Chagan: exclusion zone. X-Files: What is hidden in the ghost town of Chagan (photo) Time for grandiose achievements

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Chagan (Semipalatinsk-4) is a former urban-type settlement in the Semipalatinsk region of Kazakhstan, 74 km. from the city of Semipalatinsk on the banks of the Irtysh River. Was subordinate to the Semipalatinsk City Council. Railway station 80 km to the north-west. from Semipalatinsk. Founded in 1950, abandoned after the withdrawal of Russian troops in 1995.

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union tested nuclear weapons at test sites in northeastern Kazakhstan to explore the possibility of using nuclear energy for peaceful construction purposes, such as creating canals and reservoirs, drilling oil wells, and the like. The tests were carried out under the banner of “the use of nuclear explosions in the national economy.” It was the Soviet equivalent of the American Plowshare program.

One of the most famous experiments was carried out in January 1965 in the vicinity of the village of Chagan, near the Semipalatinsk test site in Kazakhstan. It was developed to test the suitability of nuclear explosions for creating reservoirs. This was the first and largest of all the explosions carried out under the national economy program. The device with a capacity of 140 kilotons was placed at a depth of 178 meters in the drying bed of the Chagan River. The explosion created a crater with a diameter of 400 meters and a depth of 100 meters, with a caldera height of 20 to 38 meters. Later it was connected to the river by a canal to fill it with water.

The level of gamma radiation at the edges of the crater by the end of the first day was 30 roentgens per hour, after 10 days it dropped to 1 roentgen/hour, and currently is 2-3 mroentgen/hour (the natural radioactive background of this area is 15-30 microroentgen/hour hour). In the spring of 1965, the river bed was connected to the funnel by a canal, and later a stone-earth dam with culvert structures was built in the left bank part. In total, a reservoir with a total capacity of 17 million cubic meters of water was formed.

In 1995, all military units were withdrawn and the town was handed over to the Republic of Kazakhstan, after which the town was plundered. The bust of V.I. Lenin near the GDO remained in its place for many years, until 2004.

The story about ghost town Chagan and I’m putting our overnight stay there in a separate article, due to the abundance of illustrations and for greater atmosphere.
Having acquired potatoes and onions in the village of the same name, we left civilization behind and headed to the multi-story Chagan along a neglected but almost perfect concrete road.

We passed a stele with a picture of an airplane and the inscription:

A part of our hearts will remain here forever.
Chagan people of different times and countries. 1954-1994.
www.chagan.ru

After all, people, many years after the collapse of everything, got together and put this sign here with their own money. Apparently, indeed, somewhere out there, among the crumbling five-story buildings, overgrown courtyards and mountains of construction waste, a part of someone’s hearts remained.

I recommend to everyone who is interested and does not shy away from reading long texts to visit the site indicated on the stele and get acquainted with the real memories of the Chagan people.

The city on the horizon, indeed, turned out to be a ghost that had nothing in common with what we saw in the place...

The city itself is completely destroyed. Essentially, the same Pripyat, only without radiation. I have never seen devastation on such a scale before.

Dissonant with the general devastation are the smooth concrete streets, almost free of grass and not covered with garbage. This is explained simply: the Kazakhs systematically dismantle everything that can be disassembled for building materials. From several five-story buildings, only pits with parapets of brick and concrete crumble remained. Well, in order to remove the broken goods and deliver people and tools, the roads had to be cleared.

We wandered around the dead city, discussing what could have been in this building before and how life was once in full swing here. We went to the Irtysh and turned back.

Ruin

The sun was noticeably setting, and the question of finding a parking place became urgent.

And here the problem arose. Around the city there is an empty steppe, where our camp, no matter where we put it, will be in full view. There are good places near the Irtysh, but judging by the well-worn roads, there are no guarantees that by nightfall the local bastard won’t come here to devour the yagi.

It was getting dark in the dead city...

In thought, we drove around the town again and somehow gradually came to the idea that the safest place to spend the night would be some kind of apartment. And indeed: it is protected from wind and rain, and from prying eyes too. If only someone would look at the windows of houses with passion... But darkness is approaching, which will completely cover us.

