What military units built bam. We built BAM - BAM built us. How BAM started

Chapter three. BAM - construction of the century

A bright page in the annals of the Railway Troops is the history of the construction of the Baikal-Amur railway line.

In July 1974, the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR adopted Decree No. 561 on the construction of the Baikal-Amur Railway. The word "BAM" came into life rapidly and firmly established itself in it. Millions of people looked with interest geographic Maps to connect Baikal and Amur with the mind's eye. I was struck by the vast expanses of the region, the grandiose scope of the upcoming construction.

The main line crossed an extremely complex natural region, most of it passed in the mountains, and the central section - in a zone of high seismicity, met with such full-flowing rivers as the Lena, Upper Angara, Olekma, Gilyui, Selemdzha, Byssa, Bureya, Amgun, Amur, passed over vast areas of permafrost. In these northern regions, where the earth is shrouded in 50-60-degree frosts, there were almost no roads, not even trails. Rare Evenk settlements, which found shelter along the banks of the rivers, were separated from each other by many kilometers of taiga.

The new building put forward the most complex scientific and technical problems associated with the construction of a huge number of bridges, tunnels, viaducts, culverts. To lay 3,145 km of track, it was necessary to build 3,200 artificial structures, carry out over 300 million cubic meters of earthwork, and dig 27 km of tunnels in the mountains.

In terms of the volume of construction work, the variety of engineering structures, and the courage of engineering and technical thought, BAM was a unique phenomenon, it had no equal in the world history of railway construction. No wonder this construction site was called the construction site of the century. The Soviet government entrusted the construction of the eastern part of the BAM - from Tynda to Komsomolsk-on-Amur - to the Railway Troops.

There were many difficult tasks, their solution did not tolerate delays. To start work at BAM, it was necessary to quickly relocate a number of formations and units to the construction site and develop technical documentation, reconnoiter the route, solve the issues of supplying it with equipment, building materials, housing and food.

The Main Directorate of the Railway Troops developed a special plan for the development of work on the Eastern section of the BAM, a directive construction schedule was drawn up, which reflected the entire production complex. It was calculated taking into account the use of advanced construction technology, progressive materials and structures, and the latest domestic technology.

The equipment of the formations with equipment was provided both from the reserve available in the troops and from the funds of the Ministry of Transport and Construction. The units were replenished with equipment and property of the nomenclature of the Ministry of Defense from the military districts.

Due to the lack of specialists in all the professions required in construction, by order of the Minister of Defense, military organizations and units were allowed to attract a certain number of qualified civilian specialists as instructors, as well as to repair equipment, perform emergency work in industrial and civil construction.

In the first months after the issuance of Decree No. 561, organizational measures were taken. In particular, a special plan was developed. One of the first important measures of the plan included the development of a directive construction schedule. Exceptionally great attention was paid to the development and control of the execution of the directive schedule in the troops. Suffice it to say that the schedule was personally signed by the head of the Railway Troops, Colonel-General A. M. Kryukov, and was coordinated by Deputy Minister of Defense Marshal Soviet Union S. K. Kurkotkin, Minister of Railways B. P. Beshchev and approved by the Minister of Transport Construction I. D. Sosnov. Experienced engineers V. A. Shemuratov, A. K. Sakun, N. V. Novichkov, and A. S. Butenko contributed a lot of work and creativity to the development of the directive schedule.

In parallel with the development of the schedule, engineers V. A. Vasiliev, E. O. Zheltov, K. P. Petrov, V. N. Vdovin and others specified the complexes of machines and mechanisms necessary for work in conditions of low temperatures and permafrost, V. P Sukhodolsky, I. I. Soluyan, and B. A. Andreev were looking for sources to cover material resources.

According to calculations, 8 reinforced railway brigades and two bridge regiments were required to carry out the work.

The management of the construction of the Eastern section of the BAM was carried out by the Main Directorate of the Railway Troops (GUZhV), located in Moscow, through the management of the buildings located in the construction area: in the city of Tynda and the town. Chegdomyn. In order to increase the efficiency of command and control of troops as part of the GUZhV in 1978, the Directorate for the construction of the BAM was created and railways East, which was entrusted with the solution of major issues related to the construction of the BAM. It supervised the progress and quality of construction. The Directorate was headed by Generals G. I. Kupriyanov, V. T. Volobuev, their deputies were engineers V. A. Shemuratov, N. F. Ustinov, A. K. Sakun.

In connection with the increasing volume of work on the construction of industrial and civil facilities and the lack of appropriate specialists in the states of the troops, in July 1980 the Urgalbamtransstroy general construction trust was formed, subordinate directly to the head of the Railway Troops.

The functions of the customer were performed by the BAM Construction Directorate, which is operationally subordinate to the BAM Construction Directorate as part of the TsUKS MPS. Acquisition of facilities with engineering and technological equipment was carried out by the Transkomplekt department of the Ministry of Railways.

The functions of general contractors were assigned to the administrations of the buildings. The direct organization of work was carried out by the brigade departments, battalions subordinate to them, as well as bridge regiments in the areas and objects assigned to them. General contractors at their sites, stations and near-station settlements carried out their own arrangement, clearing the route, built road roads with artificial structures on them, erected a subgrade, bridges, viaducts, pipes, retaining walls, the upper structure of the track, carried out general construction work on the device temporary and capital communication lines, power supply up to 35 kW, erected service buildings, structures and devices with engineering networks at all separate points.

With the organization of the Urgalbamtransstroy trust, it was given the functions of a general contractor for the construction of large service and technical buildings and structures (locomotive and car depots, PTO, etc.), heat and water supply facilities, sewerage and the construction of individual villages.

During the years of maximum load, the trust consisted of ten linear construction and installation organizations and several service departments.

Specialized work and installation of technological equipment were carried out by subcontractors of the USSR Ministry of Transport and Construction and other ministries and departments.

The bridge crews No. 43, 51 and 70 of the Glavmostostroy built large bridges and viaducts. Two mechanized columns of the trust "Bamstroymekhanizatsiya" erected a subgrade in separate sections.

