The largest construction projects in the USSR. Bloody construction projects of the 20th century

At the very top of the CPSU Central Committee they knew how and loved to build grandiose plans for the future. Large-scale and easily implementable ideas on paper were supposed to provide the country with superiority in all areas over everything and everyone in the world. Let's look at some of the ambitious Soviet projects, which were never implemented.

The idea of this project, which was supposed to literally elevate the USSR above the whole world, was born in the early 1930s. Its essence boiled down to the construction of a skyscraper 420 meters high with a giant statue of Vladimir Lenin on the roof.
The building, which was named the Palace of the Soviets even before construction began, was to become the tallest in the world, surpassing even the famous skyscrapers of New York. This is how they imagined the future giant in the party leadership. It was planned that in good weather the Palace of the Soviets would be visible from a distance of several tens of kilometers.

The place chosen for the construction of the future symbol of communism was a wonderful one - a hill on Volkhonka. The fact that the location had long been occupied by the Cathedral of Christ the Savior did not bother anyone. They decided to demolish the cathedral.

They say that Stalin's associate Lazar Kaganovich, watching the explosion of the temple from a hill through binoculars, said: “Let's pull up the hem of Mother Rus'!”

Construction of the main building of the USSR began in 1932 and continued until the start of the war.

Construction of the basement During this time, we managed to completely settle accounts with the foundation and begin work on the entrance. Alas, things did not progress further than this: the war made its own adjustments, and the country’s leadership was forced to abandon the image idea of providing the people with a high-rise building. Moreover, what had already been built began to be dismantled and used for military needs, for example, to create anti-tank hedgehogs.

In the 50s, they returned to the “palace” theme and even almost started work, but at the last moment they abandoned it and decided to build a huge swimming pool on the site of the failed high-rise building.

However, this object was later abandoned - in the mid-90s the pool was liquidated, and in its place a new Cathedral of Christ the Savior was erected.

Perhaps the only thing today that reminds us of the once grandiose plans of the authorities to create the Palace of Soviets is this Gas station on Volkhonka, often called “Kremlevskaya”. It was supposed to become part of the complex's infrastructure.

Now look at what the capital could look like if the leadership of the Union had been able to implement plans to erect a “symbol of communism.”

“Construction No. 506” - Sakhalin Tunnel

Not all construction projects Stalin era were of an image nature. Some were launched for the sake of a practical component, which, however, did not make them any less grandiose and impressive. A striking example is the colossal construction project on Sakhalin, which started in 1950. The idea of the project was to connect the island with the mainland through an underground 10-kilometer tunnel. The party allocated 5 years for all the work.

As usual, the work of constructing the tunnel fell on the shoulders of the Gulag.

Construction stopped in 1953 almost immediately after Stalin's death.
In three years of work, they managed to build railway lines to the tunnel (about 120 km of railway track in the Khabarovsk Territory), which were subsequently used for the removal of wood, dug a mine shaft, and also created an artificial island on Cape Lazarev. Here he is.

Today, only infrastructure parts scattered along the shore and a technical shaft, half filled with debris and soil, remind us of the once large-scale construction.

The place is popular among tourists - lovers of abandoned places with history.

"Battle Mole" - secret underground boats

The construction of skyscrapers and other structures that amaze the average person is not the only thing the Soviet budget was spent on in an effort to “overtake the competition.” In the early 30s, in high offices they got the idea to develop vehicle, often found in the books of science fiction writers - an underground boat.

The first attempt was made by the inventor A. Treblev, who created a boat shaped like a rocket.

Treblev's brainchild moved at a speed of 10 m/h. It was assumed that the mechanism would be controlled by the driver, or (the second option) using a cable from the surface. In the mid-40s, the device was even tested in the Urals near Mount Blagodat.

Unfortunately, during testing the boat proved to be not very reliable, so they decided to temporarily cancel the project.

The iron mole was remembered again in the 60s: Nikita Khrushchev really liked the idea of “getting the imperialists not only in space, but also underground.” Advanced minds were involved in the work on the new boat: Leningrad professor Babaev and even academician Sakharov. The result painstaking work became a car with nuclear reactor, capable of accommodating 5 crew members and carrying a ton of explosives.

The first tests of the boat in the same Urals were successful: the mole covered the allotted path at walking speed. However, it was too early to rejoice: during the second test, the car exploded, killing the entire crew. The mole himself remained immured in the mountain, which he could not overcome.

After Leonid Brezhnev came to power, the underground boat project was canceled.

"Car 2000"

No less sad was the fate of a completely peaceful transport development - the Istra car, also known as the “two-thousander”.

The creation of “the most advanced machine of the Union” began in 1985 in the Department of Design and Experimental Works. The program was called "Car 2000".

Through the efforts of designers and constructors, the result was a truly promising car with a progressive design, ahead of its time.

The car was equipped with a lightweight duralumin body with two doors opening upwards, a 3-cylinder ELKO 3.82.92 T turbodiesel with a power of 68 horsepower. Maximum speed the car was supposed to be 185 km/h with acceleration to 100 km in 12 seconds.

The most advanced car in the USSR was supposed to have computer-controlled air suspension, ABS, airbags, a projection system that allows displaying instrument readings on the windshield, a forward-looking scanner for driving at night, as well as an on-board self-diagnosis system showing malfunctions and possible ways to eliminate them.

Alas, the futuristic Soviet sedan failed to enter the market. During the preparation for the launch, as it happens, minor problems related to the modification and serial production of engines surfaced. Moreover, if the technical issues were completely solvable, then the financial troubles that befell the authors of the project already in 1991 turned out to be critical. After the collapse of the Union, there was no money for implementation, and as a result, the project had to be closed. The only sample The “two-thousander” is kept today in Moscow in the museum of retro cars.

Cconstruction grandiose buildings always associated with huge material costs And human losses. But many of the great construction projects of the Soviet Union were bloody in in every sense this word. And if almost everyone knows about the construction of the White Sea Canal, then the word “Algemba” can say a lot only to historians. And the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM), still called “Komsomol construction” in many textbooks, was not built only by Komsomol members.

Algemba: About 35,000 people died!

The most cruel ruler The Soviet Union is traditionally considered to be Stalin who violated Ilyich’s behests. It was he who is credited with creating a network of camps (GULAG), and it was he who initiated the construction of the White Sea Canal by prisoners. They somehow forget that one of the first construction projects took place under the direct leadership of Lenin. And it is not surprising: all materials related to Algemba - the first attempt of the young Soviet government to acquire its own oil pipeline - for a long time were classified.

In December 1919, Frunze's army captured the Emben oil fields in Northern Kazakhstan. By that time, more than 14 million pounds of oil had accumulated there. This oil could be the salvation for the Soviet republic. On December 24, 1919, the Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense decided to begin construction of a railway through which oil could be exported from Kazakhstan to the center, and ordered: “Recognize the construction of the Alexandrov Gai-Emba broad-gauge line as an operational task.” The city of Alexandrov Gai, located 300 km from Saratov, was the last railway point. The distance from it to the oil fields was about 500 miles. Most of The route ran through waterless salt marsh steppes. They decided to build the highway at both ends simultaneously and meet on the Ural River near the village of Grebenshchikovo.

Frunze's army was the first to be sent to build the railway (despite his protests). There was no transport, no fuel, or enough food. In the conditions of the waterless steppe there was nowhere to even place soldiers. Began epidemic diseases which grew into an epidemic. They were forcibly involved in construction local population: about forty-five thousand residents of Saratov and Samara. People almost manually created an embankment along which rails were later to be laid.

