If we talk about Stalin’s unfinished construction projects, we cannot help but recall the tunnel on Sakhalin Island, the construction of which was stopped after the death of the leader. Recently hajoff I was there with friends, and they even went down into an abandoned mine - all that remains from a special and secret construction.
This tunnel is also notable for the fact that the construction of the first mine was led by a young engineer Yuri Anatolyevich Koshelev, later the head of the Moscow Metro Construction and a prominent underground builder. Yesterday he turned 85 years old. I sincerely congratulate Yuri Anatolyevich and wish him good health.
But first small excursion into history.
Tunnel under the Volga in Nizhny Novgorod.
Before the First World War, in 1914, the issue of building a tunnel under the Volga was already discussed. The existing “Special Commission for the Construction of the Nizhny Novgorod Railway Junction” considered both options for the transition - pavement and tunnel. But due to the danger of destruction of the bridge during ice drift, preference was given to a tunnel one - “It is preferable to arrange the crossing of the Volga along the Nizhny Novgorod - Kotelnich line by an underwater tunnel.” But the war began and there was no time for the tunnel. Later they returned to it in 1918, already under Soviet rule, but the tunnel was never built. .
In the book “Underwater Tunnels” (Prof. A.N. Passek, Transzheldorizdat, Moscow 1933) there is a short description of the lining of this tunnel and the technology of its construction.
In a small archive you can find scans of two pages of the book and a large drawing of the organization of the tunneling and lining arrangement.
Tunnels under the Dnieper.
The second attempt to build an underwater railway tunnel was made in Kyiv - “Construction of NKPS No. 1” or Tunnels under the Dnieper. In 1936, construction began on two tunnels - in the northern and southern parts of the city. This construction was more fortunate. In the southern part, they managed to go through several shafts (lower the caissons), build ramp sections and begin digging the tunnel itself. With the outbreak of the war, construction was stopped.
Only one caisson was built on the northern pipe, but it was never lowered. This “concrete submarine” still stands in Obolon.
South pipe
(c) Diagram taken from here
There are tons of websites and information on this construction site, and there are enough artifacts left on the surface to explore.
Here are the links for you to study on your own:
“Tunnels under the Dnieper: not classified as “Secret”” is probably the most complete information.
Stalin Tunnels under the Dnieper: Myths and Reality
Construction of NKPS No. 1
Tunnel under the Amur.
In 1937, construction began on a tunnel under the river. Amur, in Khabarovsk. At the moment this is the only underwater railway tunnel in Russia. Its length is 7198 meters.
There are very few photographs of this tunnel. Probably the largest publicly available collection of them was made by riverpilgrim - “Railway tunnel under the Amur in Khabarovsk”
This tunnel was more fortunate - in 1941, with the beginning of the war, it was almost finished and was completed in an extremely short time. After the end of hostilities in the Far East, the tunnel was sent for secret conservation, where it remained until 1964, when its civilian operation began.
Tunnel to Sakhalin Island.
I've already told you about this tunnel. Now we can look at unique photographs of the mine that we managed to build.
hajoff The rest of the photos are available on his website.
I have a small selection of material for this project.
http://russos.ru/img/tunnels/sahalin/sahalin.zip - text from some magazine (I don’t have the name of the magazine) about this project, plus great selection historical documents and regulations about this construction.
http://russos.ru/img/tunnels/sahalin/1996_03-sah.pdf - article from the journal Science and Life No. 3 for 1996.
The construction of the first shaft was supervised by the young engineer Yu. A. Koshelev. He remembers the days of his youth with great warmth.
