Crimean Nuclear Power Plant (Shchelkinsky NPP, nuclear power plant in Crimea) – Abandoned nuclear power plant. The Crimean nuclear power plant will be completed - truth or fiction
(to the 25th anniversary of the closure of the Crimean Nuclear Power Plant)
I remember well one long-ago business trip to the Nikolaev region. Beautiful Bug rapids, happy and carefree faces of local residents. For a minute it suddenly seemed as if time had stopped here. It’s as if the calendar shows not Ukraine in the mid-2000s, but the early 80s. Clean streets, well-kept houses, a park and a city beach on the river. Friendly and smiling people, young mothers walking with strollers and flower beds everywhere. This is how I saw Yuzhno-Ukrainsk. 80% of the local population work at one state enterprise - a nuclear power plant, which generates 17-18 billion kWh of electrical energy throughout the year and covers 96% of the electricity needs of the three southern regions of the country (Nikolaev, Kherson, Odessa)
A large industrial enterprise provides work, stable and relatively high wages with a full social package not only to residents of the satellite city, but also to nearby settlements. Two months later, fate brought me to Shchelkino, a satellite town of the former Crimean Nuclear Power Plant. However, there the picture was completely opposite. Dead streets, shabby facades of houses, lack of evening lighting and a completely broken local House of Culture "Arabat". I never saw flower beds or working fountains during my two days in this slowly dying city. But there were often drunk men and grumpy women. In their eyes there is complete hopelessness, despondency and anxiety for tomorrow. Shchelkino lives only two months a year - during the summer season. Almost every second or third resident of the city considers it a blessing to buy a garage. It doesn't matter that he doesn't have a car. After all, in the summer you can live in the garage and let vacationers into your apartment. Local kulaks are considered not only those who have successfully rented out housing during the season, but also those who have….a boat. After all, she is a real nurse, and in Azov in winter there is so much bearing... It was thanks to the sea that hundreds of families survived here in the hungry 90s.. The two cities, as it turned out, had different fates. But the history of their foundation began simultaneously with the construction of local nuclear power plants and almost at the same time.
Construction of the Crimean nuclear power plant itself began in 1981. However, three years earlier, at the foot of Cape Kazantip, a working settlement for the builders of the Crimean Nuclear Power Plant was founded, which, by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR of May 11, 1982, was named Shchelkino, thereby perpetuating the name of the outstanding Soviet scientist, three times Hero of Socialist Labor Kirill Ivanovich Shchelkin. In 1979, the first three residential buildings were put into operation. And the Crimean NPP itself a year later received the status of a republican (Ukrainian) Komsomol construction site, and on the threshold of perestroika - in 1984 it was already an All-Union shock construction site.
By that time, the city already had 25 thousand inhabitants. However, in 1987, at the stage of 80% completion of the first power unit and 18% of the second, construction of the station was suspended. The main reason is that the site on which they built was considered geologically unstable. In addition, there was a fear of a repeat of last year’s Chernobyl tragedy. . The design capacity of the Shchelkino NPP was 2,000 MW, with a subsequent increase to 4,000 MW (construction of two additional power units) using VVER-1000/320 type reactors.
The planned launch date was 1989. But ironically, it was the summer of this year that went down in history as the time of the final mothballing of the construction site.
If you look in more detail, there were several reasons. Firstly, the sad experience of Chernobyl. Secondly, there was a powerful earthquake in Armenia in December 1988. 
Then, Crimean seismologists received an urgent task: to identify what the maximum earthquake on the peninsula could be. Scientists wrote a “ten” in the report, and the station construction project was designed only for 8 points on the Richter scale. And finally, the third reason for closing the station is money. The difficulty of financing was already seriously felt in 1987, when large construction projects began to wind down throughout the Union, both in the energy sector and in industry, transport, and urban planning...
In addition, the public actively got involved. During the elections of delegates to the Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR in the spring of 1989, real battles broke out in the Crimean districts. As a result, doctors and an environmentalist, who actively used anti-nuclear power plant speeches in their election campaigns, won in three districts.
When it became clear that there was and would not be money to complete construction, there were ideas to create a training center on the basis of the Crimean NPP to train nuclear plant dispatchers of the USSR Ministry of AtomEnergo. But these ideas were not destined to come true. The union collapsed...