So we moved into an empty room on the first floor of one of the five-story buildings. The room was surprisingly clean: no construction debris or excrement, despite the fact that the rest of the ground floor was littered with rubble and rubbish.

Here is the view from the window, for example, not bad

Well, it's a good place. There is a more hidden room with a tree in front of the window, but it needs some major cleaning first, so we took the easier route.

The dinner was royal: boiled potatoes, sprats and green onions. After the already familiar stew with porridge, this was delicious.

The night passed without surprises, although dogs barking and snatches of voices were heard from somewhere in the distance.

Then the wind rose, periodically blowing into our home and, with an alarming rustle, driving clouds of dust along the empty corridors.

How we moved into an apartment in a ghost town (video)

This video is on Youtube

How everything was in Chagan before: videos from people who lived there

I found this video on YouTube completely by accident. For some reason it touched me to the depths of my soul, almost to tears. Briefly, the essence: the men who once served there came to look at their native ashes and reflected all this in an hour and a half film.

If the question is interesting to you, you can watch it first, but I’m presenting a video from the moment 24:37 , where a slideshow of views of the city of Chagan in those distant times was mounted.

There is an amazing lake in Kazakhstan, in which the bottom is like melted glass. The water there is almost black. The carp that live in it grow up to a meter, and other fish are wonderful and terrifying. This is Atom-kol, Lake Chagan in the Semipalatinsk region. Knowledgeable people try to avoid it. Those who come here by chance are surprised by the ominous beauty of this place.

Man-made miracle

Lake Chagan in Kazakhstan is the work of Soviet nuclear scientists. They proposed to purposefully create artificial reservoirs for storing water in arid regions. As planned by scientists, at least forty similar lakes should have appeared in Central Asia. In this way, it was planned to solve the problem of summer drought and optimize agriculture in the Kazakh steppes. This is how Chagan appeared, with a capacity of 20 million cubic meters. m of water.

Time for great achievements

In the Soviet Union, scientists developed grandiose projects to use atomic energy for peaceful purposes. The best minds struggled to create ships, planes and even cars whose engines would work as a result of nuclear reactions. Realizing the incredible power of atomic energy, they proposed using this colossal energy to build canals, tunnels and reservoirs to collect gigantic volumes of water.

The enthusiasm of physicists knew no bounds. The program was called “Peaceful Atom”. In the pursuit of scientific achievements, no thought was given to the consequences for the environment and the health of the nation. Shock construction projects and the raising of virgin soil engulfed the entire union. Swamps were drained, rivers were turned back, and new lakes were formed by the will of man in the places he planned. It was a time when man did not expect favors from nature. Now he is paying for his arrogance.

First explosion

In the USSR, the first industrial explosion was carried out on January 15, 1965 in the Semipalatinsk region. At that time there was a test site where nuclear weapons were tested. For the experiment, a place in the Kazakh steppes was chosen remote from large cities.

According to the scientists' idea, the explosion should have formed a giant crater, the edges and bottom of which would have melted from the high temperature. Water from such a reservoir will not seep into the ground, and local residents will be able to use it to water livestock and irrigate surrounding fields.

A targeted explosion was carried out in the area of ​​the small river Chagan, which dries up in the summer. The project was led by nuclear scientist Ivan Turchin.

Powerful explosion

An explosive device was planted in well No. 1004 at the Balapan site in the floodplain of the small Chaganka river to a depth of 178 meters. The operation was scheduled for January 15, 1965. At 5 hours 59 minutes 59 seconds GMT, the morning silence was broken by a deafening explosion. Within 2.5 seconds, the formation of a cloud of hot gases was recorded. After just 5 minutes, it reached a height of 4800 m. 10.3 million tons of soil were thrown into the air, to a height of 950 m. Multi-ton rocks were scattered over a radius of several tens of kilometers. The river bed was blocked.

A giant crater with melted edges was left at the explosion site. Its diameter is 430 m, its depth exceeded 100 m. In his diaries, Turchin wrote that he had never seen a more beautiful sight.