SU-495 of the trust "Transhydromekhanizatsiya" completed the alluvium of the subgrade at the station. Urgal-II, the development of a canal for the diversion of the Urgal river bed, the alluvium of the earthworks of the approaches to the bridges across the Selemdzha and Byssa, the station site at the station. February.

Vodrem-76 of the trust "Bamtransstroy" mounted internal plumbing and electrical work in residential and service buildings.

The Glavtranselectromontazh train laid and installed trunk and local communication lines, automatic blocking devices, suspended wires of power lines and installed equipment, cable work and installed power supply equipment.

From time to time, as a rule, during the years when sites were put into permanent operation, the organizations of Daltransstroy, Dalenergomontazh, Dalsantekhmontazh, Soyuzliftmontazh, Soyuzspetsavtomatika, Vostoksibspetsavtomatika, Minrechflot, East Siberian, Baikal-Amur Railways were involved in the installation and commissioning work on the installation of boiler houses and other complex facilities , trusts of Transtechmontazh, Minmontazhspetsstroy, etc.

Great help to the railroad soldiers - the builders of the Eastern section of the BAM, was constantly provided by two specially created helicopter detachments. As part of the associations of the Railway Troops, the formations and units listed in the table acted:

Corps management	Control of connections and/or parts	Place of formation, where they came from	Location on BAM	Arrival time at BAM
Tyndinsky	46120	formed on the spot	Tynda	September 1974
	36534	from Konotop, Sumy region	Deepkun	February 1975
	33014	from Murom, Vladimir Region	Tynda	June 1974
	40976	Formed in Kuibyshev	Zensk	July 1979
	59302	from Ulaanbaatar, MPR	Marevaya	March 1975
Chegdomynskoe	12661	from Kharkov	Chegdomyn	November 1974
	06430	from Omsk	Alonka	January 1975
	45505	from Volgograd	Birch	January 1975
	20724	Khabarovsk	separate parts	since 1974
	51473	formed in Krasnoyarsk	Urgal	September 1974
	01228	from Chita	Fevralsk	January 1975
	56718	formed on the basis of two bridge and technical battalions at the location	Vosporukhan	March 1978

The structure of a separate railway brigade in different years of the construction of BAM included from 12 to 22 separate battalions and service units and organizations.

As the tasks were completed, some formations and units were disbanded, others went to new construction sites, and the necessary forces and means were left for completion.

BAM has become a nationwide construction site. On its Eastern section, the construction of housing and socio-cultural facilities, station complexes, engineering facilities (settlement boiler houses, water intake and treatment facilities) in the order of providing patronage assistance was carried out by construction and installation organizations:

Marevaya - Tula region;

Dipkun and Tutaul - Moscow region;

Zeysk - Bashkir ASSR;

Izhak - Ulyanovsk region;

Tungala and Postyshevo - Novosibirsk region;

Dugda and Alonka - Moldavian SSR;

Fevralsk — Krasnoyarsk Territory and trust "Urgalbamtransstroy";

Fedkin Klyuch and Herbi - Saratov region;

Etyrken - Kuibyshev region;

Urgal - Ukrainian SSR;

Soloni - Tajik SSR;

Suluk - Khabarovsk Territory;

Dzhamka - Volgograd region;

Amgun - Penza region;

Evoron - Altai Territory;

Khurmuli - Tambov region.

The village of Gorin was built on its own - SMP-650 of the Urgalbamtransstroy trust.

Settlements, residential, cultural and social facilities in them were designed by institutions of sponsoring regions, territories and union republics, and service and technical buildings and structures of stations, main networks of heat and water supply, sewerage, power supply, engineering facilities (boiler houses, treatment facilities and water intake facilities), as well as production facilities in settlements (vegetable stores, ORS bases, etc.) - general designers and institutes "Mosgiprotrans", "Dalgiprotrans", "Kievgiprotrans" (village and station Urgal).

Contractual relationships with patronage organizations were carried out in accordance with the regulation on the relationship of organizations - general contractors (corps departments) with subcontracting organizations (chiefs). At the same time, the general contractors provided the patronage organizations with all material resources and leased out the main construction machines and vehicles to them according to the calculation for the accepted annual volumes of work.

Due to the lack of a sufficient production base in the Far East region for the construction of residential buildings and some social and cultural facilities, a number of patronage organizations supplied reinforced concrete structures, panels, bricks, joinery, and sanitary ware from their enterprises. Delivery of the KPD was carried out by rail on specially equipped platforms.

The names of such leaders of patronage organizations as A. I. Lukyanenko, V. M. Batalov, I. A. Panov, I. F. Zhelobnyuk, V. P. Nefedov, N. Ch. Kozhanov, P. E. Borisov, A. S. Kalashnikov, foreman of carpenters-concrete workers of SMP "Ukrstroy", Hero of Socialist Labor V. I. Konoval and others.

Among the heads of subcontracting organizations, the deputy was especially distinguished by the skillful and conscientious performance of his duty. manager of the united trust "Glavtranselectromontazh" N. T. Kalinin.

The main principle of organizing the construction of the section was to develop work on a broad front, as was the case for the construction of such lines as Abakan - Taishet and Ivdel - Ob. It was planned to attack the taiga to the east and west at the same time, turning such starting points as Tynda, Fevralsk and Urgal into the main bases of builders. The line of the labor front stretched for hundreds of kilometers, the whole country became the rear of the construction. The command and the Military Council of the troops drew up a detailed plan of organizational, technical and political measures to fulfill the assigned tasks. The specific tasks of the units and subunits that were put forward at BAM were planned to be discussed at meetings of party and Komsomol activists, party and Komsomol organizations, at meetings and seminars of commanders and political workers.

At meetings of personnel, short ones, known since the 1930s, were accepted. resolutions: “Give BAM!”, “Work at BAM in the Komsomol way!”, “We will justify the trust of the people!”.

A participant in the Great Patriotic War, retired Major Kondratiev, who celebrated his 60th birthday, at the call of his heart left with his wife for Fevralsk, where he worked in one of the military units, giving his rich experience as a military railway worker to a great construction site. “Having learned about BAM, I lost my peace,” he says. “Now I am happy that together with the youth I am building the highway of the century, multiplying the glorious traditions of our troops. BAM is my second youth.”