In December 1951 I graduated from MIIT. I was sent to work in Construction No. 6 of the Ministry of Railways on Sakhalin Island... The contingent of builders was difficult. The bulk were those released early. They were also paid wages depending on their output, but strictly on time. The only way they differed from those who came here from the outside was that they were given a written undertaking not to leave. At our facility, out of five foremen, three were from early release... I was appointed foreman of basic work. Twelve brigades were given subordination. We were instructed to build a mine shaft on the seashore with a diameter of eight and a half meters and a depth of about eighty. And when we finished, it was proposed to make cuts and begin tunneling. We completed the excavation of the first shaft in February 1953. I remember this frosty day very well. They installed the last ring all night. At about 5 am we went upstairs. And then we were given a solemn meeting. The head of mainland construction, Nikolai Ivanovich Kotelnikov, a smart, knowledgeable engineer and leader, arrived, as well as Alexey Leontyevich Yaremchuk, our immediate superior, a former metro builder, medal bearer, head of the tunneling team, an excellent master of his craft. Right there at the mine shaft I was given a warrant for a room. But in those conditions it was a very pleasant reward. And the guys received big bonuses. But, of course, the table was set appropriately. I would like to note that labor was highly valued at this construction site. People were taken care of, and there were ten thousand of them, no less... In the spring of 1953, Stalin died. And after some time the construction site was closed. They didn’t fold it, they didn’t mothball it, but they closed it. Yesterday they were still working, but today they said: “That’s it, no more.” We never started digging the tunnel. Although everything was available for this work: materials, equipment, machinery and good qualified specialists and workers. Many argue that the amnesty that followed Stalin’s funeral put an end to the tunnel - there was practically no one to continue construction. It is not true. Of our eight thousand early released, no more than two hundred left. And the remaining eight months waited for the order to resume construction. We wrote to Moscow about this, asked and begged. I consider stopping the construction of the tunnel to be some kind of wild, ridiculous mistake. After all, billions of rubles were invested in the tunnel people's money, years of desperate labor. And most importantly, the country really needs the tunnel...
Yuri Anatolyevich Koshelev began his labor activity just during the construction of this tunnel. Then he worked his way up from an ordinary engineer to the head of the Moscow Metro Construction. He became the head of MosMetrostroy for the first time in 1972 and worked until 1976, when he went to the ministry to lead the “commander in chief” (Glavtonnelmetrostroy). He returned to Metrostroy again in 1986 and led it until 1999, when he retired.
“My life is all metro construction,” he said in one of his interviews. Yu. A. Koshelev started as a shift engineer in TO-6, was the head of the section, for nine years - the chief engineer, for a year - the head of SMU-6. At that time he worked on the construction of Frunzenskaya, Taganskaya (radial), on the caisson section of the running tunnels between the Leninskie Gory - University stations. Exactly personal experience and forced Yuri Anatolyevich, together with Metrogiprotrans specialists, to search for a technical solution that would completely eliminate the caisson. A solution was found - this is the so-called method of excavation in flooded unstable soils with forced water reduction and contour freezing. The work received great recognition, including abroad.
Yesterday he turned 85 years old. His friends, colleagues and students came to congratulate him on this venerable anniversary.
Secret underwater tunnel to Sakhalin
Construction of the Sakhalin tunnel 
Map of the planned construction
The twentieth century was a time of great achievements and upheavals. However, today it is pleasant to think that, despite all the negativity, there was still more positive in that century. Important scientific discoveries, ambitious projects, breakthrough inventions and research, and, of course, major construction projects. One of these could be the construction of a tunnel to Sakhalin in the USSR.
There's still something left
The idea of connecting Sakhalin with the “mainland” in Russia has been around for a long time. First mentions similar projects, which were not even started, date back to the mid-19th century. They seriously thought about such a project in the 20-30s of the 20th century, but things didn’t work out again. Each time the project was rejected due to unprofitability. 
It was a great idea
IN last time They started talking about building a tunnel in 1950. Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin himself took the initiative. A special commission headed by the first secretary of the Sakhalin Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, D.N. Melnik, was sent to the site of future construction. Despite the fact that Melnikov expressed great doubts about the prospects of the project, it was decided that Sakhalin should be connected to the mainland of the country using an underground tunnel. 
A village for workers was built
On May 5, 1950, the USSR Council of Ministers issued secret decree on the construction of the Komsomolsk-on-Amur - Pobedino railway line. It was within the framework of this construction that a tunnel to the island was to be dug. It was even planned to build several imaginary directions, with fake tunnels.