Super Power Bomb

Lake

Already in the spring, equipment arrived at the scene of the explosion to connect the river with a new reservoir. Scientists realized that flood waters could carry radioactive dust from the entire region into the Irtysh and thus contaminate the entire Siberian region. According to scientists, all the water should be collected in Lake Chagan. For this purpose, a dam was built, which did not allow the river water to reach the Irtysh.

In the spring, the funnel was filled with melt water, but the artificial reservoir did not turn out to be a watering hole - the radiation level exceeded the norm by thousands of times.

Lake Chagan in Kazakhstan still exists today. The Chaganka River made a new channel for itself, bypassing the death trap. Residents of the surrounding villages avoid the terrible place, but shepherds still drive their cattle to water. After all, there is nowhere else.

Infestation area

As a result of the explosion, after which the Chagan nuclear lake was formed, a territory in which there were 11 settlements with a population of about 2,000 people was contaminated with radioactive substances.

The radiation one day after the test exceeded 30 r/h, and after 10 days it reached 1 r/h. Current measurements show 2000-3000 µR/h, while in the rest of the territory the radiation level is 15-30 µR/h.

182 people who came from different parts of the Union worked on the construction of the canal. Despite the measures taken (the excavator cabins were lined with lead), the radiation caused enormous damage to the health of young healthy men. They all received huge doses of radiation. Each of them ended their work shift as a deeply disabled person. Within a few years, the vast majority of them died from radiation sickness and other ailments.

When, many years later, the liquidators showed a copy of the geoscheme on which the explosion data was marked to geoecology specialist E. Yakovlev, he noted that it was worse than Chernobyl.

Population of the lake

When in 1966 the military and liquidators left the test site where an underground nuclear explosion occurred, Lake Chagan became a place of research for biologists. Since the effect of radiation on living organisms was still poorly understood, biologists conducted experiments populating the nuclear lake with various species of flora and fauna. Often atypical for a given region. At the Atom-Kol biological station, experiments were carried out on the effects of radiation on living organisms. 36 species of fish were released into Lake Chagan, including even piranhas from the Amazon, 27 species of mollusks, 42 species of invertebrates, 32 species of amphibians, 8 mammals, 11 reptiles. In addition, experiments were carried out with 150 types of vegetation, most of which were algae.

90% of the introduced living creatures died due to high levels of radiation and unusual living conditions. The rest were subject to mutations up to a change in the appearance of the offspring and a radical transformation of behavior. Thus, carp, which under normal conditions are herbivorous fish, brought into the nuclear lake Chagan (Kazakhstan), became active predators. Here they grow to almost a meter. But eating them is strictly not recommended.

A common crayfish is about the same size as an oceanic yellow lobster. In the natural environment, different species of living creatures were crossed, producing common offspring. Some animal species have mutated so that their descendants are neither like their ancestors nor like each other.

Scientists noted that even herbivorous fish became predators under radiation conditions. In 1974, the research station was closed.

Lake Chagan is an echo of Soviet nuclear tests. After its formation, the leadership refused to repeat such experiments. Although it was initially planned to create a whole network of similar reservoirs. But this experiment is not the only one in the world. In the USA, in Nevada, there is the Sedan crater, which was also formed as a result of an explosion.

But Soviet scientists managed to increase the useful power of the explosion and minimize the harmful impact on the environment. Although even with such “achievements,” colossal damage was caused to the region.

Chagan today

Now the territory of the Semipalatinsk test site, including Lake Chagan, is included in the list of areas particularly affected by nuclear tests. water is 300 picocuries/l (with the permissible value being 15 picocuries/l). This water is not suitable for drinking or irrigating fields. But herders bring their cattle to water. The level of cancer and genetic disorders in the region is much higher than in neighboring ones.

Fish caught in Lake Chagan is not recommended for consumption. But clever businessmen offer giant carp in the markets of Semipalatinsk to buyers who happen to be passing through and do not know about the wonderful lake.

