Atomic in the Crimea. Crimean nuclear power plant. A history of major mismanagement. Crimean nuclear power plant will be completed

This abandoned facility is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the most expensive nuclear reactor in the world. Which was never built.
The construction of the Crimean nuclear power plant began in 1975, and it was supposed to provide the entire Crimea with electricity. In 1984, it was even declared an All-Union Komsomol construction site. In the midst of construction, two (!!!) echelons of building materials were mastered a day.
But in 1987, a famous fur animal settled in these places. There are two reasons - the disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and the unfavorable economic situation in the USSR. Station readiness at that time was almost 80% ...
I will give more detailed information at the end of the post, after the pictures. In the meantime, look what is happening with one of the biggest unfinished projects in the USSR today.

2. We approach the station. Administrative building and observation tower

3. Broken bricks and concrete crumbs everywhere. In the background - the first power unit and the engineering building

4. Engineering building of the station. Satellite dishes hint that there are people here

5. And here we have the first power unit. There is also a unique giant crane. Only he no longer builds a station but destroys it.
I want to stop here a little. The fact is that during construction a unique polar crane, the Danish Kroll K-10000, was already installed in the reactor building of the first power unit. With the help of this crane, further lifting, transport and construction and installation operations were to be carried out inside the reactor compartment. It was the tallest crane in Europe. In 2003, the State Property Fund sold it for ... 310 thousand hryvnia at a starting price of 440. Even if it was handed over for scrap, it would have cost more.
Before its dismantling, the high-rise crane was used for base jumping. Jumping was carried out from the lower (80 m) and upper (120 m) booms of the crane.
Today a similar crane is installed here, but of a smaller size for dismantling the station. You can estimate its size against the background of the "nine" standing.

6. And this is what this station is for today ... A powerful technique that looks like a toy against the background of a concrete monster paints its body, extracting metal reinforcement from there. We will return here later, but for now we will go to the reactor room.

7. We enter the power unit. The scale and thickness of the shutter walls is impressive

8. Power unit transport corridor

9. Entrance to the reactor zone. Metal as thick as an arm.

10. There, thick cables go inside the reactor and sounds of cutting are heard. Metal is being cut out there

11. The end faces are the reactor control panels

12. And there was the reactor itself ... We look at it from the lower corridor. The ends of the cooling pipes are visible

13. Found here bolt. Obviously not from the children's designer. I was surprised by the almost complete absence of corrosion for so many years - only an oxidized surface

14. Let's go back to the tap.

15. Cab

16. Rollers. Under each pair there is a narrow gauge railway

17. Pipes are cut like a sausage. Only not on the table, but on metal

18. One of the pipes was adapted for a change house

19. There are many techniques. She is in demand

20. But this old thing has been standing here for a long time.

21. The cylinders here are like replaceable batteries in the TV remote control

22. Destroyed external passage from the engineering building to the power unit

23. What remains after the work of the "metal workers"

24. Shock built, shock break

25. It is somewhat reminiscent of the chimneys of stoves in Belarusian villages burned down by the Nazis

28. Panorama of the site under the engineering building. Everything is cut out here

29. Panorama of the metal cutting site

Some information from Wikipedia:
By the time the construction of the station was stopped, 500 million Soviet rubles in 1984 prices had been spent on the construction of the nuclear power plant. There were approximately 250 million rubles of materials left in the warehouses. The station was slowly pulled apart into ferrous and non-ferrous scrap metal. There is evidence that in the early 90s, surveys were carried out, the purpose of which was to "fit" additional geological substantiation for the closure of the Crimean nuclear power plant. However, this was only a formal reason - by the end of the 1980s, the situation in the economy of the USSR worsened so much that almost all large construction projects, both in the energy sector and in industry, transport, and urban planning, were curtailed.
From 1995 to 1999 discos of the Republic of KaZantip festival were held in the turbine department.
In 1998-2000, the subsidiary Vostochno-Krymskaya Energeticheskaya Kompaniya, created on the basis of the nuclear power plant, sold the plant's assets for UAH 2.204 million. By February 1, 2003, only a special building, a block of workshops, a reactor compartment and an oil-diesel facility remained on the balance sheet of the East Crimean Energy Company.

