Even before the end of World War II, the United States developed a secret plan for atomic bombing of 20 largest cities in the USSR. The list includes Moscow, Leningrad, Gorky, Kuibyshev, Sverdlovsk, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Saratov, Kazan, Baku, Tashkent, Chelyabinsk, Nizhny Tagil, Magnitogorsk, Perm, Tbilisi, Novokuznetsk, Grozny, Irkutsk, Yaroslavl.
In subsequent years, plans for a nuclear attack on the USSR were regularly adjusted, the names were changed: "Memorandum No. 7", "Directive No. 20/4" (1948), plans "Bravo", "Romeo", "Delta" (1950), "Solarium" (1953), Dropshot (1957), Directive No. 59 (1980) and Directive No. 32 (1982). The number of targets increased - from 20, 118, 299, 3261 and 8400 to 40 thousand. The dates of the military attack on the USSR were appointed and postponed: April 1, 1949, January 1, 1950, January 1, 1957, etc. The concept of a limited nuclear war is being developed. The third world war is declared "a blessing for humanity."
THE SLEEPER MUST WAKE UP
Sevastopol was asleep. Hero city, toiler city, the main base of the Black Sea Fleet. The deserted streets, houses with dark windows, and ships in its dark bays seemed to be asleep. It was deep night, above the city there was a bottomless southern sky, with big bright stars, a fabulously beautiful peaceful sky. But only the military realized that this calm world could explode and collapse overnight, become hell at any moment. A world that went down in history as the Cold War, when the USSR and the USA, two nuclear superpowers, in an unrestrained race, increased the number of nuclear warheads, using all their scientific and technological potential in order to make these weapons even more destructive.
The whole world, with bated breath, anxiously watched this arms race. And this delicate balance could only be maintained from a position of strength, opposing the "American nuclear fist" with our own "nuclear fist". Or, as it was said then, to create a nuclear missile shield.
Outside the city, a column of military trucks was moving along a deserted night road. All transportation, loading and unloading of nuclear weapons was carried out only at night. A heightened regime of secrecy and secrecy from American spy satellites was observed. An hour earlier, this convoy stood in a deserted, remote steppe outside the city, next to the railway tracks, on which a seemingly ordinary refrigerated car "bored" lonely. Only the presence of an armed guard was unusual. The area around was cordoned off by machine gunners, between which people in civilian clothes were walking. Heavy vehicles in turn drove up to the dark opening of the carriage, opening the rear wall of the body, and into them, along special ramps, they loaded large semicircular containers and some boxes. After loading the last car, the convoy moved towards Balaklava. A diesel locomotive, standing in the distance, approached the car and dragged it into the darkness. A minute later there was only an empty dark steppe around. The moonlight snarled a track stretching into the distance, cicadas crackled and smelled sharply of wormwood. All work related to nuclear weapons was carried out according to the plan and under the leadership of the 6th Department of the Black Sea Fleet (military unit 10520), formed on July 16, 1959 by order of the Civil Code of the USSR Navy No. 0017 dated January 23, 1959.
The head of the department was Captain 1st Rank Mikhail Nikolaevich Sadovnikov, a front-line soldier, commander of a machine-gun company, which included the legendary Bunker No. 11. He headed the department until 1967. The deputy chief of the 6th department was Captain 2nd Rank Konstantin Konstantinovich Bespalchev, later the head of the 6th department of the Northern Fleet (SF), head of the VIS of the Black Sea Fleet, rear admiral. The officers of the department were B. E. Obrevsky, A. M. Fokin, N. V. Neustroev, V. M. Kalach, Yu. I. Pekhov, Yu. N. Antonov and L. A. Kalashnikov. In subsequent years, the chiefs of the 6th department of the fleet were captains of the 1st rank O. V. Kozlov (1967-1977), V. A. Salenko (1977-1983), A. Z. Gulo (1983-1989) and N. I. Morozov (1989-1996).
SECRET PLACE
Military trucks, having easily passed the checkpoint, were already entering Balaklava. The convoy was not subject to stopping and inspection on the way. The head of the column (with the rank of major or higher) had a special certificate signed by the first persons of the Soviet and military authorities of the Crimea and the Odessa Military District. Otherwise, the guards were obliged to use weapons. The transportation of special ammunition was the fulfillment of a combat mission even in peacetime.