The scientists' calculations did not come true. This is a lake with dead water; even after half a century it is unsuitable for human life. Tourists are brought here to talk about the achievements of nuclear technology in the USSR.

For many years there has not been a soul here - Chagan is called “dead”, “ghost town”. Like all secret objects not indicated on the maps of the former Union, it did not officially exist then, and now it actually no longer exists. Why did the entire population leave the city as soon as it changed its status, but no one took root in the abandoned houses? What is happening in the empty city now? Correspondents as part of the expedition visited what was once one of the most secret places on the map of the USSR.

Chagan, a military town born by order, served the air base of the USSR strategic aviation. It was no coincidence that it was located in close proximity to the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site.

The uniqueness of the city also lies in the fact that it was built with the stroke of a pen in a very short period of time. When the closed status was lifted, the city emptied just as quickly. Seconded pilots, scientists and military personnel with their families hastily left it.

The goal of studying the unique object was set at the Pavlodar House of Geography - the expedition was undertaken by the active members of this scientific society. Our correspondent, among the expedition participants, saw the dead city with his own eyes.

Classified as "secret"

Soviet closed cities (ZATO - closed administrative-territorial entity) received their status in connection with the location there of objects of national importance related to the energy, military or space spheres.

They were based on research institutes, design bureaus, pilot plants, test sites and defense facilities. There worked highly qualified personnel of scientists, engineers, military personnel and workers, capable of carrying out the most complex programs.

On the territory of Kazakhstan, a dozen and a half settlements were also classified as ZATOs; half of them, including Chagan, had their special status removed.

The threat of liability, even criminal, for violation of the non-disclosure agreement, special access regime and, most importantly, the proximity of dangerous objects for residents of closed cities was compensated by a high level of supplies and amenities.

Thus, Chagan, or Semipalatinsk-4, has been a prosperous city with a population of almost 11 thousand people since the mid-50s. There was everything necessary for life - schools, kindergartens, shops, a library, a community center, a bathhouse, even food production.

The city of Chagan, as it became known, was created to service the facilities of the former Semipalatinsk nuclear test site. They began to build it in 1954, and officially it was introduced as a settlement in 1961. It was liquidated in 1994.

Mostly the personnel of the airfield of the same name located ten kilometers southwest of the airfield lived here. Long-range strategic aviation aircraft were based there.

Chagan Air Base is the second most important and unique air base in the USSR, which could receive and send into the sky huge combat aircraft, including cargo bombers. The 79th Bomber Division was located here; it had about a hundred TU-95 missile carriers.

The Chagan military airfield has, even by today’s standards, an unprecedented runway with a length of 4 km, a concrete coating 1 meter thick and capable of withstanding space loads. That is why the runway has been preserved almost in its original form to this day.

In materials from scanty archives, Chagan is often called “the Soviet Union’s response to the challenges of the Cold War,” the creation of which was due to its location in a zone inaccessible to enemy military equipment and weapons.

There is also no exact information about the facts and number of nuclear tests conducted in this region. Many residents of Ust-Kamenogorsk, Kurchatov, Chagan, and Semipalatinsk knew that atomic bomb tests took place in the Semipalatinsk area back in the mid-50s.

Some researchers say that it was Chagan who became a kind of impetus for the creation of the Nevada-Semipalatinsk movement. In the late 80s, during underground tests, the Chagan people were also covered by a gas wave.

The background radiation in the city jumped sharply, concerned officers again sounded the alarm, because not only they were at risk, but also their families - wives and children.

According to some reports, many of them, under threat of layoffs and other measures, refused to work here; cases of women’s strikes in the city and sudden deaths of residents from unknown diseases were not uncommon.

Kazakh Pripyat

In the mid-nineties, all military units were withdrawn to Russia, and the town was transferred to the Republic of Kazakhstan. After this, the civilian population quickly left Chagan. That is why the city evokes analogies with the consequences of the disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

As an example of the creation and liquidation of an entire settlement in a short period of time, the study of modern Chagan seems interesting for the Pavlodar House of Geography. The objectives of the expedition were a comprehensive survey of the territory of the former city, study of natural features and radioactive conditions in the surrounding area, and analysis of changes due to natural and anthropogenic influences.

