The USSR ceased to exist several decades ago - but the monuments of this great colossus still excite the minds of millions. The leaders never forgot that they ruled an empire: the scale of construction always corresponded to their status. The now abandoned buildings were once vibrant places where entire generations of people spent their lives. Just look at what places look like that are overwhelming in their scale even today.
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City Industrial
Thousands of people lived and worked here. In the early 90s, when the era of socialism was replaced by the time of wild capitalism, the mine became unprofitable. No one was in a hurry to support the city: communications were cut off, water, electricity, and water supply disappeared. Residents of Promyshlenny fled from their homes, forced to seek refuge in neighboring villages.
Object 825
A secret submarine base was built near Balaklava. The government was so concerned about security that no one could visit this base except personnel and those who were issued passes at the highest level. In 1995, as usual in our country, everything went wrong.
Helicopter Graveyard
This, of course, is not architecture at all - but we simply could not pass by the real helicopter cemetery. Here, in the southwest of the Leningrad region, near the village of Gorelovo, an abandoned military airfield has been preserved. It was actively exploited until 1992. At the sites, rusty equipment is still waiting in the wings.
Gulag camp
No one will miss these artifacts. The camps covered Siberia with a vile mold; here thousands died and tens of thousands tried to build a wretched life. Now all this terrible legacy of our past is rotting under the merciful heel of nature.
25.09.2014
The Soviet empire died, but its ghosts are still found both in Russia, where they never disappeared, and in Europe.
Abandoned military bases, deserted hospital wards and cinemas now in the shadows of their former glory are unforgettable images of the ghosts behind the Iron Curtain of the former Soviet Union. Click on the photo to enlarge.
Buzludzha, Bulgaria
During the reign of the Bulgarian Communist Party (September 9, 1944 - November 10, 1989), Buzludzha was considered a shrine of the Bulgarian communists. On August 23, 1981, a huge monument house in honor of the BKP was inaugurated at the top. Construction of the monument began in 1974. After the fall of communism, the BKP house-monument was completely looted.
Sanatorium in Russia
In Soviet times, sanatoriums were intended for recreation and medical care of “national economy workers.” Now most of them have either been privatized or fallen into disrepair. Although some large enterprises still have such institutions.
This hospital was built back in 1898 to treat military personnel during the world wars. Adolf Hitler was also treated here after being wounded in the Battle of the Somme. During the Cold War, this military hospital was the largest among the Soviet troops outside the USSR. After German reunification it was abandoned due to its "bad history".
This 260-hectare complex was occupied by the Soviet Army and was initially used to manage the construction and operation of the Berlin Wall. About 100 thousand people lived and worked there.
battery prison, Estonia
Built in the mid-19th century as an artillery fortress, this building, fortunately, did not take part in hostilities. A different fate was in store for him. After Estonia declared independence in 1918, the fortress became the central state prison, which it remained until 2004. During the Stalinist years it was a transit point for prisoners on their way to the Gulag.
Railway depot, Hungary
Skrunda-1, Latvia
During the Cold War, not far from the city of Skrunda there was a radar complex; its personnel lived in the nearby residential area of Skrunda-1. The radar ceased operation on August 31, 1998. After the dismantling of the radar and the withdrawal of the last Russian troops from the region in October 1999, Skrunda-1 became a ghost town.
Friendship Monument, Bulgaria
The monument stands on the highest point of the city, Crane Hill, and is a massive concrete structure in the shape of an east-facing radar. On one side it depicts girls in Bulgarian folk costumes, on the other - Soviet soldiers in helmets. Now the monument is in a deplorable state, there is no proper care for it, and the large hall under the monument has recently become a gathering place for drug addicts.
Irbene, Latvia
The Zvezdochka space reconnaissance station was built in the 70s. The station was a system of 3 radars designed to intercept signals from satellites, submarines and military bases, as well as track satellites, and provide satellite communications. At the same time, the village of Irbene was built. Several hundred people lived in it - military men and their families, but the village was not marked on the map until 1993. Currently, the village has turned into a ghost,
Pioneer camp, Russia
Pioneer camps in the USSR were created for the recreation of children, the recreation of parents from their children, and the propaganda of communist ideas among the younger generation. Now, if these areas are not purchased by private owners and organizations, many camps have fallen into disrepair.
Pripyat, Ukraine
Pripyat, a city of almost 50 thousand people, was completely abandoned after the accident at the nearby Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986. Now nature rules there and the city resembles the backdrop for an apocalyptic film.
Aircraft cemetery, Latvia
After the fall of the USSR and the demilitarization of the former Soviet Baltic states, Riga airport became a cemetery and museum for military aircraft.
Krampnitz, Germany
A military town located 15 minutes drive from Potsdam. It was abandoned in 1992.