The first and only mine
In September of the same 1950, the USSR Council of Ministers approved technical regulations on the design and construction of the Stalinist tunnel to Sakhalin, as well as projects of the adjacent railway branches. On the Sakhalin side, the length of the tracks was 327 kilometers. The engineering construction was to begin in the area of Cape Pogibi. On the mainland, the railway was supposed to stretch from Cape Lazarev to the Selikhin station, which is located near Komsomolsk-on-Amur. It is not difficult to guess that the tunnel was supposed to connect the closest parts of the island and big land. In this case, its length would be 10 kilometers.
Construction of the tunnel at that time was estimated at 723 million rubles. A huge human resource was involved in the implementation of the project. Prisoners who were released early took part in the construction. hired specialists, directed by distribution and military.
There were problems at the construction site from the very beginning. Due to the rush, the work site did not have adequate housing for workers. As a result, working conditions were far from even satisfactory. Many prisoners and military personnel began to get sick. People began to suffer from scurvy en masse. There were problems with the delivery of equipment and building materials. 
This place was filled
The construction was never completed. In 1953, Stalin died. Soon a mass amnesty began, and construction crews lost a huge number of workers. If on the mainland they managed to build about 120 kilometers of railway tracks, then on Sakhalin for 3 years the work has barely budged. Except railway, an artificial island was poured, and the first shaft of the future tunnel was dug. And soon the project was completely abandoned as “not meeting the needs of the national economy.” 
Everything is abandoned
From the comments:
*Why not hundreds of millions? Can the author DOCUMENTARY confirm the death of these HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS? CAN NOT. Therefore, we can consider him a blatant liar and a scoundrel, who knows nothing and doesn’t want to know, just to shit himself again.
As the character in “The Master and Margarita” said, “Congratulations, citizen of the lie!”
*The author, of course, is a biased liar. After the closure of the construction site, those released waited for another half a year for it to be resumed because... there was a salary, and fish, and a barracks roof over one’s head, but on the mainland there was uncertainty. If it had not been for the collapse of the tunnel (yes, people died, but not hundreds of thousands), it would have been completed even then (4 km remained), and WILL BE BUILT! As an alternative to the Vanino - Kholmsk ferry crossing. But the Olympics, Championships, and Syria will end.... In Japan, all the islands are connected by underwater tunnels, and you can easily travel from Tokyo to Sapporo.
* Another thing is that expediency should be taken into account... There is oil (offshore) in Northern Sakhalin, but there are no large cities, you need to continue to build the railway along the swamp haze, to the nearest railway station, and there... a narrow Japanese railway. track... Oil is already leaving through the oil pipeline to Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. From Okha, oil is already flowing through the oil pipeline to Komsomolsk-on-Amur. The village of Neftegorsk was wiped off the face of the earth by an earthquake in 1995. The climate there is harsh, in summer the hottest is +16 C, and the annual average is about 0 degrees... A godforsaken region. The railway service (the Okha - Moskalvo line and the Okha - Nogliki railway line) was discontinued in December 2006 due to the dismantling of the Okha - Nogliki railway. The Okha - Moskalvo 1520 mm gauge railway line was dismantled in 1999. Conclusion Road to nowhere. The time for a tunnel has not yet come. but the region is NASHENSKY.
* After the death of Stalin and the mass amnesty of prisoners, work on the entire project was curtailed. According to the recollections of one of the young engineers, Yu. A. Koshelev (a recent graduate of MIIT in 1951, who was assigned to this construction site and supervised the construction of the first shaft to the tunnel axis), the situation was as follows:
“In December 1951, I graduated from MIIT. I was sent to work at Construction No. 6 of the Ministry of Railways on Sakhalin Island... The contingent of builders was difficult. The bulk were those released early. They were also paid wages depending on their output, but strictly on time. The only way they differed from those who came here from the outside was that they were given a written undertaking not to leave. At our facility, out of five foremen, three were from early release... I was appointed foreman of basic work. Twelve brigades were given subordination. We were instructed to build a mine shaft on the seashore with a diameter of eight and a half meters and a depth of about eighty. And when we finished, it was proposed to make cuts and begin tunneling. We completed the excavation of the first mine in February 1953...
