What do atomic explosions have to do with the Kharkiv region? It seems that such a connection is a figment of the imagination of science fiction writers or the delusion of a paranoid. In reality, the nuclear threat has sunk into oblivion along with the Cold War, and during the period of confrontation between the socialist and Western blocs, no bombs fell on Kharkov and the surrounding area.
But still, there was one atomic explosion on the territory of the Kharkov region - in the vicinity of the village of Krestishche, Krasnogradsky district, at a gas field. And it is connected not with military operations, but with economic activities.
It is hard to believe in this, but the fact remains that nuclear weapons, the most destructive of all the diversity created by mankind, were called up for peaceful service. Only near Kharkov the atomic bomb did not give the expected positive effect.
From gas extraction to nuclear explosion
The development of the Krestishchenskoye gas field began in 1970, after the neighboring Shebelinskoye was discovered in the 50s. Both are the largest in Ukraine and are among the five richest European deposits of "blue fuel". Significant volumes of gas from here were used by the industry and the municipal sector of Kharkov, Poltava, Kiev, as well as Bryansk, Belgorod, and many small towns and villages.
The gradual growth in consumption stimulated the drilling of new wells. A year after the start of development, the 17th well began to be developed at the Krestishchenskoye field. It was then that the accident happened here.
In July 1971, another well was being drilled - a work that has already become customary in these places. Nothing foreshadowed trouble, but at one point the earth trembled, and a huge fountain of gas condensate, tens of meters high, appeared above the drilling structure. In the first minutes of the accident, two engineers became its victims - they were thrown by pressure from the thirty-meter platform of the gas tower to the ground.
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The cause of the disaster was the abnormal underground pressure of 400 atmospheres - gas condensate under its influence broke through the cement reinforcement of the well wall even before the drill reached the required depth. In addition, the occurrence of gas-bearing horizons was very deep, and the structure of local layers of the Earth was unusual, which also played a role in the tragedy.
The nearest village Pershotravnevoe was located only half a kilometer away, which created a tremendous danger - any spark could ignite the accumulated gas. A possible explosion would be of monstrous force. While the engineers were deciding what to do with the emission, the workers drove around the villagers' houses, urging them not to turn on the lights, not to heat the stoves, and, at best, to leave for another place at least overnight.
Attempts to pacify the rebellious fountain yielded nothing - the preventer turned out to be ineffective, the concrete pumped under pressure was spit out by the pressure, and heavy concrete slabs thrown at the wellhead were scattered like sheets of cardboard with the monstrous pressure of the jet. While standard shutoff methods failed, gas accumulated in the vicinity, posing an ever greater danger. Then it was decided to set the leak on fire.
A huge, many-meter torch appeared over the Baptism and surrounding villages. Flames burst from the ground, turning dark nights into light twilight, for which the locals stopped using the lighting. The burning fountain emitted a monstrous hum, which was simply impossible to shout down. Therefore, the locals tried not to talk on the streets. The flames heated up the surrounding ground so much that even in winter, the grass turned green within a radius of 300 meters around it. This went on for a whole year, while scientists were thinking how to eliminate the Krestishchenskaya "attraction".
As a result, they decided to excavate the well - to apply the standard method of eliminating such accidents. But when the work was already being prepared, a new proposal came from Moscow - to make an atomic underground explosion.
How a nuclear bomb can help in the national economy
Nuclear energy is known to everyone - this is the very peaceful atom that several times showed its bestial grin when it was treated negligently. But the history of industrial nuclear explosions has long been shrouded in secrecy. And not only in the Soviet Union, but also in the United States. And if in the USSR this can be explained by total secrecy, then in the United States they simply do not like to remember the program, due to which several million citizens received irradiation of varying intensity, and large areas were infected.
But initially, nuclear industrial explosions seemed to be almost a panacea for solving complex engineering and economic problems.
Within the framework of Operation Plow, the Americans planned to use atomic bombs to create new harbors, extract minerals, and change landscapes in the interests of road infrastructure. The program was launched in 1957 and closed in 1973. During this time, 27 explosions were made, but the financial viability of the program remained questionable. In addition, the press made public the cases of exposure of citizens and localities. The opponents of the project took advantage of this, conducting a successful campaign to discredit.
The Soviet "Program No. 7" lasted longer - from 1965 to 1988. A total of 124 warheads were detonated for economic purposes. The goals were different - to intensify the production of oil, gas, fossil materials, deep sounding of the Earth, the creation of cavities for storing "blue fuel" and even the formation of artificial lakes.
Why was such a terrible weapon known for long-term consequences used on such a large scale? After all, there have already been examples of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nuclear tests were carried out, including with the participation of living people.
This can be explained by insufficient assessment of the radiation hazard. Despite the mass of data, it was believed that the "correct" use of bombs would provide an acceptable level of radiation and its rapid reduction to zero. By and large, it was only after Chernobyl that it became clear how monstrous the radiation that had escaped free was.
