by Vladimir BOCHAROV, Dr. Sc. (Tech.), Institute of Strategic Stability of "Rosatom" State Atomic Energy Corporation, Vera PARAFONOVA, journalist The nuclear test range on the Novaya Zemlya islands, which has become a property of the Russian Federation after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and which has obtained a status of the Central Testing Ground, marked its 55th anniversary in September 2009. Created 5 years after the explosion of the first national atomic bomb on August 29, 1949, in Kazakh steppes near Semipalatinsk, it has contributed greatly to the improvement of nuclear weapons and ensuring security of our Motherland. BATTLEFIELD IN THE CHERNAYA BAY The weapon of an unprecedented destructive force, developed in 1949, caused heated debates on the role of the Navy, in the conditions of operations yet not studied. In this very intricate situation Nikolai Kuznetsov, First Deputy Minister of Defense and Commander-in-Chief of the USSR Navy submitted a report on a new plan of military shipbuilding on March 31, 1954. The plan envisaged equipping of the Navy with nuclear weapons, and it also called for securing stability of future facilities against a destructive action. By that time, works on creation of a nuclear warhead for the T-5* torpedo were over, and the problem of its testing was discussed at the design department of the KB-11 top secret nuclear center located in the city of Sarov, Nizhni Novgorod Region** (today the All-Russia Research Institute of Experimental Physics or VNIIEF), headed by Nikolai Dukhov, Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Specialists had to make certain not only of the efficiency of the charge and to assess its power, but also to study a destructive effect of an underwater explosion in marine conditions. The "onshore" Semipalatinsk testing ground*** could not do for this purpose. Therefore, a "marine" test range was to be found. The whole of north-eastern coast of the So ... Читать далее