500 million Soviet rubles were spent on the construction of the nuclear power plant in 1984 prices. Approximately another 250 million worth of materials remained in warehouses. The station began to be slowly torn apart for ferrous and non-ferrous scrap metal. Although in the mid-90s the Crimean Nuclear Power Plant even became a brand for four years. From 1995 to 1999, discos of the “Republic of KaZantip” festival were held in the turbine section of the station under the slogan “Atomic party in the reactor.”
And yet, they tried to return part of the money spent on the main republican construction project. In September 2003, the Property Fund sold the unique Danish crane “Kroll” K-10000, installed for the installation of a nuclear reactor, for 310 thousand hryvnia, with an original price of 440 thousand hryvnia. Before its dismantling, the high-altitude crane was used for base jumping. Extreme jumps were carried out from the lower (80 m) and upper (120 m) booms of the crane.
After this, the remaining parts of the Crimean NPP were to be sold: the reactor compartment, the block pumping station, the workshop building, the cooler at the Aktash reservoir, the dam of the Aktash reservoir, the supply canal with a water intake tank, the station’s oil and diesel facilities, and a diesel generator station. It is known that at the beginning of 2005, the Representative Office of the Crimean Property Fund sold the reactor compartment of the Crimean NPP for 1.1 million UAH ($207,000) to a legal entity whose name was not disclosed.
There is evidence that the VVER-1000 reactor, which was never installed in the room prepared for it, was cut into scrap in 2005.
Crimean nuclear power plant today (photo by patteran) 
A little-known fact: the station has an almost complete twin - the abandoned, unfinished Stendal nuclear power plant, 100 km west of Berlin in Germany, built according to the same Soviet project from 1982 to 1990. By the time construction stopped, the readiness of the first power unit was 85%. Its only significant difference from the Crimean NPP is the use of cooling towers for cooling, rather than a reservoir. Currently, the Stendal nuclear power plant is almost completely dismantled. A pulp and paper mill now operates on the territory of the former station; the cooling towers were dismantled in 1994 and 1999. With the help of excavators and heavy construction equipment, the dismantling of the reactor shops is being completed. This is exactly how practical and careful Germans approached the problem of unnecessary long-term construction.
What's in Shchelkino? Empty boxes of abandoned houses, dilapidated industrial premises, rusty skeletons of metal structures. The nuclear power plant itself was sold for scrap several years ago, and now one of the Ukrainian construction companies is removing the remaining pieces of iron from it. From the outside, the station looks even more dilapidated. Taking turns, hunters come to her for equipment, for non-ferrous metals, for various building materials... Photographers, both local and visiting, both professionals and amateurs, regularly visit. On weekends, whole groups of paint and strike ball fans come. The collapsing building of the power unit is an excellent platform for games according to the Stalker scenario. And a few years ago, the filming of the film “Inhabited Island” even worked here. Surprisingly, it was here, in the ruins of the station, that Fyodor Bondarchuk saw a picture of the planet Saraksh.
There are also frequent guests here - lovers of extreme tourism, who also dreamed of wandering around the zone. And a tour of the Crimean Nuclear Power Plant, unlike Chernobyl, is practically safe. After all, they never managed to deliver nuclear fuel to the peninsula...
Meanwhile, the local station managed to get into the Guinness Book of Records as the most expensive power unit in the world. Billions of rubles have been thrown down the drain: neither money nor much-needed electricity due to the recently worsening energy crisis in Crimea. The frozen, half-looted station, as a symbol of mismanagement and short-sightedness, will stand on the soil of Kazantip for decades to come.
The first design surveys were carried out in 1968. Construction began in 1975. The station was supposed to provide electricity to the entire Crimean peninsula, as well as create a foundation for the subsequent development of industry in the region - metallurgical, mechanical engineering, chemical. Design capacity is 2000 MW (2 power units) with the possibility of subsequent increase to 4000 MW: the standard design provides for the placement of 4 power units with VVER-1000/320 reactors on the station site.
After the construction of a satellite city, a reservoir embankment and auxiliary farms, construction of the station itself began in 1982. A temporary line was laid from the Kerch branch of the railway, and at the height of construction, two trains of building materials arrived along it per day. In general, construction proceeded without significant deviations from the schedule with the planned launch of the first reactor in 1989.