An example of underestimating a hazard is one case. The first industrial nuclear explosion in the USSR was formed by the artificial lake Chagan. It was intended to solve the problems of irrigation, watering for livestock and compensate for other economic needs of local residents. And the first to dive into the reservoir was the Minister of Small Machine Building of the USSR, Efim Slavsky. Was this realistic with serious radiation concerns? Hardly.
It later turned out that the dump of the phonite breed, the project workers and the surrounding residents received a whole heap of chronic diseases, and the death rate of livestock exceeded all conceivable limits. But in the 50-70s of the last century, little attention was paid to this.
Therefore, on September 30, 1966, they were not afraid to use a nuclear charge for the first time to extinguish a burning gas fountain at the Urta-Bulak field in Kazakhstan. And already in 1972, such a technique was proposed to solve the problem of the Krestishchensky fountain.
Nuclear dawn over the Baptism
The logic of extinguishing a nuclear explosion is as follows: at an angle to the shaft of a gas mine, a hole was dug into which an atomic charge was placed. During detonation, the soil shifted, covering the well with its mass. Such a plan worked on Urta-Buluk, and they wanted to apply it in Krestishche. The operation was named "Torch".
The initiative came from the highest level - the signatures on the decree were left by the Secretary General of the USSR Leonid Brezhnev and the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR Alexei Kosygin, and the Ministry of Medium Machine Building was involved in the execution. Moreover, the involvement of local personnel was minimal - Moscow employees of the KGB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs were engaged in security, and Moscow scientists were involved in the implementation.
The preparation took place in the strictest secrecy - each participant signed a fifteen-year nondisclosure paper. The residents of the surrounding villages were not informed about the essence of the future experiment, although, immediately before the explosion, everyone already knew very well about its nuclear nature.
The preparation took four months. An inclined shaft 2.4 kilometers long was dug to the shaft of the burning well, into which a 3.8-kiloton nuclear charge was loaded. Three-, five- and eight-kilometer safety zones were identified around the future explosion, and a protective embankment of river sand was created at a distance of 400 meters near the torch.
Not missing the opportunity, scientists decided to conduct research on animals, placing chickens, goats and bees around the perimeter at various distances.
On the morning of July 9, residents of the village of Pershotravnevoy, which was within a 400-meter radius, were temporarily moved to Krestishche, located two kilometers from the well. Already at 10 o'clock the same day, an explosion occurred.
According to the recollections of eyewitnesses, the earth was perceptibly shaken, after which tons of rock were thrown into the air and then sank back. For 20 seconds, it seemed that the nuclear bomb had coped with the task - the torch was extinguished, but this moment was deceiving. There was a second shock, after which a gas fountain, already hated by the locals, burst out.
A minute later, an ominous dust cloud formed, slowly crumpled by the wind and slowly floated towards the Poltava region. It was this smog that escaped from the ground was the consequence of a nuclear explosion, but then this was not given importance.
Operation Torch failed. The rock failed to shut off the gas flow due to excessively high pressure. It turned out that this required a more powerful charge, but the experiment was not repeated.
Moscow experts did not offer a new version of extinguishing, gathered and left for the capital. Local engineers shrugged their shoulders and went back to the original plan - to excavate the well. The work lasted another year, after which the Fakel was reliably muffled. Peace has finally come for the locals. So, at least, it seemed then.
Consequences of the Krestishchensky nuclear explosion
The first residents of the resettled Pershotravnevoy returned home half an hour after the detonation. According to official information, the experiment was not dangerous for the locals, although signs of something bad appeared immediately after the explosion - all the experimental animals died.
The residents did not receive any warnings, and the measurements, if they were carried out, remained secret. But only a few years later, numerous oncological diseases of the villagers made it known that the peaceful explosion turned out to be such only on paper.
Appeals to the authorities were ignored - the inhabitants of Krestishche, Pershotravnevoy, and other villages were never recognized as victims either by the authorities of the USSR, or by the leadership of the already independent Ukraine. Although mortality from cancer and other diseases suggested otherwise.
Now the background at the site of the explosion does not exceed the norm, and the memorial well is in the field with a sealed pipe. During her short, but in all senses bright life, she did not give the economy a single cubic meter of gas. But it inflicted losses, the amount of which can no longer be measured.
Not so long ago, they wanted to make the venue for the "Torch" an attraction for fans of "nuclear tourism". Naturally, the initiative of the local authorities did not turn out in any way - looking at a lonely pipe sticking out of the ground is completely uninteresting, unlike the famous Chernobyl nuclear power plant and the ghostly Pripyat.
After the Krestishchensky case, there were other attempts to put a leash on a nuclear bomb. One of them happened not far from Kharkov - in Yenakiyevo, Donetsk region. There it was necessary to overcome emissions of coal dust and methane with the help of an incomparably lower power charge. This operation achieved its goal, but the infection did not follow. Although in the future, the consequences of the explosion buried underground may still remind of themselves.
Stories like this show that the atom is never "peaceful." Even tamed, Chernobyl, he clearly showed it. It is a wild beast, capable of terribly biting anyone who decides to use it.
The saddest thing is that ordinary people suffer as a result.
Mikhail Tatarinov