Hospital in Pripyat, Ukraine
After the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the Pripyat hospital was turned into a camp for firefighters and rescuers who remained to eliminate the consequences of the accident and oversee the evacuation of the population. They received the highest doses of radiation.
Milovice, Czech Republic
Milovice is a city in the Czech Republic near Prague, where the headquarters of the Soviet Central Group of Forces was located in 1968-1991. The now unused military camp and training ground were finally abolished in 1995.
Submarine "Black Widow", UK
The Soviet submarine B-39, nicknamed "Black Widow" of Project 641, known by NATO as Foxtrot, has been slowly rotting on the River Medway, Kent, for several years. She rolled off the stocks in the Soviet Union on April 1, 1967. In 1994, after 24 years of service in the Baltic, the submarine was decommissioned and sold to a private buyer in the UK.
The boat was brought to the shores of Albion by captain Vitaly Burda, who commanded its crew for 23 years. Until 1998, the B-39 stood in the London docks as a floating museum. She was then transferred to Folkestone where a museum was reopened on board. In 2004, the boat was moved to the River Medway in Kent, where it is still waiting for a new home to be found for it.
"Dome" - Germany
Military airfield, Germany.
Built in 1870 in Prussia, this military base passed through many hands before becoming a training center for Soviet aviation pilots in 1994.
Laboratory in Latvia
A layer of dust covers abacuses, papers, chemicals and glassware at an abandoned scientific laboratory in Latvia.
Missile base in Slovakia
Soviet anti-aircraft missile base in Devinska Kobyla, Slovakia. Built in the 1980s, ceased operation in 1990. It still remains closed to the public.
Military base in Poland
Abandoned Soviet military base in Krzyw, Poland.
Satellite Center, Russia
Transmitting and receiving RC of the satellite communications center of the Russian General Staff. Call sign "Eureka". The unit was created in November 1976 and disbanded in December 2009.
Rebecca Lichfield, the author of all these photographs, was born in 1982 in London. She received a BA in Graphic Design from the University College for Creative Arts, an MA in Fashion Photography from the London College of Fashion and a PhD in Visual Anthropology from Roehampon University. Author of the book Soviet Ghosts – The Soviet Union Abandoned: A Communist Empire in Deca’.
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The Soviet Union was a huge power with equally large-scale projects in a variety of industries. Unfortunately, history has turned out that not every one of these projects was implemented. But it also happened that an already implemented project, which seemed like such a promising project, turned out to be unnecessary and fell into decay over time. This review is about 13 mysterious, frightening, and sometimes downright creepy places on the territory of the former USSR.
1. Ball near Dubna
In the forest near Dubna, in Russia, a huge hollow ball with a diameter of approximately 18 meters can be found. Finding it yourself will be a bit salty, but local residents will always be happy to tell you how to get to the local “attraction”. From a bird's eye view, the ball can be mistaken for a UFO, but in reality it is a dielectric cap for a parabolic antenna for space communications. The cap was transported by helicopter, but the cable broke during transportation. Removing the dome turned out to be too problematic an undertaking. By the way, it is made of fiberglass with a honeycomb structure. It amplifies any noise many times over and produces a powerful echo.
2. Khovrinskaya hospital
An eleven-story abandoned, unfinished hospital in Moscow. Traditionally, it is included in all sorts of unofficial ratings of the most terrible places on the planet. The construction of a multidisciplinary hospital began in the 80s. It was designed for 1,300 beds. Construction was stopped after 5 years, when all the buildings had already been erected. Ironically, over the next decades, the Khovrinsk hospital does not save, but maims and takes lives. Homeless people, drug addicts and thrill-seekers have long been “registered” here. Accidents on the territory of patients are a sad reality.
3. Crimean Nuclear Power Plant
An unfinished nuclear power plant, which is located near the city of Shchelkino. The first design calculations were made back in 1964. Construction began in 1975. It was assumed that this nuclear power plant would provide electricity to the entire Crimean peninsula. It was also supposed to be the starting point for the further development of industry in these places. The first reactor was planned to be launched in 1989, construction proceeded without any deviations. However, the shaken economy of the USSR, together with the tragedy at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, put an end to the Crimean project. At that time, more than 500 million Soviet rubles were spent on the station, and there were another 250 million Soviet rubles worth of materials and equipment in the warehouses. All this was stolen in subsequent years. It is worth adding that the Crimean nuclear power plant was included in the Guinness Book of Records as the most expensive power plant of this type.