In the spring of 1953, Stalin died. And after some time the construction site was closed. They didn’t fold it, they didn’t mothball it, but they closed it. Yesterday they were still working, but today they said: “That’s it, no more.” We never started digging the tunnel. Although everything was available for this work: materials, equipment, machinery and good qualified specialists and workers. Many argue that the amnesty that followed Stalin’s funeral put an end to the tunnel - there was practically no one to continue construction. It is not true. Of our eight thousand early released, no more than two hundred left. And the remaining eight months waited for the order to resume construction. We wrote to Moscow about this, asked and begged. I consider stopping the construction of the tunnel to be some kind of wild, ridiculous mistake. After all, billions of rubles of people’s money and years of desperate labor were invested in the tunnel. And most importantly, the country really needs the tunnel...
*On June 15, 2017, Russian President Vladimir Putin, during the “Direct Line”, when asked about the construction of a bridge to Sakhalin, answered that the decision to start construction had not yet been made, as well as the option of connecting Sakhalin with continental Russia - a bridge or a tunnel, and also named a preliminary the cost of building the bridge is 286 billion rubles.
On November 22, 2017, Russian Minister of Transport Maxim Sokolov announced that the design of the railway bridge to Sakhalin will begin in 2018
Wikipedia
According to the testimonies and memories of eyewitnesses that have reached us, it all began back in 1950. The Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers adopted a closed resolution on survey work on the railway line from Komsomolsk-on-Amur to Pobedino on Sakhalin Island with the construction of a tunnel under Strait of Tartary.
Shortly before an important state decision was made in March 1950, the first secretary of the Sakhalin Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, D.N. Melnik, was urgently summoned to Moscow. Melnik, who was at a loss about such an emergency call to the capital, was received by Comrade Stalin himself. The leader’s question literally stunned the party leader of Sakhalin: “How do you look at the construction of a railway from the mainland to you to Sakhalin?..” Melnik, as far as the situation allowed, tried to diplomatically explain that this was a very difficult task and would require enormous funds and human resources. But for Stalin, Melnik’s opinion turned out to be unconvincing. Moreover, the decision to build a tunnel was almost ready.
On May 12, 1950, a special construction division of the Ministry of Railways No. 6 was created for the construction of a tunnel to Sakhalin. It is mainly staffed by professional metro builders. According to various sources, more than three tens of thousands of qualified specialists worked there. In 1951, three options for laying a tunnel were proposed: the first - from Cape Lazarev to Cape Pogibi. The second is from Cape Sredniy to Cape Pogibi. And the third - from Cape Muravyov to Cape Wangi.
In accordance with the approved plan, the tunnel was supposed to start at Cape Sredny and go from the mainland in the direction of Cape Pogibi. Along this route, the length of its underwater part was about 8 kilometers - the narrowest point in the strait.
In addition to economic, the construction of the tunnel was also an important military facility. The highway from the mainland to the island was practically invulnerable.
Eight thousand meters underwater
At the end of the 80s of the last century, finding myself in those places at one of the border outposts, I heard a story that a few years ago a lonely old man lived nearby, ex-prisoner one of the camps, which with its own hands dug the rocky soil under the base of the future tunnel. He told the border guards about the countless number of people who worked on the construction site. According to him, in the early 1950s, shortly before the planned launch of the underground railway, locomotives with special compounds. But they were not destined to set off. Unexpectedly, an order came from Moscow to cancel the planned launch of the tunnel, and the work was stopped. Frankly speaking, it was difficult to believe in the authenticity of this story. The old man died, and his memories retold by the border guards were perceived as the plot of a fantastic story. It didn’t fit in my mind: how was it possible to hide such a grandiose construction? Even if we take into account that the work was eventually stopped, something must remain on the surface...