In Balaklava, at the intersection of Novikov and Mramornaya streets, a military minibus (UAZ-452) quietly stopped. A door banged softly, and the car disappeared into the darkness, flashing a red light at the bend. A submachine gunner in full combat ammunition with flags and a striped baton remained on the road. I checked the flashlight hanging on my chest, flashing white, red and green light, and froze, listening to the silence of the night. It was a military traffic controller, and the UAZ was a special track reconnaissance vehicle (SMRP), which moves ahead and keeps constant contact with the head of the convoy. The SMRP is equipped with special equipment for reconnaissance and assessment of the radiation, chemical and bacteriological situation along the route of the convoy.
A low, low roar of the engine was heard, narrow stripes of light from under the SMU flashed, and the dark silhouette of the BRDM rolled softly onto the intersection. Column head cover vehicle. Slightly slowing down, swinging the antennas, the armored car rolled smoothly in the direction indicated by the controller. And then the polyphonic powerful hum of the motors was already growing. These were special off-road vehicles, "Urals" with sealed insulated bodies. Inside there was everything necessary not only for loading and unloading nuclear warheads, but also for a full range of work with nuclear warheads in the field position, in the forest or in the field. In the cockpit of each car, next to the driver, there is a senior car from among the specialists and a sentry-gunner from the escort guard. It was a convoy from a special regime unit of a maneuverable base.
Balaklava … It was a special secret place even in the then "closed" Sevastopol. The entrance was through the checkpoint, only with passes or a stamp in the passport. Balaklava Bay was not on the maps and guidebooks of that time. In Balaklava were located research laboratories of almost all departments of the Navy. It was a testing ground for the latest missile weapons, the first Soviet cruise and ballistic missiles.
In May 1953, tests began on unmanned aerial vehicles developed by OKB-1 (chief designer - S. L. Beria, son of L. P. Beria). There were also centers for the training of underwater special forces and combat animals - dolphins. Along with the military shipyard "Metallist" and maritime border guards, Balaklava also housed a submarine base (the 14th submarine division of the Black Sea Fleet) and a nuclear weapons base. On the western coast of the Balaklava Bay, there was a top secret facility No. 825 GTS (hydraulic engineering structure). The first underground plant in the USSR for sheltering and repairing diesel submarines, an underground base for submarines.
The creation of a whole series of underground structures in Sevastopol and Balaklava was caused by a new terrible threat - the threat of a nuclear attack. Therefore, given the importance of the city of Sevastopol as the main base of the Black Sea Fleet, the Council of Ministers of the USSR in 1952 adopted Resolution No. 2716-1013, according to which a number of ministries and departments had to build all these facilities in 1953-1960 in order to hide underground personnel the garrison and the population, as well as moving to underground structures of factories, enterprises, food supplies, water, fuels and lubricants, bakeries, hospitals, etc. based on their long-term functioning in protected underground complexes. The construction of the underground plant in Balaklava lasted from 1954 to 1961. About 130 million rubles were spent on its construction and equipment.
Object No. 825 GTS was a unique fortification defensive complex of the first category of anti-nuclear protection, carved out in the solid rock massif Psilerahi, at the foot of Mount Tavros, in the thickness of marble rocks of special strength. From the main adit alone, 40 thousand KamAZ trucks of rock were removed. The work was carried out continuously, day and night, in three shifts, in an atmosphere of strict secrecy. The western coast of the bay has been declared a “no-go zone”. The rock was transported at night to dumps in the mine management quarry and by barges into the open sea.
The total area of the underground structure was about 15 thousand square meters. m. The height of the inner cavity reached the height of a three-story building. The complex had a dry dock and an arched channel 602 m long, 8 m deep and 6 to 22 m wide, which could house seven submarines of the 613th project. The boats could pass through the channel inside the rock to the exit from the Balaklava Bay. Having entered the beginning of the canal on its own, the boat moved with the help of a system of cables and winches to the dry dock or further along the canal to the place for maintenance, repair, loading torpedoes or to replenish supplies. The dry dock, carved into the rock (length 80 m, depth 7.5 m, width 10 m), provided for all types of dock work, which took three to four weeks. The entrance to the channel and the exit from it were blocked by batoports, weighing 150 and 120 tons, respectively. Outside, the entrance to the adit was closed with a camouflage net to match the color of the rock. It was almost impossible to find the entrance (exit) from the underground complex even at close range.
The internal premises of the plant, the workshop, the spare command post of the submariners' division, the communications center were closed from the inside with special protective shockproof gates weighing 20 tons and casemate-type sealed doors. There were sanitation points at the entrance. The adit also housed workshops for preparing torpedoes, a fuel and lubricants warehouse, food and ammunition stores, water was supplied, there was a hospital with 50 beds, a pharmacy, a bakery and a canteen. The submarines could replenish their supplies of fuel, water, food, compressed air underground, load batteries and load torpedoes with conventional and nuclear warheads. Up to 3 thousand people could hide in the underground complex, and up to 1 thousand people could stay for a long time.
