Balaklava submarine base
The Balaklava submarine base (Russian name: Объект 825 ГТС, Ob'yekt 825 GTS, "Object 825 GTS", or K-825.), sometimes called "The cold-war museum", is an underground submarine base in Balaklava, Sevastopol. It lies on the Crimean Peninsula, formerly part of Ukraine, but annexed by Russia in 2014. It is a secret military facility built during the Cold War, located in the Balaklava Bay.
Description and purpose[edit]
The base is constructed accordingly to counter nuclear interference of category I (which is direct exposure to an atomic bomb with a yield equivalent of 100 kt TNT), and includes complex underground water channels, dry docks for repairs, fuel storage, and torpedo parts. It is located below the Tavros mountain, and has two exits on both sides. The bay side possesses the entrance to the base. The entrance tunnel houses massive hermetic doors, whose total weight exceeded 150 tons. The exit to the open sea is located on the northen side, also protected by hermetic gates. Both entrances were artfully covered with camouflage utilities.
The base was intended to house, repair and maintain submarines, built to house Projects 613 and 633 and their ammunition. The channel, with a length of 602 meters, could accommodate up to 7 submarines of the aforementioned types. The water channel reaches up to 8 m in depth, 12 to 22 meters in width. The total area of the base lands around 9600 sq meters, with ground water surface area at 5200. Equipment loading in peacetime was carried out on the pier, conducted with consideration of movement of potentially hostile spy satellites. When faced with a nuclear threat, the loading could be carried out in special tunnels inside the base. The complex also houses the repair and technical base (Object 820), designed for storage and maintenance of nuclear weapons. The temperature inside the base is constantly kept around 15 degrees Celsius.
History[edit]
After the Second World War, the two superpowers, namely the USSR and the US increased their nuclear arsenal, threatening each other with preemptive strikes and retaliatory strikes. It was then when Stalin gave Beria (who was responsible at that time for "nuclear projects") a secret directive to find a place where submarines could be based for a retaliatory nuclear strike. Several years of research pinned down the quiet Balaklava city as the location. The city was immediately coded and changed its status from an independent city to a district of Sevastopol. Balaklava was chosen not by chance, but because of its narrow winding strait that is only 200-400 meters wide, which protects the harbor not only from stones, but also from prying eyes, making the base invisible under any angle from the open sea.
Special construction management No. 528 was created in 1953, which directly involved construction of underground facilities.
The construction took 8 years, from 1953 to 1961. About 120 kilotons of rock was removed from the mountain. To ensure the secrecy of the transportation of the rocks, transportations were made at night on a barge in the open sea. The military base was built first, and then the water tunnels due to complexity of rock drilling.
The complex was not guarded any more after the closure of a large part of the base in 1993, and was subsequently transferred to the Naval Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in 2000.
From 1993 to 2003 the former base in actually plundered, with all structures containing metal scavenged.
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