4. Balaclava
In 2003, for the first time in 46 years of its existence, the Balaklava submarine base appeared on public display for the first time. Today it is exclusively a tourist site, but the base was once one of the most secret sites of the Soviet Union. The huge underground complex housed submarines. The base could withstand a nuclear attack with powerful charges and was built in case of a nuclear war. The base consists of a water canal, a dry dock, numerous warehouses of various types and buildings for military personnel. The facility was closed in 1994, after the last submarine was removed from it. For many years, the pride of the Soviet Union was simply stolen.
5. Object 221
Not far from Sevastopol, in addition to the already mentioned submarine repair base, you can find another, once secret, facility of the Soviet Union. We are talking about the bunker - object 221. It had many names, but behind all of them there was a reserve command post of the Black Sea Fleet. You can find the object near the village of Morozovka. It was a real underground city. Construction began on it in 1977. The object lies at a depth of 200 meters, where there are 4 floors of buildings. The total area of the underground part of the complex is 17 thousand sq.m. To date, the facility has been completely looted and destroyed.
6. Nuclear lighthouse at Cape Aniva
On Sakhalin you can find Cape Aniva, where a unique atomic lighthouse is located. The lighthouse is the height of a nine-story building. Previously, up to 12 people could be on duty there. Today, this once unique complex has been completely looted by looters and is not functioning.
7. Dvina missile system
The collapse of the Soviet Union “gave” the former republics a huge arsenal of a wide variety of weapons, including launch silos. So, near the capital of Latvia, in the forests, you can find the once unique, secret Dvina launch complex. It was built in 1964. This is a huge complex consisting of bunkers and launch shafts, most of which are currently flooded. Visiting the complex is highly discouraged due to the remains of extremely toxic rocket fuel there.
8. Workshop No. 8 of the Dagdizel plant
In Kaspiysk, in Dagestan, you can find a unique factory workshop built right on the water. The workshop belonged to the Dagdizel plant. It was built to test naval weapons, in particular various torpedoes and missiles. The plant was unique for the USSR. It was built on a pit with a volume of 530 thousand cubic meters, which was dug using special shells. An “array” was installed into it, onto which a 14-meter all-metal structure was later lowered. The total area of the constructed workshop exceeds 5 thousand sq.m. The station was equipped for permanent residence and work. However, by the mid-60s of the 20th century, the project was abandoned as unnecessary due to too quickly changing trends in the field of weapons design. Since then, the building has been abandoned and is gradually being destroyed by the Caspian Sea.
9. Lopatinsky phosphate mine
Not far from the city of Vokresensk, in the Moscow region, you can easily find a huge mine for the extraction of phospharites. This deposit is unique in Europe and the largest. The first developments here began in the 30s of the 20th century. All types of multi-bucket excavators were used in numerous quarries: crawler, rail and walking. Rail shovels had special equipment to move the rails. Since the 90s, the mine has been virtually abandoned, the quarries are flooded with water, and expensive special equipment is simply rotting in the open air.
10. Ionosphere research station
In Zmeevo, a district city in the Kharkov region of Ukraine, you can find a unique station for studying the ionosphere. It was built almost before the collapse of the USSR. It was a direct analogue of the American Harp project, which was deployed in Alaska and is successfully operating to this day. The Soviet complex consisted of several antenna fields and one giant parabolic antenna with a diameter of 25 meters. Unfortunately, after the collapse of the union, no one needed the station. Today, incredibly expensive scientific equipment simply rots or is stolen by stalkers and hunters for non-ferrous metals.
11. "Northern Crown"
Initially, the Northern Crown Hotel was called Petrogradskaya. Its construction began in 1988. The hotel is famous not for its beauty, but for the huge number of accidents during construction. The fact that Metropolitan John died of a heart attack within its walls did not add to the complex’s popularity, immediately after the building was illuminated.
12. Particle accelerator
The USSR could have its own hadron collider. Construction of a unique complex began in the Moscow region, in Protvino, in the late 80s. As you might guess, the collapse of the USSR actually put an end to the scientific project. A 21-kilometer tunnel was already completely ready for the collider. They even began to deliver equipment to the site. Work continued after that, but very sluggishly. Funding was literally only enough to illuminate the tunnels that were falling into disrepair.
13. "Oil Rocks"
In Azerbaijan you can find a real sea city. We are talking about the so-called “oil stones”. It appeared after Soviet geologists discovered huge oil deposits in the Caspian Sea in the 40s of the 20th century. Thanks to the development of mining, an entire city appeared on embankments and metal overpasses. Power plants, hospitals, nine-story buildings and much more were built right on the water! In total, there were about 200 platforms with residents on the water. The total mileage of streets was 350 km. However, cheap Siberian oil that appeared later put an end to local production, and the city fell into decay.
Continuing the topic, but have been forgotten today.