In peacetime, the underground adit complex, or the special workshop of the Metallist shipyard (military unit 72044), served more than 200 people. Of these, 100 people were industrial and production personnel, 38 dock workers and 42 people served engineering networks. The object was guarded by a VOKhR unit - 47 people - at three posts: at the entrance and exit from the canal and inside, at the dock.
The "Arsenalnaya" adit (object No. 820) was a top secret state object of special importance, a nuclear weapons base for the Black Sea Fleet. The underground nuclear arsenal was located inside the rock mass, having a solid rock above it with a height of more than 130 m. The object had anti-nuclear protection of the first category and could withstand a direct hit from a 100 kt atomic bomb. In the event of a nuclear strike on the Balaklava Bay, the loading of nuclear weapons onto the submarines could be carried out in the underground complex of the plant, which provided the possibility of a retaliatory nuclear strike. The nuclear base in Balaklava was served by two special military units of the Black Sea Fleet: military unit 90989 and military unit 20553, subordinate directly to the 6th department of the fleet.
The special regime military unit 90989 was formed in 1959. The first commander is Captain 1st Rank N. I. Nedovesov (1959-1961). In subsequent years, the unit was commanded by captains of the 1st rank V. M. Lukyanov (1961-1964), N. G. Grigoriev (1964-1976), S. S. Savchik (1976-1982), A. T. Lamzin (1982-1986), N. L. Grigorovich (1986-1993). The place of permanent deployment is the western coast of the Balaklava Bay.
The main purpose is the storage and maintenance of nuclear weapons (YBP), the provision of nuclear weapons to ships and coastal missile units of the Black Sea Fleet, as well as the protection of facility No. 820 (officer guard), the implementation of access control to the administrative, technical and local areas, maintenance of engineering networks and life support systems of the underground complex.
PART OF STANDBY READY
A special regime automobile military unit 20553 was formed in 1961. The first commander is Captain 1st Rank V. I. Serov (1961-1965). In subsequent years, the unit was commanded by Colonel A. G. Karapetyan (1965-1980), Captain 1st Rank Yu. I. Pekhov (1980-1985), Colonels A. S. Kunin (1985-1992) and A. A. Popov (1992-1996). The main purpose of the unit with the place of permanent deployment of the eastern outskirts of Balaklava is servicing nuclear warheads, providing coastal missile units and ships of the Black Sea Fleet with nuclear weapons in places of permanent and maneuverable basing, both from the coast and at sea, with the involvement of special floating crafts. And also the dispersal of nuclear weapons within the borders of the Crimean Peninsula when the fleet is transferred to an increased and full degree of combat readiness. In addition to conventional vehicles, the unit had a powerful fleet of special vehicles, which made it possible to form four or five convoys at the same time.
It was part of the constant alert. The standard of collection on alert for officers and warrant officers at night or after hours was extremely minimal. On alarm, all movements were made only by running, regardless of ranks and ranks. It should be noted that during the formation of units of the 6th department of the fleet, simultaneously with the construction of military facilities nearby, housing was built for officers and warrant officers, and a telephone was installed in the apartment. Each officer or midshipman had a license to drive a car. The assembly crews of the main unit were supposed to be members of the CPSU.
On alarm, everything was done quickly, without fuss, the actions were worked out to automatism, according to the stopwatch. Each sailor, officer or midshipman had a clear idea of what he should do at this moment. Everything happened at night, in full blackout conditions. The head of the first convoy reported to the unit commander on readiness, clarified the combat mission, gave the order to march, indicating the route, speed, distance while moving, signals and call signs for communication, his place in the convoy and the place of his deputy, route features, the order of passage of intersections and weather conditions. After 60 minutes, the first convoy left the territory of the unit, and a second one was immediately built in its place.
… Following the signal of the traffic controller, the Ural convoy turned to the western coast of the Balaklava Bay and soon stopped at a gray high fence. The doors of the cars slammed, the dark figures of the sentries and the soldiers of the cordon appeared. The people in civilian clothes were no longer visible. The leader of the column went up to an inconspicuous gate, matching the color of the wall. An iron window clinked, light flashed. At the end of the fence, the doors of large high gates opened with a slight creak into the local courtyard of the technical territory, closed on all sides (from above - with a camouflage net to match the color of the rock). The first "Ural", quietly rumbling with a powerful engine, slowly crept into the dark rectangle of the gate. The elder of the car was already at the wheel. The driver and the sentry remained outside the gate. Only specialists from the main unit were allowed into the local area. The conscripts, as well as the officers and warrant officers of the supporting units, did not have access to the local zone. The gate closed slowly. Silence hung over the bay. You could hear the water squelching on the piles of the quay wall. The sparse lanterns on the other side of the bay, reflected in jagged streaks of light, snaked across the dark water. It smelled like rotting seaweed, fresh fish and diesel fuel.