The unfavorable economic situation in the country and the disaster at the fourth power unit of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant on April 26, 1986 led to the fact that by 1987 construction was first suspended, and in 1989 the final decision was made to abandon the launch of the station. By this time, 500 million Soviet rubles in 1984 prices had been spent on the construction of the nuclear power plant. Approximately another 250 million rubles worth of materials remained in the warehouses. The station began to be slowly torn apart for ferrous and non-ferrous scrap metal.
No fuel was imported and does not pose a radiation hazard.
Prospects for using the nuclear power plant site and developing a satellite city
In 2006, the territory of the former nuclear power plant was selected as one of the possible sites for creating a pilot project for an industrial park. In 2008, preparatory work began on the implementation of the Shchelkinsky Industrial Park industrial park project; the city council transferred ownership of some of the objects located on this land plot to the Shchelkinsky Industrial Park.
- The Crimean nuclear power plant was included in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's most expensive nuclear reactor. This is due to the fact that, unlike the Tatar NPP and the Bashkir NPP of the same type, which were stopped at the same time, it had a higher degree of readiness at the time construction was stopped.
- A solar power plant was built nearby. Near it, on the eastern part of the shore of the Aktash reservoir, there is also an experimental wind power plant YuzhEnergo, consisting of 15 wind turbines with a capacity of 100 kW each. Not far from it there are 8 old non-working experimental wind turbines of the East Crimean Wind Power Plant, installed back in Soviet times.
- A little-known fact: the station has an almost complete twin - the abandoned, unfinished Stendal nuclear power plant (German) 100 km west of the city, which was built according to the same Soviet project from 1982 to 1990. By the time construction stopped, the readiness of the first power unit was 85%. Its only significant difference from the Crimean NPP is the use of cooling towers for cooling, rather than a reservoir. Currently, the Stendal nuclear power plant (2009) is almost completely dismantled. A pulp and paper mill now operates on the territory of the former station; the cooling towers were dismantled in 1994 and 1999. With the help of excavators and heavy construction equipment, the dismantling of the reactor shops is being completed.
- The Crimean Nuclear Power Plant is mentioned in the song of the punk rock group “Cockroaches!” “Who will sleep with me now?”:
The territory of Crimea is a very favorable place for the construction of electric power facilities, since the peninsula is convenient for the construction of large power plants, which will be located far from the “mainland”, but will be able to supply the mainland part of the republic with energy. It was precisely such opinions that led to the start of construction of the Crimean Nuclear Power Plant in 1975.
A little history
Initially, the capacity planned for the project assumed a full supply of electricity to the peninsula, which made it possible to make it independent in terms of energy resources from Ukraine. It was supposed to use uranium-235 as the main fuel, and the standard design envisaged the deployment of 4 VVER-1000 type reactors.
During the Soviet Union, every major construction project was declared a communist strike. A similar situation arose during the construction of a power plant in Crimea. Beginning in 1984, the construction was declared All-Union. At the very beginning of construction, a satellite city was built, the reservoir embankment was strengthened, and auxiliary facilities were erected. Since 1982, the construction of the nuclear power plant itself has been actively carried out. It was reported that according to the schedule, the Crimean nuclear power plant will be completed by 1989.
Changes in the industry: reasons
Everything changed after the infamous Chernobyl nuclear power plant. In 1986, an explosion occurred that led to the destruction of several power units, the release of large amounts of radioactive particles into the surrounding atmosphere, and the contamination of a large area. From this moment on, it was decided to suspend the construction of unfinished nuclear power plants. Construction of the Crimean nuclear power plant was also stopped at the stage of completion of the first of four reactors.
Reasons for stopping construction
- Unfavorable economic environment in the USSR.
- Theft of materials from suspended enterprises.
During the 90s, the KaZantip festivals, famous and popular among “club” youth, were held in the premises of the unfinished reactor. In the late 90s and early 2000s, a special company was created on the basis of a power plant in Crimea, whose task was to sell off the remaining intact equipment. In total, more than 2 million Ukrainian hryvnia were raised. By the beginning of 2003, all that remained of the station’s property on the enterprise’s balance sheet was an abandoned building and a few outbuildings.
A unique polar crane, which was planned to be used to move cargo inside a power reactor, was used as the basis for base jumping. Subsequently, the crane was sold for a price many times less than the actual price. The end of the station’s existence was its transfer to the Council of Ministers of Crimea in 2004. As planned, the Crimean authorities were supposed to sell the remaining property and use these funds to solve the problems of the peninsula. No one was going to complete the construction of the former strategic facility today.
