Bunker with SevDig.
I waste most of the day trying to find out where the Inkerman underground quarries are. At least one part is now a cellar and distillery. Inkerman wines and spirits are famous. There are excursions to these caves, but I prefer to avoid group trips.
Well, I have read guidebooks, searched maps, searched the Internet, asked a dozen of people in Sevastopol and Inkerman, and nobody knows where they are. I suppose the cellar business just don’t want individual visitors, only groups.
I try to visit the world-famous Sevastopol panorama. It’s a huge circular, life-size painting depicting the 1855 battle. It is as large as Waterloo (Belgium) or Wrocław (Poland) panoramas (about 110 m long). I give up the idea when I see the long, long queue under heavy sunshine.
I have to change hotels again. I’m back in Hotel Ukraina, but in an unrefurbished room this time (which is OK for me). They say there is hot water from 7 to 9, morning and evenings; I can’t tell if it’s true, because I arrived after 21:00 and checked out before 7:00 :-)
I have an arrangement to visit a huge bunker outside Sevastopol in late afternoon. I meet Edward from Sevdig (Sevastopol Diggers ) and his funny car “Krokodil”. Can you see the “bullet impact” stickers on the windscreen?
The bunker is dug in a hill a few kilometers away from Sevastopol. It is not accessible by public transportation. The entrance building is painted with fake windows, so that it would look like an ordinary building on satellite pictures:
The bunker is huge: 27 000 m² on several levels (up to five floors). It was used from 1972 to 1993 as alternative headquarters for the Sevastopol army, in case the downtown HQ would be out of order. Most of the rooms were offices. We can also see remains of technical rooms (compressors, air filters...), a 180-m-deep shaft to the surface, a cinema theater and a swimming pool.
"Объект 221" is absolutely empty. Everything has been stolen and sold for scrap, including stairways and doors. We walk on concrete rubble, because people knocked inner walls down for iron. I can imagine how desperate these people were, to spend so much energy for scrap metal.
It’s very damp inside and there is a constant fog. This is the reason why I have no decent picture of the inside. You can find some here.
Edward is a bit suspicious with me at the beggining, then relaxes as we walk underground. Communication is difficult: his English is almost as bad as my Russian. Fortunately, many Russian words about army, military architecture, etc, are actually French.
Edward tells me about the “Fort” association. They are interested in fortifications and undergrounds in the Sevastopol area. He explains that most of the underground structures here are military. There are a few civilian underground objects, such as the Inkerman quarries, but they are small. Most of the Inkerman quarries are open-air.
Back in Sevastopol, Edward shows me films about undergrounds in and around Sevastopol. They are very interesting. Images explain all that we could not talk about, by lack of a common language. Some bunkers have not been looted yet, because they are still military grounds or very difficult to access.
Well, I have read guidebooks, searched maps, searched the Internet, asked a dozen of people in Sevastopol and Inkerman, and nobody knows where they are. I suppose the cellar business just don’t want individual visitors, only groups.
I try to visit the world-famous Sevastopol panorama. It’s a huge circular, life-size painting depicting the 1855 battle. It is as large as Waterloo (Belgium) or Wrocław (Poland) panoramas (about 110 m long). I give up the idea when I see the long, long queue under heavy sunshine.
I have to change hotels again. I’m back in Hotel Ukraina, but in an unrefurbished room this time (which is OK for me). They say there is hot water from 7 to 9, morning and evenings; I can’t tell if it’s true, because I arrived after 21:00 and checked out before 7:00 :-)
I have an arrangement to visit a huge bunker outside Sevastopol in late afternoon. I meet Edward from Sevdig (Sevastopol Diggers ) and his funny car “Krokodil”. Can you see the “bullet impact” stickers on the windscreen?
The bunker is dug in a hill a few kilometers away from Sevastopol. It is not accessible by public transportation. The entrance building is painted with fake windows, so that it would look like an ordinary building on satellite pictures:
The bunker is huge: 27 000 m² on several levels (up to five floors). It was used from 1972 to 1993 as alternative headquarters for the Sevastopol army, in case the downtown HQ would be out of order. Most of the rooms were offices. We can also see remains of technical rooms (compressors, air filters...), a 180-m-deep shaft to the surface, a cinema theater and a swimming pool.
"Объект 221" is absolutely empty. Everything has been stolen and sold for scrap, including stairways and doors. We walk on concrete rubble, because people knocked inner walls down for iron. I can imagine how desperate these people were, to spend so much energy for scrap metal.
It’s very damp inside and there is a constant fog. This is the reason why I have no decent picture of the inside. You can find some here.
Edward is a bit suspicious with me at the beggining, then relaxes as we walk underground. Communication is difficult: his English is almost as bad as my Russian. Fortunately, many Russian words about army, military architecture, etc, are actually French.
Edward tells me about the “Fort” association. They are interested in fortifications and undergrounds in the Sevastopol area. He explains that most of the underground structures here are military. There are a few civilian underground objects, such as the Inkerman quarries, but they are small. Most of the Inkerman quarries are open-air.
Back in Sevastopol, Edward shows me films about undergrounds in and around Sevastopol. They are very interesting. Images explain all that we could not talk about, by lack of a common language. Some bunkers have not been looted yet, because they are still military grounds or very difficult to access.
posted by Juliette at 00:00
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