Abandoned Chernobyl equipment. Chernobyl technology: where is it “hidden”? When will it be possible to use Chernobyl machines?
The settling tank for radioactively contaminated equipment "Rassokha", which was used in the liquidation of the consequences of the Chernobyl accident, located near the abandoned village of the same name in the 30-kilometer Exclusion Zone, is a fairly well-known place to the general public. And the pictures included in this photo report are also very ordinary. Their uniqueness lies in only one thing - probably this was the last report from the radioactive graveyard of cars. In November-December 2012, the Rassokha sump ceased to exist, everything that could be washed and decontaminated was cut into pieces and sold for scrap metal, and the rest of the “dirty” equipment, for example, heavily polluted helicopters, was moved to a 10-kilometer zone, in radioactive waste disposal site "Buryakovka".
How did it happen that the steel, faithful friends of the liquidators, who defied mortal danger, were mercilessly cut up and sent to be melted down? Since 2011, rumors began to actively spread about the reduction Chernobyl Zone alienation along the border of the Uzh River. The rest of the territory, recognized as conditionally clean, was to go to Yanukovych’s hunting estate, in addition to the already existing Dnieper-Teterevsky, located more than 20 kilometers from here.
In September 2012, I was lucky enough to see everything that had survived at that time. After all, Rassokha began to be slowly cut back in 2006.
1. BRDM - armored reconnaissance and patrol vehicle. They were actively used in liquidation of consequences; the armor reduced the level of gamma radiation several times; in addition, the vehicle was equipped with a built-in radiometer. As a rule, such “armored armor” was used for radiation reconnaissance - measuring levels on the ground.
2. Rows of armored vehicles
3. Fas. A very maneuverable and fast machine, somewhat similar to a boat, by the way, it is capable of swimming.
4. Multi-purpose transport helicopter MI 6. "Misha". There were initially six of these beauties on Rassokha. By my visit, only one remained more or less intact.
5. A few more cut up cars
6. And all that was left was the blades. They also say that there used to be several small MI-2s here, but there was no trace of them.
7. On board the dead MI6
8. The truck body looks quite gloomy...
9. Cabins, scraps of iron.
10. Heavy engineering clearing vehicle - IMR. Now in the Donbass, the DPR army has such a machine, its 2nd modification.
And then, in 1986-1987, these monsters were simply irreplaceable - thick armor protected them from radiation, they felled the “Red Forest”, buried entire villages...
11. This copy of the IMR, unlike many of its comrades, which are now scattered throughout the ChEZ in eternal parking, was perfectly preserved at the time of shooting. Unfortunately, this exhibit, worthy of taking a place in the LPA memory museum, was cut into metal...
12. Remains of the legendary Soviet all-terrain vehicle "Shishiga"
13. The perimeter of the settling tank and a number of surviving ZILs
14. In the literal sense of this phrase - turned upside down
16. A path leads towards the nearest residential village, located on the other side of the barbed fence of the ChEZ, with clear traces of the wheels of a hand-cart. For years, people were engaged in illegal fishing at Rassokha, hauling metal and earning pennies for food and vodka... Now this has come to an end.
17. The tap was completely overgrown, apparently he tried to imitate it, but that didn’t help him either - they sawed it off
18. Tankers
19. Military tracklayer BAT. Unfortunately, the tower has already been cut down.
20. Typical landscape of the Rassokha settling tank
21. And this is what it looked like twenty years ago... The technology simply dazzles the eyes. We would like to make a museum here...But it’s too late.
22. This is what the former Rassokha settling tank looks like from a satellite now. The equipment was cut down, the field was plowed. Everything is as it was before the accident, when there was a small airfield here...
The exploits of past years are forgotten, heroes pass away, and with them the silent witnesses of everything that happened - iron machines...
The merciless pace of time and human greed erase everything.
Thank you for your attention. ChEZ, September 2012.
A world-famous and terrible fact is what happened in 1986 near the city of Pripyat, 150 kilometers from Kyiv. Thirty kilometers of territory turned into a dead, uninhabited piece of land, where everything suffered: people, animals, plants in the forest, fruits and vegetables in the garden, Chernobyl equipment.