Today, the Crimean Nuclear Power Plant is under the control of Rosatom and there is talk about writing off the unfinished facility from the republic’s balance sheet, and using the building materials obtained after complete dismantling as materials for the construction of a crossing across the Kerch Strait.
The absence of its own nuclear power plant in Crimea does not mean that the republic has completely lost the ability to independently generate energy. In 2015, it was announced that construction would begin on two thermal power plants on the peninsula, with a total capacity of 940 MW.
Modern power plants in Crimea
The construction of power plants in Crimea is now in full swing, since according to the current schedule, the first power units should be put into operation in 2017, and according to the project, full power is intended to be achieved by 2018. In parallel, it is planned to launch the Kuban-Crimea gas pipeline, which will provide the required level of gas supply to the stations under construction.
The construction of its own power plants in Crimea is an attempt to stop depending on Ukrainian electricity, since the peninsula is 70% dependent on the supply of energy resources of the republic. The missing 880 MW can be replenished by launching new thermal power plants that have increased efficiency, are designed to use less fuel and feature a closed water consumption cycle.
There is now little left of the Crimean nuclear power plant. There are abandoned and dilapidated buildings on a vast territory. The remains of the workshops are densely covered with grass and trees. Things that had even the slightest value were dug up, torn out and taken away. The nuclear reactor, the shaft lining and the control panel of the nuclear power plant were cut into non-ferrous metal. And if precious metals and equipment were taken first, today you can only profit from iron in concrete slabs.
A hundred meters from the reactor workshop, several people in overalls are monotonously dismantling another building. A tractor demolishes a wall and a crane carries a concrete slab to the ground, where workers break it down. They want to get to the fittings hidden inside. All that was left of the concrete workshop was the foundation and a pile of stone chips. The further fate of the still surviving buildings is frightening in its predictability.
Photo by Oleg Stonko
The huge gray box of the reactor workshop dominates the territory of the facility. The workshop is as tall as two nine-story buildings and more than 70 meters wide and is built on a six-meter foundation. You can enter it through a huge round hole. The metal door, half a meter thick, had been dragged away long ago. There is no radiation danger, since nuclear fuel was not delivered in time. Admission is free, there is no security.
The building accommodates 1,300 rooms, box-like premises of various purposes and, accordingly, sizes. The inside of the boxes is empty and dusty. There are pieces of wires dangling somewhere and trash lying around. Light does not penetrate into the reactor workshop at all. Heavy silence, the belated echo of footsteps and the closed space of the premises thicken the atmosphere. It's unsettling to be here. Random noises are unnerving. Nevertheless, there is no hurry to leave the reactor. This can be described in one phrase: “Terribly interesting.”
“Everything was done slowly in Crimea”
Toropov Vitaly, head of the reactor workshop:— Scientists and specialists have been working on the Crimean nuclear power plant project since 1968. In 1975, a satellite city was founded - Shchelkino, named after the Soviet nuclear physicist Kirill Shchelkin. This is the village where nuclear workers and their families were supposed to live. When I arrived in the Leninsky district in June 1981, at the site of the future station, one might say, the wheat was still heading and they were just beginning to dig a foundation pit. I was sent here from the Kola Nuclear Power Plant. After all, in Soviet times it was like this: after studying at the university, you start with the lowest positions, then rise higher. No one would immediately appoint me as the head of the workshop.
According to the plan, the power plant was supposed to be operational in four years and ten months. But management was recruited in advance: senior engineers and heads of four main departments. That was the rule. They had to control the receipt of documentation and equipment, monitor the progress of construction and installation work, and gradually recruit personnel. The salary during this period was, of course, small.
It was important for me to understand the geography of the workshop. When the reactor is operating, you have only a few seconds to avoid receiving a lethal dose of radiation. You need to act instantly, know exactly where each valve is located. Even in complete blackout mode, you must be able to work by touch, like submariners.
The reactor was supposed to be launched in 1986, but due to the low pace of construction it was not completed in time. I associate this with the specifics of Crimea. Everything was done slowly here. For example, they managed to build one kindergarten per year. And it seemed like there was money, but the party doubted it and some party members were against it. And then there was an explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and construction stalled. A wave of discontent arose. Many believed that Crimea would become the second Chernobyl.