In 2004, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine transferred the Crimean NPP from the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Fuel and Energy to the Council of Ministers of Crimea. Further, the Council of Ministers of Crimea was supposed to sell the property of the nuclear power plant, and the money was to go towards solving the social and economic problems of the Leninsky district of Crimea, and in particular the city of Shchelkino.
After that, the remaining parts of the Crimean NPP were to be sold: a reactor compartment, a block pumping station, a workshop building, a cooler at the Aktash reservoir, a dam of the Aktash reservoir, a supply canal with a water intake reservoir, oil-diesel facilities of the station, a diesel generator station. Further, it is known that at the beginning of 2005, the Representation of the Crimean Property Fund sold the reactor department of the Crimean NPP for UAH 1.1 million ($ 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
The NPP starred in many films, of which the most famous was F. Bondarchuk's Inhabited Island, which was filmed there in 2007
Nuclear fuel was not brought here, so the nuclear power plant does not pose a radiation hazard.

Little-known fact: the station has an almost complete twin - the abandoned unfinished nuclear power plant Stendal 100 km west of Berlin in Germany, built according to the same Soviet project from 1982 to 1990. By the time the construction was 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, and not of a reservoir. At present, the Stendal NPP (2010) is almost completely dismantled. A pulp and paper mill is now operating 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 completed.

My previous photo reports:

80%, second - 18%).

Crimean nuclear power plant

A country	USSR USSR → Russia / Ukraine
Location	Crimea, Shchelkino
Status	unfinished
Construction start year
Commissioning	planned in
Main characteristics
Electric power, MW	0 (project - 4,000)
Equipment characteristics
Main fuel	U 235
Number of power units	2 (under construction) 4 (planned)
Power units under construction	0
Reactor type	VVER-1000
Operating reactors	0
Closed reactors	4
On the map

Media files at Wikimedia Commons

Construction history

The first design surveys were carried out in 1968. Construction began in 1975. The station was supposed to provide the entire Crimean peninsula with electricity, as well as create a reserve for the subsequent development of the region's industry - metallurgy, machine-building, chemical. The design capacity of the Crimean NPP is 2 GW (2 power units of 1 GW each) with the possibility of a subsequent increase in capacity up to 4 GW - the standard design provides for the placement of 4 power units with VVER-1000/320 reactors on the plant site.

In November 1980, the construction of the nuclear power plant was announced as the Republican Komsomol shock construction site, and on January 26, 1984, the All-Union shock construction project. After the construction of the satellite town of Shchelkino, the embankment of the reservoir and auxiliary facilities, the construction of the nuclear power plant itself began in 1982. A temporary line was laid from the Kerch branch of the railway, and at the height of construction, two echelons of building materials a day arrived along it. In general, construction proceeded without significant deviations from the schedule with the planned start-up of the 1st power unit in 1989.

A unique polar crane has already been delivered to the reactor building of the first power unit and installed at the design site.

With the help of this crane, further lifting, transport and construction and installation operations were to be performed inside the reactor compartment:

during the construction of a nuclear power plant: operations for the movement and storage of equipment (parts of the reactor, steam generator casings, pressure compensator, main circulation pipelines and pumps, etc.), and then their installation at design sites.
after the start-up of the station: carry out transport-technological and repair work on the maintenance of the nuclear reactor.

According to the director of the Rosenergoatom concern, the construction of a new nuclear power plant on the peninsula is futile, and energy can be generated by wind, solar and non-nuclear thermal power plants. It is impossible to restore it from the current state of the Crimean NPP site. It also used the project of the 1960s, while now the construction of the nuclear power plant is carried out according to the projects of the 2000s. Constructing a completely new nuclear power plant may be economically more profitable than rebuilding an old one, but there are currently no architectural designs for small and medium nuclear power plants. On the other hand, a nuclear power plant, especially in the context of the constant attempts by the Ukrainian authorities to blockade Crimea economically, would reliably provide Crimea with energy autonomy.

In February 2016, it was announced that a new industrial park would be set up at the site of the NPP construction. The State Council of the Republic of Crimea on Property and Land Relations has given its consent to the local Ministry of Property to write off the unfinished Crimean nuclear power plant from the balance sheet "by demolition." At the same time, the building materials obtained as a result of the dismantling of the object are planned to be used for the construction of a transport crossing through the Kerch Strait.