Throughout the autumn and winter of 1974, the taiga troops of railroad soldiers fought for bridgeheads. The main task of the initial period was to break through the swamps and rocks to those places where it was planned to create strongholds for construction, build housing there, various cultural and community facilities, bring in equipment, building materials, food, i.e. create the necessary conditions for work and recreation of personnel, families of officers and ensigns. At the same time, work was underway to lay temporary winter roads. All this had to be done in a short time, before the onset of the spring thaw, which would cut off the lead groups from the main bases.

Overcoming innumerable obstacles, units and subunits of the troops, led by experienced military railwaymen F. I. Pribov, A. I. Demin, I. N. Egorushkin, B. A. Shkibtan and others, made a bold breakthrough into the taiga.

One of the detachments of pioneers had to travel more than 40 km through places where a human foot rarely set foot. And not only to pass, but also to carry out equipment: cars, tractors, a sawmill, deliver tents, tools, food supplies there. This detachment was the first and therefore it was prepared with special care. The detachment was headed by an experienced commander, engineer-lieutenant colonel Ya. Parashchenko.

For four days the soldiers marched through the deserted taiga. By the end of the fourth day, a radiogram was received at the headquarters of the unit: “... we are at the 38th kilometer. Tractors are "undressed", KrAZ trucks are bogged down in a quagmire. We make our way on foot ... ".

However, despite any difficulties, the detachment reached the intended target and then withdrew all the equipment, ensuring the completion of the task.

The first group of warriors was followed by the second, the third... No matter how hard the pioneers experienced. More than once they spent the night under the green canopy of the taiga, plunged into ice fonts, froze in a fierce cold, often risked their lives.

Once, during the construction of a temporary road bridge, the unforeseen happened. Due to heavy rains, the water level in the river rose, threatening to overturn the installed supports. In a critical situation, Sergeant N. Shengelia turned to the commander. He proposed to swim to the supports, put cables under them and try to hold the rows with tractors. He was supported by Sergeant V. Kudba, privates N. Filippov and R. Chonkosadze. The commander took the necessary precautions. A few minutes later, the daredevils rushed into the icy water and secured the cables holding the bridge supports.

Another time, when a column of cars was overcoming a river foamed by a flood, one of the cars was turned around by a swift current, it tilted, and water poured into the cab, where Major A. Bezgubenko and driver corporal R. Romazanov were.

Learning that the soldier did not know how to swim, the officer helped him climb onto the roof of the cabin, and he himself, seeing that nothing could be done from the shore, swam to the nearest spit. There, from the fragments of fallen trees, he built a raft and, overcoming the current, risking himself, went to Return trip to save the soldier. He managed to do it.

As always in new buildings, a heavy burden fell on the shoulders of the drivers. The BAM roads became a testing ground for them, where courage and skill were tested. How many times - do not count - they went on long, difficult and far from safe flights.

Cars got stuck in the mud in the summer, and in the winter they got stuck in snowdrifts, fell into the tenacious embrace of ice, drowned in rivers and swamps. And yet they went on. The engines seemed to run not on fuel, but on a fiery mixture of soldier's perseverance and courage. The military driver, junior sergeant A. Gaidashev, made 15 multi-kilometer trips in 3 months, delivering various cargoes into the depths of the taiga. Each such flight lasted 5–7 days. And there were many like Gaidashev.

Courage became the measure of the daily affairs of BAM soldiers. The track gave birth to heroes. But this process did not happen spontaneously. High moral and psychological qualities were formed by active and purposeful educational work, a constant influence on the consciousness of every warrior.

In the conditions of the taiga route, life made increased demands on commanders and political workers. The huge scale of construction, the complexity of solving problems, when the deadlines for achieving the goals set were unusually short, and the harsh nature did not give up a single meter of taiga space without a struggle - all this to some extent resembled a front-line situation, where it is especially important to constantly and purposefully carry out educational impact on personnel.

When the forward detachments made their way through the taiga to the strongholds, many problems arose. There was not enough housing, not everywhere there was a cinema, radio (car clubs stuck on temporary roads), the soldiers received newspapers on the fifth day. For hundreds of kilometers around not a single settlement, many units worked in small scattered groups.

Such an episode is well known in the history of BAM. Once in winter, a convoy of motor vehicles delivered an important cargo to a distant point in the taiga. The vehicles were to return to the unit in two days. But they did not arrive on the third day. Alarming news was transmitted from the destination by radio: the convoy did not arrive, where it is located is unknown. The helicopter that tried to take off in search was pressed to the ground by a blizzard.

And in the taiga, nine drivers fought a duel with the raging elements. The ice of the river, along which the winter road passed, cracked, and the vast space was flooded with water. Corporal A. Sychev, who led the convoy, moved along the coast in an off-road vehicle, where the water was not so deep. Private B. Mamatov, who was following him, took a little to the right, and immediately the front wheel of his car fell into a crack. Corporal Sychev, taking the cable, jumped out of the cab. The water reached almost to the waist, but this did not stop the warrior. He hooked a comrade's car with a cable and pulled it to a safe place. Then he also had to tow the rest of the cars.

It got warmer in the evening. Heavy snow began to fall, visibility reduced to zero. It was dangerous to go further: beyond the river, a section began along the slopes of hills covered with ice. On the left is a rock, on the right is an abyss. We decided to spend the night in the taiga. The three-day supply of food, just in case, was divided into 8 days. The ration was poor. Some drivers became disheartened.

They say that a remarkable dialogue took place around the fire. “Saulis,” Corporal Sychev turned to Private Zelenkyavichus, “did you read about the four brave sailors - Ziganshin, Poplavsky, Kryuchkovsky, Fedotov?” “I read it,” he replied. - Forty-nine days in the ocean on a small barge ... No food, no drink. People of great courage." “Could we do that?” “I think we could. Take anyone - Mamatov, Suleimenov, other guys - they won't let you down. Am I right guys?" - "That's right!" The warriors responded in unison. Almost 9 days continued difficult flight. Tractors sent to help the convoy helped to overcome the last kilometers. But no less important role was played here by the commanders, who in word and deed strengthened the courage and determination in the soldiers to carry out the task to the end.