In March 1920, the task became even more complicated: it was decided to build a pipeline in parallel with the railway. It was then that the word “Algemba” was heard for the first time (from the first letters of Aleksandrov Gai and the name of the deposit - Emba). There were no pipes, like anything else. The only plant that once produced them has been standing for a long time. The remains were collected from warehouses; there was enough of them for best case scenario 15 versts (and it was necessary to lay 500!). Lenin began to search alternative solution. At first it was proposed to produce wooden pipes. The experts just shrugged: firstly, it is impossible to maintain the necessary pressure in them, and secondly, Kazakhstan does not have its own forests, there is nowhere to get wood. Then it was decided to dismantle sections of existing pipelines. The pipes varied greatly in length and diameter, but this did not bother the Bolsheviks. Another thing was confusing: the collected “spare parts” were still not enough even for half the pipeline! However, work continued.

By the end of 1920, construction began to choke. Typhoid killed several hundred people a day. Security was posted along the highway because local residents began to take away the sleepers. The workers generally refused to go to work. Food rations were extremely low (especially in the Kazakh sector). Lenin demanded to understand the reasons for the sabotage. But there was no trace of any sabotage. Hunger, cold and disease exacted a terrible toll among the builders. In 1921, cholera came to the construction site. Despite the courage of the doctors who voluntarily arrived at Algemba, the mortality rate was appalling. But the worst thing was different: four months after the start of construction of Algemba, already in April 1920, Baku and Grozny were liberated. Emba oil was no longer needed. Thousands of lives sacrificed during construction were in vain.

It was possible even then to stop the pointless activity of laying the Algemba. But Lenin stubbornly insisted on continuing construction, which was incredibly expensive for the state. In 1920, the government allocated a billion rubles in cash for this construction. No one has ever received a full report, but there is an assumption that the funds ended up in foreign accounts. Neither railway, neither the pipeline was built: on October 6, 1921, by Lenin’s directive, construction was stopped. A year and a half of Algemba cost thirty-five thousand human lives.

White Sea Canal: 700 deaths a day!

The initiator of the construction of the White Sea Canal was Joseph Stalin. The country needed labor victories and global achievements. And preferably - without extra costs, since the Soviet Union was experiencing an economic crisis. The White Sea Canal was supposed to connect the White Sea with the Baltic Sea and open a passage for ships that previously had to go around the entire Scandinavian Peninsula. The idea of creating an artificial passage between the seas was known back in the time of Peter the Great (and the Russians have been using the portage system along the entire length of the future White Sea Canal for a long time). But the way the project was implemented (and Naftaliy Frenkel was appointed head of canal construction) turned out to be so cruel that it forced historians and publicists to look for parallels in slave states.

The total length of the canal is 227 kilometers. On this waterway there are 19 locks (13 of which are two-chamber), 15 dams, 49 dams, 12 spillways. The scale of construction is amazing, especially considering that it was all built in an incredibly short term: 20 months and 10 days. For comparison: the 80-kilometer Panama Canal took 28 years to build, and the 160-kilometer Suez Canal took ten.

The White Sea Canal was built from start to finish by prisoners. The convicted designers created drawings and found extraordinary technical solutions (dictated by the lack of machines and materials). Those who did not have an education suitable for design spent day and night digging a canal, waist-deep in liquid mud, urged on not only by supervisors, but also by members of their team: those who did not fulfill the quota had their already meager ration reduced. There was only one way: into concrete (those who died on the White Sea Canal were not buried, but were simply poured haphazardly into holes, which were then filled with concrete and served as the bottom of the canal).

The main tools for construction were a wheelbarrow, a sledgehammer, a shovel, an ax and a wooden crane for moving boulders. Prisoners, unable to withstand the unbearable conditions of detention and backbreaking work, died in the hundreds. At times, deaths reached 700 people per day. And at this time, newspapers published editorials dedicated to the “reforging by labor” of seasoned recidivists and political criminals. Of course, there were some additions and fraud. The canal bed was made shallower than was calculated in the project, and the start of construction was pushed back to 1932 (in fact, work began a year earlier).

About 280 thousand prisoners took part in the construction of the canal, of whom about 100 thousand died. Those who survived (one in six) had their sentences reduced, and some were even awarded the “Order of the Baltic-White Sea Canal.” The entire leadership of the OGPU was awarded orders. Stalin, who visited the opened canal at the end of July 1933, was pleased. The system has shown its effectiveness. There was only one catch: the most physically strong and efficient prisoners earned a reduction in their sentences.

In 1938, Stalin at a meeting of the Presidium Supreme Council The USSR raised the question: “Did you propose the list for the release of these prisoners correctly? They leave work... We are doing a bad job by disrupting the work of the camps. The release of these people is, of course, necessary, but from the point of view state economy this is bad... They will be released the best people, and remain the worst. Isn’t it possible to turn things around differently, so that these people stay at work - give awards, orders, maybe?..” But, fortunately for the prisoners, such a decision was not made: a prisoner with a government award on his robe would look too strange ...

BAM: 1 meter - 1 human life!

In 1948, with the beginning of the construction of the subsequent “great construction projects of communism” (the Volga-Don Canal, the Volga-Baltic Waterway, the Kuibyshev and Stalingrad hydroelectric power stations and other objects), the authorities used an already proven method: they built large forced labor camps that served the construction sites. And finding those to fill the vacancies of slaves was easy. Only by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of June 4, 1947, “On criminal liability for theft of state and public property,” hundreds of thousands of people were brought into the zone. Prison labor was used in the most labor-intensive and “harmful” industries.

In 1951, USSR Minister of Internal Affairs S.N. Kruglov reported at the meeting: “I must say that in a number of sectors of the national economy the Ministry of Internal Affairs occupies a monopoly position, for example, the gold mining industry - it is all concentrated in our country; the production of diamonds, silver, platinum - all this is entirely concentrated in the Ministry of Internal Affairs; mining of asbestos and apatite is entirely carried out by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. We are 100% involved in tin production, 80% specific gravity occupied by the Ministry of Internal Affairs for Non-Ferrous Metals...” The minister did not mention only one thing: 100% of the radium in the country was also produced by prisoners.

The world's greatest Komsomol construction project - BAM, about which songs were composed, films were made, and enthusiastic articles were written - did not begin with a call to youth. In 1934, the prisoners who built the White Sea Canal were sent to build the railway, which was supposed to connect Taishet on the Trans-Siberian Railway with Komsomolsk-on-Amur. According to the Gulag Handbook by Jacques Rossy (and this is the most objective this moment book about the camp system) about 50 thousand prisoners worked at BAM in the 1950s.

Especially for the needs of the construction site, a new camp for prisoners was created - BAMlag, the zone of which extended from Chita to Khabarovsk. The daily ration was traditionally meager: a loaf of bread and frozen fish soup. There weren't enough barracks for everyone. People died from cold and scurvy (in order to at least briefly delay the approach of this terrible disease, they chewed pine needles). Over the course of several years, more than 2.5 thousand kilometers of railway were built. Historians have calculated: every meter of the BAM is paid for by one human life.

Official story construction Baikal-Amur Mainline started in 1974, in Brezhnev times. Trains with young people reached BAM. The prisoners continued to work, but their participation in the “construction of the century” was kept silent. And ten years later, in 1984, the “golden spike” was driven in, symbolizing the end of another gigantic construction project, which is still associated with smiling young romantics who are not afraid of difficulties.