Wildlife suffered losses that are clearly visible to this day. Thousands of broken human destinies, hundreds of animals abandoned to their fate, frightened wild animals. The pearl of this entire chain is, which is still being cleared of radioactive radiation. According to experts, only after about twenty thousand years will nature be able to completely free itself from the yoke of radiation and will again be able to delight its inhabitants.
But not everything that suffered in Chernobyl will be able to free itself from radioactive elements on its own. A lot of houses, equipment and various inanimate objects remained on the territory of Pripyat and the Exclusion Zone. It cannot be said that the level of pollution remains at the same level thirty years later, but still the Chernobyl technology is still terribly foul.
Cemetery of equipment in Chernobyl Rassokha
Now all the abandoned equipment in Chernobyl is located in one of the villages of the Kyiv region. This village was named Rassokha, a cemetery for Chernobyl equipment. Once it was a prosperous village, but now it has even lost its status as a populated area. This is a full-fledged dump of equipment in Chernobyl, consisting entirely of deadly garbage. In total there are more than 400 units of various machines.
When the Chernobyl accident occurred, all people were evacuated to the nearest locality– Makarovsky district, Kolonshchina. Soon, abandoned equipment from the Chernobyl region began to be transported there. These machines formed a new dead city, which thirty years later continues to amaze with its uniqueness.
Cemetery military equipment in Chernobyl was formed there after the participation of these vehicles in liquidation. Absolutely all cars, helicopters and other abandoned equipment in Chernobyl were so covered with radioactive particles that it was simply impossible to use them in the future. The government decided to bury this equipment by simply transporting it to a certain place and leaving it there forever.
Not far from this place, called the cemetery of contaminated equipment in Pripyat, there was a sanitary station that dealt with the issue of ensuring that Chernobyl equipment could be put into operation again. Scientists and liquidators have developed various methods for neutralizing the burial ground of equipment in Chernobyl.
Workers to neutralize the site where the Chernobyl equipment was located decided to bury in the ground those machines that were very heavily infected and could not be restored. This is how the Chernobyl equipment burial ground appeared. But the problem is that not all Chernobyl equipment turned into a literal cemetery of equipment in Chernobyl. A lot of cars remained standing in the same place when they were left after the Chernobyl disaster.
Chernobyl equipment at the Buryakovka PZRO
Another equipment parking lot in Chernobyl is located at a distance of 50 kilometers from Chernobyl nuclear power plant. It was named after the village of the same name - Buryakovka, and is now known as Buryakovka - a cemetery for contaminated equipment. This cemetery is not located in the village itself, but four kilometers from it. But, anyway, the settlement has lost its status, no one lives in it, and now this area is considered one of the dead villages.
The full name of the place where the abandoned military equipment is located in Chernobyl is the radioactive waste disposal site, which is denoted by the abbreviation RZRO. Such a PZRO, called Buryakovka, was equipped by the Leningrad Institute. Abandoned equipment after the Chernobyl accident is not only located throughout the cemetery. Just like in Rassokha, it is buried in the ground.
The trenches, which hide the horribly emitting equipment used to eliminate the consequences of the accident, are 25 thousand cubic meters deep. And there are more than 30 such trench graves in Buryakovka.
RZRO Buryakovka is a very important disposal site for radioactive equipment. Scientists and liquidators chose its location for a reason. Buryakovka is located very far from bodies of water, which, as is known, very quickly transport radioactive particles and can infect the entire planet.
Thus, even radioactive machines buried in the ground do not pose a great danger, since radiation does not penetrate into water. Also, the processes that occur in the geological structure of our earth do not in any way affect buried cars. Scientists have perfectly calculated all the options, weighed all the pros and cons, and as a result they chose a place where no one lives and will not live for a long time, and where all conditions are characterized by high protection and can prevent radiation leakage.
Much worse is buried equipment that is not in the ground, but on its surface. Such cars very much attract the attention of different people who are chasing easy money. Recently, rumors have begun to circulate that equipment has disappeared from Chernobyl. The question of where the equipment from Chernobyl disappeared has caused great concern among scientists around the world.
