The pier Glass in Manol on the territory of the Admiralty Shipyards recreation center

The tests were successful and on December 3, 1959, the state flag of the USSR was raised on the Lenin nuclear icebreaker.

Place of power

I am drawn here during the autumn storms, when the winds start their pandemonium and drive ragged clouds over the expanse of the bay, in the gaps between which the bottomless blue of the sky opens. Pier "Glass" in Manol on the territory of the recreation center "Admiralty Shipyards" ironically is very close to my summer cottage.

Walking along the bay is nice at any time, but, come on, on a hot summer day, it’s much better to lie on the sandy shore belly up. Another thing is if the red steel gangway whistles from the wind, the bay flashes with a mercury luster under the false rays of the sun, lost in the cottony moisture of the clouds, and the iridescent waves run, play catch-up with each other and break on the coastal boulders once dragged by the glacier.

From the concrete circle of the pier, it is easy to notice a sharp drop in depths. A narrow transparent strip ends about 3 meters from the shore. Further to the horizon - a dark lead color, an indicator of the water column and the departure of the bottom topography sharply downwards.

You step on a shaky bridge, and it becomes terribly from the melody of bad weather, you suddenly imagine how the ladder will collapse on sharp stones and you will get lost in the viscous "mercury" of cold waves.

But it is here that you understand the greatness of the past. Nevertheless, the city of Primorsk has its own bittersweet story - the history of a closed city that worked for the defense of the country.

They say that if you come here before sunrise and step onto the ladder, then in the predawn twilight you can see the outlines of the hull of a huge ship, slowly melting in the band of light rising from the horizon. No wonder this legend was born.

The pier "Glass", named after its appearance, is the place of sea trials of the first Soviet nuclear icebreaker "Lenin". In fairness, it is worth noting that not only him, even in 2018, after a major overhaul of the berth and dressing him in a steel casing, the power units of the Andrey Vilkitsky diesel-electric ship were tested here.

Yes, if you count, there have been other ships and ships for decades. But the Lenin icebreaker, as it were, absorbed all these stories and became a legend, an image of this place.

First of the first

What do you think about, standing in the center of a round concrete platform between three bollards, the largest of which, until recently, was equipped with a massive chain, so that any passing through could imagine how the tests were once carried out? Well, first of all, about the icebreaker itself, which is now permanently laid up in Murmansk.

The conquest of the Arctic is an open book of exploits and accomplishments, and the development of the Northern Sea Route is one of its pages that has not yet been completed. It was for this ice highway that the world's first nuclear-powered icebreaker "Lenin" was intended. Diesel icebreakers were not new, but the development of a nuclear power plant for civilian purposes was the first in the world.

The government decree on the construction of a nuclear-powered ship was adopted in 1953. The project was transferred to TsKB-15 (PO Box 619, now Iceberg) in 1953-1955. The best scientific and design forces were thrown into its implementation. Academician Aleksandrov has been appointed scientific leader of the work. The chief designer was V. I. Neganov, the nuclear plant was designed under the guidance of I. I. Afrikantov. Especially for this nuclear-powered ship, the Prometheus Institute developed a strong hull steel.

"Lenin" was laid down on August 25, 1956 at the shipyard named after Andre Marty, in the process of building the icebreaker, the plant changed its name and became Admiralteysky. In 1957, the order was completed, but testing and trials of the icebreaker continued for the next two years. There were too many things to check.

The place where the “Glass” pier is now located was noticed in 1959. The depths made it possible to perform the necessary measurements. At the same time, they built the original round concrete structure. In September 1959, under the command of the captain of the Yermak icebreaker Pavel Ponomarev, the Lenin nuclear-powered icebreaker arrived at the site.

The main task was to test the icebreaker at full traction power. To do this, he moored the stern to the "Glass", he was connected with chains with bollards. "Lenin" developed full power, trying to move away from the pier, and testers using a dynamometer determined the traction force. The power of the nuclear icebreaker was 44,000 horsepower. We also checked the biological protection against exposure to gamma rays at full power.

The tests were successful and on December 3, 1959, the state flag of the USSR was raised on the Lenin nuclear icebreaker. The world's first nuclear-powered ship served until 1989. Now it is one of the tourist sites of Murmansk. Monument.

And our "Glass" is also a monument. But you can see this place is strange, almost magical. It pushes you here from the global to the particular and again to the global, as if a giant pendulum of time is swinging and captivates you with simple and complex plots.

Above the flow of time

Here you remember your own, purely domestic past. Father, fishing, petty talk. About the fact that you need to come to the "Glass" with a glass and that it is better to set up nets, and not throw a fishing line with bait, even in such a deep place as this pier.

The faces of those who have already left the sinful earth flash in my memory. Leave in our area quickly. After all, almost everyone worked for the military-industrial complex. Even the city-forming enterprise of Primorsk was KB Energomash, a branch of the current Moscow Energia, the enterprise that developed the legendary Buran.

It was here in the closed city that the 11D14 rocket engine was bench tested, using liquid fluorine and ammonia as fuel components, the only and until recently the best in the world. This design office worked for the vast majority of our horticulture... and my father.

Did I know what he does? No and no, although she regularly pronounced a complex abbreviation at school, under which the name of the enterprise was hidden. He left suffering from cancer, like many of his colleagues. Probably, this is a payment for an interesting job, for an eventful life, for the gray waves of the bay and a piece of land on the shore where you can build a house, plant a garden and a kitchen garden.

It is not the early departure itself that is terrible, but the stupid cliff. When everything ends without continuation. It's like cutting off the branches of a strong, healthy tree and then admiring or crying over the unfortunate stump. The Buran project is closed, the seaside branch has ceased to exist, the wind is blowing over the mortal remains of the former buildings, and only rare curious people crawl through the ruins for greater persuasiveness, pulling gas masks on themselves. Everything is over.

A port has been built in Primorsk, its coastal zones are the territory of Gazprom. All this is like an ancient lake covered in swamp mud, and only occasionally, somewhere at the former depth, a tiny lens of clear water suddenly flashes. Our military-industrial complex really lives on the developments of the USSR. What will happen when they are gone?

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