The above-mentioned construction projects have a lot in common: the fact that the projects were difficult to implement (in particular, the BAM and the White Sea Canal were conceived back in Tsarist Russia, but were shelved due to lack of budgetary funds), and the fact that the work was carried out with minimal technical support, and the fact that slaves were used instead of workers (it is difficult to describe the position of the builders otherwise). But perhaps the most terrible common feature— the fact that all these roads (both land and water) are many kilometers of mass graves. When you read dry statistical calculations, Nekrasov’s words come to mind: “And on the sides, all the bones are Russian. How many are there, Vanechka, do you know?” www.stroyplanerka.ru/AuxView.aspx

Material taken: “100 famous mysteries of history” by M.A. Pankova, I.Yu. Romanenko and others.

With the phrase " Great construction projects of communism “almost everyone is familiar with it, but what was meant initially? And what does " ».

Lots of illustrations.

You should start with Stalin's plan transformation of nature.

Autumn 1948, 3 years later After the end of the Great Patriotic War, the Council of Ministers of the USSR adopted the resolution " On the plan for field protective forest plantations, the introduction of grass crop rotations, the construction of ponds and reservoirs to ensure high sustainable yields in the steppe and forest-steppe regions of the European part of the USSR" In the press, this document was called "".

Calculated plan for the period 1949-1965 years. What is its essence?

In the steppe and forest-steppe regions of the European part of the USSR ( Volga region, Western Kazakhstan, Northern Caucasus, Ukraine ) droughts and hot winds recurred frequently.

However, you can also get excellent harvests there - there is a lot of sun and warmth.

There just isn't enough water.

What to do?

Use a grass-based farming system ( V.V. Dokuchaeva, P.A. Kostychev and V.R. Williams).

The essence of which is:

A) planting protective forest belts on watersheds, along the boundaries of crop rotation fields, on the slopes of ravines and ravines, along the banks of rivers and lakes, around ponds and reservoirs, as well as afforestation and sand consolidation;
b) proper organization of the territory with introduction of grass fields field and fodder crop rotations and rational use of land;
c) correct tillage system , crop care and, above all, the widespread use of black fumes, plowing and stubble peeling;
d) correct organic application system And mineral fertilizers ;
d) sowing selected seeds adapted to local conditions high-yielding varieties;
e) irrigation development based on water use local flow by constructing ponds and reservoirs.

This is at the local level. What about the state?

In accordance with this plan it was necessary plant forest strips, to block the way for dry winds and change the climate over an area of 120,000,000 hectares, equal to the territories of England, France, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands combined. Central location The plan included protective afforestation and irrigation.

In total, it was planned to plant more than 4,000,000 hectares of forest and create state shelterbelts over 5,300 km long. These strips were supposed to protect the fields from hot southeastern winds - dry winds.

In addition to state forest protective stripes, forest belts were planted local significance along the perimeter of individual fields, along the slopes of ravines, along existing and newly created reservoirs, on sand (in order to secure them).

The plan also included the introduction of a grass-based farming system. According to this system, part of the arable land in crop rotation was sown with perennial legumes and bluegrass grasses.

Grasses served as fodder for livestock farming and a natural means of restoring soil fertility (legumes).

The created forest belts and reservoirs were supposed to significantly diversify the flora and fauna of the USSR. Thus, the plan combined the tasks of protecting environment and obtaining high sustainable yields.

To develop and implement the plan, the Agrolesproekt Institute (now Rosgiproles) was created. According to his projects, four large watersheds of the Dnieper, Don, Volga, Ural basins were covered with forests, European south Russia.

The total length of large state shelterbelts exceeded 5,300 km. 2.3 million hectares of forest were planted in these strips.

Simultaneously with the installation of a system of protective forest plantations, the big program on the creation of irrigation systems. In the USSR, about 4 thousand reservoirs were created, holding 1200 km 3 of water

The next step was " Great construction projects of communism ».

Brown arrows are dry winds, green stripes are forest belts, red broken lines are canals, red stars are future hydroelectric power stations...

The question was where to get water. Warmth and sun are already available!

There is also water, but in the form of rivers flowing aimlessly into the seas (Volga, Dnieper, Don, Amu Darya).

The idea is that the waters of these rivers detain dams, thereby flooding the territories, let go channels giving water for irrigation, make the turbines spin and give electricity!

The same " Great construction projects of communism».

Let’s list on one hand what was included in the Great Construction Projects of Communism:

Hydroelectric power stations :

Dnieper:

- Kakhovskaya HPP. She created a reservoir to feed the South Ukrainian and North Crimean canals.

- Tsimlyanskaya HPP. It created a reservoir that raised the water level for the use of the Volga-Don Canal and its energy supply, ensuring the navigability of the Don and powering irrigation canals.

Volga:

- Kuibyshevskaya HPP. For power supply. 2nd most powerful in the world at that time.

- Stalingrad hydroelectric power station. For power supply (1st in terms of power in the world at that time), as well as irrigation, creating conditions for the Stalingrad main gravity canal.

Amu Darya:

- Takhiatashskaya HPP. Redirected the waters of the Amu Darya through the Main Turkmen Canal and power supply.

Channels :

- South Ukrainian Channel. Irrigation

- North Crimean Canal. Irrigation, water supply to the peninsula with fresh water.

- Volga-Don Canal(Volgo-Don). Transport (connection of the Caspian Sea with other seas).

- Main Turkmen channel. Irrigation, transport (connection of the Aral Sea with the Caspian Sea). 2 hydroelectric power stations were planned on the canal.

If anyone is interested in some statistics:

The total capacity of hydroelectric power plants built within the framework of the general plan amounted to more than 4 million kW. During the period of construction, the Kuibyshev and Stalingrad hydroelectric power stations were the largest hydroelectric power stations in the world in terms of power and surpassed the largest hydroelectric power stations in the United States at that time (Grand Coulee and Hoover Dam).

The hydroelectric power station provided energy, irrigation and water supply, water transport, water supply, etc. A significant part of the hydroelectric power station’s electricity was directed to irrigation and electrification of agriculture.

Irrigation and watering base	Length of main canals, km	Area of irrigated land, million hectares	Area of irrigated lands, million hectares
Kuibyshevskaya HPP
Stalingrad hydroelectric power station
Main Turkmen channel from the Amu Darya to Krasnovodsk and irrigation systems in the lower reaches of the Amu Darya, Western Turkmenistan and the Kara-Kum desert
Kakhovskaya HPP, South Ukrainian and North Crimean canals and irrigation systems in the regions of southern Ukraine and Northern Crimea
Volga-Don Shipping Canal and irrigation systems in surrounding areas
Total

Let's take a quick look at these construction sites.

Tsimlyanskaya hydroelectric power station.

Tsimlyanskaya HPP - hydroelectric power station on the Don River in Rostov region, near the cities of Volgodonsk and Tsimlyansk. Built in 1949-1954 as part of the program for the construction of the Volga-Don shipping route.

Has important economic importance, providing large-tonnage shipping on the lower Don, the functioning of the Volga-Don shipping canal, irrigation of large tracts of dry land, water supply, flood protection and electricity generation.

Volga-Don Canal.

The Volga-Don Shipping Canal named after V.I. Lenin (Volga-Don Canal) is a 101 km long canal connecting the Volga and Don rivers at the point of their maximum convergence on the Volgodonsk Isthmus. A link in the unified deep-sea transport system of the European part of Russia.

deep sea transport system European part of Russia– this is a red dotted line.