Where did the cars go?
Today, satellites record all radioactive equipment cemeteries as empty. All the cars, helicopters, excavators and armored personnel carriers simply disappeared. Many journalists, scientists and other people who are interested in the fate of Chernobyl equipment conducted an investigation and found out where the equipment from Chernobyl went.
Scientists' concerns are understandable. All the equipment was terribly dirty (in the sense of being contaminated with radioactive elements), and if it is used somewhere in everyday life, then people who interact with it are exposed to deadly radiation.
During the investigation, it turned out that before 2013, radioactive equipment or its spare parts were removed from the Exclusion Zone three times.
The first time equipment was exported was in the Soviet Union. As always, there was a shortage of everything you could think of, and, of course, spare parts that could be found at the Chernobyl radioactive equipment cemetery. Some spare parts were removed and taken out of the Exclusion Zone, and then used as if nothing had happened.
The second time an invasion of the cemetery by Chernobyl equipment was noticed was in the 1990s. It was a very powerful wave of equipment removal. At that time, they mainly exported engines and radiators that were removed from trucks. Sometimes the hoods were also taken. The strange thing is that these parts were not only used in the intended place. Very often, radioactive spare parts were spotted on the automobile market as far away as Kharkov. It was not possible to determine who exported the technical spare parts - the state, or people who entered the cemetery illegally.
The third wave of equipment export was recorded already in the twenty-first century. What was left of the equipment in radioactive cemeteries was taken in pieces and sold for scrap. There were no longer any prohibitions, the fear of becoming infected with radiation had long gone.
Infected equipment in Donbass?
In 2013, the liquidation of the radioactive equipment repository continued. We managed to clear everything and take it away, but there is one “but”.
Today, when asked where the equipment from Chernobyl went, others come up interesting facts. It turns out that not all equipment disappeared from the Exclusion Zone in the early 2000s.
During the hostilities in the Donetsk region, rumors began to circulate that soldiers were fighting with radioactive equipment. None of them knew that they were endangering their lives not only by walking under bullets, but also by using military equipment. There is no confirmed information about this fact, but many other data indicate that this may be true. Even the very fact that military equipment was in short supply during the hostilities in Donbass can already raise alarm bells.
When will it be possible to use Chernobyl machines?
An area of more than twenty hectares was occupied by abandoned equipment from Chernobyl. Many people were attracted to these abandoned cars. There were rumors that the Chernobyl cemetery of equipment in total cost is equivalent to the figure of 46 million dollars. These data were given as of the year when the accident occurred.
Those who were not afraid of becoming infected with radiation and came to see the cemetery of radioactive equipment in Chernobyl often wondered when it would be possible to buy back all the cars and sell them at an even higher price. Many serious people took the opportunity to see the equipment cemetery in Chernobyl from a satellite. Everyone really wanted to quickly take possession of such a valuable treasure as the Chernobyl equipment.
But despite the government's announcement that the Chernobyl equipment dump was a place that would remain buried forever, Chernobyl had its own plans for the abandoned equipment: due to the colossal level of radiation, use Chernobyl cars it will never be possible. They will rot and collapse tens of thousands of years before they disappear completely.
In addition to ordinary cars, other equipment was also involved in the liquidation various types, including advanced foreign ones, which we will get acquainted with later.
The first photos after the disaster. They were taken by the famous photographer of the Zone Igor Kostin. Forbidden zone, Exclusion Zone. You can't go any further. In this case, the OZK is worn like a jumpsuit; we trained in BJD classes and tried to put it on for a while. It was fun when you didn’t know what was sticking out behind you.
Cemetery of equipment and things Buryakovka. Burial of cars. Don’t be surprised by the water, sometimes worse things have happened. In the background are preparations for the burial of medical RAF 22031. I want to say that it is 22031, and not 22038, which appeared a couple of years later.
The liquidators' machine. This *troika*, like many cars in the Zone, was subjected to severe derban. Spare parts are in short supply, so why waste them? Fonit? And to hell with him! They just couldn’t understand that others would also suffer...