The front of the attack on the taiga expanded. Detachments of patronage organizations began to arrive at the Eastern sector, where railroad soldiers worked. One of the first to arrive were envoys from Ukraine and Moldova. They started construction of Urgal and Alonka stations.

On June 13, 1974, ordinary Komsomol members Aleksey Kravtsov, Vasily Kovbasa and Georgy Evdokimov poured the first cubic meters of soil into the highway road from Tynda to the east, and on February 5, 1975, the first crutch was hammered into the rail link of the main BAM track. This happened at the 2712th kilometer from Ust-Kut. The right to score a crutch was granted to private Leonid Smirnov. The builders placed a large granite cube next to it, assigning it an honorable role - to testify to history the place of the first BAM crutch, to become a monument for posterity.

In the central section, railroad soldiers, together with the builders of the Ministry of Transport Construction, at an accelerated pace, were laying the track on the BAM-Tynda line, connecting the construction site of the century with the Trans-Siberian Railway. Despite the abundance of rivers, it was difficult to get water on the highway. In autumn, it was taken from afar in tank trucks. With the onset of cold weather, this possibility disappeared: the water in the containers quickly froze. On clean taiga rivers, ice began to be broken, transported to towns and melted. At the same time they were looking for groundwater. The work was not easy. Sometimes it was necessary to drill wells to a depth of 200 m. Life forced us to solve another problem - the preservation of the environment. This approach to the activities of builders required the reasonable use of local natural resources, the creation of complex treatment facilities, the implementation of various technical measures that preserve nature. Warriors-BAMOs solved this problem in a businesslike way.

The wide front of the attack on the taiga sharply raised the question of managing the construction site, which stretched for hundreds of kilometers, before the command of the Railway Troops. In this regard, the structure of the administrative apparatus was restructured, the political department was transformed into a political department. A special operational group was created in the Main Directorate of the Railway Troops, which dealt exclusively with BAM issues.

A lot of effort required communication between departments - the first step of management. Communication with distant detachments was carried out by radio and telephone. There were also problems: wires were torn from wind and frost, supports fell under the onslaught of strong floods. Sometimes I had to resort to special couriers, send written instructions by helicopter. In general, the signalmen of the troops provided communication clearly.

The panorama of the construction site changed every month. The age-old taiga came to life. The subgrade was being poured out, track links were being laid, canteens, bakeries, clubs, and libraries appeared in the builders' towns. All this cost a lot of effort. Permafrost was not inferior in hardness to metal. In winter, from severe frosts, grease froze, metal crumbled. In the excavator buckets, the teeth broke, the cables were torn. Punched from the quarries to the embankment under construction, the roads were covered with ice. There were cases when a truck accidentally left on the road was covered with ice one night up to the cabin itself, and in the spring the cars fell into the swamps.

Wetlands annoyed the builders not only as an obstacle to the movement of vehicles. They showed special deceit when earthworks were unfolding on them. The first spring at BAM taught a memorable lesson: the gauze swallowed up entire sections of the already laid road. This happened where the moss cover was broken. The exposed permafrost melted under the spring sun, and hundreds of cubic meters of soil disappeared. Since then, the dumping of embankments along mariahs has been carried out directly on the vegetation layer.

Despite the difficulties, the railroad soldiers showed examples of selfless labor. Teams led by officers A. Zheleznov, I. Bosy, K. Kurochkin, P. Tsygankov, M. Gafurov, A. Komarov, A. Savitsky, E. Zhadyaev, V. Vladimirsky, G. Agapychev worked with overfulfillment of tasks. The company, commanded by senior lieutenant A. Pirozhenko, was on one of the difficult sections of the route, but systematically completed monthly tasks by 120%. The work of an advanced officer was awarded the Order "For Service to the Motherland in the Armed Forces of the USSR" III degree.

Two norms per shift on heavy soils, in January frosts, excavator sergeants S. Lopaev, T. Akimkanov, privates A. Kuznetsov, V. Sorokaletov, S. Buralev, L. Chaika, B. Novikov, A. Samotkanov and many others performed .

The socialist competition of BAM soldiers for a worthy meeting of the 30th anniversary of the Victory was expanding. It was initiated by the personnel of the bridge battalion, commanded by Captain L. Svetlov. The bridge workers gave their word to complete the annual task ahead of schedule, to put into operation only objects with good and excellent quality.

The initiative in the Eastern sector found universal support. In difficult conditions, many mechanized complexes, crews, teams performed one and a half or two norms per shift, the soldiers competently exploited complex construction equipment. Captain N. Shcheglov, Lieutenant V. Oleinik, Sergeant V. Karpov, Private D. Shashkov, and others were called right-flank competitions. Among the track-layers, the unit commanded by Senior Lieutenant V. Kazhdan held the championship in the competition. Selflessness in work, perseverance, determination became commonplace for the pioneers. No whims wildlife could not stop the offensive impulse of the railroad soldiers. An example of this is the construction of a 622-meter bridge across the Bureya River.

On January 2, 1975, the team of Komsomol member Sergeant A. Vikulov drove the first pile under the bridge supports. Construction has begun. It was short in time, but extremely stressful. To imagine what difficulties the conquest of the Storm cost, suffice it to say that the bridgemen hammered the first test pile for 4 days. Two thousand times the copra hammer took off and fell, and the pile deepened only 20 centimeters. Permafrost and rock layers, ice and 50-degree frosts resisted man.

But the soldiers steadfastly endured hardships. The fuel for pile-driving units turned into ice, steel bolts broke in the cold, but the bridge-builders did not give up. Special non-freezing fuel began to be used on copra. A smithy and a sawmill were installed right on the ice, and there was no need to travel far for metal parts and timber for rags and ice cutters. An example in labor, as always, was shown by the commanders. Officers L. Svetlov, B. Berezny, G. Anikin, A. Tsvetaev, V. Semochkin, A. Vashchenko and many others sometimes did not leave the bridge for days, inspiring and mobilizing the soldiers with their stamina and diligence. When there was a delay in the installation of supports, the most experienced, most strong-willed specialists were sent to carry out this operation. In the decision adopted at the party meeting, it was written: not a single communist has the right to work with marriage, to pass by shortcomings. Lost time has been made up.