Historians attribute the first attempt to connect the Volga and Don at the place of their closest convergence to mid-16th century century. In 1569, the Turkish Sultan Selim II sent 22,000 soldiers up the Don to dig a canal between the two rivers. Unsuccessful.

The second known attempt was made during the reign of Peter I. Unsuccessfully.

Before the Revolution of 1917, over 30 projects were created to connect the Volga with the Don. However, none of them was destined to be realized: private owners of railways offered resistance. In addition, even if the canal was built, ship traffic along it could only occur in the spring, when the rivers were full.

On May 31, 1952, the waters of the Volga and Don merged between the 1st and 2nd locks. Vessel traffic has already begun on the canal on June 1. On July 27, 1952, the channel was named after Vladimir Lenin. At the same time, a monument to Joseph Stalin was unveiled at the first lock (on the Volga side) (later demolished, a monument to Lenin was installed on the pedestal).

Kuibyshevskaya (now Zhigulevskaya) hydroelectric power station.

Zhigulevskaya HPP (formerly Kuibyshevskaya HPP, and since 1958 - Volzhskaya HPP named after Lenin) - a hydroelectric power station on the Volga River in Samara region, in the city of Zhigulevsk.

Included in the Volga-Kama cascade of hydroelectric power stations. Second

Construction of the hydroelectric power station began in 1950 and ended in 1957. A feature of the geological structure of the hydroelectric complex is the sharp difference in the banks of the Volga. The high steep right bank is composed of fractured Upper Carboniferous limestone-dolomite rocks. The left main bank of the valley is composed of sands with interlayers and lenses of loams.

In addition to generating electricity, it provides large-capacity shipping, water supply, and flood protection. The reservoir of the Zhigulevskaya HPP is the main regulating reservoir of the Volga-Kama cascade.

Stalingrad (now Volzhskaya) hydroelectric power station.

Volzhskaya HPP (formerly Stalingradskaya/Volgogradskaya HPP, Volzhskaya HPP named after the XXII Congress of the CPSU) is a hydroelectric power station on the Volga River in the Volgograd region.

First largest hydroelectric power station in Europe.

It is part of the Volga-Kama cascade of hydroelectric power stations, being its lowest stage. In 1961, the world's largest hydroelectric power station. It was erected in record time. The first soil in the foundation pit for the future hydroelectric power station was removed in 1952. And in December 1958, the first hydraulic unit was put into operation. World practice the construction of power plants did not know such volumes and pace of work.

For the first time in world practice, Soviet specialists substantiated the possibility of constructing large waterworks on non-rocky foundations.

Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station.

Kakhovskaya HPP is the sixth (lower and last) stage of the cascade of Dnieper hydroelectric power stations on the territory of Ukraine (city of Novaya Kakhovka, Kherson region), built on the Dnieper River.

Construction began in September 1950, and the last hydraulic unit was commissioned in October 1956.

Kakhovsky Canal.

Kakhovsky Canal- the central irrigation and main trunk canal of the south of Ukraine.

It was opened on October 26, 1979. The length of the canal is 130 kilometers, originating from the Kakhovka reservoir. Water from the Kakhovka reservoir rises 25 meters with pumps (powered by the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station) and then flows by gravity through the territory of the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions.

Four irrigation systems are supplied with canal water:

Kakhovskaya
Priazovskaya
Serogozskaya
Chaplynskaya.

The canal is used to irrigate 326,000 hectares in two regions of Ukraine.

North Crimean Canal

Irrigation and water supply canal 402 km long, built (research and design work was carried out for more than 10 years) in 1961-1971 to provide water to low-water and arid territories of the Kherson and Crimean regions of the Ukrainian SSR with water intake from the Kakhovka reservoir, filled in 1955- 1958 When opened it was known as North Crimean Canal named after Lenin Komsomol Ukraine.

Up to 80% of the Dnieper water from the SKK that entered Crimea was used for agricultural needs (of which 60% was used to support rice cultivation) and industrial pond fish farming; about 20% of the Dnieper water of the SKK was supplied to reservoirs - sources of centralized household and drinking water supply to cities and rural areas settlements Crimea.

Since 2014, the supply of Dnieper water to Crimea has been stopped.

Main Turkmen channel

In the foreground is a walking excavator.

The canal was supposed to be built from the Amu Darya River to Krasnovodsk along the ancient dry riverbed of the Uzboy for the development of cotton growing, the development of new lands in Karakalpakstan and the Karakum Desert, as well as for shipping from the Volga to the Amu Darya. It was built in 1950-1953, then construction was stopped.

The canal was to become the second longest canal in the world. Its length was supposed to be more than 1200 kilometers, starting from Cape Takhiatash, 10 km from Nukus to Krasnovodsk.

Along the canal route, a system of dams, locks, reservoirs, three hydroelectric power stations with a total capacity of 100 thousand kW, diversion canals and pipelines with a length of over 1 thousand kilometers was planned. At the beginning of the canal, a huge dam was being built in Takhiatash, which was supposed to be combined with a hydroelectric power station. 25% runoff The Amu Darya was supposed to be diverted into a new canal, the Aral Sea was supposed to lower its level, and the lands that arose during the retreat of the sea were supposed to be used in agriculture; the salinity of the lower reaches of the Amu Darya, according to calculations, was supposed to decrease. It was planned to build 10 thousand kilometers of main and distribution canals, 2 thousand reservoirs, 3 hydroelectric power stations of 100 thousand kilowatts each around the canal. The width of the canal should have been more than a hundred meters, the depth - 6-7 meters. It was planned to use ten thousand dump trucks, bulldozers, and excavators. Construction was expected to be completed by 1957.

In December 1950 it was laid down new town Takhiatash near Cape Takhiatash, on which previously there were two shelters from bad weather for barge haulers. On June 15, 1952, the Chardzhou-Khojeyli railway was opened and a branch line was built to Takhiatash. An infrastructure was created for the development of construction, survey expeditions were organized, and aviation was involved.

After Stalin's death, at the suggestion of Lavrentiy Beria, construction of the canal was suspended on March 25, 1953, and then stopped.

Since 1954, construction of the Karakum Canal began.

Blue is the unbuilt Main Turkmen Canal, red is the built Karakum Canal.

Karakum Canal- a canal built in the USSR for water supply in the southern and southwestern regions of Turkmenistan with a length of 1445 km. In modern Turkmenistan the name Karakum River is also used. The water in the canal flows by gravity. Navigation is carried out along it for 450 km.

The first stage of the canal (Amu Darya - Murgab), 400 km long, was built in 1959. Its commissioning made it possible to increase the area of irrigated land to 100 thousand hectares.

The second stage of the canal (Mary - Tejen), 138 km long, was completed in 1960. This made it possible to irrigate over 70 thousand hectares in the Tedzhen oasis.

The third stage of the canal (Tejen - Ashgabat) 260 km long completed in 1962. In 1967, the canal was extended to Geok-Tepe. The commissioning of the third stage made it possible to additionally irrigate about 100 thousand hectares.

In 1971, construction of the fourth stage of the canal began. Next, the canal will be extended to the city of Bereket. The next section of the canal goes to the subtropical regions of southwestern Turkmenistan to Etrek, 270 km long, the other branch of the canal goes to Nebit-Dag. Construction of the canal was officially completed in 1988.