The Crimean NPP was entered in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's most expensive nuclear reactor [ ]. This is due to the fact that, in contrast to the Tatar NPP and Bashkir NPP of the same type that were shut down at the same time, it had a higher degree of readiness at the time of the construction stop.
In 1986, an experimental (the first in the USSR) solar power plant SES-5 was built nearby. Near it, on the eastern shore of the Aktash reservoir, there is also an experimental wind power station Yuzhenergo and eight old non-working experimental wind turbines installed back in Soviet times. Not far from it is the East Crimean wind farm, consisting of 15 wind turbines with a capacity of 100 kW and two with a capacity of 600 kW each.
The nuclear power plant has an almost complete "twin" - the abandoned unfinished nuclear power plant Stendal 100 km west of Berlin in Germany, built according to the same Soviet project from 1982 to 1990. By the time the construction was stopped, the availability of the first power unit of the Stendal NPP was 85%. Its only significant difference from the Crimean NPP is the use of cooling towers for cooling, and not of a reservoir. By 2010, the Stendal nuclear power plant was almost completely dismantled. A pulp and paper mill was opened on the territory of the former nuclear power plant, 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 completed.
The NPP starred in many films, of which the most famous was F. Bondarchuk's "Inhabited Island" filmed there in 2007 ( photo of the station in the frame of the film (unspecified) (unavailable link)... Archived September 29, 2015.).

Information about power units

Power unit	Reactor type	Power		Start construction	Network connection	Commissioning	Closing
Power unit	Reactor type	Clean	Gross	Start construction	Network connection	Commissioning	Closing
Crimea-1	VVER-1000/320	950 MW	1000 MW	01.12.1982
Crimea-2	VVER-1000/320	950 MW	1000 MW	1983 year	Construction stopped 01/01/1989
Crimea-3	VVER-1000/320	950 MW	1000 MW	Construction did not start
Crimea-4	VVER-1000/320	950 MW	1000 MW	Construction did not start

Notes

This geographical object is located on the territory of the Crimean peninsula, most of which is the object

The Crimean nuclear power plant is the most expensive unfinished nuclear reactor in the world. For the sake of servicing the power plant on the Kerch Peninsula, a whole city was erected -. A passing infrastructure was created. Specialists from all over the Soviet Union were invited. Less than a year was not enough to start the reactor, then Crimea would be able to provide itself with electricity on its own.
Little is left of the Crimean nuclear power plant. On a huge territory, abandoned and dilapidated buildings. 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 out. The nuclear reactor, the shaft skin and the control panel of the nuclear power plant were cut into non-ferrous metal. And if precious metals and equipment were taken away in the first place, then today you can only profit from iron in concrete slabs.

A hundred meters from the reactor shop, several people in robes are monotonously dismantling another building. A tractor tears down a wall, a crane carries a concrete slab to the ground, where workers break it. They want to get to the armature hidden inside. Only the foundation and a pile of stone chips remained from the concrete workshop. The further fate of the still-preserved buildings is frightening with its predictability.

Photo by Oleg Stonko

A huge gray box of the reactor shop dominates over the territory of the facility. The workshop is two nine-storey buildings high and over 70 meters wide, built on a six-meter foundation. You can enter it through a huge round hole. A metal door half a meter thick was pulled away long ago. There is no radiation hazard, since they did not have time to deliver nuclear fuel. Free admission, no security.

The building accommodates 1,300 rooms, box-rooms for various purposes and, accordingly, sizes. The inside of the boxes is empty and dusty. Scraps of wires hang somewhere, rubbish is lying around. Light does not penetrate into the reactor shop at all. Heavy silence, belated echo of footsteps and the enclosed space of the premises thicken the atmosphere. It is disturbing to be here. Random rustles are unnerving. Nevertheless, you are in no hurry to leave the reactor. This can be summed up in one phrase: "Extremely interesting."

"Everything was done slowly in Crimea"

Vitaly Toropov, head of the reactor department:

- Scientists and specialists have been working on the project of the Crimean nuclear power plant since 1968. In 1975, a satellite city was laid - Shchelkino, named after the Soviet atomic physicist. This is a village in which nuclear scientists and their families were supposed to live. When, in June 1981, I arrived in the Leninsky District, at the site of the future station, one might say, wheat was still growing and they were just starting to dig a pit. I was sent here from the Kola NPP. Indeed, in Soviet times, as it was: after studying at the university, you start with the lowest positions, then you rise higher. Nobody would have appointed me the head of the shop right away.

According to the plan, the power plant was to start working in four years and ten months. But the leadership was recruited in advance: senior engineers and heads of four main departments. That was the rule. They had to control the receipt of documentation, 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. During the operation of the reactor, you have a few seconds to avoid receiving a lethal dose of radiation. You need to act instantly, know exactly where which valve is. Even in the complete blackout mode, you should be able to work by touch, like divers.

