These pictures are made in Crimea, where the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Navy is based.

This headquarter has been abandoned and looted after the Soviet Union's collapse. Comments are in Russian. Just scroll down to see the pictures...


http://russos.livejournal.com/212012.html

hmm, looks interesting..

Why was it abandoned?

good question, but doesnt the colapse of the ussr have to do anything about it?

Originally Posted by MightyMacbeth

good question, but doesnt the colapse of the ussr have to do anything about it?

It's a long story...

The main base of the Black Sea fleet has always been in Sevastopol and around it. The Crimean Peninsula has been acquired by the Russian Empire from Turkey in th 18th century.
When the USSR has been created, Crimea was placed into the Russian Federation's domain. However, the majority of the local population was the Tatars(whose religion is Islam). During the WWII, some of them were helping Hitler, so Stalin has ordered to deport all of them to the Central Asia. And they were deported in the fall of 1944...

In their stead, the Ukrainian settlers have been brought from the neigbouring areas.

In 1954, Khruschov(Ukrainian by birth) has facilitated the transfer of this strategic peninsula to Ukraine(with some restitution in other areas). It has not made much of difference then, but has become very important after 1991 when the USSR has been disbanded and the Soviet Fleet of the Black Sea has become a subject of a bitter dispute between Russia and Ukraine. Finally, they split it, but the Russian Fleet still remains in Sevastopol as a leasee. Unfortunately for Russia, there is only one good harbor in the Russian territory - Novorossijsk, but it's very inconvenient for the Navy and is very heavily used by the Merchant Marine.
Ukraine, meanwhile, sees her future with the UE and NATO, but she can't even dream about it while the Russian troops are stationed on the Ukrainian soil... So, the Russians are going to build a new base somewhere else...

In this sad situation, a lot of ships and other assets have been lost or damaged. This is just one of them...

Many people think, however, that neither country needs a large Navy on the Black Sea locked by Turkey anyway.

I personally don't see the reasonin for having a very large fleet in the Black Sea, perhaps some frigates and destroyers but nothing excessive like the 200+ ships Russia currently has in the black sea, last I heard anyways.

Originally Posted by Damien435

I personally don't see the reasonin for having a very large fleet in the Black Sea, perhaps some frigates and destroyers but nothing excessive like the 200+ ships Russia currently has in the black sea, last I heard anyways.

this is exactly my opinion!

But they, probably, know better!

Russia is going to build a new base East of Crimea. The first billion of dollars is earmarked already...

They needs ships to command first. Or at least ones that can move.

heh, yeah it seems odd to have afleet in the black sea..

Wow, those pictures remind me of a trip I made (one dark hot summer night) with some friends to the deserted underground missile complex behind the Chico (small city in northern California) airport. We had to go down six flights of stairs into a dark, gloomy labyrinth. It was just like being in a creepy horror movie. Boy that was freaky...

The only picture I could find on the web of the place; http://chicoairtankers.8k.com/silopics.htm

This site doesn’t say it, but I think they had a major explosion in there. We saw a lot of what looked like burned potato chips glued to the walls; we soon realized we were looking at what was left of the walls after a very hot fire...