Channel takes about 45% of water Amu Darya, which is an important factor in the problem Aral Sea. About a quarter of the water entering the canal is lost in the channel itself, as a result of filtration through the earthen bottom.

I don’t know why they built the Karakum Canal and not the Main Turkmen Canal.

But I have some guesses. The Takhiatash hydroelectric power station was supposed to be located V Uzbekistan! What Turkmenbashi would agree to give such an important facility to his neighbor? If I don’t eat it myself, I won’t give it to you either.

Secondly, what Turkmenbashi would refuse to be included in the Guinness Book of Records for the largest fountain complex in his capital?

And the fact that the Aral has dried up is a problem for our neighbors, the Uzbeks and Kazakhs.

And the fact that the connectivity of the territory of the USSR does not increase due to the presence of this channel is Moscow’s problem.

But Moscow has no need for unnecessary memories of Comrade Stalin...

OK…

How much does a channel cost? Did you think hordes of imprisoned Canal Army soldiers are carrying earth in wheelbarrows? I'm sorry to say that this is ineffective. Faster and better like this:

Scrapers create an embankment for the future canal.

Excavator - digging. Walking - digs a lot.

Dredger - deepens and widens the channel.

What are all these pictures for? Well, first of all, it's interesting. And secondly, will you entrust all these cars to prisoners???

A lyrical digression about the camps...

It is worth saying a few words about the camps.

This topic is extremely fertile for fruitless discussions. However, some omissions should be pointed out.

First. In a country building a bright future, where all the people were brothers and prisoners?!! Yes. And although this is a “break in the pattern,” it is what it is. By the way, there were not much more of them than in modern Russia. The same number as in modern Turkmenistan.

Second. Modern society treats prisoners according to the principle “out of sight, out of mind.” If no one sees them, then they don’t exist. And under Comrade Stalin it was believed that a person should serve society. So let him work for the benefit of society...

Third. They are trying to compare Soviet camps with English or German ones. But this is a typical attempt to compare “warm with soft”. Soviet camps are construction camps, they are from the communist idea about “labor armies”. English and German are concentration courses. Their main idea is to quickly get rid of the excess stock of the third-rate population. Only the British did not bother with infrastructure, and the Germans tried to adapt someone to work for the benefit of the Reich.

Quite simply, from Soviet camp it was possible to manage to leave early with a medal for labor merits, then from German - only feet first in the form of fertilizer and a bar of soap. So that!

And one last thing. Prisoners are people too and their work for the greater good is worthy of respect. Things like Salekhard-Igarka, etc. is simply an example of mismanagement, and it is not the prisoners' fault.

The question remains: what to use electricity for?

Light bulbs, machine tools, electric furnaces are understandable, but what is an electric tractor? Imagine a tractor chassis with an electric motor and a long wire pulling plows. Introduced? So this is it!

And now the results.

« Stalin's plan for the transformation of nature ».

After the death of Stalin (03/05/1953), many forest belts were cut down, several thousand ponds and reservoirs for fish breeding were abandoned, 570 forest protection stations created in 1949-1955 were liquidated. ().

Why did this happen? Don't know. I can only guess.

The plan has been implemented for 5 years, quick effects He didn’t give, but pulled funds. After the death of Stalin, the leaders needed populism for the masses, and not connected with the name of Stalin...

« Great construction projects of communism »:

South Ukrainian Canal. It took a long time to build. Functioning.

North Crimean Canal. Closed in 2014. No comment.

Volgo-Don is underloaded, apparently due to shallowing...

The main Turkmen canal has not been built. And the Aral dried up...

It’s easier with power plants - they were clearer to comrades from the government.

The Kuibyshev hydroelectric power station and the Stalingrad hydroelectric power station are operating. Owned by RusHydro.

The Tsimlyanskaya hydroelectric power station is operational and belongs to Lukoil-Ekoenergo.

As many as 32 electric tractors were riveted... And they forgot about them.

Ten years later, despite the plowing of virgin soil, in 1963 the USSR for the first time since the war, having sold 600 tons of gold from reserves, purchased about 13 million tons of bread abroad.

The illustrations used were “Technology for Youth”, stamps from 1948-1953.

One of the most hidden and vile myths in the USSR, now praised by admirers, was the glorification of the supposed participation solely by the forces of free and ideological Komsomol communists in industrialization or another, most often unnecessary "great construction communism", in fact, they used millions of armies of slaves - ZeK: in the construction of any object - civil, military, cultural, where the tasks of the Communist Party were carried out without sparing free labor and the lives of prisoners.

At the construction site of Moscow State University. Photo:pastvu.com

“Cheap labor” from prisoners was widely used in the first half of the last century - during the Gulags.

ABOUT high-rise on Kotelnicheskaya embankment There are many stories and legends. One of the stories says that in the apartment of the writer Vasily Aksenov there is a scrawled inscription “built by prisoners.” They also say that prisoners posed for sculptors who sculpted bas-reliefs. The convicts actually built a high-rise building on Kotelnicheskaya Embankment, and also Moscow State University building. Scale of attraction work force from correctional institutions was such that it made it possible to use prisoners for the construction of not only industrial and military, but also civilian facilities.

Since 1934, all forced labor camps and colonies were transferred to the control of the main directorate of labor settlement camps and places of detention of the NKVD of the USSR. In the Gulag system, departments with specific economic tasks were created: the main directorate of the camp timber industry (GULLP), the main directorate of camps of mining and metallurgical enterprises (GULGMP), the main directorate of railway construction camps (GULZhDS), the main directorate of airfield construction (GUAS), the main directorate of camps industrial construction(Glavpromstroy), Main Directorate of Hydraulic Construction Camps (Glavgidrostroy) and so on.

One of the activities of Glavpromstroy was housing and cultural construction. It was the forces of the prisoners of the Glavpromstroy camps that built the high-rise buildings on Kotelnicheskaya embankment and Sparrow Hills. The finishing work of the main building of Moscow State University was carried out by prisoners of the Vysotny camp - 368 people, 208 of them women.

Workers at the construction site of the White Sea Canal, 1930-1933. Photo: Laski Diffusion/ East News

* * * * *
One of the many terrible pages carefully hidden by the communists throughout the 70 years of its short history of the Union:

Nizhny Tagil Drama Theater them. Mamin-Sibiryak on the avenue, of course, Lenin. Built by whom? Conscious Komsomol members? Of course, the architect and some of the builders were builders, but how many Zekas died there at this and other construction sites?

“This inscription was walled up on March 15, 1954, not under the thunder of orchestras and the noise of the crowd, but it will tell posterity that this theater was not built by the forces of Komsomol brigades, as the chronicles will claim, but was created on the blood and bones of prisoners - slaves of the twentieth century. Hello! to the coming generation, and may your life and your era not know slavery and the humiliation of man by man.

Hello prisoners
I. L. Kozhin
R. G. Sharipov,
Yu. N. Nigmatulin.
15.III 1954

According to Lev Samuilovich Libenshtein, who in the 50s worked at a house-building plant and supervised the construction of buildings on Theater Square, prisoners deprived of the right to correspondence walled up bottles with their letters under one of the columns. No one knows what is written in them...

P.S. This link with the photo “unexpectedly disappeared”, we took care of it: source:http://tagildrama.ru/hidden-partition/127-poslanie-potomkam
Nothing, this letter and the description of the use of ZEK slaves are widely known, the communists will not be able to silence their crimes:

"When Vera Avgustovna Lothar-Shevchenko worked at the drama theater, its building was still under construction. It was built by Tagillaga prisoners, who were brought to work every morning and taken back in the evening. The construction site, as required, was fenced with barbed wire, and there were fences in the corners towers on which sentries with rifles carefully monitored the movements of prisoners.