And behind the gates "Ural" has already opened its back wall. The unloading of a special cargo was carried out. Quiet commands were heard, clear reports and the quiet hum of the lift drive. Not a single superfluous word, only the team of the work supervisor. Except for only one command - the “Stop” command, which had to be given by the first person who noticed the danger or safety violation.
Suddenly nearby, in a sheer rock, a narrow vertical black gap appeared, which, slowly widening, turned into a large black rectangle. This opened the entrance to the underground complex. The entrance itself is a unique engineering structure, a sealed gate in the form of a hemisphere with a convex side outward, capable of withstanding a shock wave of a nuclear explosion of 100 kt. Weight - more than 20 tons. Thickness - 0.6 m. The outer side is thick armor, the inner side is a steel plate. Between them is a special concrete filler that traps penetrating radiation. Behind the gates there is a small vestibule, further - an ordinary casemate-type armored door. In the vestibule, illuminated by blue light, a trolley with a special load was manually rolled along the rails, and the gates were slowly closing. There was a sheet of aluminum on top of the trolley flooring, and the working, inner part of the wheel rim was covered with a layer of brass to eliminate the possibility of sparking.
The inner door could not be opened until the outer door was closed completely. A locking system was provided. As soon as the gate closed, a bright light flashed, the inner door opened, and the cart with the load rolled into the adit. Behind the bend (the rounding was made to damp the shock wave) there was a small hall with a turntable, which could be unrolled to roll the cart to other adits, to the assembly hall or to the nuclear warhead storage.
Access to the store was strictly limited, even for the specialists of the main department. Only group leaders, brigade chiefs, chief engineers and commanders of military units 90989 and 20553 were allowed. By written approval, in the presence of a senior officer in charge of the storage facility. The doors had two locks and two seals. They could only be opened by two officers at the same time, indicated in the written admission for a specific date and time.
ASSEMBLY HALL
The room for assembly and routine maintenance with the UPS had an area of 300 sq. m and was the largest in the underground complex. The hall housed six workstations, where six assembly groups could work simultaneously. Complete absence of dust, sterile cleanliness. Slight noise from the ventilation system. The microclimate, optimal for the products, was maintained. The lighting was strictly compliant. There were markings on the floor, on the walls. Racks for tools, stands with KPA, stands, consoles, wiring harnesses, hoses - all in harnesses, marked, signed. Everywhere there are tags with the names of those in charge and the timing of regular inspections and checks.
The boxes, which were delivered by the "Ural" convoy, contained assemblies and component parts for special products. They were produced at various enterprises of the military-industrial complex in different cities of the Soviet Union, without even knowing about their purpose. Specialists from the assembly groups assembled them, assembled them into the warhead body, connected the wires to the automation unit and the ball charge. The operability of the product as a whole was checked, the so-called control cycle was run, simulating the passage of the warhead along the trajectory as part of a missile or torpedo. The parameters of the triggering of various sensors were monitored.
Before each work with a certain type of nuclear warhead, theoretical, practical exercises and test exercises were conducted. Immediately before the start of work, an instruction on safety measures was carried out, under signature in a special journal. The calculation was in the ranks at the workplace in overalls. In the left breast pocket there was an individual dosimeter, a "pencil" (KID-4). On the left sleeve there is a bandage with the number of the worker in the calculation, located above the elbow bend, at the distance set by the instructions, with an accuracy of a centimeter.
In addition to classes and trainings, every six months specialists from the assembly groups passed an exam in their specialty in the presence of a representative of the 12th Main Directorate of the Ministry of Defense. Only specialists who received marks not lower than "good" were allowed to work. Losers could retake the exam no earlier than after a month of intensive preparation.
Each operation was carried out strictly punctually according to technical documentation, with keeping a record, only on command and under the supervision of the head of the calculation. At the same time, the order of the operation was read out and the number of the performer was called. Hearing his number, the performer replied: "Me!" He went out of order, repeated the command received, took the necessary tool and, speaking out loud his actions, performed the operation. The progress of the operation was controlled by the head of the crew, and the actions of the performer and the quality of control by the head of the crew were controlled by a specially appointed supervisor. Control over the correctness and order of the operation was carried out by the responsible work manager. Compliance with security measures was monitored by a senior security engineer.
