So after the euphoria of travelling nearly 2,000Km to a nuclear power plant which I wasn’t even sure if it still existed. (It did exist: http://www.urbanxphotography.co.uk/portfolio258322.html) It was probably time to think about heading home. I had a flight booked hom from Kiev in a days time, and it takes a day to travel back on the train.
“But…” I thought: “If we were to fly back to Kiev, we’d save around 20 hours of train time… Giving us 20 valuable exploring hours!”
A quick Google later and tickets were booked. Another quick Google revealed that the Soviet Black Sea Nuclear Fleet HQ that I explored two years ago was only 60km away. A lot of people in the group hadn’t been before, so I promised to give them the tour. I dug out the taxi drivers details from yesterday, and gave him a call.
So with another random print out of the mountains we set off.
“Object 221” is half way up a forgotten mountainside. It is now abandoned, but was never finished. It was rumoured to be about 80% complete when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989.
This was set to become... The USSR Black Sea Navel Reserve Complex. So it’s a biggy...
If we divide the floor areas into 3 categories:
Entrance areas – 20m x 10m - Two of these = 400m²
Central Compounds –20m x 100m - Two of these per storey, eight overall = 4,000m²
Tunnels - 2,221m in length, 5m in width = 11,105m²
This makes a total underground area of 15,505m²
To put this into context:
London IMAX = 520m²
The House of Commons = 1547m²
Royal Albert Hall = 6,000m²
St. Pauls Cathedral = 8431m²
So yes, it’s huge.
There are no directions, no sign posts. When I found it on Google, it would only take a slight zoom out to completely lose it again. There is nothing even labelled remotely near it.
To make it more obvious I’ve scaled the above survey, and overlaid it to Google using the two portals for reference:
We parked at the base of the mountain, and we made a pact.
See, when the complex was no longer required the Russian government were keen to pass it on to someone who wasn’t Ukrainian. Who could make use of a secret lair in the mountains? The Russian Mafia, that’s who. It’s taken as a fact locally, and we tried to pass it off as rumour, but err-ed on the side of caution. We agreed that if any vehicles were parked nearby we would call the day off, no questions asked. We also agreed that if any one person felt uncomfortable, we’d call the day off, no questions asked.
So off we set up the mountain.
From the base of the mountain where we parked, one of the portals was just visable, but it looked just like a house, with windows…
Of course on closer inspection one finds the windows are merely painted on!
Into the portal:
As I mentioned previously the tunnels are huge. They have been designed so that two HGVs can pass.
On the lower level (It’s 4 storeys I kid you not) there were missing manholes, and in the pitch black we had to keep our wits about us.
It was unfinished and passing between areas was often through service holes and shafts, which was actually pretty fun:
One thing I do love about the incompleteness is that all of the service holes had been cast, but not serviced, giving you these beautiful, bizarre fenestration patterns:
Another shameless selfie:
It took us a couple of hours to walk the initial route of the complex, and as we could see the daylight of the second portal, I suggested we set up for a group shot:
Just as the shutter clicked shut after this the silence we’d become accustomed to was broken. A roar of engines filled the tunnels. The near pitch-black conditions out eyes had adjusted to was shattered with blinding white lights dodging all around us. And the still stale air was suddenly filled with a mix of fresh air and dust.
It took a second to comprehend what was happening, and by that time half a dozen loud motorcycles had circled round us and roared off into the tunnels. As we looked at each other in complete shock, the volume exploded again, and they buzzed past again, this time heading out of the tunnels.
We were right near the portal, and felt safer outside than in, so left. More bikes had arrived and there must have been around 12. They didn’t look very mafia-ish, so I approached the closest one to me with an extended palm.
We shook hands, I made a ‘taking a picture’ motion and pointed into the tunnel. He made a ‘motorbike rev’ hand gesture and pointed into the tunnel. I had a spare print out of the layout which I gave to him. The bikers crowded round, studied it for a second, before revving their engines and heading in! I cant imagine what that must have been like at speed, it was full of holes and changes in level with no warning.
We decided to leave them to it, and I played around outside for a bit. Jumping across a crane shaft hundreds of feet above the rocks.
To my amazement all of the bikes returned minutes later, and we headed back in.
Bill nicking my pose:
Sump:
The booby traps which caused so much controversy two years ago were still there:
There seems to have been a bit of a squat / party room:
After another couple of hours we started to sense fresh air again, and we emerged to this view, victorious.
Back at the bottom of the mountains was this Admin looking building:
To ensure no one could get use of it after they were done, the Russians simply smashed out all the floors. If you look carefully one of the walkways appears to have an open trap door!