However, in March 1954, prisoner builders managed to wall up a sheet of iron with a message to the “coming generation.”

Two years later it was found during the renovation of the floors, but times were different - the 20th Congress of the CPSU was held, so the text of the message was preserved. Here's what the prisoners wrote:

“This inscription was walled up on March 15, 1954, not under the thunder of orchestras and the noise of the crowd. But she will tell her posterity that this theater was not built by Komsomol brigades...

Has Vera Augustovna seen this construction site? Of course I saw it. Both this and other construction projects in Nizhny Tagil. The labor of prisoners, “slaves of the twentieth century,” was widely used in Nizhny Tagil, Sverdlovsk, and hundreds of other cities of the USSR.

It was also used in Akademgorodok in the early years, from 1959 until the mid-60s, when foreigners began to come to us, incl. and high-ranking persons. Therefore, Academician Lavrentyev began to ask Colonel Ivanov, head of the Sibacademstroy Construction Department, to abandon the use of prisoners in construction, or at least use them at construction sites where foreigners could not see them.

Nikolai Markelovich Ivanov always said in response that he had a huge shortage of workers, he could not do without prisoners, and if Academician Lavrentiev put a spoke in his wheels, he would not be able to guarantee the implementation of the plan.

The matter came to a hearing in the district committee of the CPSU, where, of course, Academician Lavrentyev did not come, but his deputy B.V. Belyanin and the head of the UKS Kargaltsev. The conversation usually took place in a raised tone. I myself was present a couple of times, since it was the implementation of construction plans that was discussed.

The position of the district committee secretary was very unenviable. He could not ignore the opinion of Academician Lavrentiev, but he also could not force Colonel Ivanov to give up free labor - prisoners. Let me remind you that the facilities of the Ministry of Medium Machine Building in those years were built with the massive use of prison labor, and the Construction Department "Sibakademstroy" was subordinate to this very ministry..." http://www.proza.ru/2014/01/23/152

Photos from construction drama theater in Nizhny Tagil

Construction of the Drama Theatre. Photo from 1953. The first work on the construction of the drama theater began in 1951. On December 3, 1951, they began laying the walls of the Drama Theater. By the spring of 1952, the ground floor was ready.

Behind the drama theater. View from the current traffic police station on Lenin Ave. On the right is part of the fire tower building behind the dramatic
theater Photo from 1953. http://historyntagil.ru/cards/9_old_tagil_50_open.htm

Such a memory is only in one theater, built by Tagillag prisoners. It was a real death camp.

One of the large camp formations on the territory of the Urals during the war and post-war period, Tagillag NKVD - these are dozens of camp centers with appalling working and living conditions for prisoners, terrible penal camps in Vinnovka and Serebryanka, numerous mass graves, thousands to no one known victims hunger, disease, physical violence; These are the fates of Russians, Poles, Latvians, Soviet Germans, residents of the Central Asian republics, prisoners of war from special camps No. 153 and 245. Typhus was rampant in the camps, people died from vitamin deficiency, scurvy, dysentery, and froze from the terrible cold in dugouts and barracks. The prisoners of Tagillag, despite hunger, cold, illness, moral and physical humiliation, built the city and its industrial facilities, restoring the country. That's just short list construction sites where prison labor ranged from 50 to 100%: NTMZ open-hearth furnaces No. 4 and 5, blast furnace No. 3, shaped foundry and rolling shops, blooming; sinter plant, Verkhne-Vyyskaya dam, Severo-Lebyazhinsky quarry, VZhR club, mine management building; coke batteries No. 3 and 4, rectification shop and other coke production facilities; cement, slate and brick factories; Hoffmann furnaces No. 3 and 4 at the refractory plant; streets of residential buildings in the city; tankodrome and access roads at Uralvagonstroy; Chernoistochinskaya dam; the second stage of the Goroblagodatsky mine and much more.

And now Stalin was gone, but the prisoners remained, and Slave work turned out to be in demand during the construction of the drama theater, they tried to completely erase their memory from our history, and the labor exploits of the slave prisoners were attributed to the Komsomol members and communists, exalting and strengthening the ideological dogmas of the totalitarian regime.

Tagillag ceased to exist in 1953, but did not leave the city, leaving behind a “rich legacy” - more than a dozen correctional labor camps and many special commandant’s offices. Nizhny Tagil became a gloomy symbol of the entire totalitarian regime - a city of prisons and camps, inhabited by people with a crushed past, deprived of a future. http://kp74.ru/nizhnetagilskij-teatr-dramy.html

Do you remember very well the huge map of the Soviet concentration camps that covered the Land of the Soviets? No? Have you already “forgotten” or didn’t know or suspect at all?

But such "thoughtful necessary" construction projects for the Soviet government, where countless thousands of lives were spread rot, did not begin under Dzhugashvili, he was just a faithful continuer of the work of the main ghoul of the USSR - Lenin:
One of the first construction projects took place under the direct leadership of Lenin. And it is not surprising that nothing is known about it: all materials related to Algemba - the first attempt of the young Soviet government to acquire its own oil pipeline - were classified for a long time.
In December 1919, Frunze's army captured the Emben oil fields in Northern Kazakhstan. By that time, more than 14 million pounds of oil had accumulated there. This oil could be the salvation for the Soviet republic. On December 24, 1919, the Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense decided to begin construction of a railway through which oil could be exported from Kazakhstan to the center, and ordered: “Recognize the construction of the Alexandrov Gai-Emba broad-gauge line as an operational task.” The city of Alexandrov Gai, located 300 km from Saratov, was the last railway point. The distance from it to the oil fields was about 500 miles. Most of the route ran through waterless salt marsh steppes. They decided to build the highway at both ends simultaneously and meet on the Ural River near the village of Grebenshchikovo.

Frunze's army was the first to be sent to build the railway (despite his protests). There was no transport, no fuel, or enough food. In the conditions of the waterless steppe there was nowhere to even place soldiers. Endemic illnesses began and developed into an epidemic. The local population was forcibly involved in the construction: about forty-five thousand residents of Saratov and Samara. People almost manually created an embankment along which rails were later to be laid.

Lenin began to look for an alternative solution. At first it was proposed to produce wooden pipes. The experts just shrugged: firstly, it is impossible to maintain the necessary pressure in them, and secondly, Kazakhstan does not have its own forests, there is nowhere to get wood. Then it was decided to dismantle sections of existing pipelines. The pipes varied greatly in length and diameter, but this did not bother the Bolsheviks. Another thing was confusing: the collected “spare parts” were still not enough even for half the pipeline! However, work continued.

Lenin demanded to understand the reasons for the sabotage. But there was no trace of any sabotage. Hunger, cold and disease exacted a terrible toll among the builders. In 1921, cholera came to the construction site. Despite the courage of the doctors who voluntarily arrived at Algemba, the mortality rate was appalling. But the worst thing was different: four months after the start of construction of Algemba, already in April 1920, Baku and Grozny were liberated. Emba oil was no longer needed. Thousands of lives sacrificed during construction were in vain.

