Environmental disaster near Kostroma: the military poisoned the forest with fuel oil (PHOTOS)

Representatives of the All-Russian Popular Front (ONF) in the Kostroma region appealed to the Rosprirodnadzor administration and the interdistrict environmental prosecutor's office with a demand to respond to information about an environmental disaster that occurred on the territory of the Kuznetsovsky rural settlement of the Kostroma region, where the missile division of the Russian Defense Ministry was formerly located.

“After the missilemen left, old fuel oil tanks remained at the site. The robbers sawed one of them into metal, because of which the contents turned out to be on the surface of the earth”, - the ONF said.

According to activists, fuel oil spread like rivers over an area of about one hectare. Meanwhile, more than 1,600 people live in the immediate vicinity of the oil spill site in the Kuznetsovsky rural settlement, and two water wells are located near the site of the ecological disaster.

“Fuel oil contains carcinogens that cause cancer and mutagens that negatively affect heredity. Getting into the soil, underground waters can pose a threat to people, ”ecologists say.

Social activists demanded that officials take measures to urgently eliminate the consequences of the spill, without waiting for the search for the perpetrators and their punishment. According to experts, at the site of an environmental disaster, it is urgent to clean the soil from oil products and restore the productivity of the soil.

Several years ago, the Ministry of Defense removed from the security the top-secret base of military railway missile systems near Kostroma, which immediately turned into a place of pilgrimage for stalkers. A little 20 kilometers from Kostroma there is a “dead city” occupying several hectares with abandoned multi-storey buildings, a boiler house, concrete roads and treatment facilities.

Previously, this "dead city" was a top-secret site No. 30 of the Ministry of Defense, where, until 2006, units of the 10th missile division of the strategic missile forces were based. They served the deadly "weapon of retaliation" - combat railway missile systems (BZHRK). Their task was to provide a lightning-fast retaliatory strike in the event of an enemy attack. For this, nuclear trains were equipped with a special margin of safety and survivability.

Until recently, it was absolutely impossible for a mere mortal who did not have special permits to enter this territory. The approaches to the concrete road leading to the "thirty" were reliably guarded by the posts of the military traffic police (VAI), and the main secrets of the BZHRK were hidden behind three rows of barbed wire in places absolutely inaccessible to prying eyes. Accidental mushroom pickers who wandered into these parts from the thicket inevitably found themselves in the field of vision of vigilant armed patrols, who harshly and intelligibly explained to the curious that "one should not go here".

Now the once secret site of the Strategic Missile Forces is not guarded by anyone and is completely looted. The entrance to the Romashka station, where the BZHRK or "nuclear trains" were served, was dug up in search of non-ferrous metal. Everything was stolen, including the old rails in the rolling stock repair area. At the point of permanent deployment of the Strategic Missile Forces, giant bunkers for servicing the warheads of ballistic missiles are pretty well preserved, but powerful pressurized doors, once capable of withstanding a nuclear strike, could not resist the onslaught of vandals with autogenes.

According to the recollections of eyewitnesses who served at the base, earlier the wire that protected the "nuclear" section was energized from 1 to 3 thousand volts. However, after a young soldier died from an electric shock here, the command ordered the voltage to be removed.

Stalkers from all over the country regularly come to this area, wanting to capture the remnants of the former nuclear power. Not far from "Romashka" there is an abandoned station "Vasilek", where the residential and training zones were located. Multi-storey buildings and barracks greet visitors with gaping windows and complete ruin. On the ground are abandoned greatcoats, shoes, gas masks, weapon boxes, chemicals and documentation on combat and tactical training. On the papers are instructions with the names and grades of the cadets, which no one bothered to destroy. Most of the buildings in the "dead city" are in disrepair.

The saddest sight in the area is a giant black oil lake that spilled over the site of a former boiler house and poisoned the soil in the vicinity. In addition to fuel oil spills, the site is full of unused placers of unknown chemicals. More than ten years have passed since the division was disbanded, and the Ministry of Defense has not yet bothered to begin reclamation of the site and restore the ruined earth. The invincible nuclear trains disappeared, and with them, apparently, the notions of military order and discipline that surrounded them disappeared.