Requiem for a submarine fleet Bashny.Net

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Residents of Gremikha, losing local patriotism, say Stalingrad in 1942 was more beautiful than they now come in a desolate city. Meanwhile, only 20 years ago when the mere mention of Gremikha Pentagon shook hamstring. Naval Base since the time of the king was in a convenient location - with its covered sea island and boat in 15 minutes after leaving the dock is immersed in water. The only base in the north, which had direct access to the ocean. After the Cold War the Americans most of all wanted to Gremikha was disarmed and succeeded.

20 years ago in Gremikha had 40 nuclear submarines and 30 thousand. Population. Now - 1, 3 thous. Persons and no boats. Entire blocks are empty, the windows of apartment buildings gape empty eye sockets, after the neutron bomb. Gremikha problems are compounded by the fact that here is not the railroad, and no roads. 400 km from Murmansk sea, 15 hours on a single ship once a week. It is hard to imagine from Moscow that in European Russia there are cut off from the civilization of the city.





- If Stalin had lived 10 years, he'd have handed in Gremikha Railway - said the captain of the second rank Vyacheslav Marchenko. - And now we have all of the achievements of civilization only the "United Russia" lives. Bakery closed, a pharmacy on incense breathes. The city, which is of strategic importance for Russia, dies. Each meter is worth millions. As a former political commissar of this policy do not understand.

Iokanga, Gremikha, Murmansk-140 Island - for 400 years, the city went through the sea of ​​names. During the reign of the penitentiary no one ran: around the tundra, the communists sailors from hazing is also not running - to the people you reach. The climate is awful, inhumane - rain, sharp and icy lashes several times a day.

Wind knocks down, and can be seen both in open space is a strong man, leaning at an angle of 40 degrees from the planet Earth. Despite the North, the dogs can hardly see - because of the storm these places for a long time called the "Land of flying dogs". Scientists believe that climate incident could arise from the fact that around the Cape of Saint Nose converge and boil in the struggle undercurrents Barents and White seas. According to legend, here Mikhailo Lomonosov's father died, and at the beginning of the last century has been washed ashore one of the first Russian submarine.

Gremikha has never been a hole. On these shores with the Inspectorate visited Prime Witte, founder lived here writing Lapps Saami honored teacher George Druzhenkov, which were sent to the Congress of Teachers in Moscow. But this year, the school where he worked first teacher-Lapp and which is directly behind the gypsum Lenin shut down - and probably forever.



The only company, which lives at the expense of the once loud Gremikha, is engaged in the disposal of radioactive waste, which in the Russian North more than fertilizers on arable land. Ironically engaged radioactive waste ex-sailors who went on nuclear submarines and pollute the environment. Ecology for them like a professional repentance. At the head of the company SevRAO - a former deputy commander of the Northern Fleet, Vice-Admiral Valery Panteleyev.

- In Germany, the bull can not be thrown out of the car - says the old sea wolf, and now an ecologist. - And we have dirtied the pristine north, reactors and entire submarine sank in the ocean. I'm wary to politics, but fully agree with the Russian president, when he set the task to return the beauty of nature. When walking on the seas, I could not imagine how it is a difficult thing.

Just the Gremikha held a unique, knows no analogues in the world nuclear reactor discharge from the body of the submarine for further disposal and recycling. First, the reactor was prepared for flooding in the depths of the ocean, but it's dangerous, and after a hundred years, when corrosion inevitably would eat the body, would happen underwater Chernobyl. The uniqueness of the operation that had not yet been removed from the boat entirely reactor that require manipulation of the jewelry device, which hissed radiation overactive 170 kg of uranium.

- Hiroshima - is 7 kg, consider how much we have bombs, if mistaken - with gusto commander who raises fighters in a risky, but reliably calculated attack says Vice-Admiral Panteleev. - It is 24 Hiroshima! If you stand next to the reactor for an hour to get double the annual dose, but is designed to the smallest detail. In 2010, we conducted a perfectly similar, but simpler, surgery and received 25 state awards, which I believe martial.

The history of the submarine, which is simply the reactor in Gremikha, is unique. According to NATO classification is nuclear Boat "Alpha", which had a fantastic maneuverability, care of torpedoes at a rate of 43 knots and 45 seconds to turn 180 degrees. "Alpha" hit the Guinness Book of Records.



Features assured by surprise lead-bismuth fast reactor, which was built in all developed countries, but built in the USSR. Gremikha was an entire division of the seven nuclear submarines with titanium body and a liquid-metal reactor.

In 1964, the boat with the reactor went unnoticed in the Mediterranean, and looked at the NATO military base in Gibraltar, causing panic and terror. The operation was conducted HSU Vice Admiral George Bach during the war he commanded a landing at the Little Earth. In 1983, the robbers came into the house under the guise of journalists killed old vice admiral. From the star of the Hero of the leader, as it turned out during the arrest, he made a gold signet ring. Then the story shocked the public, but in the 1990s, when newcomers came from the factory, nuclear submarines were sent to cut, the same public is kept a wonderful calm.

Let the operation with the latest liquid-metal reactor was unique, but I personally visited sadness. Nuclear submarines, we almost did not build, high technology reduced to a minimum, and the reburial of the unique and was not at all adversary forces reactor resembled exhumation honored veteran. Amazing people who carried out the operation, have no prospects in life. Maestro Yuri Zarenok crane-lifetime living in Gremikha gets ridiculous money and tightly bound to the edge of dying. On the future of his children to ask me uncomfortable.

The last and most loyal people of the naval base find repose in fishing, but for some time now Iokanga river, which was not with the king, fell into private hands. In 49 years it gave unknown oligarch Temkin, he brought from Murmansk OMON, who vigilantly guarded by calmness fishermen overseas tourists.

If notice of the local OMON citizen, even with a license puts Russian mug into the ground to an unpleasant eye on the foreigner is not mowed. This is related by a former sailor Sergey Boychenko and Sergei Zinko, in whose veins are mixed Russian and Ukrainian blood and who consider themselves Soviet people. "Oh, move them to the sea by a torpedo, but rusty", - said Sergey two.

Gremikha - Soviet Atlantis, one of the last islands of mainland USSR disappeared. Around the raging new life, and in Gremikha breathe glorious traditions, can not and do not want to undergo the rite of initiation of the market-liberal. What's on and where the horizon? "We have no future, we do not dokrichatsya to Murmansk, not what to Moscow", - answered the last Soviet Atlanta.

In the shattered Gremikha I came across the street Nightingale and wondered why in the naval base value fairy tale character. Then he found in the encyclopedia that Arseny Nightingale - a ship's doctor, who died in 1970 in the Bay of Biscay atomic submarine K-8. In an accident the doctor did not flee, but put an oxygen mask operated sailor. Arseny Nightingale posthumously awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union.

The country has gone - we put up with this. Doctor Arseny Nightingale died. But soon, all this is heading, will not have the streets and Nightingale.

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