Remote controlled equipment. Komatsu (Japan), near power unit 4. Preparations for clearing the territory near the block.
"Roof cats" Young soldiers, still very young, twenty years old, will soon climb onto the roof in order to “bask” under the generous Chernobyl Sun, get a nuclear tan and sterilize their, ahem. The weight could reach up to 20(!) kg! Lead aprons, lead sheets, protective bandage, glasses, cap, helmet, face shield and back of the head, *egg basket* made of the same sheet lead, pea coat and tarpaulin boots with lead insoles. And in less than a minute, pick up a piece of garbage with a shovel, go to the collapse and throw it. And everyone run, run! 3,828 people passed through the roof. 3828 broken human lives. 3828 unnamed heroes. And it's official. They protected us, who are now living from nuclear pollution, but they were forgotten... A low bow to them and a huge human thank you for their feat. Superheroes in real life, not in comic books.
Almost completed Shelter object. And private transport for liquidators at the industrial site. I don’t think it’s worth saying what happened to the “kopek” later?
Ship Graveyard. With their help, materials and parts of the Sarcophagus structures were brought to the industrial site, and the liquidators themselves lived in floating hotels. And then most of these ships were drained! The infamous Bulgaria is from there. But the fate of all those watercraft is foggy and unusual. They all sank.
Rassokha. Doesn't exist now. One of the iron heroes who helped in eliminating the consequences. I want to repeat that ALL the equipment that was on the settling tank was melted down. Previously, yes, playful little hands carried away what they could. Someone supertima said that the BRDM from there was not melted down, but sold. Lin, this can't be true! No one will definitely buy such equipment now, especially if it is so dismantled. Yes, even phoning. Yes, they melted it down, legally or not, everyone cared about the same place when they did it. What kind of nonsense do people sometimes talk about, honestly.
Soviet space robot explorers STR-1. Used to clean the station roof from radioactive debris and debris. In the photo: specialists from the *Jupiter* plant (Chernobyl) prepare robots for work.
Mogilev MoAZ scrapers also took part. With their help, they dug burial grounds on Buryakovka and removed the contaminated top layer of soil. They made their invaluable contribution to the liquidation, even if they remained with those others.
Robot on the roof of power unit 3 of the station. The filling burned stupidly from the level of radiation that was there. And under the Sarcophagus there is also a fairly serious level of radiation now! They inspect, but the doses they receive are very large. If you stay there long enough, you can catch radiation, or you can lose your life. Sometimes robots fell from the roof. They used both imported and Soviet robots, but they still couldn’t stand it. They worked until the last hope died in both senses of the word. The German robot *Joker* drove only 4 blocks across the roof and got stuck. By the time he was rescued, the filling had already burned. A very difficult decision was made to release people onto the roof to clean the roof...
Digging under block 4 to create a freezer, as originally intended. The reactor managed to cool down and the entire tunnel was filled with concrete, thereby creating an additional foundation. The work of miners from all over the Soviet country was enormous and invaluable. Radiation levels there were far from within normal limits, and the working conditions were simply hellish. Without fresh air, in a cramped space, with a shovel at the ready and bent over.
To be honest, I was a little surprised by the presence of such a car as the Nysa 522 in the Zone. But the fact is a fact - this Polish car with Gorky roots is in front of you.
Yanov station. Trains. Workers who, along with others, carried the necessary materials to the destroyed station.
After the accident, there was a threat of underwater currents entering and contaminating drinking water. To prevent this, a biological wall made of cast concrete was created, which separated the pool from possible water contamination. The depth is approximately 10 meters. Cast concrete.
Cassagrande grabs were used for this operation. They made a narrow passage in the ground, which they then filled in. Maybe *drill*, maybe dig up. Almost everything is possible.
I don’t know why the city of Korosten is written on the bumper; probably the driver of this unique Kremenchug hero is from there.
Recent work on the construction of the Sarcophagus. KrAZ lays out slabs, which will then be asphalted; there is already a fence made of the same slabs. Concrete pumps are filling up the last cracks and will soon be sent for disposal.
