Crimea's Secret Soviet Submarine Base

I've been putting it off for a while now, but it's time to talk about the Crimea, more specifically, about the vast aquatic facility built there by the USSR, and designed to house a fleet of nuclear-ready, Soviet submarines.
Now memorialized, this Cold War relic enjoyed a brief stint as a public museum; and I was fortunate enough to pay it a visit as such, just months before the latest Crimean crisis.The Crimean Peninsula has known many masters: from the ancient Greeks who once colonized this land, through to the conquering Roman, Byzantine, and later, Ottoman empires. In the last hundred years alone it has been held by the Russian Tsars, the Tatars, the Nazis, the Soviets, the Ukrainian Republic and the Russian Federation.

This apparent popularity is in no small part due to the region’s unique position; it commands the waters of the Black Sea, and from there, by way of the Bosphorus Strait, provides naval access into the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas.In 1783, Catherine the Great of Russia pushed down through Ukraine, building imperial ports and shipyards that could send fleets against the sprawling Ottoman Empire to the south.

Now, in its most recent transition, Crimea has once again been claimed by Mother Russia; and given the conflict and confusion which has surrounded the region’s latest annexation, I’m very glad that I toured the region when I did – in September 2013.The town of Balaklava lies on the southern edge of Crimea, not far from the larger port city of Sevastopol. The name rose to notoriety in the West with the 1854 Battle of Balaclava, one of the most heated bouts of the Crimean War; it was here on October 25th, that the British Empire’s ‘Light Brigade’ made their famously doomed charge against the Russian Forces in a last-ditch effort to take the port at Sevastopol.Although Balaklava itself has functioned as an active military port for centuries, the submarine base was not constructed until 1957. It was during the Cold War, amidst escalating sabre-rattling between the US and USSR, that Stalin issued the directive to establish a fleet of nuclear submarines in the Black Sea.The Soviet officer chosen to lead the project was the head of the USSR’s nuclear project, Lavrentiy Beria. Beria spent years researching locations, before eventually deciding upon the quiet, Crimean town of Balaklava.

Here the sea enters the land by way of a narrow strait, while the twists and contours of the coastline served to render the submarine base invisible from prying eyes.Immediately the town was secured, classified, and construction began on ‘Objekt 825.’ It was a project that would take four years to complete, as more than 120 tons of rock were cut and painstakingly removed to form vast, subterranean chambers open to the water.It was claimed that the submarine base in Balaklava was virtually indestructible – its secret docks and corridors protected by a shell of concrete and steel, capable of surviving a direct nuclear strike of up to 100 kilotons.


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/crimeas-secret-soviet-submarine-base-2014-5#ixzz32QYrUck8