Is it realistic to complete the construction of the Crimean nuclear power plant? The unfinished Crimean nuclear power plant is an unusual place to walk. Modern power plants in Crimea

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. Building 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-sized nuclear power plants. On the other hand, the 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 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 sent to 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, unlike the Tatar NPP and Bashkir NPP of the same type, which 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 the Soviet era. 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 film frame (unspecified) (unavailable link)... Archived September 29, 2015.).

Information about power units

Power unit Reactor type Power Start
construction		 Network connection Commissioning Closing
Clean Gross
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

see also

Notes

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

\u003e Abandoned Nuclear Power Plant in Crimea

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-bearing 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. The station availability 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 happens to 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 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 "metalworkers"

24. Shock built, shock break

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

26.

27.

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. In the warehouses, there were approximately 250 million rubles of materials left. 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 NPP. 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 “East Crimean Energy Company”, created on the basis of the nuclear power plant, sold the plant's property for UAH 2.204 million. By February 1, 2003, only a special building, a block of workshops, a reactor department and oil-diesel facilities 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: the reactor compartment, the block pumping station, the building of workshops, the cooler at the Aktash reservoir, the dam of the Aktash reservoir, the supply canal with a water intake reservoir, the oil-diesel facilities of the station, the 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.

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.

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 Kirill Shchelkin. 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 spike and they were just beginning 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 were supposed 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 had already been 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 water from the Dnieper. 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 of 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 was listed as a chemical plant in official documents. 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 at his dacha. 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’s like heating water over a fire in a saucepan without a lid or a closed thermo-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 the construction was the lack of research into the location of the NPP. 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 with 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. The tremors are small, but they are there. And there is a tectonic fault. It runs from Feodosiya Gulf to Kazantip Gulf. 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.

Crimean nuclear power plant - the great unfinished

The construction of the Crimean NPP was frozen with a high degree of readiness of the facility ... What is it? A prudent and wise move, the ability to sacrifice much for the salvation of even more in the future? Or is it a manifestation of blatant mismanagement and, simply, a crime against the state, against Crimea and Crimeans?

The question is all the more urgent now that the Zaporizhzhya NPP, which supplies the peninsula with electricity, is located on the other side of the state border and when the energy independence of the new federal district within the Russian Federation is one of the most difficult tasks to achieve.

In February 1969, the Minister of Energy and Electrification of the USSR, PS Neporozhniy, instructed the Teploelektroproekt Institute to analyze possible options for locating a nuclear power plant in the Crimea and submit a feasibility study for the best of these options to the Scientific and Technical Council of the Ministry of Energy. As a result of the survey work, it was proposed to build a nuclear power plant on the northern coast of the Kerch Peninsula near Cape Kazantip and the salty Aktash lake, which was planned to be used as a cooling pond for condensers of steam turbine units. This proposal was accepted and approved by the resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine and the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR dated July 26, 1977.

The technical design of the Crimean NPP was developed by the Kharkov branch of the Teploelektroproekt Institute of the Glavniiproekt Ministry of Energy and Electrification of the USSR. In September 1978, the project was ready. Then, for two years, its revision continued and, finally, in November 1980, the project of the Crimean NPP was approved by the USSR Ministry of Energy and Electrification.

In accordance with the project, the station was supposed to consist of two power units with an electrical capacity of 1000 MW each. This was enough to provide electricity to the entire Crimean peninsula, as well as to create a foundation for the subsequent development of the region's industry - metallurgy, machine-building, chemical. In the future, it was envisaged to place two more power units of 1000 MW each on the NPP territory and bring the total capacity of the station to 4000 MW.

The main equipment of each NPP power unit according to the project included: a pressurized water-cooled power reactor VVER-1000, four main circulation pumps GTsN-195, four horizontal steam generators PG-1000, a steam turbine K-1000-60 / 3000, an electric generator TVV-1000- 4 with a voltage of 24 kV and a power of 1000 MW.

Simultaneously with the planning of work on the creation of the nuclear power plant, the time frame for the creation of the corresponding infrastructure was approved. In October 1978, on the southern outskirts of the fishing village of Mysovoye, which stretches from the coastal steppe to the ridge at Cape Kazantip, a workers' settlement for the Crimean NPP builders was laid, designed for 20 thousand inhabitants.

It all started with the first high-rise building and a hostel, then they laid the access road to the village of Lenino - the construction base of the nuclear power plant, built a post office. In subsequent years, the number of apartment buildings constantly increased, the following were erected: a school for one and a half thousand students, a kindergarten, the Samarlinskoye reservoir was created to provide drinking and industrial water.

