.
True, it is worth noting that almost immediately after the commissioning of this station in trial operation, and this happened on May 31, 1982, some problems and inconsistencies were noted. Firstly, this radar could only pick up a large concentration of targets. This could only happen in the event of a massive nuclear strike. At the same time, the complex could not track the launch of single targets. Secondly, many of the frequency ranges on which the ZGRLS functioned coincided with the systems of civil aviation and the civilian fishing fleet of the USSR and European states. Representatives from various countries soon began to complain about interference with their radio systems. At the beginning of the operation of the ZGRLS station, characteristic knocks began to sound on the air almost all over the world, which drowned out high-frequency transmitters, and sometimes even telephone conversations.
Despite the fact that "Chernobyl-2" was a top-secret object, in Europe they quickly figured out the reasons for the interference, nicknamed the Soviet station "Russian woodpecker" for the characteristic sounds on the air, and made claims to the Soviet government. The USSR received a number of official statements from Western states, in which it was noted that the systems created in the Soviet Union significantly affect the safety of maritime navigation and aviation. In response to this, the USSR made concessions on its part and stopped using operating frequencies. At the same time, the designers were tasked with eliminating the identified shortcomings of the radar station. The designers, together with scientists, were able to solve the task, and after the modernization of the ZGRLS in 1985, they began to go through the state acceptance procedure, which was interrupted by the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
After the accident that occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant on April 26, 1986, the station was removed from combat duty, and its equipment was mothballed. The civilian and military population from the facility was urgently evacuated from the area that had been exposed to radiation contamination. When the military and the leadership of the USSR were able to assess the full scale of the ecological disaster that had happened and the fact that the Chernobyl-2 facility could no longer be launched, it was decided to export valuable systems and equipment to the city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur, this happened in 1987 year.
Thus, the unique object of the Soviet defense complex, which was part of the space shield of the Soviet state, ceased to function. The city and urban infrastructure were forgotten and abandoned. At present, only huge antennas that have not lost their stability to this day, attracting the attention of rare tourists in these places, remind of the former power of the superpower at this abandoned facility. Possessing simply colossal dimensions, the antennas of this station are visible from almost anywhere in the Chernobyl exclusion zone.