I won’t hide the fact that the topic of building a tunnel to Sakhalin excited me. Bit by bit, I began to collect any information that was somehow related to her. Over time, it became possible to recreate individual pictures of the events of half a century ago. However, detailed documents from that time could not be found. According to one version, it became known that the construction of a tunnel on initial stage was conducted by prisoners. When the adits under the base were broken through, the metro construction workers went to work. According to another version, a second, secret tunnel was built to connect the narrowest section between the mainland and Sakhalin Island. Mine adits in the area of Cape Lazarev were made to divert eyes. The real tunnel should be looked for elsewhere. There was a third option for connecting the mainland and the island - through a bridge crossing.
Some of the researchers on the topic of the Sakhalin tunnel consider it a myth. In their opinion, after a detailed study of the terrain, it is not difficult to guess: all the work was just preparation, a kind of platform for the construction of giant dams, from which it was planned to throw a bridge connection to the island. The dams were indeed built.
After my publications on this topic in the naval newspaper, the editor received a letter from A. Balakirev:
“...In 1932, the motor ship Sevzaples was built in Leningrad. It was conceived as a timber carrier, but during the war it was converted to transport steam locomotives from America to Vladivostok. In 1940, the ship was engaged in the delivery of narrow-gauge steam locomotives and carriages from Japan to Sakhalin Island. I worked on it.
In 1950 we arrived in Vladivostok. I remember they put us in a factory. They installed very strong wooden cages, on which rails were laid across the ship, but of normal width (Sakhalin rails are 22 cm narrower).
At Cape Churkina, four unusual looking carriage. Having secured them, we set off. Already at sea, the crew of “Sevzaples” learned that these cars - energy trains - arrived from Zaporozhye. They were equipped with 2-4 very powerful electric diesel engines. Delivery point - Cape Lazarev.
A few days later they arrived at the place. The pier was not yet ready, but a railway line approached its edge. Reloading the wagons ashore turned out to be a labor-intensive task, but everything was thought out to the smallest detail. The “people” was commanded by senior mate Anatoly Dekhta.”
We managed to find another eyewitness account. The author of the memoirs is V. Smirnov:
“I served in the military on Sakhalin together with my bosom friend Kostya Kuzmin. We had little education: Kostya had 4th grade, I had 5th grade, but at that time this was a lot. Kostya was the driver. One day he went AWOL and was absent for almost a month, for which he received 7 years as a deserter.
And then in January 1951 I receive a letter from him. He writes that he found himself at the great construction site of the century, making a hole in the narrowest place of the Tatar Strait. One day counts as three and a half days.
Kostya wrote that 20 dump trucks drove backwards one by one into the tunnel and drove like this for about 10 kilometers.
Two years later, for Good work Konstantin was released and sent home.
In his last letter from home, he wrote that the construction site was closed, water poured into the tunnel and everyone there died.”
According to some reports, the construction of the tunnel began in the early 40s under conditions of special secrecy. Even a railway was brought to Cape Lazarev. But when the war began, the railway track was dismantled. The rails were allegedly sent to the western regions of the country to restore highways destroyed by the Nazis.
Flying over the proposed tunnel construction site with border troops helicopter pilots, I personally became convinced that the embankments from the railway track remained, although time had not been kind to them: they settled, the ground crumbled, and became overgrown with bushes. How much water has flown under the bridge since then...
By the way, it’s time to remember one more revelation. Mikhail Kozlov told it to me at one time:
“I worked at the 220th hydrometeorological observatory of the Pacific Fleet. The boss was Y. Kogan, caperang. We worked on special jobs. Then it was a secret (they signed a non-disclosure agreement). Now so many years have passed that it seems possible to talk about it. So, we were at the test site near Cape Pogibi on Sakhalin. That’s where it began, or rather, it was the beginning of the railway line (or road). Near the shore stood a dilapidated pier with laid rails. Near the shore, on the south side of the pier, there was a prison camp. When I arrived there, there were no more prisoners there, but the landfill staff lived there (they were brought in in the spring, and taken away in the late fall). To the north of the camp, 100-150 meters away, there was a second camp. It was dilapidated, and nearby there were 5-6 graves with wooden crosses. Directly from the pier, a dirt road ran east and ended at a large clearing, the size of a football field. Behind it began an embankment with one railway track and stretched in the direction of the city of Aleksandrovsk. Perhaps the crews of the steamships “Priamurye” and “Transbaikalia”, which went on voyages along the coast, will help shed light on the mystery of the tunnel...”