On April 15, a few days before the spring flood, the last span was laid on the bridge. A huge complex structure, for which it was necessary to put 18 supports, 10 ice cutters, lay about 600 thousand cubic meters of rocky soil, was erected in a record short time - a little more than 3 months. All standards were exceeded. Cargo to the head sections went over the bridge ahead of schedule.

The history of the bridge, however, did not end there. In the same year, there was a hot summer that melted the ice on the tops of the mountains, and then the exhausting heat gave way to warm showers. The rivers burst their banks. At Bureya, the water level rose by 9 m. Even the old-timers of these places did not remember this. The flood flooded the settlements and camps of prospectors, riverside fields and roads. Many construction sites are under threat.

The situation at the bridge was the most disturbing. The river swallowed high ice cutters, cut off the bridge from the banks, formed a huge traffic jam of fallen trees and snags. This raised the water level even higher. When the night came, the gap between bottom spans and the surface of the water was a little more than 40 cm. The bridge shuddered from the monstrous pressure and could collapse into the river at any moment.

The battalion, commanded by Major L. Svetlov, was built on alert. The commander announced that a detachment was being created to save the bridge, which would be parachuted from helicopters. It's not safe, we need volunteers. Everyone volunteered to go. Selected the strongest, most enduring.

Warriors worked all night by the light of searchlights. Sergeants N. Vinilov, N. Nesterov, privates A. Artemiev, E. Sakhbaev, V. Pozdeev, I. Martushenko and their comrades pushed driftwood under the spans, even pulled trees onto the bridge and threw them to the other side. Standing on supports, above the rapidly sweeping black water, feeling the shuddering body of the bridge, the twenty-year-old warriors did not get lost, did not succumb to a sense of fear.

When a traffic jam began to grow at one of the pillars, Lieutenant E. Suprun descended from the bridge onto a pile of logs. He fastened the ends of the ropes to the thickest trunks, and the soldiers pulled the logs out of the water and threw them over the bridge. The congestion has been cleared. For days without sleep and rest, an unusual landing force fought for the bridge and defended it.

The year 1975 is remembered by the builders of the highway as the first great labor feat. May 9 - on the day of the 30th anniversary of the Victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War, the connecting line BAM - Tynda was put into operation with a length of 180 km, the same one from which the rails were removed to achieve victory over the enemy during the war years. The new generation "repaid the debt" to the people. The winners of the socialist competition got the right to lay the last, "silver" link in Tynda. Among them are Captain E. Zakharov, Senior Lieutenant P. Rusakov, Corporal V. Osipenko and V. Shifer, Private V. Erokhin. On the same day, the first working train arrived on the connecting line to the capital of BAM - Tynda. He delivered prefabricated houses, building materials, equipment.

The first BAM year was marked by great labor successes. In a short time, in harsh natural and climatic conditions, teams of builders were created, capable of rapidly building a giant steel line. BAM warriors planned high milestones for themselves. The main one was to close the so-called Far Eastern railway ring already in 1979, a year ahead of schedule, to provide the northernmost outlet to the ocean. To close it from the north, it was necessary to connect Urgal and Komsomolsk-on-Amur with a steel thread - this is more than 500 km of the route. It was them who undertook to build the soldiers-railroad workers.

The site turned out to be a hard nut to crack: dozens of large and small rivers, ridges, hills, swamps. The road bed had to be built on narrow coastal shelves - clamps. Rocky soils were not inferior in strength to metal. It was necessary to build bridges one another more difficult. And finally, as the final chord of difficulties, the Dusse-Alin tunnel.

The almost two-kilometer underground corridor famous here was cut into the rocks and permafrost back in the pre-war years. But it so happened that the tunnel was not in operation at that time: the construction of the line was mothballed. Time did not spare the unique structure. Drainage devices fell into disrepair, viewing wells covered with rock “blinded”. For decades, groundwater and severe Siberian cold have been destructive. Leaking into the tunnel, the water moved irresistibly down the slope from the eastern portal to the western one and froze, forming ice, which, in the end, almost completely blocked the tunnel with all its auxiliary devices: adits, slots, trays. 32 thousand cubic meters of ice! The railroad soldiers had to clear the tunnel of ice and lay rails in it.

But for this, a lot of effort had to be expended on the approaches to Dusse-Alin. The route here passed along steep slopes, through huge monolithic rocks. To blow them up, the explosives did a job of incredible complexity and precision. On slopes with a steepness of up to 60 °, the soldiers of the unit, led by officer I. I. Romankov, raised drilling rigs and explosives to a height of up to 50 m and began to drill deep wells. On one of the winter days, when the air temperature was at around -40 ° C, the explosives of Senior Lieutenant V. Malanichev had to make another explosion of the rock. To do this, it was necessary to lay a multi-ton charge in the wells. The car with explosives was late due to snowfall and slippery roads. When she arrived, there were only a few hours left before dark, and it was possible to blow up only during daylight hours. The soldiers, climbing the icy steeps, carried explosive materials on their hands to the wells. It was faster and more reliable that way. The explosion happened at the appointed time. The perseverance of the soldiers and officers won - the rock was crushed.

In the very first days of work on the revival of the Dusse-Alin tunnel, it became clear that the implementation of the project, which included the development of ice with jackhammers and its transportation by trolleys, would take too much time (about a year) and require large material costs. Then the military engineers Zh. Isahakyan, A. Kovalchuk and G. Groshev proposed their original method: to melt the ice in the tunnel with warm air. Experienced specialists — miners of the Khabarovsk Territory — were involved in the performance of technical calculations, the provision of the necessary equipment, and the practical implementation of the task.