In 1986, the reactor was supposed to be launched, but due to the low pace of construction, they did not have time. I associate this with the specifics of Crimea. Everything was done slowly here. For example, they managed to build one kindergarten a year. And it seemed that there was money, but the party doubted and some party members were against it. And then it exploded at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and the construction died out. 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 nuclear power plant in Juragua. When I returned, the station was already closed and torn apart. Its readiness was about 90 percent. There was less than a year left for installation and commissioning. If they had time to start, the station would not have been closed. In addition, the warehouses stored equipment for two more units. Moreover, the equipment is of high quality, with imported parts. If Vladimir Tansky, director of the Crimean NPP, had taken control of the situation and held the course of events, they would not have stolen anything. It was necessary to wait until the hype about Chernobyl dies down, becomes less flashy.

We planned to build four reactor units, each of which would generate one million megawatts. One million was enough for Crimea, so the first block was built to stop the overflow of electricity from the mainland. The second block was needed to provide Feodosia and Kerch with hot water, to rid the peninsula of coal dependence and boiler houses. By means of 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. The fourth block is for sale, to the Caucasus, to earn money.

"The Crimean nuclear power plant was mistakenly compared with the Chernobyl nuclear power plant"

Anatoly Chekhuta, master in instrumentation and automation (instrumentation):

- I arrived at the station as soon as the direction was given: I wanted to get an apartment early. Later it was possible not to be in time. My specialization is the maintenance and operation of various control and measuring equipment. Prior to 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, I had a radiation level of 25 roentgens. Five years later, it dropped to 15. Now, probably, there is nothing. Although for a long time the level of 5 roentgens was stable.

One of the problems of the closure of the Crimean nuclear power plant is the general secrecy. There was a lack of 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 any assumptions could be made. Even the most ridiculous. As an example, in the event of an accident at a nuclear power plant with a constant southeast wind, radioactive fallout could fall on Foros. Where Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev rested in the summer. As a result, a scary story was inflated from this.

The Crimean nuclear power plant was mistakenly compared to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. After all, these are two different types of reactors. RBMK-1000 was used in Chernobyl, and VVER-1000 in Crimea. I will not go into subtleties. But it is as if water is heated over a fire in a saucepan without a lid or a closed thermal dish. The difference is huge.

Photo by Oleg Stonko

The reactor did not produce plutonium, but gave off steam. The steam turned the turbines, which produced electricity. If in Chernobyl the RBMK was buried in the ground for nine floors, then the Crimean VVER was neatly 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, air was sucked out of the room. In an explosion in a vacuum, the pressure was zero. So there could be no catastrophe. By the way, the building of the reactor shop could withstand a direct collision with a jet plane.

The same pressurized water nuclear reactors are used on submarines. The type is the same, only smaller in size. In 1988, there were 350 nuclear submarines in the Soviet Union. And so far not a single accident has happened. From the point of view of physics and construction, it is a very reliable apparatus.

Another argument of the opponents of construction was the lack of research into the location of the nuclear power plant. Specifically - seismic. The reactor was supposedly built on the site of a tectonic fault, and an accident could occur with small tremors. But later, in 1989, when independent Italian seismologists arrived, they concluded that at least ten reactors could be built, there is no fault. This means that the Soviet specialists were right, and the place 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 Heating and Heating Complex:

- TsTPK is a workshop for heat and underground communications. Under my leadership there was a start-up standby boiler room or PRK. To explain it more simply, the start-up and standby boiler house is four boilers that produced 50 tons of steam per hour. Due to this, hot water and heat were supplied to Shchelkino. Now such words have been forgotten in the city - "hot water", but before the tap was 75 degrees.

The main purpose of the PRK is the start-up and adjustment of turbines, heating the reactor. No nuclear power plant is built without it. But having completed their task, the boiler room is dismantled, and on its basis, for example, a gym is created.

Photo by Oleg Stonko

The basic project of the Crimean "Atomka" was special. This was not available anywhere else at that time. The turbines had to be cooled by sea water. We planned to take water from the Aktash reservoir and use it as a cooling pond. Aktash was supplied with water from the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov. That is, the stock was unlimited. As a result, the nuclear power plant produced clean energy.

After the closure of the nuclear power plant, Shchelkino gradually dies out. I think there is no need to explain what happens to the 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 had two higher educations. Aerobatics specialists from all over the Soviet Union. And instead of the industrial heart of the peninsula, Shelkino becomes a resort village. What you see now is a tenth of what the city could become. There are not even streets here, the houses are simply numbered. Of the sights - the market, the city council and housing and communal services.