In 1993, I had the opportunity to meet with a former military engineer who was directly involved in the construction of the tunnel. A gray-haired veteran, who did not want to give his last name, with the rank of colonel, said that there is no myth about the existence of the tunnel. “The tunnel has been built!” - he pronounced these words firmly, proudly recalling that this event happened long before the construction of the tunnel under the English Channel. “Our predecessors were talented. And when it was necessary to defeat the Nazis, and when to create such a unique structure.” According to the veteran, unfortunately, a fatal mistake was made in the project. Its authors were flattered by the fact that the distance between capes Lazarev and Pogibi is the shortest, somewhere around 9 kilometers. And we missed a lot important detail- the current in this narrowest place is quite strong. Water gradually began to seep into the tunnel. The builders tried their best to correct the situation, but the available funds did not allow this to be done. As a result, the construction was mothballed, and after Stalin’s death it was completely abandoned. There was a special government decree on this subject dated May 26, 1953.
Half a century later
The connection of the mainland with the island of Sakhalin was remembered already in the times modern history Russia. In the mid-90s of the last century, I had the opportunity to meet Anatoly Chen, the man who hatched the idea of building a highway to Sakhalin.
In 1998, he was the author of the project for the construction of a bridge crossing in the Nevelskoy Strait. In the very place where half a century ago a secret facility was being built - a tunnel to Sakhalin. Chen was still trying to push through his project at the highest government levels. Here is just one of the responses to his appeal from the Russian Ministry of Defense:
“In accordance with the instructions of the Minister of Defense Russian Federation dated January 21, 1998, your letter with the project for the construction of a bridge in the Nevelskoy Strait (Sakhalin Region) has been reviewed by the relevant departments of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.
We believe that with the commissioning of a multi-purpose bridge connecting the island. Sakhalin with the mainland, costs and time for transport of goods for national economic and military purposes will be significantly reduced, the stability of transport links in the region will increase and the defense-economic problems of the Far East will be resolved more quickly.
At the same time, the construction project of this crossing requires a comprehensive examination and technical and economic calculations with the participation of all interested ministries and departments of the Russian Federation, which requires the adoption of an appropriate decision by the Government of the Russian Federation.
The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation generally supports this project and is ready to participate in it at the stage of the military-economic feasibility study of construction. Special Requirements Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation for the construction of a multi-purpose bridge crossing may be submitted during the approval of the design assignment.”
Already at the beginning of this century, the leadership of the Ministry of Railways addressed the topic of connecting the mainland and Sakhalin Island. Nikolai Aksenenko proposed to complete the construction of the tunnel. But former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov was a supporter of another solution - to build a bridge on the island.
Not long ago, during a work trip to Far East President of JSC Russian Railways Vladimir Yakunin said that in the period from 2011 to 2013, construction of a bridge from the mainland to Sakhalin will begin. The project is of a state nature. From the point of view of transport unity, improving the life and work of Russians who live on Sakhalin, the head of Russian Railways noted, they should have the right to life.
The story of the tunnel to Sakhalin is connected not only with the secrets of the past, but also with unexpected versions of the connection of the island and the mainland in the foreseeable future. Along with the resumption of tunnel construction and the construction of a bridge, opinions are being expressed about the creation of a transcontinental highway from Europe, across Russia through Sakhalin, to the island of Hokkaido. This topic is actively discussed today by both specialists and amateurs. One can argue with the opinions of the parties, but the fact of the need to connect the mainland with the island is real, and there is no mystery about it.
The twentieth century was a time of great achievements and upheavals. However, today it is pleasant to think that, despite all the negativity, there was still more positive in that century. Important scientific discoveries, ambitious projects, breakthrough inventions and research, and, of course, major construction projects. One of these could be the construction of a tunnel to Sakhalin in the USSR.