Photo by Oleg Stonko
In 1988, I was sent to Cuba, where I worked for three years at the Juragua nuclear power plant. When I returned, the station had already been closed and torn apart. Its readiness was approximately 90 percent. There was less than a year left for installation and commissioning. If they had managed to launch it, the station would not have been closed. In addition, equipment for two more blocks was stored in warehouses. Moreover, the equipment is high quality, with imported parts. If Vladimir Tansky, director of the Crimean Nuclear Power Plant, had taken control of the situation and kept the course of events in check, nothing would have been stolen. It was necessary to wait until the hype about Chernobyl died down and became less loud.
We planned to build four reactor units, each of them would produce one million megawatts. One million was enough for Crimea, so the first block was built to stop the transfer of electricity from the mainland. The second block was needed to provide hot water to Feodosia and Kerch, to rid the peninsula of dependence on coal and boiler houses. Using the third block they wanted to desalinate sea water. The whole world is doing this. We wanted to fill Crimea with fresh water and not depend on water from the Dnieper. The fourth block is to sell, to the Caucasus, to earn money.
“The Crimean nuclear power plant was mistakenly compared with Chernobyl”
Anatoly Chekhuta, instrumentation and automation master:— I arrived at the station as soon as they gave me the directions: I wanted to get an apartment early. There might not have been time later. My specialization is the maintenance and operation of various control and measuring equipment. Before that, he worked for ten years at a nuclear power plant in Tomsk. It was a secret facility, and in official documents it was listed as a chemical plant. Upon arrival in Shchelkino, my radiation level was 25 roentgens. Five years later it dropped to 15. Now, probably, there is nothing. Although for a long time the level remained stable at 5 roentgens.
One of the problems with the closure of the Crimean nuclear power plant is the general secrecy. There was not enough publicity. In Soviet times, nothing was disclosed: projects, research, data. When environmentalists raised a wave of indignation in 1986, they had no official information, so they could make any assumptions. Even the most ridiculous ones. As an example, in the event of a nuclear power plant accident with a constant southeast wind, radioactive fallout could fall on Foros. Where Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev vacationed at his dacha in the summer. As a result, a terrible story was made out of this.
The Crimean nuclear power plant was mistakenly compared to Chernobyl. After all, these are two different types of reactors. In Chernobyl they used RBMK-1000, in Crimea - VVER-1000. I won't go into details. But it’s like heating water over a fire in a pan without a lid or a closed thermal container. The difference is huge.
Photo by Oleg Stonko
The reactor did not produce plutonium, but produced steam. The steam rotated turbines, which produced electricity. If in Chernobyl the RBMK was buried nine floors into the ground, then the Crimean VVER was carefully placed on a small platform. There was a three-stage protection system. The reactor room was covered with a continuous layer of reinforced concrete. In an emergency, the doors were hermetically closed and the air was sucked out of the room. During an explosion in a vacuum, the pressure was zero. So a catastrophe could not happen. By the way, the reactor shop building could withstand a direct collision with a jet plane.
The same pressurized water nuclear reactors are used on submarines. Same type, just smaller. In 1988, there were 350 nuclear-powered boats in the Soviet Union. And so far not a single accident has occurred. From the point of view of physics and design, it is a very reliable device.
Another argument of opponents of construction was the lack of research into the location of the nuclear power plant. Specifically, seismic. Allegedly, the reactor was built on the site of a tectonic fault, and with small underground tremors an accident could occur. But later, in 1989, when independent Italian seismologists arrived, they concluded that it was possible to build at least ten reactors, there was no fault. This means that the Soviet specialists were right, and the location was chosen well. The reactor itself was built to withstand a magnitude nine earthquake. But it was already too late, and the station was closed.
50 tons of steam per hour
Andrey Arzhantsev, head of the heat supply section of the central heat supply complex:— TsTPK is a workshop for thermal and underground communications. Under my leadership there was a start-up and reserve boiler room or PRK. To explain it more simply, the start-up and reserve boiler house consists of four boilers that produced 50 tons of steam per hour. Due to this, hot water and heat were supplied to Shchelkino. Now the city has forgotten such words - “hot water”, but before it was 75 degrees in the tap.
The main purpose of the PRK is the commissioning of turbines and warming up the reactor. Without it, not a single nuclear power plant is built. But having completed its task, the boiler room is dismantled, and, for example, a gym is created on its basis.