Near the fire station in the city of Chernobyl there is a small open-air museum. It presents the very equipment that took part in the liquidation of the consequences Chernobyl accident- moreover, she took part in the most “hot spots” where people could not work - this is the roof of the turbine hall and the Third Power Unit.
Most of the devices operating at such high levels of radiation have long been buried as solid radioactive waste, but some of the equipment has been cleaned to a more or less acceptable level - when you can approach it within 5-6 meters.
So, today’s walk is through the museum of technology near the fire station in Chernobyl.
02. We approach the fire station. Near it there is such a monument to all those who took part in eliminating the consequences of the accident.
03. Dosimetrists, firefighters, military men and doctors seem to be wrapping up and covering the destroyed Fourth Block with a huge blanket. This monument was created by the workers of the Chernobyl fire department themselves.
06. And a little to the side of the monument there is an exhibition of technology. It was she who helped “wrap a blanket” over the destroyed Fourth Power Unit - in those areas where human presence was mortally dangerous. However, in the end, the roof of the Third Block was still cleaned by people - almost 4,000 people worked for 1-2 minutes in radiation from 1,000 to 10,000 Rentene per hour.
07. To clean the roofs of the station, they tried to adapt everything possible. Here's a small radio-controlled bulldozer. Most likely, he worked not on the roofs, but below, under the walls - collecting radioactive debris that had fallen from above - pieces of graphite, parts of the reactor core, etc.
07. Bucket transmission with reinforced chain. The bulldozer shoveled debris into a bucket and then tipped it back into the truck. At the point where cargo is transferred, the sides of the body are extended with additional sections.
09. This thing worked directly on cleaning the roofs of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. At the suggestion of engineer Samoilenko, who headed the headquarters for eliminating the consequences of the accident, a concrete parapet was broken on the roof of the Third Block, and such a device with a bucket, like a grader, drove along the roof and dumped radioactive debris down.
This “atomic grader” was created on the basis of the Soviet lunar rover. There were 4 of them in total, three of which were buried long ago in nuclear burial grounds. The remaining fourth is more or less clean, but it’s still not worth getting close; already at 4-5 meters the dosimeter begins to show a decent increase in radiation levels.
In this video, Samoilenko talks about cleaning roofs (fragment from the 6th minute):
10. And these are the remains of a German police robot for mine clearance. There's a fair amount of "shine" from these caterpillars. The robot also took part in cleaning roofs, but quickly burned out. When ordering a robot in Germany, Soviet specialists indicated greatly underestimated radiation levels (due to stupid “secrecy”) in which the robot was supposed to work - and so the device failed.
However, the “lunar rovers” were also on fire.
11. Another grader, assembled from something unknown.
12. In general, Chernobyl showed the absolute unpreparedness of the USSR for a nuclear war, in particular for taking nuclear strikes and eliminating the consequences of contaminated territories. All the equipment had to be literally “assembled on the knee” from construction and military equipment, poorly adapted to conditions of high background radiation.
13. BRDM-2 armored car, transporting people in the immediate vicinity of the accident site. Despite the lack of special anti-radiation protection, conventional armor does a good job of reducing background radiation levels.
14. Radio-controlled bulldozer with a grab bucket.
15. And here is the equipment for reloading. With such “paws,” radioactive waste was loaded into vehicles that took it to concrete-covered burial grounds.
17. Elimination of the consequences of the accident in one form or another continues to this day and will continue for another 70 years.
The equipment cemetery in Chernobyl is one of the largest man-made landfills remaining on the territory of the former Soviet Union which gives you a lot to think about. It is worth recognizing that she is not the only one. After the collapse of the USSR, quite a lot of military equipment remained in small republics. It became too expensive for the new authorities to maintain it, so they simply wrote it off and left it to rust on the street. But this cemetery is a completely different story. In this case, the equipment was deliberately abandoned in a dangerous area in order to protect people from which these machines were contaminated.
Chernobyl accident
The equipment cemetery in Chernobyl is one of the consequences of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which we can still observe today.