The village grew rapidly and soon began to resemble a small town. In the spring of 1982, by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of Ukraine, it was named Shchelkino, in honor of Kirill Ivanovich Shchelkin, a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences since 1953 in the department of physical and mathematical sciences, the first scientific leader and chief designer of the nuclear center Chelyabinsk-70 (Snezhinsk).

The construction of the first unit of the Crimean NPP began in 1981. According to the plan, the construction of the power plant was to be completed in 1989. The cost of the project was 751.5 million rubles in 1984 prices. 650 million rubles were allocated for industrial facilities, about 100 million rubles for housing, health care, culture and education. The technical and economic indicators of the Crimean NPP corresponded to the advanced technical developments in the world nuclear power industry of the 1970s-1980s.

In Shchelkino, intensive construction of houses and roads began; a powerful boiler house was built. The city was populated by young nuclear specialists (graduates of Kiev universities) and experienced employees of operating Ukrainian nuclear power plants.

Workers, many of whom were young people, came to the construction site of the station. Valery Anatolyevich Shtogrin was appointed the head of construction. The popularity of the facility under construction was so great that in 1984 the construction of the Crimean nuclear power plant received the status of the All-Union Komsomol shock. 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. Moreover, this very considerable amount was mastered in about the same period of time. An experimental solar power plant with a capacity of 5 MW was built next to the nuclear power plant - it was supposed to become a backup source of electricity for the nuclear power plant.

In the reactor building of the first block, a unique polar crane was installed at the design site, with the help of which lifting, transport and construction and installation operations were to be carried out inside the reactor compartment. During the construction of the NPP, it was needed to store equipment (parts of the reactor, steam generator casings, compensator, main circulation pipelines and pumps, etc.), and then install them at the design site. After the start-up of the station - to carry out transport, technological and repair work for the maintenance of the nuclear reactor.

The creation of a new power facility was on the upswing, construction proceeded without significant deviations from the schedule with the planned launch of the first reactor in 1989, nothing foreshadowed trouble.

But it was April 26, 1986. At 1:24 a.m., a powerful thermal explosion of the RBMK-1000 channel uranium-graphite nuclear reactor took place at the fourth power unit of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. In terms of the number of people killed and injured as a result of this accident, as well as the economic damage, the disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is regarded as the largest in the entire world history of nuclear energy.

How did the Chernobyl disaster affect the fate of the Crimean nuclear power plant? Less than a month after the accident, articles began to appear in the press about the extreme danger of nuclear power in general and about the inadmissibility of the construction of the Crimean nuclear power plant in particular. A large number of people took part in the discussion. Ecologists and greens of all stripes were especially active. Even those who did not understand the fundamental difference between the Chernobyl channel uranium-graphite reactor RBMK-1000 and the pressurized pressurized water-moderated power reactor VVER-1000, which was to be used at the Crimean NPP (KNPP), entered into a dispute.

Quite quickly, the opponents of the KNPP moved from ordinary environmental protests to "scientifically grounded" statements about the inadmissibility of building a facility on the Kerch Peninsula due to the fact that the selected site is located in the zone of tectonic faults resulting from the shift of tectonic plates at their joints. It is believed that such zones are the most likely locations for earthquakes.

The Crimean Peninsula and the entire coast of the Krasnodar Territory are located in an area where the relief is still forming, so earthquakes are common here. Numerous historical treatises that have survived to this day describe some especially destructive cataclysms on the peninsula.

To get a feel for the tense atmosphere of the disputes that were waged about the fate of the Crimean nuclear power plant in the 1980s, it is enough to turn to the press archives. One of the main platforms for controversy was the Smena magazine.

In the article "Crimea: a zone of special risk?", Published in No. 21 in 1988, a member of the USSR Writers' Union Valery Mitrokhin wrote:

In May of this year, an all-Union meeting was held in Yalta on the environmental problems of Crimea. All participants of the meeting were unanimous in their attitude to the construction of a nuclear power plant in Crimea. Here are just some of the statements of scientists.

M. Ya.Lemeshev, Doctor of Economics, Professor (Academy of Sciences of the USSR):

- There is a difficult and alarming ecological situation in Crimea. How to fix the situation? In no case should the construction of new industrial enterprises be allowed, no matter what apparent benefits it might be justified. Immediately achieve an end to the construction of the nuclear power plant. It affects not only the Crimea, but also the Caucasus, the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov.

G.G. Polikarpov, Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR (Institute of Biology of the Southern Seas of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR):

- The choice of the site for the future nuclear power plant does not stand up to criticism. The station was planted on a fault, where there is a danger of increased seismic activity. Drainage and flooding are no less dangerous. Even the normal operation of a nuclear power plant threatens the death of fish stocks in the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov ... In the event of an accident, the probability of which increases throughout the world, the consequences for the small Crimea will be catastrophic. It is known that after the Chernobyl accident, the design and construction of the Odessa NPP, the Minsk, Chigirinskaya, Krasnodar NPPs, the fifth and sixth units of the Chernobyl NPP were stopped. With even greater reason, such a decision should be made on Crimea.

V. M. Lyakhter, Doctor of Technical Sciences, Professor, Laureate of the Prize of the Council of Ministers of the USSR (NIIS Gidroproekt, Moscow):

- In Crimea, there are ideal conditions for generating energy with the help of wind. The Kerch Peninsula, the slopes of the yayla over Yalta, are very promising, - the "wind gate" - Alushta, the vicinity of Sevastopol. Before the war, the world's largest wind power plant was successfully operating in Balaklava. In Moscow, a project was developed for a unique installation of five thousand kilowatts. Alas, the authors of these works during the years of the cult suffered a hard fate. The project also died. But today we can offer Crimea wind power machines for one hundred and one thousand kilowatts, which we have developed and are implementing. According to our calculations, ten to twelve installations of one thousand kilowatts will close all the boiler houses of the South Coast. Ten cars will cost four million rubles. Compare with the cost of a nuclear power plant.

In the same year, in addition to the Yalta meeting, there were many discussions at various levels. Scientists, designers, and plant builders took part in them.

Deputy Director of the Institute of Mineral Resources E.P. Tikhonenkov said that the studies carried out to assess the seismic hazard in the area of \u200b\u200bthe Crimean NPP do not meet the IAEA requirements. The NPP industrial site is located at the most seismically active site. At the stage of preparing the feasibility study, only deep wells were drilled to a depth of 15–18 m. This depth did not allow tracing the occurrence of inclined limestone layers. Mud volcanism is a significant hazard. A well was drilled at Cape Kazantip, in which mud was encountered at a depth of 147 m. And Kazantip is practically a mud volcano that has not yet erupted.

Mitrokhin's article also reports on violations during construction.

When, in frosty December 1982, with great fanfare, the first cube of concrete was laid in the base of the reactor shop of the future nuclear power plant, it was said that the builders were laying high-strength concrete in the foundation, because another is unsuitable here. Even then, everyone knew that at first it was necessary to fill this very foundation continuously in order to get a monolith. And what? From the very first days at this facility, work was carried out in violation of the necessary requirements, the continuous pouring regime was not maintained, and the concrete itself was not always of the required quality. So it turned out not a monolithic structure, but a layer cake. The performers do not hide this. Moreover, they do not hesitate to call things by their proper names. Some believe that an object of this quality will never be accepted for operation, while others say: they say, our job is to complete the amount of work.

And they did it - in the reactor compartment, some units were assembled several times, the pipeline of the low-pressure industrial circuit of the hermetic zone was altered within four months due to design discrepancies.

At the beginning of 1988, about 300 process pipelines were defective. Repair of joints during the installation process was carried out many times - instead of the permissible two times. The management of the installation of technical equipment and pipelines of the reactor department was entrusted to young specialists who have no experience of such installation. And yesterday's electric welders worked as masters for welding technological pipelines!

Particular concern was caused by such a section of the reactor compartment as the Bohr tank, which is part of the accident localization system. And here the welding is not very good. Among other things, the stainless steel sheet for cladding the room turned out to be such that even with visual inspection, about 15 tons of metal were rejected. The project does not provide for other types of control ...

Welding of the bottom to the shell is especially bad. Due to a 100% defect, the station management did not accept the job. In this form, the tanks remained in the monolithic room. The carbon lining - the bottom of the hermetic zone - separating the hermetic part of the reactor compartment from the leaky one, which is part of the accident localization system, was made in winter, in rain and mud, was digested many times and was also covered with concrete, despite the prohibitions of V.I.Tansky, director of the nuclear power plant.

Ground pressure sensors show that the reactor room is not evenly resting on the ground - the strongest pressure is at the center point of the foundation. That is, the base of the reactor is, as it were, at the top of the pyramid. In an earthquake, the reactor can simply collapse.

Of course, there was a feasibility study. But it puzzled even non-specialists. In this document, for example, it was reported that there are no large settlements in the forty-kilometer zone of the nuclear power plant. Say, the largest villages are located only in the southwestern direction, in the direction of Feodosia. I counted both the settlements and the number of inhabitants. There are about 60 villages and villages in this zone, and more than 50 thousand people live in them. Immediately outside the zone (44 km) - Feodosia with its vast resorts. Moreover, Feodosiya Bay with the famous "Golden Beach" falls into the forty-kilometer zone together with a part of the Black Sea. Kerch is 54 km from the nuclear power plant. In 150 km - Simferopol. Moreover, the regional center and the southern coast of Crimea are located in the main direction of the winds prevailing in the area of \u200b\u200bthe future nuclear power plant! The coasts of the Arabat and Kazantip bays are a resort area with boarding houses, rest houses, and pioneer camps.

In the area where the nuclear power plant is located, there are reserves: the floodplain of the Sem Kolodezei River, Astana Plavni, Cape Kazantip. It's not hard to guess what awaits them in the near future. Here is a very recent fact. As a result of the flood, the NPP cooling pond (Lake Aktash) overflowed. The dam, lapped by the builders, collapsed. Salt water flooded the man-made forest, which is dying.

It is possible that over time, radioactive particles will accumulate in the groundwater under the station and the cooling pond, since groundwater is directly connected with Azov. These particles will sooner or later penetrate the sea. Confirmation of this possibility can be "read" in the feasibility studies.


The article says that in the summer of 1986, scientists from the Institute of Mineral Resources and the Department of Seismology of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR conducted field studies, which make it possible to assert that fault tectonics in the construction area of \u200b\u200bthe Crimean NPP is widespread. The fault (Severo-Aktashsky), which has a displacement width of up to 150 m and falls to the northwest at an angle of 65–80 °, passes in the immediate vicinity of the construction site, and movement along it continues at the present time. The area is in the 7 points zone. The structures of the NPP are designed for 8-9 points. But with such a low quality of construction, such a margin of safety is a fiction. Distortion of NPP structures is possible.

They added fuel to the fire and 25 earthquakes with a force of four points, which were recorded from 8 to 10 April 1987 in the construction area of \u200b\u200bthe Crimean nuclear power plant. For the first time in the history of seismic observations, the epicenter was located in the Azov Sea ...

The young nuclear power plant foreman Alexander Lyutkevich sent a snide response to the article “Crimea: a zone of special risk?” To the editorial office of Smena. He cited a list of headlines from Crimean newspapers before and after May 1988. Before: "Grow, atomic!", "Atomic is growing," "Steps of a large construction site," "An atom will be peaceful," "A village full of sun."

They even printed such verses:

... I hear a first grader spell out:

Lenin, Motherland, progress,

Work, mom, communism, nuclear power plant ...

After: "The resort and the nuclear power plant are incompatible", "We are resolutely against!", "Is the goal noble?"

Later, in September 1989, another voluminous material was published in this magazine under the title "Alternative to Krymbas". Its author, Vladimir Animisov, visited the "All-Union Komsomol construction site" and talked with the builders of the Crimean nuclear power plant. The journalist was shown the reactor, walked around the power unit, told about the protection systems. The shift supervisor Vyacheslav Vayskam became Ned. “Before Chernobyl, there was a principle - give energy at any cost. Plan first! - told V. Vayskam. - Violations were committed at all nuclear power plants. It was enough to stick a piece of cardboard instead of a relay to turn off the protection. The leadership turned a blind eye to this. If you kept the block - well done! And if he turned off the unit according to the instructions, he risked getting scolded: “You could have pulled the unit out!” Here, on Krymskaya, such violations are simply technically impossible. Everything is on microprocessors, under a seal. ”

The following arguments were also given:

N.P.Bereza, Head of Inspection, Gosatomenergonadzor:

- How does the Crimean NPP differ from the Chernobyl one? There was one barrier between man and fuel, here - three. In Crimea, there is a fundamentally different type of reactor - VVER-1000, not RBMK. In addition, the reactor itself is enclosed in a sealed reinforced concrete shell - this is the same sarcophagus.

O. Kozak, electrical fitter, chairman of the NPP labor collective council:

- Some kind of mass nihilism has appeared - to close everything, to deny ... Well, we will close the station. And in Crimea, two million square meters of housing must be built before the year 2000. Where to get energy? To reconstruct sewage treatment plants at factories, you also need electricity.

V. I. Tansky, NPP Director:

- The public is demanding a referendum on our station. Now it makes no sense, since the opinion is known in advance: "close!" And I would suggest this option: let's put the first power unit into operation, and then we will stop construction. And we will use the entire million kilowatts for social and cultural life. We will close the boiler houses, transfer the transport to electric traction, and give electricity to agriculture. And then we'll hold a referendum. I am convinced that even if 12 points shake, the whole Crimea will collapse, one nuclear power plant will remain unharmed. However, already at five points, the reactor is automatically turned off.

Despite the conviction, none of the NPP builders was going to stand to death for this facility. If the government decided to convert the station into a training center, then it would have happened. But such a center would create new problems: after all, it would also consume energy, and a lot, up to 40 MW. This would exacerbate the already large energy deficit in Crimea.

The article “Alternative to Krymbas” by V. Anisimov ends with a number of rhetorical questions: “And if 10 points are confirmed and there will be no NPP? It will not remove, but add problems! Shchelkino, Kerch, Feodosia are not designed for such seismicity. In the heat of controversy, this was somehow forgotten. And it's time to urgently develop options: what will have to be done? To demolish entire cities and rebuild? Strengthen old houses? "

So, in the USSR, the construction of a large number of nuclear power plants, nuclear thermal power plants and nuclear heat supply stations was stopped. The reasons for this were the Chernobyl disaster and the subsequent powerful pressure from the public, as well as the unfavorable economic situation in the country. As a result, in 1989-1990 the construction of the Crimean, Bashkir, Tatar and Rostov NPPs was stopped. The construction of the Crimean NPP was stopped when the first unit was 80% ready, and the second - 18%.

On October 25, 1989, the Council of Ministers of the USSR adopted a resolution on the conversion of the Crimean nuclear power plant under construction into a training complex for the training of operating and maintenance personnel of nuclear power plants. The subsequent history of the Crimean nuclear power plant is associated with several of its re-profiling and the privatization of unfinished construction projects, which was carried out by the State Property Fund of Ukraine and the Property Fund of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.

By the time the construction of the Crimean NPP was terminated, about $ 100 million had been spent on it. There were approximately 50 million dollars worth of materials in the warehouses.

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. The Council of Ministers was supposed to sell the received property of the station, and use the money to solve social and economic problems of the Leninsky district of Crimea, in particular, the city of Shelkino.

The objects of sale were: 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, an oil-diesel system of the station, a diesel generator station. In early 2005, the representative office of the Crimean Property Fund sold the reactor department of the Crimean nuclear power plant for $ 207,000 to a legal entity whose name was not disclosed.

The most ridiculous thing in this story with the sale of the reactor department was how the new owner did with the acquired reactor vessel - the most complex creation of the mind and hands of many people who worked on its creation. The hull was not only not loaded with nuclear fuel, but it was not even installed in the mine prepared for it. In the best traditions of post-Soviet mismanagement, the reactor vessel delivered to the construction base of the Crimean NPP was simply lying in the bushes, waiting in the wings. And now the hour has come. He was cut into pieces by a merciless hand and scrapped like a rusty pipe or a waste piece of metal.

One can imagine the state of people who rushed from their homes to the Azov steppe to build a nuclear power plant, and then suddenly left out of work. Shchelkino is a satellite town of the Crimean NPP. What to do in this "satellite" when the station is gone? This is not about a construction crew that can move and quickly find a new job. We are talking about 14 thousand specialists of various professions, abandoned to their fate.

After the construction of the nuclear power plant stopped, they continued to build residential buildings in Shchelkino. In 2000, a bus station was built here, and in 2003 a gas boiler house was commissioned ...

The sunset on the Azov coast of Crimea is probably one of the most beautiful phenomena on our planet. If from the village of Novootradnoe you look along the coastline to the west, then your gaze will rest on the sun setting behind the hills of the Kazantip Peninsula. The sun quickly, as always in the south, bends to the ground, and just at the moment when it touches the horizon, a silhouette of a gigantic size becomes clearly visible against its background, and above it there is a thin cross, similar to a cemetery.

So a person who went on a summer vacation in Shchelkino until 2003 could write.

Silhouette is the first power unit of the Crimean NPP, a titanic structure made of concrete and metal. Cross is a unique K-10000 crane, developed in 1978 by the Danish company "Kroll Kranes A / S". Only 15 units of such cranes were produced (13 were purchased by the USSR, 2 cranes were purchased by the USA). This two-tower mobile full-revolving crane on a rail was intended for the construction of industrial structures with a mass of mounted elements up to 240 tons. In September 2003, the crane was dismantled, removed from the site of the unfinished Crimean NPP and sold to Middle Eastern buyers.

Before 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.

The same "Kroll" crane was involved in the construction of the 4th power unit of the Khmelnitsky NPP in the city of Netishin, earlier cranes of this type were used to erect the buildings of the Zaporizhzhya NPP and the South-Ukrainian NPP.

The first thing that attracts attention on the territory of the Crimean station is traces of looting and devastation. The metal hunters dealt with the control panel of the power unit, the metal structures of the reactor compartment, the condenser cooling system, the engineering building, the equipment of the transport corridor, and much more, just as dashingly as with the reactor vessel. They say that copper cable and cupronickel pipes were taken out from the construction site in whole trains.

The cylindrical shaft of the reactor darkens in the reactor hall. Everything that is possible in the mine has long been cut off, and its bottom is littered with debris. Even the handrails used to inspect the mine were stolen. Above is the containment made of reinforced concrete.

The hermetic shell, designed to prevent the release of radioactive substances into the environment in severe reactor accidents, is made highly durable. The "prospectors" could not cope with the reinforced concrete structure, and had to be content with reinforcement extracted from thin slabs. The method is simple: several slabs are lifted higher with the surviving crane and dropped onto a monolithic platform. The concrete of the slabs is scattered into pieces, and the remaining reinforcement is scrapped.

To get the metal out of the finished engineering structures, they use an even simpler method - they crush everything with bulldozer buckets.

Dark staircases lead to the platform where the main circulation pump snail lies. Judging by the notch of the thick-walled stainless steel pipe, an attempt was made to divide the device into parts, but this task was too much for the cutters. Nearby there is another snail of the same type, which no one tried to cut.

Climbing higher, you can see the foundation of the second power unit of the KNPP. A lot of state funds were also spent on its creation, meeting all requirements for strength and seismic resistance. Now nobody needs him.

From 1995 to 1999 on the territory of the KNPP every summer the festival of electronic and club music "Republic KaZantip" was held. Thousands of young people gathered on the beaches of the Azov Sea, and parties and discos were held in the turbine hall of the first power unit. The advertising slogan read: "Atomic Party in the Reactor." Windsurfing and kitesurfing competitions are held annually nearby. The same place served as a set for many feature films, the most famous of which today is Fyodor Bondarchuk's Inhabited Island.

Over the past years, no one has found a use for the tens of thousands of people who remained to vegetate and survive on the deserted Azov coast. In the late 1980s, up to 30 thousand people lived in Shchelkino, and today - no more than 7 thousand.Of 5.5 thousand apartments, 2.5 thousand are empty.

There are no street names in Shchelkino. Only the numbers of houses, of which there are only about a hundred. For a long time there was no street lighting, heating, and the garbage chutes in the houses were welded long ago. The city has no money to solve these problems. Life here is in full swing only in the summer, as the locals switched to providing recreation for visitors. In winter, Shchelkino turns into a ghost town. At the same time, the city does not leave unpleasant sensations; people, despite the problems they have to struggle with every day, remain cordial and willingly tell stories about the once “all-Union Komsomol” construction project, although these stories are not very funny.

The sea is 200 m from the city limits. Cape Kazantip is seven minutes away by car. Around Shchelkino dacha plots: those who managed to build during the construction of the KNPP have good buildings; those who received land plots later received nothing at all (at best, toilets are made from elevator blocks).

The prospects for the city are hazy. Perhaps the only direction available at the moment is the development of Shelkino as a resort region and the provision of conditions for tourists to relax.


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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 brick 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.
Prior to 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 ... Powerful equipment 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 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 "match" additional geological substantiation to the closure of the Crimean NPP. However, this was only a formal reason - by the end of the 1980s, the situation in the economy of the USSR had worsened so much that almost all large construction projects were curtailed, both in the energy sector and in industry, transport, and urban planning.
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: the reactor compartment, the block pumping station, the building of workshops, the cooler at the Aktash reservoir, the dam of the Aktash reservoir, the supply canal with a water intake reservoir, the oil-diesel facilities of the station, the diesel generator station. Further, it is known that at the beginning of 2005, the Representation of the Crimea 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 a 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.

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