Video of the adventure:
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LF-kvfWeBXU[/ame]
Thanks for reading / watching
“But…” I thought: “If we were to fly back to Kiev, we’d save around 20 hours of train time… Giving us 20 valuable exploring hours!”
A quick Google later and tickets were booked. Another quick Google revealed that the Soviet Black Sea Nuclear Fleet HQ that I explored two years ago was only 60km away. A lot of people in the group hadn’t been before, so I promised to give them the tour. I dug out the taxi drivers details from yesterday, and gave him a call.
So with another random print out of the mountains we set off.
“Object 221” is half way up a forgotten mountainside. It is now abandoned, but was never finished. It was rumoured to be about 80% complete when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989.
This was set to become... The USSR Black Sea Navel Reserve Complex. So it’s a biggy...
If we divide the floor areas into 3 categories:
Entrance areas – 20m x 10m - Two of these = 400m²
Central Compounds –20m x 100m - Two of these per storey, eight overall = 4,000m²
Tunnels - 2,221m in length, 5m in width = 11,105m²
This makes a total underground area of 15,505m²
To put this into context:
London IMAX = 520m²
The House of Commons = 1547m²
Royal Albert Hall = 6,000m²
St. Pauls Cathedral = 8431m²
So yes, it’s huge.
There are no directions, no sign posts. When I found it on Google, it would only take a slight zoom out to completely lose it again. There is nothing even labelled remotely near it.
To make it more obvious I’ve scaled the above survey, and overlaid it to Google using the two portals for reference:
We parked at the base of the mountain, and we made a pact.
See, when the complex was no longer required the Russian government were keen to pass it on to someone who wasn’t Ukrainian. Who could make use of a secret lair in the mountains? The Russian Mafia, that’s who. It’s taken as a fact locally, and we tried to pass it off as rumour, but err-ed on the side of caution. We agreed that if any vehicles were parked nearby we would call the day off, no questions asked. We also agreed that if any one person felt uncomfortable, we’d call the day off, no questions asked.
So off we set up the mountain.
From the base of the mountain where we parked, one of the portals was just visable, but it looked just like a house, with windows…
Of course on closer inspection one finds the windows are merely painted on!
Into the portal:
As I mentioned previously the tunnels are huge. They have been designed so that two HGVs can pass.
On the lower level (It’s 4 storeys I kid you not) there were missing manholes, and in the pitch black we had to keep our wits about us.
It was unfinished and passing between areas was often through service holes and shafts, which was actually pretty fun:
One thing I do love about the incompleteness is that all of the service holes had been cast, but not serviced, giving you these beautiful, bizarre fenestration patterns:
Another shameless selfie:
It took us a couple of hours to walk the initial route of the complex, and as we could see the daylight of the second portal, I suggested we set up for a group shot:
Just as the shutter clicked shut after this the silence we’d become accustomed to was broken. A roar of engines filled the tunnels. The near pitch-black conditions out eyes had adjusted to was shattered with blinding white lights dodging all around us. And the still stale air was suddenly filled with a mix of fresh air and dust.
It took a second to comprehend what was happening, and by that time half a dozen loud motorcycles had circled round us and roared off into the tunnels. As we looked at each other in complete shock, the volume exploded again, and they buzzed past again, this time heading out of the tunnels.
We were right near the portal, and felt safer outside than in, so left. More bikes had arrived and there must have been around 12. They didn’t look very mafia-ish, so I approached the closest one to me with an extended palm.
We shook hands, I made a ‘taking a picture’ motion and pointed into the tunnel. He made a ‘motorbike rev’ hand gesture and pointed into the tunnel. I had a spare print out of the layout which I gave to him. The bikers crowded round, studied it for a second, before revving their engines and heading in! I cant imagine what that must have been like at speed, it was full of holes and changes in level with no warning.
We decided to leave them to it, and I played around outside for a bit. Jumping across a crane shaft hundreds of feet above the rocks.
To my amazement all of the bikes returned minutes later, and we headed back in.
Bill nicking my pose:
Sump:
The booby traps which caused so much controversy two years ago were still there:
There seems to have been a bit of a squat / party room:
After another couple of hours we started to sense fresh air again, and we emerged to this view, victorious.
Back at the bottom of the mountains was this Admin looking building:
To ensure no one could get use of it after they were done, the Russians simply smashed out all the floors. If you look carefully one of the walkways appears to have an open trap door!
Video of the adventure:
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LF-kvfWeBXU[/ame]
Thanks for reading / watching
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