In summer, among the snow-covered spurs of the Dusse-Alin ridge, the first explosions were heard. The ice mountain that blocked the path to the entrance to the tunnel was destroyed. Then two powerful fans and two heat generators came into action. Warm air rushed into the depths of the tunnel through long sleeves laid in a narrow crack near the roof of the tunnel. The heat melted the top layer of ice, while the bottom layer was simultaneously developed mechanically. Streams flowed from the tunnel. On the first day, about 300 cubic meters of ice were melted.

But it soon turned out that the ice was not melting in the entire tunnel: somewhere in the depths there was a cork that tightly clogged the underground corridor. They decided to eliminate her.

Armed with jackhammers, a group of soldiers led by junior sergeant N. Mariychenko began to make their way through a narrow hole. It was very difficult to walk. Sometimes I had to crawl. The lack of oxygen affected, counter flows of water interfered. But the soldiers persistently went to the goal. Finally, in the beam of an electric lantern, a block of solid ice lit up, blocking the tunnel. Jackhammers were launched. An unexpectedly powerful stream of water, breaking through the hole, knocked the sergeant off his feet. It was water that had accumulated in the other half of the tunnel. The plug was removed, and warm air rushed into the gap.

Day and night, at the entrance to the Dusse-Alin tunnel, motors hummed, searchlights burned. The railroad warriors tried to finish clearing the tunnel before the onset of cold weather. Particular emphasis was placed on the reconstruction of drainage structures, which were supposed to prevent the formation of ice in the future. The tunnel was cleared of ice 4 times faster than originally planned. The railroad workers got to work. The subordinates of officer V. Nesterenko pulled the rails through the tunnel in two days.

The first years of work under BAM conditions gave a number of interesting engineering solutions, especially on bridges, the construction of which became a good school of bridge building for military specialists. After careful calculations and comparisons, it was decided to focus on two types of bridge projects: post-trestle bridges and bridges with cladding block supports. Such blocks did not require a preliminary arrangement of labor-intensive formwork, and greatly simplified the process of constructing supports. However, the foundations of such supports required a lot of monolithic concrete and were built on a natural or pile foundation. The search continued. The choice of bridge specialists was based on the project of artificial structures, in which columnar supports and foundations were used. In permafrost conditions, the use of reinforced concrete pillars turned out to be a very progressive matter. Columnar foundations made it possible to reduce the laboriousness of excavation of deep pits in permafrost soils many times over.

The problems encountered during the implementation of these innovations were successfully solved. The assault on the taiga continued at an increasing pace. The everyday work of the soldiers gave rise to interesting initiatives, was distinguished by creativity and inspiration. Such slogans as "For two years of service - three annual norms!", "Annual directive norm - ahead of schedule!", became the slogans of the struggle of personnel for the highest labor productivity, efficiency and quality of work. At the initiative of the Komsomol organization of the unit, commanded by Lieutenant E. Zuev, a quality mark was established at the link assembly base - two stars on the rails of a perfectly stitched link. These signs can be found on many kilometers of the BAM, they are a guarantee of the reliability and durability of the BAM route.

In 1976, the Komsomol conferences of the units of the Railway Troops at BAM were held. They summed up the activities of Komsomol organizations and outlined new frontiers. These lines have been taken.

In February 1977, the first rally of soldiers of the Railway Troops took place in Khabarovsk, the leaders of socialist competition, the builders of the Eastern section of the Baikal-Amur Mainline. The best of the best came to the meeting. The names of the right-flank competitions were announced from the podium - the commander of the bridge battalion, Major V. Bondarevsky, the company commander, laureate of the Lenin Komsomol Prize, Lieutenant A. Kuznetsov, the best track-laying machinist corporal V. Sheptalo, the noble excavator corporal V. Snigur and many others.

The participants of the rally adopted an appeal in which they called on the BAM soldiers to take a shock watch, achieve new high levels in combat and political training, and launch a competition for the early completion of the construction of the eastern part of the BAM. Work was intensively carried out on the Far Eastern Ring. Each kilometer of the route was given with with great difficulty. Sometimes weeks were spent on overcoming the next 100 m. Each working day put forward new tasks and new problems that needed to be addressed immediately.

The mechanization unit, led by officer G. Korotkov, worked around the clock. One and a half to two norms per shift were performed by excavator corporal V. Snigur, privates P. Chertok, S. Nikulin, S. Konyushevsky, dump truck driver Private V. Kondrashov, workers L. Frantsuzov, brothers Nikolai and Valentin Bezruchkin. Bulldozer operators Kalantyrsky achieved high productivity: the father is a hereditary transport builder and the son is an ordinary Railway Troops.

The calculations of the tracklayers worked hard. The division of Captain V. Kazhdan, which laid the first link of the Eastern section, led the laying of the track under the motto "For every kilometer of BAM - high quality and a soldier's guarantee!" The travel warriors were well ahead of schedule. Among them, a competition for the right to lay the "Zaslonovsky kilometer" unfolded. This movement was born after a letter sent to the soldiers by the pioneers of the city of Vyazemsky, Khabarovsk Territory. The guys reported that their squad was named after the legendary partisan hero Konstantin Zaslonov, who worked at the Vyazemsky depot before the war. Together with the Komsomol members, the pioneers collected 100 tons of scrap metal for the BAM rails and asked the railroad soldiers to lay a kilometer of track on the track in honor of the commander partisan detachment Zaslonova. The warriors warmly responded to the request of the pioneers. "Zaslonovsky kilometer" was laid. The winners of the competition, the soldiers of the platoon of Lieutenant V. Lukyanov, whose father, Fyodor Zinovievich Lukyanov, fought against the Nazis in a partisan detachment commanded by Konstantin Zaslonov, got the right to do this.

Bridgemen creatively solved complex problems. They introduced many innovations into production in order to speed up the construction of bridges, reduce their cost and increase the reliability factor. So, during the construction of bridges across the Right and Left Orokot, the bridgemen successfully replaced massive monolithic supports with column foundations that were not inferior to them in strength. As a result, hundreds of cubic meters of concrete were saved and time was gained. In the struggle to gain time, railroad warriors showed real selflessness and heroism. On the construction of one of the bridges of the Eastern section of BAM, such an incident occurred. When driving a well under a support, a rocky layer stood in the way of the drilling rig. They decided to crush it by throwing a pointed steel projectile down through a special so-called casing pipe. Suddenly, the cable burst, and a one and a half ton bulk sat down at an eight-meter depth, firmly clogging the well. Work on the bridge has stopped.