The idea of connecting Sakhalin with the “mainland” in Russia has been around for a long time. The first mentions of such projects, which were not even started, date back to the mid-19th century. They seriously thought about such a project in the 20-30s of the 20th century, but things didn’t work out again. Each time the project was rejected due to unprofitability.
The last time the construction of a tunnel was discussed was in 1950. Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin himself took the initiative. A special commission headed by the first secretary of the Sakhalin Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, D.N. Melnik, was sent to the site of future construction. Despite the fact that Melnikov expressed great doubts about the prospects of the project, it was decided that Sakhalin should be connected to the mainland of the country using an underground tunnel.
On May 5, 1950, the USSR Council of Ministers issued a secret resolution on the construction of the Komsomolsk-on-Amur - Pobedino railway line. It was within the framework of this construction that a tunnel to the island was to be dug. It was even planned to build several imaginary directions, with fake tunnels.
In September of the same 1950, the USSR Council of Ministers approved the technical regulations for the design and construction of the Stalinist tunnel to Sakhalin, as well as projects for the adjacent railway branches. On the Sakhalin side, the length of the tracks was 327 kilometers. The engineering construction was to begin in the area of Cape Pogibi. On the mainland, the railway was supposed to stretch from Cape Lazarev to the Selikhin station, which is located near Komsomolsk-on-Amur. It is not difficult to guess that the tunnel was supposed to connect the closest parts of the island and the mainland. In this case, its length would be 10 kilometers.
Construction of the tunnel at that time was estimated at 723 million rubles. A huge human resource was involved in the implementation of the project. Prisoners, parolees, hired specialists, assigned workers and military personnel took part in the construction.
There were problems at the construction site from the very beginning. Due to the rush, the work site did not have adequate housing for workers. As a result, working conditions were far from even satisfactory. Many prisoners and military personnel began to get sick. People began to suffer from scurvy en masse. There were problems with the delivery of equipment and construction materials.
The construction was never completed. In 1953, Stalin died. Soon a mass amnesty began, and construction crews lost huge numbers of workers. If on the mainland they managed to build about 120 kilometers of railway tracks, then on Sakhalin for 3 years the work has barely budged. In addition to the railway, an artificial island was built, and the first shaft of the future tunnel was dug. And soon the project was completely abandoned as “not meeting the needs of the national economy.”
Soviet Union left behind a huge legacy. Unfortunately, most of the ambitious projects and construction projects have long since sunk into oblivion. Continuing the topic, we look at things that make you think.
“Great communist construction projects” were one of the priorities of the Soviet government; the transformation of cities and landscapes, the construction of roads and sea routes, the construction of giant factories and testing grounds - all this served to strengthen statehood. However, not every grandiose project was completed.
The Strait of Tartary, which separates Sakhalin Island from the mainland, is very narrow, but when a storm or ice advances, it turns into an insurmountable obstacle for ships. Therefore, back in the middle of the 19th century, the first bridge projects appeared. Then experts determined that the most comfortable spot— the Nevelskoy Strait is about five kilometers wide, from Cape Lazarev on the mainland to Cape Pogibi on the island. However, at that time the railway infrastructure was not yet developed enough for the authorities to decide to invest in construction.
After release
In the first half of the 20th century, discussion of projects continued: options for a dam, dam, bridge and tunnel were considered. Serious calculations began only after Sakhalin was liberated in August 1945. Soviet troops, and the Japanese population was repatriated.
On January 2, 1947, the Sakhalin region was formed as part of the RSFSR. The development of territories and the extraction of resources were hampered by the poor development of roads and the lack of reliable communications with the mainland: sea communication with the northern part of Sakhalin was carried out only from the end of June to the beginning of November - only four months a year! Ensuring reliable transportation has become even more important since the beginning of cold war: Given the superiority of the American fleet based in Japan, sea routes of communication with Sakhalin could be interrupted at any moment, which would complicate the deployment of troops in the most important strategic direction.
In December 1949, Lavrentiy Beria, who served as Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, instructed the relevant ministries to study the possibility of organizing railway communication through the Tatar Strait. At the beginning of April 1950, they presented three options: a dam, a tunnel and crossing by icebreaker ferries. Joseph Stalin himself took part in the discussion of the projects; as a result, the government settled on the idea of a tunnel.
