The Naval Museum Complex "Balaklava": description, history and interesting facts

Ten kilometers from Sevastopol is a picturesque resort town - Balaklava. Until recently, in the second half of the 20th century, it was closed to tourists. The fault was the underground naval base in Balaklava.

When the cold war began in the fifties of the last century, the United States of America and the Soviet Union began to build up arsenals of nuclear weapons, threatening preventive strikes to each other, as well as retaliation. It was in this difficult historical period that Stalin gave Beria's secret order: to find a place for the basing of Soviet submarines, to strike a nuclear strike.

The choice of special services fell on the peaceful and quiet Balaklava. The city was immediately classified, its name disappeared from the map of Crimea. The city turned into one of the districts of Sevastopol, but not in the ordinary, but in a particularly secret: it was only possible to enter here on special passes. Stalin personally examined and visited the project of a secret base for the repair and maintenance of submarines. So, there was the first and only underground harbor in the world, which has a factory on its submarine repair, which received the name - object No. 825.

Where is the base?

Once a secret underground base, and today the naval complex "Balaklava" is located in the eponymous bay, in Mount Tavros. It has two exits, and the entrance to the canal - from the side of the bay. Its employees called the adit. In the event of a threat, the entrance to it was blocked by a huge batoport weighing one hundred and fifty tons.

On the northern mountainside slope was built the exit of boats into the sea. He was also closing the batoport. It should be noted that all the holes in the mountain were so expertly concealed by various camouflage devices that it was very difficult to notice them even at close range.

History of construction

Today, the underground naval museum complex is the most popular tourist attraction of Balaklava. The history of the secret object began in the distant 1957. To preserve the confidentiality of the object under construction, a completely peaceful name was given - GTS (city telephone exchange) No. 825. There is also a second transcript of the abbreviation - "hydraulic engineering structure". It is more logical: few could have believed in the construction of a telephone exchange in Mount Tavros.

Specialists in the creation of such complexes claim that none of them (declassified) and today in size and power surpassed the base in Balaklava. Construction was carried out in stages, while the working day was divided into four shifts. The builders removed from the western cliff of Mount Tavros builders more than two hundred thousand cubic meters of soil.

So, there was a deep-water canal, workshops, dry dock, arsenals, underground roads, storage facilities, berths, command post. The breed was taken out at night, for purposes of secrecy, when a small southern town was quietly asleep. Barges were taken out and dumped into the sea.

Cooperation with metrostroevtsami

Initially, the erection of this facility was entrusted to military specialists, but they unexpectedly encountered difficulties while drilling the ground. The government of the country decided to attract metro-builders to work, which helped to build an underground canal, the depth of which was more than eight meters. At different sites, its width ranged from eight to twelve meters.

The secret underwater base occupied a huge territory (more than five thousand square meters). The area of the water area, under which the facility is located, is three thousand meters. The first stage of the facility (repair base) was commissioned in 1961. Fuel storage for fuel and lubricants, with a volume of nine and a half thousand tons, entered the second phase, the construction of which was completed in 1963. Underwater plant could accommodate up to seven vessels. I must say that even today's military experts this figure is impressive.

In the spring of 1994, the last submarine left the base in the sea. Since then, a unique object has been abandoned and simply plundered.

What was the object for?

This question is of interest to many who today visit a unique museum complex in Balaklava. Recall that the construction of the facility was conducted during the Cold War, when the international situation was tense to the limit.

The base was created for maintenance and repair and submarines of Class 633 and 613. Spare parts for submarines and ammunition were kept on the territory of the facility. The central tunnel consisted of seven boats of these types, but in emergency cases the project provided for the placement of up to fourteen vessels of various classes.

In addition, the designers provided for a special tunnel (in the event of a nuclear attack) to dive the boats to the station under water. Here, in addition to conventional weapons, there were nuclear weapons.

Disadvantages of the complex

Modern specialists often argue, discussing whether the base was really a unique and ideal object, or it had shortcomings. As for the uniqueness of the objections, as a rule, does not arise, and as regards the shortcomings of the structure, they, of course, were.

During the construction of the submarine station, new models began to enter the arsenal of the Black Sea Fleet - submarines of the 625 class that worked on diesel fuel. They could no longer fit in the created channels. In addition, the territory of the base was quite difficult to hit, even during a weak storm.

The Naval Museum Complex "Balaklava": description

This huge structure, which is located deep underground, was able to protect against an atomic explosion - for example, with the defeat of an atomic bomb, a power of at least a hundred kilotons. In this case, all ammunition, submarines and personnel working there would remain unscathed.

Today the naval museum "Balaklava" in Sevastopol is open to all comers. It was founded in 2003, when object No. 825 was declassified. Excursions are held in groups of twenty people. The tour takes about an hour.

Excursion routes

The submarine museum in Balaklava can be viewed along one of the two proposed routes. The basic excursion is a pedestrian hour walk along the mazes of Mount Tavros. This route includes visits to a secret facility for shelter boats, a navigable canal, an arsenal of nuclear weapons, which is now converted into spacious exhibition halls.

The second route is shorter: in half an hour you will be able to inspect the Balaklava underground museum complex by taking a boat trip, to travel through an underground canal, to see the submarines maintenance workshop, to visit a 100-meter dry dock that is at a depth of eight meters and look at a real sea mine that Was intended to defeat the enemy's naval targets and was capable of destroying everything within a radius of 100 m.

Factory pattern

This is a huge transport corridor leading to production facilities. Its length is 296 meters, the height is four and a half meters, width is four. This room was used to transport torpedoes from the MCP and delivery of equipment and materials to the shops. In addition, there was a shelter for staff.

Underground dock

Everyone who visits the Balaklava naval museum complex for the first time is particularly impressed by this particular building, in which the boats were repaired. Its length is 505 meters, width is from six to twenty-two meters (on different sites). In addition to the underground, on the base there was also a dry dock - a fenced part of the channel, the length of which was one hundred and two meters.

Before entering the dry dock, it filled with water. When the ship stopped, the water was pumped out and repairs started, which lasted from two to six weeks.

Arsenal

The naval museum complex "Balaklava" today can offer tourists to visit the arsenal, where the main military units for torpedoes and missiles, including nuclear ones, were stored. This room was conditionally divided into two parts - technical and local, in which the most secret place of the base was located. Here the head parts were stored and assembled. Enter here could only calculations consisting of officers and warrant officers.

Interesting Facts

• Boats entered the canal only at night, and in Balaklava at that time electricity was cut off.
• The walls and ceiling of the arsenal covers a layer of concrete, the thickness of which reaches several meters.
• After the boat entered the dock, water was drained from it. A huge number of workers left at the bottom of the fish were collected and smoked. Throughout the district there was a fragrant smoke, through which local residents clearly determined that the next boat was for repairs.

The Naval Museum Complex "Balaklava": contacts

The museum is located on Tavricheskaya Embankment, 22. It runs daily from 10:00 to 19:00 hours. Beforehand, you can book an excursion at the museum's administrator.