There were also unrealized, although very promising, automobile projects in the USSR -
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A secret submarine base, an abandoned missile silo, giant excavators, an over-the-horizon radar "Duga", a sea city on the "Oil Rocks" platforms, a Soviet hadron collider - an elementary particle accelerator and a station for studying the ionosphere. The once mighty communist empire spared no expense on either defense or science. And from the Pacific Ocean to the middle of Europe, huge antennas aimed at space rose, and secret military bunkers hid in the forests. With the collapse of the Union, the heirs found it unaffordable to maintain many of these facilities. And the newly formed young states were not interested in science, and the task of defending the borders was assigned to powerful neighbors. Here are just a few structures out of thousands of secret and not-so-secret objects hidden in the mountains and forests that characterize the full power of the collapsed empire. But these are only the least valuable ones, which turned out to be unclaimed during the period of division of property between the once fraternal republics.
Balaclava (Ukraine, Crimea)
The secret submarine base in the small Crimean town of Balaklava is one of the largest military facilities abandoned after the collapse of the USSR. Since 1961, under Mount Tavros there was a complex where ammunition was stored (including nuclear) and repairs of submarines were carried out. Up to 14 submarines of different classes could take refuge in the docks of the base, and the entire complex was capable of withstanding a direct hit from a nuclear bomb with a power of up to 100 kT. Abandoned in 1993, the object was stolen for scrap by local residents. Without accurate maps, walking through the numerous tunnels of the base was dangerous, as there was a real danger of getting lost or falling into one of the many hatches (they are open, since the locals sold the covers for scrap metal). In 2002, it was decided to turn the remains of the submarine base in Balaklava into a museum complex dedicated to the confrontation during the Cold War. Abandoned missile silo (Latvia, Kekava)
After the collapse of the empire, the young republics inherited a lot of military property, including ballistic missile launch silos scattered throughout the forests. Very close to the capital of Latvia are the remains of the Dvina missile system. Built in 1964, the facility consisted of 4 launch shafts approximately 35 meters deep and underground bunkers. Much of the premises is currently flooded and visiting the launch site without an experienced guide is not recommended. Residues of toxic rocket fuel also pose a danger. Giant excavators (Russia, Moscow region)
Until 1993, the Lopatinsky phosphorite mine was a completely successful operating deposit, where the most necessary minerals for Soviet agriculture were mined. And with the advent of a market economy, abandoned quarries with giant bucket excavators became a place of pilgrimage for tourists. The Lopatinsky mine is an interesting place not far from Voskresensk. There are interesting things there - giant excavators (paragraphs) and prehistoric fossils (ammonites and fragments of marine reptiles). Until recently, it was possible to climb through ownerless paragraphs, but now they have been dismantled and only the active ones remain, which are protected. Over-the-horizon radar "Duga" (Ukraine, Pripyat)
The titanic structure, built in 1985 to detect launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles, could have successfully functioned to this day, but in fact it worked for less than a year. The giant antenna, 150 meters high and 800 meters long, consumed such an amount of electricity that it was built almost right next to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, and, naturally, stopped working with the explosion of the station. At the moment, excursions are taken to Pripyat, including to the foot of the radar station, but only a few risk climbing the 150-meter height. Sea city "Oil Rocks" (Azerbaijan)
The Union needed oil, and in the 40s of the last century, offshore production began in the Caspian Sea, 42 kilometers east of the Absheron Peninsula. And around the first platforms a city began to grow, also located on metal overpasses and embankments. During its heyday, power plants, nine-story dormitory buildings, hospitals, a cultural center, a bakery and even a lemonade shop were built on the open sea, 110 km from Baku. The oil workers also had a small park with real trees. Oil rocks are more than 200 stationary platforms, and the length of the streets and alleys of this city at sea reaches 350 kilometers. But cheap Siberian oil made offshore production unprofitable and the village began to fall into disrepair. Today only about 2 thousand people live here. Abandoned particle accelerator (Russia, Moscow region)
In the late 80s, the dying Soviet Union decided to build a huge particle accelerator. The 21-kilometer-long ring tunnel, located at a depth of 60 meters, is now located near Protvino, a city near Moscow, a city of nuclear physicists. It is less than a hundred kilometers from Moscow along the Simferopol highway. They even began to bring equipment into the already completed accelerator tunnel, but then a series of political upheavals struck, and the domestic “hadron collider” was left to rot underground. Station for studying the ionosphere (Ukraine, Zmiev)
Almost just before the collapse of the Soviet Union, an ionospheric research station was built near Kharkov, which was a direct analogue of the American HAARP project in Alaska, which is still successfully operating today. The station complex consisted of several antenna fields and a giant parabolic antenna with a diameter of 25 meters, capable of emitting a power of about 25 MW. For some time the station was abandoned and was an object for tourists and hunters for non-ferrous metals, but fortunately, now everything is functional and the station even has a website: //www.iion.org.ua/