Some nuclear scientists leave, others stay. Those who had somewhere to return left have left. All over the Union, the construction of nuclear power plants is being frozen. There was no work. Here at least the apartment remained. Of course, no one worked in their specialty. I am now the director of the boarding house.

"Crimea needs a nuclear power plant"

Sergey Varavin, senior turbine control engineer, director of the KP Management Company Shchelkinsky Industrial Park:

- It is difficult to say who was right and who was to blame for the fact that the Crimean NPP was being plundered. 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 out. In addition, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, something was perceived as gratuitous, so they dragged what they could. There was no high-profile case on this matter, so there is no need to talk about embezzlement. Now you can't figure it out.

Photo by Oleg Stonko

The land was redistributed among the construction participants. Someone refused the plots, someone 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 belonging to the City Council. The project began to be created in 2007. But due to lack of funding, it was never realized.

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, equip the territory, create infrastructure, and so on. So that you just have to start 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 be sick with cancer"

Valery Mitrokhin, poet, prose writer, essayist, member of the Writers' Union of Russia:

- Immediately after becoming a member of the Writers' Union, I am sent to the construction of the Crimean nuclear power plant. There I am writing a book of essays "The Solstice Builders". Three chapters are controversial. They are devoted to the 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 then exchange rate, one dollar was equal to 80 kopecks, that is, it looked from the bottom up. A lot of money. Therefore, the nuclear power plant is rightfully considered the most expensive unfinished construction in the world.

The book about the builders of the sun was published in 1984. I refused to throw out the chapters, for this they stopped publishing me for ten years, and were not allowed on the regional television and radio air.

There were problems, contractors and nuclear specialists knew about them. All were silent. When I started digging deeper, communicating with specialists, I came across such a volume of information that it was impossible not to write about it. This threatened disaster. If they had built a station even in all respects, a second Chernobyl would have happened.

The first is that the hired workers were cheating. Some norms were not followed, mistakes were made. For example, they confused the brand of cement. If you look at buildings today, they are crumbling, concrete is crumbling. And not much time has passed. I saw with my own eyes how they built a "glass" under 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 the Crimean seismicity. We are shaken every year. Tremors are small, but they are there. And there is a tectonic fault. It runs from Feodosiya Bay to Kazantip Bay. The two plates are constantly in contact with each other. While the construction of the power plant was going on, not far from the coast, an island appeared and disappeared in the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov. A striking confirmation of my argument. It is unclear why seismologists concealed such facts.

The third is the cooling of the turbines using a reservoir. I will explain on my fingers. Water enters the station, cools the turbines, returns to Aktash and again to the station. It constantly circulates and gets dirty. To avoid this, they make an exit to the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov. Now the water is constantly being renewed. But at what cost? In ten years Azov turns into an atomic swamp. The Azov Sea is connected with the Black Sea. This means that a little later he will suffer the same fate. The next step is the Mediterranean Sea. Not to mention evaporation and precipitation. By this time, all Crimeans would be sick with cancer.

Having learned about everything, I become one of the founders of the environmental movement. I accept 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 wrong. I'm sure of that.

In 1990, the film Who Needs an Atom was released. We are talking about the use of nuclear energy in power engineering. It is noteworthy that one of the fragments of the picture is devoted to the problems of the Crimean NPP. In the passage, two opposing points of view are voiced.

[: RU] I will start my story about Crimea with an unfinished nuclear power plant, which is located near the city of Kerch. It was this nuclear power plant that could play an important role in the life of the entire Crimean peninsula and become a cheap source of energy for future industries that were planned to be located on the peninsula. Alas, now the NPP has become just a good source of metal, and, most likely, already for foreign manufacturers.

By chance, I met a man who was actively involved in the construction of the station. I forgot to ask his name, his story was so interesting, but I managed to take a photograph of him.

Crimean nuclear power plant

“As after the war, but there was such beauty,” the elderly man said this phrase several times during our conversation. They planned to turn Crimea into a paradise for tourists, and provide local residents with jobs in new industries. It was planned to launch trolleybuses from the city of Kerch all the way to Sevastopol (now such buses run between Yalta and the nearest villages). To carry out all these plans, sufficient electricity was needed. In 1975, they began to build a nuclear power plant, having previously prepared the city of the Shchelkino satellite.

