A little more than half a century has already passed since the day of the man-made disaster in the capital of Soviet Ukraine. It is safe to say that almost none of today's youth knows the Kurenev tragedy of 1961.
What Kiev was silent about
For various reasons, primarily in order not to disturb the public, the exact number of victims was classified. Only the official figure is known - within 145 people. There is nothing surprising here, the true consequences of the disaster have been carefully and for a long time hidden. For several days in a row Kiev was silent literally - the phones were turned off, it was impossible to get through anywhere. Even passenger planes were forbidden to fly over the crash site for several weeks. The Kurenev tragedy happened suddenly, and they tried to keep quiet about it.
This event was almost never mentioned. Presumably the death toll is in the range of 1.5-2 thousand Kievans, none of whom suspected that the March day of the 13th of 1961 would be their last in life. It's time to find out how the Kurenev tragedy happened and what they hid for so many years!
How did it go
Monday morning. It would seem that the usual beginning of the working week of the country of developed socialism. Soviet citizens rush to their jobs, to study. Public transport, as always, is full.
First, in Kurenevka, one of the metropolitan areas, the sudden appearance of a small stream of water made it impossible to move through the streets. Soon from the side of Babi Yar a wave of pulp surged 14 meters high, passing 5 meters every second. In just a few minutes, an area of almost 30 hectares was hard to recognize. Thus began the Kurenev Flood of 1961.
An impending gray-brown mudflow avalanche filled the streets, turning over cars and dump trucks, destroying buildings, carrying pedestrians along. Everything around was covered with mudflow layer, which included clay, sand, pellets and other dirt. The fall of electric poles led to the ignition of crowded trams, trolleybuses and buses. People were actually taken by surprise: someone had breakfast, someone tried to get through from a pay phone in a booth, etc. Then they write that it was real Kiev Pompeii day. The Kurenev tragedy of 1961 claimed many lives, but they didn’t want to talk about it.
Creepy picture
The chronology of the terrible event in Kurenevka has been preserved. Threatening destruction occurred at about three in the morning. The critical moment came at six hours and forty-five minutes (in other sources - at half past eight in the morning). It was a terrible picture. Escaping from the confinement of 700 thousand cubic meters of pulp, accelerating, demolished everything that was in their path, including the building. In the general stream, which had a width of about 20 meters, there were not only living people who were unlucky. Water dug graves in a cemetery, from where they removed corpses and not decaying fragments of coffins.
The Kurenev tragedy of 1961 was terrible and frightening. Everything that happened was hard to tell. Surviving people do not want to remember that day, as many have lost someone.
A destructive stream of water passed along Frunze street
The Ukrpromkonstruktor enterprise, the Krasin tram depot, medical institution, and the Spartak stadium got the most from the raging elements. The section of Frunze Street, as well as residential buildings located in the Yar region, suffered. In total, in a flood zone of 5000 square meters. m turned out to be 53 buildings, including two dormitories. More than half of the affected buildings are single-story houses. The Kurenev tragedy of 1961 in Kiev caused multiple destruction.
Thanks to the bold and prompt actions of the tram depot workers, the power substation was disconnected. Thus, it was possible to prevent further fires on electric vehicles and the potential threat of electric shock. Gradually, the wave lost its strength, already on Frunze Street its height became half less. Nevertheless, she still managed to take the lives of several hundred Kievans.
Monday is a hard day
The pulp that filled the territory was compressed, almost not inferior in density to the stone. The liquid substance mixed with clay mud in a thick layer covered the stadium "Spartak" adjacent to Podolsky descent. Even the high fence was absorbed, because the layer thickness reached three meters.
The Podolsk hospital withstood the blow, on the roof of which it managed to climb and thereby saved some of the patients. For many residents of Kurenevka fatal Monday was a kind of "Pompeii day."
The Kurenev tragedy remained secret for a very long time. As it was, immediate eyewitnesses recall, in whose eyes tears are visible.
Strange order
A secret order was received from the authorities to conduct the funeral almost secretly without civilian requiems in different cemeteries of Kiev. Some graves are even within the region. Such measures are aimed at hiding the real number of victims, thereby avoiding political resonance.
Still, we must pay tribute to the leadership - the unfortunate citizens, whose housing was in the disaster zone, were handed the keys to new apartments. In addition, there was the opportunity to buy in installments household appliances on issued special coupons.
This large-scale Kurenev tragedy of 1961 (Kiev, Ukraine) was hiding qualitatively, which claimed tens of times more lives than was announced for other countries.
Excursion into the recent past
A logical question arises about the causes of the Kurenev tragedy. Did everything happen all of a sudden and nothing, as they say, portended trouble? Should only the elements be blamed for the man-made disaster ? Perhaps the catastrophe became possible due to the human factor (engineering miscalculations, someone's irresponsibility)? Or was there an intervention of otherworldly forces? To answer questions of this kind, you need to make an excursion into the recent past and conduct a small investigation. This Kurenev tragedy happened for good reason. The Curse of Babi Yar is called by its locals. Why so? This will become clear if you continue reading the article.