It was possible even then to stop the pointless activity of laying the Algemba. But Lenin stubbornly insisted on continuing construction, which was incredibly expensive for the state. In 1920, the government allocated a billion rubles in cash for this construction. No one has ever received a full report, but there is an assumption that the funds ended up in foreign accounts. Neither the railway nor the pipeline were built: on October 6, 1921, by Lenin's directive, construction was stopped. A year and a half of Algemba cost thirty-five thousand human lives.

The use of free labor was welcomed and encouraged by caring communist rulers; remember, a valiant page from the aircraft industry, sharashkas for scientists appeared much earlier in 1928-29. - the legendary Soviet fighter "Ishachok", created, of course, by ZeK.
The leaders of the OGPU came up with a brilliant idea: why not, instead of sending those arrested to Solovki, force them into prison conditions, under the watchful eye of the guards? state security, build airplanes and engines? “...Only working conditions in a militarized environment can ensure effective activity specialists in contrast to the corrupting environment of civil institutions",” Deputy Chairman of the OGPU Yagoda later wrote in a letter to Molotov.
The first prison in the history of aviation design department was organized in December 1929. It was located “at the place of residence” of the prisoners - in Butyrka prison. Two work rooms were equipped with drawing boards and other necessary drawing supplies. The new organization was given a high-profile title - Special Design Bureau.

In November 1929, a Special Design Bureau (OKB) was created in Butyrka Prison. In January next year The OKB was transferred to aircraft plant No. 39, where they began to create the Central Design Bureau (TsKB). On the territory of the plant there was a wooden one-story hangar No. 7, adapted for housing for prisoners. 20 prisoners lived and worked there under guard. The team was small, but very different highly qualified. The backbone of the designers consisted of employees of the Department of Marine Experimental Aircraft Construction (OMOS, previously headed by D.P. Grigorovich), who shared the fate of their boss: A.N. Sedelnikov ( former deputy department head), V.L. Korvin (production manager) and N.G. Mikhelson (head of the drawing bureau). Together with Polikarpov, his colleagues E.I. Mayoranov and V.A. Tisov ended up at the Central Clinical Hospital. In addition to them, the OKB included a prominent small arms specialist A.V. Nadashkevich (creator of the PV-1 aviation machine gun), former director of pilot plant No. 25 B.F. Goncharov, statistical testing engineer P.M. Kreyson, assistant director of plant No. 1 I.M. Kostkin and others. Grigorovich was appointed chief designer of the design bureau, but virtually all the main design issues were resolved collectively. Communication between the prisoners and the production departments of the plant was provided by free engineer S.M. Dansker. They put them in front of the "pests" not an easy task- urgently design a single-seat fighter of mixed design with an air-cooled engine. - “If you don’t do it in a month, we’ll shoot you”

In less than two months, the small OKB team designed a new fighter. The prison administration prohibited model blowing and other types of testing in the laboratories of TsAGI (which was managed by A. Tupolev, who later became a “prisoned specialist” of TsKB-29), MVTU, and the Air Force Academy. The designers could only rely on their experience and the materials that they were allowed to receive from certain organizations...

<...>Amnesty the following designers - former saboteurs sentenced by the OGPU board to various social protection measures [what is the term! — D.S.], with their simultaneous awarding:
a) the chief designer for experimental aircraft construction, Dmitry Pavlovich Grigorovich, who repented of his previous actions and with a year’s work proved his repentance in practice - with a certificate from the Central Election Commission USSR and a cash reward of 10,000 rubles;
b) chief designer Nadashkevich Alexander Vasilyevich - a diploma from the Central Executive Committee of the USSR and a cash bonus of 10,000 rubles;
c) former technical director of plant No. 1 Ivan Mikhailovich Koskin - a cash reward of 1000 rubles;
d) Kreyson Pavel Martynovich - a cash reward of 1000 rubles;
e) Corwin-Kerber Viktor Lvovich - a cash reward of 1000 rubles;
f) grant an amnesty to all engineers and technicians sentenced by the OGPU to various social protection measures for sabotage and now working conscientiously in the Central Design Bureau.

Among the arrested aviation specialists were not only aircraft manufacturers, but also engine designers: A.A. Bessonov, N.R. Brilling, B.S. Stechkin... On October 25, 1929 he was arrested N. N. Polikarpov - outstanding aircraft designer r, who became famous in the 30s. as the creator of first-class fighter aircraft. He was accused of participating in a counter-revolutionary sabotage organization and, like other comrades in misfortune, was sent to Butyrka prison.
Polikarpov's biographer V.P. Ivanov cites in his book a letter from the designer to his wife and daughter, written by him shortly after his arrest: " ...I worry all the time about how you live, how your health is, how you are coping with our common misfortune. It’s not worth even remembering, I’m completely heartbroken by this. Occasionally at night or early in the morning I hear the sounds of life: a tram, a bus, a car, the bell for matins, but otherwise my life flows monotonously, depressingly. Outwardly, I live okay, the cell is dry, warm, now I eat lean food, buy canned food, eat porridge, drink tea or, rather, water. I read books, walk 10 minutes a day... St. Pray for me. Nicholas, light a candle and don’t forget about me..."
Fully - HISTORY OF AVIATION AND SPACE ENGINEERING IN RUSSIA
http://voenoboz.ru/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=109%3A2011-03-09-17-32-27&catid=34%3A2011-02-14-00-01-20&Itemid=28&showall=1
http://topos-lite.memo.ru/vnutrennyaya-lubyanskaya-tyurma
"Repressions in the Soviet aviation industry" http://www.ihst.ru/projects/sohist/papers/sob00v.htm
* * * * *
Death Canal - White Sea-Baltic , sung by the best writers and poets of the USSR, all these bitter, demyans0, poor and other lickers of communist criminals.

The initiator of the construction of the White Sea Canal was Joseph Stalin. The country needed labor victories and global achievements. And preferably - without extra costs, since the Soviet Union was experiencing an economic crisis. The White Sea Canal was supposed to connect the White Sea with the Baltic Sea and open a passage for ships that previously had to go around the entire Scandinavian Peninsula. The idea of creating an artificial passage between the seas was known back in the time of Peter the Great (and the Russians have been using the portage system along the entire length of the future White Sea Canal for a long time). But the way the project was implemented (and Naftaliy Frenkel was appointed head of canal construction) turned out to be so cruel that it forced historians and publicists to look for parallels in slave states.

The total length of the canal is 227 kilometers. On this waterway there are 19 locks (13 of which are two-chamber), 15 dams, 49 dams, 12 spillways. The scale of construction is amazing, especially considering that all this was built in an incredibly short period of time: 20 months and 10 days. For comparison: the 80-kilometer Panama Canal took 28 years to build, and the 160-kilometer Suez Canal took ten.

In 1938, Stalin, at a meeting of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, raised the question: “Did you correctly propose a list for the release of these prisoners? They leave work... We are doing a bad job by disrupting the work of the camps. The release of these people, of course, is necessary, but from the point of view of the state economy it is bad... The best people will be released, but the worst will remain. Isn’t it possible to turn things around differently, so that these people stay at work - give awards, orders, maybe?..” But, fortunately for the prisoners, such a decision was not made: a prisoner with a government award on his robe would look too strange ...
"Killer construction projects of the 20th century" http://arman71.livejournal.com/65154.html, photo from "Death Channel" https://mexanic2.livejournal.com/445955.html
* * * * *

Immediately after the death of the mass murderer Stalin, all the “great construction projects of communism” had to be curtailed,

A little from allin777 in Unfinished construction projects of Stalinism.
Draft resolution of the USSR Council of Ministers “On changes to the 1953 construction program”
21.03.1953
Top secret
Project On changes to the 1953 construction program

Considering that the construction of a number of hydraulic structures, railways, highways and enterprises, provided for by previously adopted Government resolutions, is not caused by the urgent needs of the national economy, the Council of Ministers of the USSR decides:

1. Stop construction of the following facilities:

B) railways and roads -

Railway Chum—Salekhard—Igarka , ship repair shops, port and village in the Igarka region ;

From a letter from L.P. Beria to the Presidium of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on changes to the 1953 construction program

Work completed as of January 1/1953 in millions of rubles:

Railway Chum—Salekhard—Igarka, ship repair shops, port and village in the Igarka region - 3724.0

GARF. F. 9401. Op. 2. D. 416. Lll. 14-16. Certified copy.