While they were thinking how to get out of a difficult situation, water filled the well almost to the top. The pumps started up and the water level began to drop. At this time, the driver of the power plant, Corporal Viktor Akimov, turned to the commander. He volunteered to go down the pipe and hook the projectile with a cable.

Having tied himself with a safety rope and grabbing a cable with a hook at the end, Corporal Akimov began to descend into impenetrable darkness. The diameter of the pipe was about a meter, only a small circle of sky shone overhead. Resting his arms and legs against the walls of the pipe, the warrior sank lower and lower. At the bottom was icy water infused with permafrost, it reached the waist. Cold, like a vise, squeezed the body. Akimov felt the neck of the projectile with his foot and threw a loop of rope over it. He pulled the rope to be dragged. The cable was taut, but the loop slipped off the neck. With fingers numb from the cold, Akimov made another attempt. And the water already reached the chest. Now you can’t just put on the rope so easily - you have to dive. And Akimov dived. But again the noose slipped. Several times the warrior dived into the icy water. In the end, he managed to hook the projectile, and the drilling rig started working again. The letter, which was soon sent by the commander to the Volgograd region, was written: "Thank you, Varvara Grigoryevna, for raising such a son, a faithful comrade, a courageous soldier."

The road kept going east. Subdivisions under the command of V. Nesterov approached the Dipkun station, which is located 165 km east of Tynda, laying the track. Rail links also approached Vosporukhan, the most remote taiga village in the Eastern section. And on June 30, 1979 - a year ahead of schedule - the Far Eastern railway ring was closed. The first train went from Urgal to Komsomolsk-on-Amur along the 500-kilometer section built by soldiers.

Tickets for this train were not sold. They were handed over the day before to those who won the socialist competition, who skillfully managed the huge construction. Among them are construction managers A. K. Volkov, A. I. Demin, V. T. Volobuev, Yu. V. Tertyshny, L. A. Smirnov, advanced officers A. G. Komarov, K. D. Kurochkin, A V. Rotshtein, I. F. Uretsky, A. V. Radchuk, G. M. Korotkov, V. M. Each, warriors-machine operators V. Snigur, Yu. Philip, V. Ryazhev, M. Vladimirov, I. Peskishev, A. Bakiyev, M. Tausov and others.

The difficult labor battle lasted for four years and four months. An important milestone has been taken. A solemn meeting was held at the Urkaltu junction. A 10-meter monument was erected here in the form of a “silver” crutch connecting two concrete rails - a symbol-monument to the selfless work of railway soldiers in the Eastern sector.

On September 9, 1980, the second rally of the leaders of the socialist competition of the Eastern section of the Baikal-Amur Mainline took place. Among the best at the rally were the mechanization battalion of Lieutenant Colonel V. Kupriyanov, the excellent company of the laureate of the Lenin Komsomol Prize, Senior Lieutenant E. Almazov, the platoon of Lieutenant A. Pigur, and the names of many other soldiers.

In 1974, railroad soldiers hammered in the first pegs on the BAM track. At the beginning of 1975, the first meters of rails were laid. In 1980, a 200-kilometer section of the main route was put into operation - from Postyshevo to Komsomolsk-on-Amur, and two years later - a 302-kilometer section from Urgal to Postyshevo. All these kilometers were commissioned ahead of schedule. The building was changing and growing every day.

At the beginning of 1983, calculations showed that if the pace of work at the BAM was accelerated even more, then by the spring of 1984, i.e., a year and a half ahead of schedule, the units moving towards each other would be able to dock the rails of the entire Eastern BAM. January and February 1983 passed in disputes, calculations, estimates. The idea of ​​laying rails ahead of schedule throughout the Eastern Section infected everyone. “Give docking ahead of schedule!” The Military Council of the Troops approved and supported the initiative of the advanced BAM teams. The task was difficult. In order to successfully solve it and on the eve of the 39th anniversary of the Victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War, to let the first train pass through the Eastern section of the BAM, it was necessary to carry out a huge amount of construction. Here are the most important figures characterizing the size of the forthcoming work: to fill the soil - 15.4 million cubic meters, to lay the railway track - 270 km, to build 177 bridges. Not a single annual program of the Railway Troops at BAM knew such figures.

What did it mean to ensure the docking of the rails of the Eastern section of BAM at the siding named after V.P. Miroshnichenko? First of all, this meant mastering almost 300 km of taiga space in terms of construction. I had to recall the experience of the first months of the development of the BAM zone. Landing forces left the habitable places, from the equipped residential towns to the taiga. The battalion, in which Major S. Shkrabov was deputy commander for political affairs, landed in the taiga in February. In a short time, tents were set up, log houses, a canteen, a bakery, a club, and a vegetable store were built. Erecting living quarters, landscaping the taiga town, the battalion command did not forget about the main thing. From the first day, the platoons, commanded by lieutenants A. Smolyakov, V. Ryzhov, S. Vasiliev, began the main work. They began to cut a clearing. Behind them, warriors-machine operators and warriors of bridge divisions moved forward. They had their own tasks, and they hurried to their objects, did not want to lose a single hour, not a single working minute. And so it was throughout the area. The landing forces, and behind them the main forces of the builders, went towards each other - one to the east of Tynda, the other - to the west of Fevralsk.