Crimean nuclear power plant

By the way, the construction was completed, they even managed to start the reactor, and a polar crane was installed in the building for the installation of heavy equipment. The launch of the station was scheduled for 1989, but ... The 1986 disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant left its mark. Only this imprint has left not so much on the nuclear power industry, but on the already undermined economic situation in the country. Here I must say a huge "thank you" to Mikhail Sergeevich, who received the Nobel Prize for the collapse of the country and now lives happily behind the cordon.

Crimean nuclear power plant

Further, the history of the most expensive nuclear power plant in the world went downhill. From 1995 to 1999, the Republic of KaZantip festival was held on the territory of the nuclear power plant. Then the Vostochno-Crimean Energy Company began to sell the equipment for the power plant. It is not clear only why the company was called "Energy Company".

Called honestly - "Company for the sale of metal left by the Soviet Union." The remains of the nuclear power plant were handed over to the Council of Ministers of Crimea and should be sold out in order to invest in the city of Shchelkino. But the signs with the words "private property" make you wonder whether a private owner needs to invest in the city of Shchelkino?

Also, during the construction, a unique tower crane was used, one of the largest in the world, with a lifting capacity of 240 tons. It stood until the mid-2000s, after which it was sold for scrap. This is the tallest crane in the photo. By the way, please note that the engine block attached to the reactor block is built in structures, but at present it is completely destroyed.

And this is already a real steam generator: They did not have time to install them at the Crimean NPP, as well as the reactor. They were brought in and laid on the grass.

So they lay there until 2005, when two people came with an autogenous generator and turned the reactor into scrap metal in a few days.

In 2005, the reactor was sawn off with an autogenous machine, then taken out to ferrous metal. All equipment was also removed from the control rooms and handed over to ferrous metal. It seems that in a couple of years nothing will remain of the station.

The station has an almost complete twin - the abandoned unfinished nuclear power plant Stendal 100 km west of Berlin in Germany, built according to the same Soviet project from 1982 to 1990. By the time the construction was 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, and not of a reservoir.
The place where the reactor was to be installed.

Currently, this type of reactor is the most widespread in its series - 31 operating reactors (out of 54 VVER reactors), which is 7.1% of the total number of power reactors of all types operating in the world.
The entrance to the pressurized zone - the pressurized door has long been gone.

If someone is going to go there, be sure to take a flashlight and look under your feet, there are a lot of technical through holes in the floor.

Technical holes for cables and communications. Previously, there was equipment here.

A crane is used for dismantling, and earlier, for construction, another crane was installed - a polar one. It was one of the tallest cranes in the world with a lifting capacity of 240 tons, in height it was almost 2 times higher than the crane in the photo. The crane was disassembled and sold for use.

In early 2005, the Crimean Property Fund Representative Office sold the reactor department of the Crimean NPP for UAH 1.1 million ($ 207,000) to a legal entity whose name was not disclosed. Now the station is continuously working on dismantling and removal of parts of the block to ferrous metal.

The Crimean NPP was listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's most expensive nuclear reactor.

From 1995 to 1999 discos of the Republic of KaZantip festival were held in the turbine department. The advertisement read: "Atomic Party in a Reactor."

It was planned to use the Aktash reservoir as a cooling pond, on the bank of which the station was built.

The plant was supposed to have 2 VVER-1000 reactors with a rated power of 1000 MW each.

Railway lock designed primarily to replace nuclear fuel at nuclear power plants.

We look up from the airlock. A large crane is visible, which once knew how to move in a circle and lift everything up to the reactor itself.

A place for a reactor, which was never brought here.

Some kind of mobile transformer, apparently.

Reactor pit.

Top view. Visible faucet and stainless steel walls

One of several boilers of unknown purpose, most likely part of the reactor cooling system.

Again, stainless steel

Splash pools.

Crimean nuclear power plant

The Crimean NPP is the most expensive unfinished nuclear reactor in the world. For the sake of servicing the power plant on the Kerch Peninsula, an entire city was erected - Shchelkino. A passing infrastructure was created. Specialists from all over the Soviet Union were invited. Less than a year was not enough to start the reactor, then Crimea would be able to provide itself with electricity on its own.
Little is left of the Crimean nuclear power plant. On a huge territory, abandoned and dilapidated buildings. 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 out. The nuclear reactor, the shaft skin and the control panel of the nuclear power plant were cut into non-ferrous metal. And if precious metals and equipment were taken away in the first place, then today you can only profit from iron in concrete slabs.

Photo by Oleg Stonko