From 1947 until 1953, tens of thousands of prisoners, many of them “politicals” convicted for “anti-Soviet acts”, were shipped to northern Russia to lay a railroad through some of the harshest terrain on Earth.
Stalin, spooked by the incursion of Nazi submarines into the Arctic during the second world war, wanted the railway in place as a means of supplying a planned naval port. The railway also would have connected northern nickel mines to Soviet factories in the west.
But just days after Stalin’s death in 1953, the project was cancelled amid the subsequent Soviet “thaw”. Since then, the railway’s gulag camps have lain abandoned, sinking further into the forest under the weight of each winter’s snow.
_Most of the railway, as evidenced by this old signal marker, has fallen into ruin.
For Snovsky, who now lives with his wife near St Petersburg, the biggest tragedy was the project’s futility: “Tens of thousands of human lives for nothing. For me, the saddest thing was that it was for nothing.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/29/the-remains-of-stalin-gulag-railroad-soviet-union-a-photo-essay
Monday, October 29, 2018
Thursday, October 11, 2018
H/t Ciro Villa
H/t Ciro Villa
Soyuz 23 was launched 14 October 1976 with an estimated 73- to 85-day mission planned aboard the orbiting Salyut 5 space station. Others suggest a 17- to 24-day mission was a more likely intention. It was the first visit to the station after the sudden termination of the Soyuz 21 mission in August. However, on 15 October, during the automatic approach phase, the automatic docking system malfunctioned before the craft was within 100 metres of the station. Crews were normally trained for a manual dock, but not for a manual approach.The mission, accordingly, had to be abandoned.
The craft had only two days of battery power, so systems were powered off, including the radio, to conserve power. The day's landing opportunity had already passed, so they had to wait for the next day's landing opportunity near the Baikonur Cosmodrome.
On 16 October, Soyuz 23 returned to earth and landed 8:45 p.m. local time, but weather conditions were poor and the cosmonauts experienced an unusual recovery. They landed on a freezing Lake Tengiz(average depth 2.5m, max depth 6.7m), 8 km from shore, in the middle of a blizzard, with fog and temperatures at −22 °C. It was the first water landing by a Soviet crew. The capsule was designed to land in any conditions, even in a body of water, so the only concern was the increased difficulty in finding the capsule and crew.
The parachute quickly filled with water and dragged the capsule and its crew beneath the surface, in addition an electrical short caused by water impact caused the reserve parachute to accidentally deploy. The capsule cooled in the freezing water, and the cosmonauts removed their pressure suits and donned their normal flight suits, expecting a quick rescue. The parachutes became waterlogged and pulled the capsule onto its side, preventing the hatch from being opened. The transmission antennas were also under water, so the crew could not communicate with rescue teams.
The capsule's beacons could not be seen in the heavy fog, and rubber rafts used to try to reach them were blocked by ice and sludge. Amphibious vehicles were airlifted to the vicinity, but could not reach the capsule owing to bogs surrounding the lake. Accordingly, the rescue was called off until dawn.The cosmonauts were safe, but they were low on power, so they were forced to shut down everything but a small interior light.
The next morning, frogmen were dropped in by helicopters and attached flotation devices to the Soyuz craft. The capsule was too heavy to be lifted by the helicopter, so it was dragged to shore. The recovery operation had taken nine hours. No attempt was made to open the hatch as the recovery crews assumed the cosmonauts were dead, so they called for a special team to remove their bodies. Eventually, eleven hours after splashdown, the cosmonauts opened the hatch and emerged alive and well, if badly chilled (the interior of the descent module was coated with frost).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_23?wprov=sfla1
Soyuz 23 was launched 14 October 1976 with an estimated 73- to 85-day mission planned aboard the orbiting Salyut 5 space station. Others suggest a 17- to 24-day mission was a more likely intention. It was the first visit to the station after the sudden termination of the Soyuz 21 mission in August. However, on 15 October, during the automatic approach phase, the automatic docking system malfunctioned before the craft was within 100 metres of the station. Crews were normally trained for a manual dock, but not for a manual approach.The mission, accordingly, had to be abandoned.
The craft had only two days of battery power, so systems were powered off, including the radio, to conserve power. The day's landing opportunity had already passed, so they had to wait for the next day's landing opportunity near the Baikonur Cosmodrome.
On 16 October, Soyuz 23 returned to earth and landed 8:45 p.m. local time, but weather conditions were poor and the cosmonauts experienced an unusual recovery. They landed on a freezing Lake Tengiz(average depth 2.5m, max depth 6.7m), 8 km from shore, in the middle of a blizzard, with fog and temperatures at −22 °C. It was the first water landing by a Soviet crew. The capsule was designed to land in any conditions, even in a body of water, so the only concern was the increased difficulty in finding the capsule and crew.
The parachute quickly filled with water and dragged the capsule and its crew beneath the surface, in addition an electrical short caused by water impact caused the reserve parachute to accidentally deploy. The capsule cooled in the freezing water, and the cosmonauts removed their pressure suits and donned their normal flight suits, expecting a quick rescue. The parachutes became waterlogged and pulled the capsule onto its side, preventing the hatch from being opened. The transmission antennas were also under water, so the crew could not communicate with rescue teams.
The capsule's beacons could not be seen in the heavy fog, and rubber rafts used to try to reach them were blocked by ice and sludge. Amphibious vehicles were airlifted to the vicinity, but could not reach the capsule owing to bogs surrounding the lake. Accordingly, the rescue was called off until dawn.The cosmonauts were safe, but they were low on power, so they were forced to shut down everything but a small interior light.
The next morning, frogmen were dropped in by helicopters and attached flotation devices to the Soyuz craft. The capsule was too heavy to be lifted by the helicopter, so it was dragged to shore. The recovery operation had taken nine hours. No attempt was made to open the hatch as the recovery crews assumed the cosmonauts were dead, so they called for a special team to remove their bodies. Eventually, eleven hours after splashdown, the cosmonauts opened the hatch and emerged alive and well, if badly chilled (the interior of the descent module was coated with frost).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_23?wprov=sfla1
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