Photo by Oleg Stonko
The basic project of the Crimean “atomic” was special. This did not exist anywhere at that time. The turbines had to be cooled with sea water. We planned to take water from the Aktash reservoir and use it as a cooling pond. Water came to Aktash from the Sea of Azov. That is, there was an unlimited supply. As a result, the nuclear power plant produced environmentally friendly energy.
After the closure of the nuclear power plant, Shchelkino is gradually dying out. I think there is no need to explain what happens to a city when it loses its main enterprise. The population dropped from 25 thousand to 11. In terms of intellectual potential, Shchelkino was considered the most developed place in Crimea. Here every second person had two higher educations. Aerobatics specialists from all over the Soviet Union. And instead of the industrial heart of the peninsula, Shchelkino becomes a resort village. What you see now is a tenth of what the city could have become. There are not even streets here, the houses are simply numbered. Among the attractions are the market, the city council and housing and communal services.
Some nuclear workers leave, others stay. Those who had somewhere to return left. Construction of nuclear power plants is being frozen throughout the Union. There was no work. At least there was an apartment here. Of course, no one was working in their specialty anymore. I currently hold the position of director of a boarding house.
“Crimea needs a nuclear power plant”
Sergey Varavin, senior turbine control engineer, director of the Shchelkinsky Industrial Park Management Company:“It’s hard to say who was right and who was wrong then that the Crimean nuclear power plant began to be stolen. The property was redistributed between customers and contractors. About a hundred companies were involved in the construction. Each of them wanted their money back, so the equipment was sold off. In addition, after the collapse of the Union, something was perceived as free, so they carried what they could. There was no high-profile case regarding this, so there is no need to talk about theft. Now it’s impossible to figure it out.
Photo by Oleg Stonko
The lands were redistributed among construction participants. Some people refused plots, others left. Part of the territory remained in the hands of owners and tenants, the rest became the property of the city. It is planned to create an industrial park on the site owned by the City Council. The project began to be created in 2007. But due to lack of funding it was never implemented.
Now the project is included in the Federal Target Program for the Development of Industrial Parks in Crimea. One billion 450 thousand rubles will be allocated for the development of the business plan. Our task is to prepare everything for the future investor. Collect all documents, arrange the territory, create infrastructure, and so on. All that remains is to begin construction. The focus is very different: from a gas turbine station to an agricultural complex.
But ask any operator of our nuclear power plant, and he will answer: “Crimea needs a nuclear power plant.”
“All Crimeans would have cancer”
Valery Mitrokhin, poet, prose writer, essayist, member of the Russian Writers' Union:— Immediately after being accepted as a member of the Writers’ Union, I was sent to the construction of the Crimean Nuclear Power Plant. There I am writing a book of essays, “Solar Builders.” Three chapters evoke mixed reactions. They are devoted to problems that could arise as a result of the construction of the station. I was accused of undermining the material condition of the country. About a billion rubles have already been spent on the facility. At the exchange rate at that time, one dollar was equal to 80 kopecks, that is, looked from the bottom up. A lot of money. Therefore, the nuclear power plant is rightfully considered the most expensive unfinished project in the world.
The book about the sun builders was published in 1984. He refused to throw out the chapters, and for this they stopped publishing me for ten years and did not allow me to appear on regional television and radio.
There were problems, the contractors and nuclear workers knew about them. Everyone was silent. When I started digging deeper and communicating with experts, I came across such a volume of information that it was impossible not to write about it. This threatened disaster. If they had built the station even according to all the parameters, a second Chernobyl would have happened.
First, the hired workers were slacking. Some standards were not followed and mistakes were made. For example, the brand of cement was mixed up. If you look at the buildings today, they are crumbling, the concrete is crumbling. And not much time has passed. I saw with my own eyes how they built the “glass” for the reactor. There is no talk of any tightness. There would be leaks. A microscopic hole would be enough to irradiate the soil within a radius of tens of kilometers.
Photo by Oleg Stonko
The second is the specificity of Crimean seismicity. We are shaken every year. The tremors are small, but they are there. And the tectonic fault exists. It runs from the Feodosia Bay to the Kazantip Bay. The two plates are constantly in contact with each other. While the construction of the power plant was underway, not far from the coast, an island appeared and disappeared in the Sea of Azov. A clear confirmation of my argument. It is not clear why seismologists hid such facts.