TOTAL: The construction projects in which it was invested were liquidated6 billion 293 million rubles and thousands of livesSoviet prisoners.
* * * * *
In one material it is impossible to list all the countless construction projects and the sacrifices of Soviet prisoners made on them in the name of achieving the mythical and never built communism.

Dnieper hydroelectric power station (DneproGES)

The oldest hydroelectric power station on the Dnieper, built as part of the implementation of the GOELRO plan. Located in the city of Zaporozhye below the Dnieper rapids.

Construction began in 1927, the first unit was launched in 1932, the design capacity (560 MW) was achieved in 1939. At that time, the largest hydroelectric power station in the USSR. As a result of the construction of the dam, the rapids of the Dnieper were flooded, which ensured navigation along the entire course of the river.

In 1969-1980 Dneproges-2 with a capacity of 836 MW was built. The average annual output of the first and second stages is 3.64 billion kW/h. Reservoir capacity - 3.33 cubic meters. km.

White Sea-Baltic Shipping Canal

Connects the White Sea and Lake Onega with the possibility of access to the Baltic Sea. Built in 1931-1933. in record time (a year and nine months) by the hands of Gulag prisoners, who, according to various estimates, during construction, from 27 to 200 thousand died. Official propaganda presented the experience of building the canal as “the world’s first experience in reforging the labor of the most inveterate recidivist criminals and political enemies.”

The total length is 227 km. Includes 19 gateways. During construction, excavation work amounting to 21 million cubic meters was completed. m and 37 km of paths were cut through granite rocks.

The canal structures include 128 objects, including 19 locks, 15 dams, 19 spillways, 49 dams, 33 artificial canals and 5 hydroelectric power stations, as well as a number of other structures.

The peak of cargo transportation through the canal occurred in 1985, when 7.3 million tons of goods were transported through it. Such traffic volumes continued over the next five years, after which the intensity of shipping along the canal decreased significantly. In 2001, 283.4 thousand tons of cargo were transported through the canal, in 2002 - 314.6 thousand tons.

Connects the Volga and Don rivers. Construction of the canal began before the Great Patriotic War, but was interrupted, and then continued in 1948 and completed in 1952. The length is 101 km, of which 45 km pass along rivers and reservoirs. It has more than 50 engineering structures, including 13 locks, 3 pumping stations, 13 dams and dams.

The canal was built in just 4.5 years, which is a unique period in the world history of hydraulic construction. For example, the Panama Canal (81 km long) with the same amount of work took 34 years to build, and the Suez Canal (164 km long) took almost 11 years. During construction, 150 million cubic meters were removed. m of land and 3 million cubic meters were laid. m of concrete. 8 thousand machines and mechanisms are involved in the work.

During the 2006 navigation, 8.053 million tons of cargo were transported through the canal, including 4.137 million tons of oil products.

The regular tourist water route Moscow - Rostov-on-Don runs along the canal.

Channel named after Moscow

Connects the Moscow River with the Volga. Located in the Moscow and Tver regions of Russia, it partially flows through the city of Moscow. Length - 128 km. Width on the surface - 85 m, on the bottom - 45 m, depth - 5.5 m.

Opened on July 15, 1937 as the Moscow-Volga Canal named after. I.V. Stalin. Construction lasted 4 years and 8 months (the labor of Gulag prisoners was used during construction). Since 1947 it has had its modern name.

The canal contains more than 240 different hydraulic structures. All gateways are automated. Thanks to the canal, Moscow is a port of five seas - the Baltic, White, Azov, Caspian and Black.

The largest structure of the canal is the Northern (Khimki) river station, built according to the design of V. Krinsky, A. Rukhlyadev and others.

Komsomolsk-on-Amur

In August 1931, the first orders of the People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry of the USSR appeared on issues technical training for construction work at a shipyard in the Khabarovsk region.

On May 10, 1932, the first landing party of city builders, numbering 600 people, landed near the village of Perm from the steamships Columbus, Comintern and the barge Clara Zetkin. On May 19, 1932, off the coast of the Nanai camp of Dzemgi, a group of aircraft manufacturing plant managers and about 100 construction workers landed from the steamship "Captain Karpenko". In December 1932, the village of Perm was transformed into the city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur. The name was supposed to indicate the construction of the city by Komsomol members, although in reality the main workforce (according to some sources, up to 70% of the builders) were Gulag prisoners and special settlers.

On June 12, 1933, the first industrial enterprise- Amursky shipyard(ASZ). Before 1939, among others, an aviation plant was built (later the Yu.A. Gagarin Aviation Plant, AzIG), during the Great Patriotic War the construction of the Amurstal plant was completed, and in the post-war period light and food industry enterprises were built.

Since the 1950s nuclear power plants are being built at the NPP submarines, destroyers and patrol ships(and in the 1960s - 1970s - nuclear icebreakers), and the aircraft plant produces serial supersonic front-line fighters "Su".

The population of the city, according to 2006 data, was 273.3 thousand people.

The idea of constructing in Moscow - the capital of the world's first state of workers and peasants - a building symbolizing the "coming triumph of communism" appeared already in the 1920s. It was decided to build the Palace of the Soviets on the site of the destroyed Cathedral of Christ the Savior. A competition for the design of the Palace of the Soviets was announced in 1931. A total of 160 projects were submitted, including 24 from foreign participants (in particular, world-famous architects Le Corbusier, V. Gropius, E. Mendelssohn). The highest prizes were awarded to Soviet architects I. Zholtovsky and B. Iofan and the American G. Hamilton. Subsequently, B. Iofan’s project was adopted as a basis, modified with the participation of Y. Belopolsky, V. Gelfreich and V. Pelevin. The author of the project for the sculpture of V. Lenin crowning the building is S. Merkulova.

The height of the structure was supposed to be 420 m (together with the statue of V. Lenin, the height of which is 100 m), the volume - 7.5 million cubic meters. m (for comparison, the volume of the Cheops pyramid is 2.5 million cubic meters). For holding sessions of the Supreme Council and other official events, a hall with a height of 100 m, a diameter of 160 m and a volume of 1 million cubic meters was designed. m, designed for 21 thousand people (in addition to it, it was planned to build a small hall for 6 thousand people). To cover the building, about 300 thousand square meters were required. m of granite. A parking lot for 5 thousand cars was planned next to the building.

The construction of the Palace of Soviets was declared a shock construction project in 1934; by the end of 1939, the foundations of the high-rise part were ready. In 1941, due to the outbreak of war, construction was suspended and was never resumed (the metal frame was dismantled for the needs of the front). In 1958-1960 The pits of the Palace of the Soviets (129.5 m in diameter) were used to build the Moscow outdoor swimming pool.