"Construction No. 6"
The total length of the tunnel under the Tatar Strait was supposed to be 13.4 kilometers, including the underwater part - 7.3 kilometers. This length required artificial ventilation with air heating. Accordingly, it was necessary to build two boiler houses, one on each bank, with an estimated consumption of up to 50 thousand tons of coal per year. To build the tunnel itself, 10 tunneling shields and a power plant with a capacity of up to 25 thousand kilowatts were required.
The diameter of the designed tunnel was 8.2 meters. railway track normal gauge allowed 13-14 pairs of trains to pass per day. The entrance portals of the tunnel were located three kilometers from the water and were built in powerful reinforced concrete structures. The construction period is five years. Cost: 2.7 billion rubles.
On May 5, 1950, Stalin signed Resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 1795-702ss “On the construction of the Komsomolsk-Pobedino railway on Sakhalin, a tunnel crossing and a ferry crossing across the Tatar Strait.” The solution to the problem was entrusted to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Railways. It was organized construction department No. 6, of which Nikolai Ermolaev was appointed head, and Leonid Dyakonov was appointed chief engineer.
In agreement with the prosecutor's office, the Ministry of Internal Affairs released eight thousand people from forced labor camps, sending them to construction until the end of their sentences. The exceptions were persons convicted of serious crimes and prisoners of special camps - they were placed in the villages of Tymovskoye (“Construction 506”) and De-Kastri (“Construction 507”). In total, 12.5 thousand people worked on the implementation of the project on Sakhalin and about seven thousand people on the mainland. As construction progressed, the total number of prisoners participating in the work grew: on January 1, 1953, it reached 58 thousand people.
Working and living conditions were very difficult, but strict deadlines determined the rapid pace. One of the orders of the construction manager demanded “radically improving the labor use of prisoners by eliminating all kinds of downtime work force for unjustifiable reasons, primarily due to the lack of a convoy, uniforms, intra-camp transfers, absence from work of those placed in punishment cells and refuseniks.”
By the spring of 1953, all the necessary clearings had been made. On the territory of the Khabarovsk Territory, 120 kilometers of broad gauge railway were laid along the right bank of the Amur from Selikhin station to Cherny Mys station. At Cape Lazarev, where the tunnel was supposed to be built, a mine shaft was dug, and an artificial island with a diameter of 90 meters was built one and a half kilometers from the shore. The construction of a unique underground power station began there. On the territory of the Sakhalin region, work was carried out in worst conditions, so not a single kilometer of railway was ever built. Nevertheless, it was possible to build a dirt road between Nysh and Pogibi.
On March 5, 1953, Joseph Stalin died, and already on March 21, Lavrentiy Beria sent a letter to the Presidium of the Council of Ministers with a proposal to stop the construction of projects, “the implementation of which in the coming years is not caused by the urgent needs of the national economy.” The letter listed such “construction projects of communism” as the Main Turkmen Canal, the Volga-Ural gravity canal, the Volga-Baltic waterway and so on. The tunnel across the Tatar Strait was also blacklisted. On March 25, Chairman of the Council of Ministers Georgy Malenkov signed resolution No. 895-383ss “On changes to the 1953 construction program,” on the basis of which the entire project was closed.
Unfinished objects were abandoned without bothering to mothball them. Moreover, the scale of construction was such that embankments, dams, clearings and remains of concrete structures can still be seen. What remains of the tunnel is an artificial island and a vertical shaft of a technical mine at Cape Lazarev.
Dungeon Legends
Most of the participants in the events claim that direct work over the tunnel was not started. For example, engineer Yuri Koshelev, who participated in the construction of a technical mine, testifies: “We never started digging the tunnel. Although everything was available for this work: materials, equipment, machinery and good qualified specialists and workers.”
However, many documents on “construction No. 6” remain classified, and evidence of a contrary nature is emerging. In particular, military journalist Yuri Trakalo claims that the tunnel was built several kilometers towards Sakhalin. He gives several versions voiced by eyewitnesses.