After completing the operation, the performer returned the instrument to its place, signed in the protocol log, reported on the implementation and became operational. After checking the correctness of the operation, the head of the calculation put his signature. After making sure that the operation was completed and monitored, the supervisor signed the protocol.
It should be noted that the tool for working with products, ranging from standard wrenches, screwdrivers and ending with special flashlights and fixtures, was of the highest quality, made according to the special order of the Ministry of Defense at the enterprises of the military-industrial complex. Tool kits at workplaces were on special boards or in suitcases with sockets (cells) for each key or device. Moreover, the bottom of each cell was painted in a bright red color, which was not noticeable when the instrument was in its place, and immediately caught the eye when it was not there. This made it easier to check for the presence of the tool at the workplace when sealing the cavities of the product and excluded accidental ingress of the tool into the housing. The preparation of the product was completed with a leak test. A slight overpressure was created inside the body, and the product was completely immersed, "head first," into a large bath filled with alcohol. The alcohol was ethyl, food grade, of the highest quality. The tightness of the product was judged by the absence of air bubbles.
But before that, perhaps the most important operation was carried out to equip the warhead charge with electric detonators. Before performing this operation, everyone left the assembly hall. Only the direct executors, the head of the calculation, the supervising and responsible manager of the work remained at the workplace. All consoles and stands were de-energized. There were two performers, the outfitter and his assistant. The grounding of the workplace, the product body and the ball charge was checked. The outfitter put on special slippers made of genuine leather with a sole stitched through with copper wire, stood on a metal sheet connected to the ground loop, and removed static charges from his hands, touching the ground loop. Slowly, carefully, with two fingers of his right hand, he removed the electric detonator from the cassette, carefully examined it, brought it into the body of the product (the left hand was always on a safety net just below the right), gently and accurately inserted it into the socket on the body of the charge. Then he took the next one, etc. The assistant was next to the other side of the product, carefully watching every movement of the equipment, illuminated him with a flashlight and was ready to insure him at any moment. The operation was carried out in complete silence, water was heard dripping somewhere in the farthest adit.
There is a sad popular saying that "a miner is wrong only once." Tragically, we are talking about ordinary explosives. It is difficult to imagine the consequences of the mistake of a mineral scientist. Nearby, in another adit, is the fleet's nuclear arsenal, a storage facility for nuclear and thermonuclear warheads for torpedoes and missiles, each of which is hundreds and thousands of times more powerful than the one dropped on Hiroshima.
Within the framework of military unit 90989 and military unit 20553, contingency emergency and subversive teams were formed from the main unit. The first were prepared to take priority measures to eliminate accidents with nuclear warheads, and the second were to destroy the nuclear arsenal by detonating nuclear warheads "in the event of an obvious threat of the enemy seizing the object." It's good that they didn't have to put their knowledge and skills into practice. Of course, a certain degree of risk has always existed, but there was the strictest technological discipline and the highest degree of responsibility. And if the motto of all emergency services is "Prevent emergencies!"
BASE-MUSEUM
Years have passed. The Soviet Union collapsed, the nuclear base in Balaklava became history. Ukraine became a nuclear-weapon-free zone (Lisbon Protocol). Nuclear weapons were exported to Russia. Military units 90989 and 20553 were disbanded. Their commanders Captain 1st Rank Nikolai Leontyevich Grigorovich and Colonel Alexei Arefievich Popov honorably completed their last combat mission. Everything that was supposed to be taken out to Russia. The underground complex, buildings and structures on the territory of the military units were handed over to the local authorities, in the headquarters and barracks of military unit 20553 the regional police department of the Balaklava region was located.
The underground complex of the boat repair plant suffered a sad fate. The last commander of this unique structure was Captain 3rd Rank A. V. Tunitsky. After the departure of the military, the security was removed, and the city authorities were unable to ensure the safety of the facilities. Turning, drilling, milling, planing machines and other equipment were removed, electrical panels, cable routes, metal structures were barbarously cut out and taken away by looters. And only after repeated appeals of the outraged public, scientists, historians, local historians, writers and journalists on June 1, 2003, by order No. 57 of May 14, 2003, the head of the Central Museum (CM) of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, on the basis of the former underground complex, was created the Cold War Museum of the VMMC “Balaklava As a branch of the Central Committee of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Since April 1, 2014, the underground complex has become part of the Military-Historical Museum of Fortifications of the Russian Federation.