During the Great Patriotic War, when Kiev was under the occupation of the Nazis, mass executions took place in Babi Yar. In total, more than 260 thousand innocent residents, of whom nearly 150 thousand Jews, found their death here. The Germans, of course, did everything possible to conceal their terrible crimes, subsequently burning corpses.
Horrific facts
After the victory over fascism, Babi Yar attracted looters. At dusk, the "black archaeologists" poked around in the ground, trying to find gold rings and teeth there.
The problem was solved in a blasphemous way. At the place where the human remains sprinkled with earth rested, a culture and leisure park, attractions and a dance floor should have appeared. At the same time, the executive committee of the City Council proceeded from the following reasoned principles: the bodies of the executed Jews do not deserve human conversion, it was necessary to avoid captivity.
The end of the 40s - the beginning of the 50s of the last century was marked by the large-scale construction of multi-storey residential buildings in the outskirts of Kiev, which the people dubbed "Khrushchev". The capital of the Ukrainian SSR expanded due to new housing estates. The construction industry felt an urgent need for a large number of bricks. In order to meet the demand, the existing brick factories had to work around the clock.
The roots of a man-made disaster
The Kurenev tragedy (March 13, 1961, Kiev) did not happen overnight, the prerequisites should be sought in 1950. In Moscow, the Ministry of Industrial Construction Materials developed a project for the organization in Babi Yar of a hydraulic structure for storing waste mainly from Petrovsky brick plants. They should have started its implementation after the adoption of the relevant decision under number 582 by the executive committee of the Kiev City Council. Soon, the "bright" head of some official decided to adjust the original version. Therefore, they made another decision No. 2405, in accordance with which? after raising the level of influx, he was supposed to reach the extreme line of the ravine.
In 1952, on the site of a sand pit, the construction of a hydraulic dump was started. Initially, earthen dams were poured around it around the entire perimeter. After that, with the help of dredgers, waste in the form of pulp began to flow into the quarry from enterprises that mined clay for brick production. But one circumstance soon became clear. For safety reasons, a protective dam should be made ten meters higher. A potential danger was also due to the fact that the huge land capacity filled with industrial waste was 60 meters above the level of one bp of the metropolitan areas, where there were many residential buildings and significant enterprises. The Kurenev tragedy occurred due to human negligence, this has been proven repeatedly.
Mistakes for life
Summing up, we can distinguish the following main mistakes made:
- The incompletely thought-out design of the hydraulic wash was completely disfigured by the amendments of the local "expert".
- The authors of the project, apparently, miscalculated with the water content of the soil at the bottom of the former quarry.
- In winter, heavy snowfalls sometimes occur, which is important.
- Instead of earthen dams, it was necessary to build a more reliable and durable concrete structure.
- Saved on drainage pipes. Due to their small diameter, the system did not function properly, water with brought soil did not have time to be discharged. In addition, the pulp was supplied continuously in such an amount that exceeded 3 times the value contained in the initial calculations. Brick factories tried to exceed the plan without stopping production, with a three-shift work schedule.
Even when alarming symptoms became too obvious, no action was taken. Just four years before the fateful day, the head of the Special Inspectorate informed the administration of the Petrovsky brick factories and the head of the city branch of the Hydromechanization about the current deplorable state. The situation worsened in the winter. Even then, it often happened that the ravine could not accommodate a mixture of water and sand, due to which the surrounding territories were partially under water. That is how the Kurenev tragedy began (Babi Yar dated March 13, 1961).
For ten years, about 4 million cubic meters have gathered in the ravine fenced by the dam. m pulp in a liquid state. All responsibility should be assigned to Alexei Davydov, who since 1947 held the post of head of the City Council (mayor). It is believed that it was he who belonged to the essentially blasphemous idea of destroying the Babi Yar through the continuous production of bricks. In the future, it was planned to build amusement facilities on bones and dust, including attractions with restaurants! If the Kurenev tragedy had not happened, then laughter would have come over the remains of captured Jews.
Instead of an epilogue
The stories of those who were then among the liquidators of the consequences have survived. The following picture will probably never be erased from memory. Bulldozers, raking the stratified dirt, with their steel shovels removed corpses and at the same time dismembered them. Those victims who were lucky to survive were taken to medical facilities in the suburban area. If a person was dying, then he was interred in the land near the hospital. Such people were no longer included in the list of victims.
The Kurenev tragedy of March 13, 1961 is a black spot in the history of Ukraine. All this could have been avoided, but sometimes the desire for infinite wealth makes you make unforgivable mistakes.