Perhaps the whole world remembers the date of the year. It was on this day that the largest man-made disaster in the world occurred. The accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant immediately claimed many lives, but its consequences in the long term turned out to be much more devastating. For many years, those who were somehow connected with this accident or its response struggled with diseases and illnesses caused by radiation. The harm to human health that this accident caused, according to scientists, will be fully reflected in the next few generations.
Elimination of the accident
More than half a million people were involved in eliminating the consequences of the accident and huge amount technology that now cannot even be counted. In the shortest possible time, more than 100 thousand residents were evacuated from an area of 30 kilometers surrounding the nuclear power plant. These places have forever become uninhabitable.
The authorities quickly decided to build a sarcophagus, which was supposed to bury the remains of radioactive substances, as well as the ruins of an exploded nuclear reactor. For this they involved large number construction equipment, which was also contaminated.
Technology in Chernobyl
Chernobyl has one of the largest in the former Soviet Union. Of course, before the accident there simply weren’t that many cars here. They began to actively bring them here from all over the USSR in order to quickly evacuate residents and eliminate the consequences of the accident. The equipment that received the largest dose of radiation was immediately disposed of in a burial ground. She was simply buried. And some engineering vehicles that directly worked at the epicenter of the accident were walled up in a sarcophagus. They literally became supports for him.
All the buses that delivered liquidation teams to the nuclear power plant were also promptly buried. They also received a huge dose of radiation and were dangerous to humans. The basis of the equipment cemetery in Chernobyl was made up of machines that took part in construction work. In this case, deactivation turned out to be either impossible or too expensive. The equipment was abandoned in a restricted area far from people.
What equipment ended up in the cemetery?
Today, a large number of photographs are available that depict the cemetery of equipment in Chernobyl. These are buses, trucks, military armored personnel carriers and even airplanes. The personal cars of local residents were also abandoned, since only the most necessary things had to be taken during the evacuation. In addition, most people believed that very soon they would be able to return home again.
The cemetery in Chernobyl clearly demonstrates that everyone who could be involved in the shortest possible time took part in the liquidation of the accident. This primarily applies to military and law enforcement agencies, for example, fire services. There were also many volunteers who came in their own vehicles. Today, dismantled cars look especially creepy at the radioactive equipment cemetery in Chernobyl. It turns out that people, risking their lives, dismantled them for parts in order to resell them, without thinking about the fact that individual parts were most likely radioactive.
ghost town
Today, the equipment cemetery in Chernobyl, a photo of which is in this article, is concentrated in the area of the ghost town - Pripyat. There are real apocalyptic landscapes everywhere that excite everyone’s consciousness. From many cars only skeletons remained. Everything else was sold for spare parts. The insides were stolen and sold by looters. These places, like everything mysterious and mysterious, today attract many tourists. Some dream of seeing mutants in the exclusion zone, others dream of taking photographs of a lifeless world. Excursions to Pripyat are carried out, but only to those places where work was carried out to deactivate the soil, as well as surrounding buildings.
Everyone who comes to Chernobyl must visit Pripyat, as well as the surrounding area of the power plant where the explosion occurred. Another important point of the program is the cemetery for abandoned equipment.
Impact of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant
How did the Chernobyl disaster affect people and the environment? It is difficult to answer this question even 30 years after the tragedy. It is obvious that many diseases have become younger today - heart attacks are increasingly occurring in very young people. It is possible that this is one of the consequences of the accident at the power plant. An even more obvious consequence is a surge in cancer diseases. After all, radiation seriously affects oncology. In addition, it had a negative impact on fauna. In the restricted area today the population of individuals has decreased significantly.
The cemetery to which this article is dedicated perhaps best illustrates the helplessness that man feels against atomic energy. Having assessed the amount of equipment that now remains in Chernobyl, one can realize what efforts were aimed at evacuating people and eliminating the consequences of the accident. All that remains around today is only emptiness and frightening destruction.
Not long ago, news appeared on the Internet that the equipment cemetery had disappeared from Chernobyl. As evidence, they even cited photographs taken from modern space satellites, and various theories were expressed. Some even claimed that contaminated equipment was being used in the conflict in southeastern Ukraine. In reality, these messages turned out to be fake. The equipment still remains on the territory of Chernobyl.