The third is cooling the turbines using a reservoir. I'll explain it with my fingers. Water enters the station, cools the turbines, returns to Aktash and again to the station. Constantly circulates and gets dirty. To avoid this, they make an exit to the Sea of Azov. Now the water is constantly renewed. But at what cost? Ten years later, Azov turns into a nuclear swamp. The Sea of Azov is connected to the Black Sea. This means that a little later he will suffer the same fate. Next up is the Mediterranean Sea. Not to mention evaporation and precipitation. By this time, all Crimeans would have cancer.
Having learned about everything, I become one of the founders of the environmental movement. I begin to travel around Crimea with my book. Understand that environmentalists did not inflate the problem from scratch, being afraid of Chernobyl. There were complaints. There were no answers. We wanted to save the peninsula. Of course, the project was good, the reactor was excellent and modern, but the location was chosen in the wrong way. I'm sure of this.
In 1990, the film “Who Needs an Atom” was released. We are talking about the use of nuclear energy in the energy sector. It is noteworthy that one of the fragments of the film is dedicated to the problems of the Crimean nuclear power plant. The passage contains two opposing points of view.
During one of my regular trips, I decided to visit the unfinished Crimean nuclear power plant, located near Shchelkino. In general, I am a fan of non-standard solutions, and besides, I myself work at a nuclear power plant. Therefore, it was very interesting for me to see an object that could become one of the most significant in Crimea.
Location, history
The Crimean Nuclear Power Plant facility, which never became significant for the entire peninsula, or perhaps the whole country, is located in close proximity to the village of Shchelkino and a local landmark -. The development of a very expensive project at that time began back in 1968. The construction itself began seven years later - in 1975. Already in the eighty-fourth year, the object was considered a “shock construction”.
And there were good reasons for this, because its design capacity was supposed to occupy a place between the Balakovo and Khmelnitsky nuclear power plants. The calculation was carried out for 2 GW. It was in those days that Shchelkino was called a “satellite city”; unfortunately, today it looks like an ordinary village.
At the construction site, for the first time, a circular bridge unit, the so-called “Polar Crane,” was used in the process. The first solar station in the Soviet Union, SES-5, was immediately used. Eleven years later, the facility was 80 percent ready, but the tragedy occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (1986). All work was temporarily stopped, and three years later the construction was completely closed.
There are different opinions about why this happened, one of the versions is the accident in Chernobyl. According to another version, there were serious problems with entering the object. You can argue on this topic for a very long time, but it is all useless. The fact remains that construction was never completed. They decided to sell the property, but something went wrong here too.
What attracts tourists to an unfinished nuclear power plant?
This place is interesting for young people, especially the turbine department. It was here that the founders of the Kazantip Republic held their famous parties with the loud name “Atomic Party in the Reactor” for three years, from 1996 to 1999. Afterwards, the unfinished station began to be used by various extreme clubs. They offered all thrill-seekers jumping from low heights (BASE jumping).
By the way, if you have watched Fyodor Bondarchuk’s film “Inhabited Island,” you will immediately see familiar landscapes. After all, he shot many of the shots here. And Bondarchuk is not the only one; you can see the silhouette of the power unit that came into operation in other films.
In addition, walks here are absolutely safe for human health, since the raw materials, although they were delivered to Shchelkino, did not have time to be placed at the station. Today, the recycling of structures is in full swing. The Russian Ministry of Energy plans to create an entire industrial park on the site of the unfinished Crimean Nuclear Power Plant. So it is quite possible that these edges will become real. The unfinished nuclear power plant is more to the liking of lovers of gloomy, gloomy landscapes. As an employee of the same nuclear power plant, it was interesting to me. The entrance is free.
How to get (get there) to the Crimean Nuclear Power Plant
The easiest way to get here is by your own car. Exact coordinates and map at the bottom of the page. Drive towards the village of Shchelkino, from the village of Semenovka, the Cherry-96 gardening society, head towards Aktash Lake (reservoir). Its shore is the end point of the journey. By the way, if you don’t have your own transport, no problem.
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Exact location on the map, GPS coordinates: 45°23’30.0″N 35°48’12.0″E (45.391673, 35.803341)
I wanted to write about such an unusual place today. If you want to see in person the remains of the still-built nuclear power plant on the Crimean Peninsula, I recommend not wasting your time. Prepare thoroughly for the trip and find a place to stay. Moreover, today it is possible to book housing in Crimea online not only quickly, but also profitably. Thus, providing yourself with an interesting, useful and comfortable vacation.
