Interesting events unfold on the Chebarkul lake in the area of the meteorite fall. Here, since the beginning of September, divers have been trying to "catch" the largest fragment of the car. So far - unsuccessfully. But last week they even managed to reach it with a probe, and later they found several small fragments of a meteorite.
On the day the Rossiyskaya Gazeta reporters arrived, a cold rain drifted onto the lake, and a piercing wind drove lead clouds across the sky. From the coast to the place of the search operation, we travel along the waves on a rubber boat with a motor, together with the Chelyabinsk rescuers who are on duty around the clock on the coast, insuring the divers. Rides - no more than ten minutes, but our craft sways and bounces on the waves so that it seems that in a moment we will all fly into the water.
Fortunately, it didn’t work, and we moor to a platform about six by eight meters in area, in the center of which is a bright yellow tent. This is the main surface "stationary" platform. Nearby there are two more mobile platforms, smaller in size, in appearance resembling catamarans, equipped with all the necessary equipment for diving.
Divers start from them. The platform offers a picturesque view of Chebarkul and its surroundings. Nearby is the famous 320-kilogram red-and-white buoy, installed on the occasion of the arrival of the meteorite. In order not to interfere with prospecting work, it was positioned about 70 meters away from the point of impact.
"Well" at the bottom of the lake
With us, two divers take turns diving, and there are four people in the brigade, plus the leader and his assistant. However, all above-water body movements give little for understanding what is happening: the most interesting things happen under water.
Promotional video:
- At the bottom of the reservoir with the help of special equipment, figuratively speaking, a "well" is being dug, - explains the essence of the operation, the technical director of the Yekaterinburg company engaged in the rise of the meteorite, Maxim Shipulin. - At first it was thought that its diameter would be six meters, but today it has reached 20, the scope of search has expanded. The divers have stepped over the 14-meter mark at a depth, the work is being carried out in a complete absence of visibility, by touch. This requires from divers not only the highest level of professional training, but also an excellent vestibular apparatus: you can easily lose orientation in space. Recently one of the guys was almost crushed by a layer of dense silt, it's good that he did not succumb to panic. That is, there is an element of risk, and the deeper the divers dive, the more difficult it is to work.
Work "for science"
“The work is carried out seven days a week from morning until nightfall,” says the director of the company Nikolai Murzin. - Almost always there is someone under water, except for lunch break. Eight divers are working today. There is nothing supernatural for us in raising "foreign" objects from the depths - this is what we specialize in. The difficulty lies in the imposition of high environmental requirements for the operation. The lake is a drinking reservoir for Chebarkul, therefore it is important that the sludge we pumped out does not get into the water intake. Fishery supervision also makes its demands.
According to Murzin, the problem was solved in the following way: the pumped-out tons of sludge through a pipe 100 meters long are fed into a caliper - a special storage. After the completion of the operation, the sludge will be distilled back into the "well".
I asked the director if the company would meet the costs set by the tender - 1 million 670 thousand rubles.
“Of course not,” he replied. - We have tons of sophisticated equipment here, highly qualified specialists with extensive experience. We estimate only the cost of the operation at 4.5 million rubles. In fact, we carry out most of the work at our own expense.
- Why did you agree?
- Such world-class events do not happen every day. When the possibility of our participation in the rise of the meteorite was just being discussed, we got together and decided that we could afford to work for the good of science.
"Ide" against "green men"
A psychologically difficult situation, according to the divers, was at the beginning of the operation, when the sonar showed that “an object that looked like a meteorite” was at the bottom, but searches did not give any results. The mood changed after the diver Aleksey Lyakhov reached the "big" meteorite with a one and a half meter probe. And on September 24, he also found the first meteorite fragment, the size of a fist.
However, without mysticism in such a matter as the raising of a meteorite, one cannot do.
- It seems that some "green men" do not want to give the earthlings a space body, - shares his observations Maxim Shipulin. - We thought that we could get a "big" meteorite from a depth of 14 meters, but it is sucked deeper and deeper, and we are already talking about continuing work at 16-20 meters. We even have a new term - "reasonable sapropel" (sapropel - bottom sediments - ed.). In addition, incredible things happen: five times we steamed the boat, motors fail, instruments go off scale - just some kind of anomalous zone!
At the end of last week, the expedition was visited by the mayor of Chebarkul, Andrei Orlov, who was not afraid to dive nine meters under the water. Divers are joking now: "How we soaked the mayor!" Orlov is said to have been impressed by the work of the expedition, calling their efforts "heroic." Like, in the same place under water you can not see anything at all! In general, the local authorities helped the expedition: they solved the problems with water supply in the camp, filled up the road, and installed a dry closet.
"RG" also visited the expedition's tent camp, deployed on the shore of Lake Chebarkul. The first thing that caught my eye was the poster with the inscription "Ide and men VS meteorite and little green men."
- There is such a meme - a man caught a large fish, smiles and says: "Ide!", - Nikolai Murzin explains. - We liked this image, we decided to make it a symbol of the expedition. Well, everything else is clear - about men, about a meteorite, and about little green men.
Beware, secret area
Work related to the meteorite is carried out in secrecy. So, in one of the tents we notice several computers - on them the specialists are watching underwater footage. However, we are forbidden to shoot images on monitors. They say that under the terms of the contract, all information concerning the meteorite can only be disclosed by the customer.
We also looked at a meteorite fragment weighing 4.8 kilograms, which was pulled from the bottom from the bottom the day before by the diver Maxim Gorbunov - the largest one to date. Prior to that, a fragment of a car weighing 3.4 kilograms, found by Alexei Lysenkov from the South Urals, was considered such. But we were not allowed to take a historical photo of the unique find either.
Every day the expedition retrieves piles of stones from the depths. There are anchors, as well as numerous magnets: with their help, meteorite hunters tried to fish out small fragments of a cosmic body.
Meanwhile, the members of the expedition, conducting sorting of stones, began to understand their nature no worse than professional geologists. They say that meteorite fragments can be identified by traces of melting and characteristic crystals. And the divers, after they pulled out three fragments at once on September 26, hope that they have finally attacked the trail of the "big" meteorite (according to preliminary data, its dimensions are 50 by 90 centimeters). It is expected to be raised this week.
And
The authorities of the Chelyabinsk region received a letter from a ufologist in Moscow. He seriously prevents divers from contact with the meteorite. He writes that this is not a meteorite at all, but "a technogenic object of extraterrestrial origin." That is, a spaceship. And if you touch it, it can paralyze the arms, legs and the brain will fail. Divers don't believe in these bikes. But just in case they work with gloves.