If we compare the speed of how nature and man destroy Chagan, then nature is clearly losing, the researchers concluded.

The expedition participants encountered the city with dilapidated buildings, wastelands and dead silence. It's no secret that during the period of devastation the entire city was stolen for building materials.

The scale is amazing - heavy equipment was clearly used for this: there is a complete absence of engineering and communication infrastructure, heating pipes, water supply and sewerage, no windows, telephone cables and power lines. Staircases on all floors have been completely removed. The walls of residential buildings barely survived, and only because they were not made of brick.

The fact that people once lived here is reminiscent of the remains of wallpaper and drawings of cartoon characters on the walls, household garbage - a tin can, someone forgotten military uniform, shoes, a doll, scraps of newspapers from the 60s-80s...

The bomb shelters are quite well preserved. There were quite a few of them on the territory of the city and the airbase. Along the perimeter of the airfield, parts of aircraft skins, elements of military uniforms, and equipment were often found.

In the hangars and other buildings of the airfield, some documentation survived - flight schedules, plates with the names of the crews...

The expedition participants considered the instructions for the dose rate meter - the X-ray meter and the magazine "Health" - to be interesting findings.

From the city, researchers took some parts of aircraft plumage, elements of military uniforms, and household items of the airfield premises for study. After a thorough analysis, a decision will be made on whether they will become exhibits of the Pavlodar House of Geography.

Survivors

“Almost all the tasks of the expedition have been solved,” comments PavGeo head Alexander Vervekin, “except for studying the radioactive situation, since the organizers were unable to obtain equipment to study the radioactive background. But we do not have our own equipment designed for these purposes.”

This is probably not the last expedition of the Pavlodar House of Geography to Chagan.

Each participant was deeply impressed by the city. According to some, it was eerie to realize that an entire city, in which life was in full swing, had turned into ruins.

Tests of powerful bombs were carried out very close by, but people continue to live here, farm, and graze livestock. The work of the construction material miners is impressive - everything and everywhere was destroyed, as if after a bombing.

“The discovery for us was that Chagan cannot be called a completely “dead” city,” says Alexander Vervekin. “A dozen and a half families have not left it to this day; they live nearby in private houses; they belong to the village of the same name. We alerted local authorities about the planned expedition. They not only did not interfere with her, but also met her and told her about the situation.

The population of the village of Chagan is more than 600 people. Residents, according to the head of the village, are invited to participate in republican state programs to develop entrepreneurship in rural areas and increase jobs.

The village is conveniently located in the ring of roads and railways, relatively close to the city of Semey, therefore it serves the local railway station, and livestock farming is also developing here. But at the same time, the environmental situation due to the proximity of the former nuclear test site is assessed as unsatisfactory.”

Local authorities cannot restore the destroyed houses - the land is under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Defense, as is the airfield, which has long been partially leased to a certain entrepreneur.

Once upon a time, negotiations were held with Russia about the possibility of leasing a unique runway. Currently, the state's plans for this facility are unknown.

“It was amazing that a giant military airfield is now being used for cattle herding,” continues the expedition member. - The unique huge runway probably survived only because it is almost impossible to dismantle. During the expedition we met a local resident. According to him, there was once a security company in the city, but it did not have weapons, so it could not protect the already deserted Chagan, the city was plundered.”

Residents of the military town of Chagan are scattered throughout the former Soviet Union, but despite this, many of them often visit the city, and a few years ago a monument was erected here. He meets guests at the fork in the road between the city and the airfield.

The inscription of the monument indicates the years of life of the city of Chagan - 1954-1994.

Photos provided by expedition members

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Chagan- I Chagan river in the Orenburg region of the RSFSR and the Ural region of the Kazakh SSR, the right tributary of the Urals. Length 264 km, basin area 7530 km2. It originates on the hill of General Syrt. The food is mainly snow. Average water flow of 40 km... ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia