Ukraine VII - Cold War

I have touched the Button of Doom

We hope you are not getting too tired of us when we publish so many blog entries on Ukraine. We felt we had a lot to say and we had many nice photos we wanted to publish. But along the way perhaps we got a bit carried away because seven blog entries on vacation that lasted only three weeks is almost silly. We have yet something more we would like to write about so we do need a seventh entry. But we promise that this is the last one on Ukraine. At least unless we decide to go to Ukraine again some time in the future.

Here Emma would like to point out that she does not care much for most of the photos or stories in this entry. What you are about to read and see reflects more what Ake likes. Ake now hopes there is someone out there who will enjoy reading about it.

We have called this blog entry “the Cold War”. Up until 1991 Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union and as such the country also was an important participant in the Cold War. Ukraine has a long coast along the Black Sea. Therefore Ukraine was important for the Soviet navy. The Black Sea fleet had several harbours in Ukraine, for instance in Sevastopol as we mentioned in a previous entry on the blog.

What we didn’t mention then was that we visited a town named Balaklava not far from Sevastopol. During the Cold War Balaklava was one of the most secret naval bases in entire Ukraine. It was a base specially constructed to harbour and support submarines. In Balaclava they made use of an unusual hollow in a mountain. The ocean has over the course of millions of years carved out a cavern in a mountain in Balaclava harbour. What makes this cavern special is that the opening to the cavern is under water. The only way to enter the cavern was with a submarine. Inside the cavern in the mountain maintenance work could be performed on the submarines, crews could be exchanged and nuclear bombs could be loaded or unloaded. This was a perfect harbour for submarines who want to go into harbour without being observed by snooping satellites. The place was like something you thought you could only find in James Bond movies.

The base was shut down in 1993 and today it is a museum. A visit to the former submarine base is by a guided tour. The tour brings the visitors into the mountain through a system of tunnels to the harbour inside the mountain.

Emma joined Ake on the tour of the naval base. That is something Emma regrets deeply because she thought all of it was deadly boring. Ake on the other hand was walking through the maze of tunnels beaming of joy.

Perhaps the difference between Ake and Emma in this case is that Emma only sees empty tunnels and listens to a guide talking Ukrainian of which she doesn’t understand a word. Ake on the other hand can picture what it all used to look like back in the days of the Cold War. Ake can imagine a submarine arriving in the harbour after a month out at the sea. Ake can see the old crew leaving it and the new crew arriving to the town in busses getting ready to be away from home and their families for one month. He can see soldiers, the support crew in the naval base, entering the vessel minutes after the old crew has left it. Ake can see the support crew milling around the submarine, almost looking like ants, cleaning up, removing tons of garbage, grease engine parts, doing routine maintenance, refitting the nuclear reactor with new uranium loading nuclear bombs. Ake can see one guy counting the nuclear bombs and realising that one is missing. Ake can see him starting to sweat and wonder what to do. Ake can see him walking back to where the bombs are stored and starting to recount. This time he gets the numbers right. They are all there and Ake can see him starting to breathe normally again.

Or perhaps the reason Ake liked the naval base more than Emma did is that Ake is a few years older than Emma. Emma was born in 1977 and was only 12 years old when communism threw in the towel in Europe and she was only 14 when Soviet Union collapsed. Ake was born in 1971 and he remembers the 1980-ies very well and the Cold War was very much part of his life when he grew up. Ake remembers the grim faces of Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko, the former leaders in the Soviet Union. Ake remembers when an officer from the Swedish army came to school explaining that in case of war the evil Russians will come sailing over the Baltic Sea and invade Sweden and will kill us. Consequently we must have an army or we will die. Ake didn't quite buy the tales of "Russians being all evil and Americans being the protectors of the free World", but he remembers the speech this officer gave. Today the things the officer who came to Ake's school back in 1986 was talking about are turned into a museum and anyone can visit it. Ake thinks that is fascinating and finds it cool to visit it. Just to have visited a place and afterwards be able to say "It was just like it came straight out a James Bond movie!" gives Ake a big adrenaline rush.

If the naval base was an adrenaline rush that was nothing compared to the second Cold War related site in Ukraine we would like to write about. That was also a museum namely Museum of Strategic Missile Troops. Emma, remembering the horribly boring visit to the submarine base, refused to visit this museum. So Ake had to go on his own.

During the Cold War both USSR and USA were piling up large stocks of nuclear weapons. One of the ways to transport these nuclear bombs to the designated target is to put them in a missile aimed at the enemy. Before 1991 there were in Ukraine around a dozen missile launch sites. After Soviet Union collapsed these sites were still operating and maintained by Russia. According to an information brochure it was not until 1999 that the Russians eventually closed down all missile launch site in Ukraine. The launch silos and all other structures were dismantled and the remaining debris removed. So today there is no trace of any of these sites bar one. About 60 kilometres south of Uman one missile launch site was left more or less as it was back in the days of the Cold War and today it is a museum. The original missiles have been removed of course and some other adjustments have been made to the place when it was turned into a museum. But essentially it today is the same as it was in the 1980-ies.

The tour of the site included a walk in an underground tunnel from the main building to the control tower. At the control tower I was allowed to visit two different sections. The upper deck with the sleeping quarters and the lower deck with the control room. The control tower is roughly 30 meters deep and it is so strongly built that it can withstand even a nuclear explosion. The tour also included a visit at one of the 10 missile silos and I could also take a look at some vehicles specially designed to transport missiles on the ground. At the site they also have a decommissioned SS-18 Intercontinental Ballistic Missile. She SS-18 missiles were in the west nicknames "Satan".

I just loved visiting this place. It was almost unreal. In movies I have seen missile launch sites quite a few times but I never thought I would see one in real life. At this missile base they used to have 10 missiles, each capable of destroying one or more cities. I tried to get information on where the original missiles were aimed but the guide never understood my question. They were aimed towards west and strictly it is not very important if they were pointing at Germany, Sweden, UK or the USA. They were weapons of mass destruction and had they been launched it would have been the end of the World as we know it. It would have been Doomsday for real, or Judgement Day as it is called in Terminator 2. By pressing the launch button they would truly have unleashed Hell. I actually think it is cool to say that I have had my finger on that button. I have had my finger on the Button of Doom!

Add to this that I also got to see one of the most evil machines ever built - a genuine intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). The SS-18 missiles could carry up to 10 nuclear warheads from deep in Russia to the USA and remove 10 different cities from the face of the Earth. Don't for a second think that makes the Russians nastier than the Americans. The US had the MX missiles with quite similar capacity. I can not even find words to explain how cool I think it is to have seen a genuine ICBM. They used to be the most deadly weapons ever built and one of them is now sitting in a museum in Ukraine. I have to add here that I actually put my head inside the section of the SS-18 rocket where the nuclear warheads were kept. When you think about it that was perhaps a fitting thing to do. I looked myself in the mirror this morning and thinking back on what I saw I am not sure what is more evil: 10 nuclear warheads or my face...

I get goose bumps and increased heart rate just writing about this. That gives you an idea on how excited I was when I visited it.

Finally we have to this blog entry added a few photos of Lenin statues and Hammer and Sickle-symbols. These can be found in many cities in the Ukraine today and we thought it was fitting to put them in this blog entry. They are reminders of the days when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union and in those days Ukraine was part of the Cold War. To us it makes sense anyway. If it doesn't to you, well putting them in a separate blog entry is not an option when we have already published seven.

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