The first victory of the railroad soldiers who made their way through the taiga was the docking of the road highway between Tynda and Urgal. This happened on September 27, 1983 near the Kamnega junction. Warriors-machine operators of the units, commanded by majors V. Galka and A. Sivak, cut through clearings, built bridges, leveled the terrain, and filled swampy areas. They completed their task ahead of schedule. Many barrier places were overcome by railroad warriors during the years of construction of the Baikal-Amur Mainline. We met such a place on the last section of the Eastern shoulder of the BAM. It was Ulagirskaya Sopka, blocking forward movement with a solid rocky wall. In order for the units of railroad soldiers to break out into the operational space, to deploy work on a wide front, it was necessary to cut a one and a half kilometer recess in the hill. It looked more like an open tunnel, since its lower mark dropped to 18 m. The task was difficult and very laborious. The question arose: to whom to entrust an unusual recess? The choice fell on the mechanization battalion, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel V. A. Kurkin. Previously, his mechbat successfully coped with another difficult excavation, proved himself excellently in earthworks on haze areas near Izhak station, and had the necessary experience in overcoming taiga barrier places.

Mehbat with all its technical power fell on the hill. The battle was not easy. Soil - the ninth category of hardness. Sometimes, in order to develop 5-6 thousand cubic meters, it was necessary to spend up to 4 tons of explosives. The recess was also famous for its ice. Warriors-machine operators had to develop about 300 thousand cubic meters of ice. Battalion commander V. A. Kurkin and his deputy for political affairs, Major P. P. Kalin, were at the forefront of the battle all the time, helping their subordinates. Leadership in the socialist competition was won by the companies of captains V. Shevchuk and E. Almazov. All the machine operators worked hard, but the excavator driver Junior Sergeant N. Yakovlev, bulldozer operators A. Ragimov and S. Beluga were named the best of the best. The military team, headed by Colonel G. I. Kogatko, worked together and energetically. The share of machine operators, bridgemen, railway workers, led by Grigory Iosifovich Kogatko, fell to a significant part of the work related to dumping the last thousand cubic meters of land, building artificial structures, laying the final links of the BAM track.

To match Colonel G. I. Kogatko worked at the last stage of laying the steel rails of the eastern BAM and his subordinates - officers Yu. A. Larin, I. Ya. Shekhtman, A. N. Dedov, N. N. Ivashko, unit commanders A. Platonov, S. Zakharov, V. Pavlenko, sergeants G. Metreveli, V. Abramov, V. Filinov, privates K. Gushchin, A. Khubiev, I. Sazhin, O. Kanoganov, workers Soviet army V. P. Trush, V. Baranov, N. Fomicheva, L. Vogodina and many others.

The battle for the early laying of the last BAM rails unfolded along the entire highway. The front of the labor battle was a huge territory. Dozens and hundreds of teams of builders worked in unison, striving to fulfill their obligations with honor. In the forefront of the competitors, showing labor prowess and selflessness, there were soldiers-railroad workers.

The spring days of 1984 passed one after another. The construction site, which lived in docking time, changed by leaps and bounds. On the eastern section of the BAM, railroad soldiers, laying the track from the east and from the west to the siding named after V.P. Miroshnichenko, counted days, meters, cubic meters. Competition for the right to lay the final rail link, pour the last cubic meter of soil, throw the truss of the last BAM bridge across the river began in all divisions.

By mid-April, the distance between the track-laying teams going towards each other was 12 km. It was time to think about the "gold" link. They decided to make it at the Fevralsk station. Here, railroad soldiers launched socialist competition under the motto of the "Golden" link - days of shock work! And the soldiers worked really hard. From the conveyor of the semi-automatic flow link assembly line, 700 m of track descended daily.

The honorable task of making the "golden" link was entrusted to a team of railway workers headed by Senior Lieutenant S. Kurylenko. The sewing of the link took place in a solemn atmosphere. Dozens of people watched the dexterous and dexterous movements of the railwaymen. The link is ready. He was assigned the serial number 55280. A few days later, the link was sent to the crossing named after V.P. Miroshnichenko, where it was supposed to tie together the entire Eastern shoulder of the highway.

The railroad workers, bridgemen, machine operators, and operators worked heroically on the last BAM hauls. Soldiers-creators decorated the distant land with built bridges, stations, strands of steel rails. The warriors of the steel highways had to not only build, but also selflessly defend what was built.

Heavy rains, which lasted for several days in a row, turned the BAM rivers and streams into turbulent streams - a formidable force. The raging element uprooted trees, easily rolled boulders, washed away small bridges along the highway. On the site, which was covered by the subordinates of Lieutenant Colonel V. Kozlovsky, instead of the bridge demolished by water, the railroad soldiers built a pontoon crossing. To maintain the crossing in working condition, a team of 5 people was left. One day at the end of the day, the downpour burst with renewed vigor. The pontoons shook under the powerful pressure of the river. Private Sergei Martynov, who was on duty at the crossing, ran into the trailer, where his comrades settled down for the night. "Guys, the bridge is in danger!" he shouted.

Everyone rushed to the pontoons. Private Oleg Apetenok was the first to run to the crossing. He had an ax in his hands. Skillfully wielding it, he cut off the long branches of larch, which held a huge jam at the pontoon from uprooted trees, logs, twigs. The traffic jam began to weaken, the trees slowly went under the water. The danger to the crossing was over. And at that moment, the irreparable happened: the larch, picked up by a strong current, turned over, a huge rhizome fell on the soldier with all its weight and carried him into the whirlpool ... Private Oleg Apetyonok died heroically while doing his military duty. By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, he was posthumously awarded the Order of the Red Star.

In the days of April 1984, every morning on the BAM maps and diagrams, two red flags moved closer and closer to each other. They marked the movement of track-laying teams to the siding named after V.P. Miroshnichenko. The right to complete the laying of the last kilometers of rails and dock them was given to the units of Captain I. Savchenko and Senior Lieutenant V. Lagushkin from the traveling battalions of Lieutenant Colonel A. Dedov and Major F. Bulychev. The subordinates of I. Savchenko went from Fevralsk, and the railroad workers of V. Lagushkin - from Tynda. The choice of these divisions was not accidental. Warriors from the company of Captain I. Savchenko in 1983 laid 116 km of rails with one tracklayer. It was a great achievement. The company of senior lieutenant V. Lagushkin laid steel rails across the difficult Ulagirskaya hill in record time, successfully completing a responsible task.

April 16, 1984 at the junction named after the Hero of the Soviet Union V.P. Miroshnichenko two tracklayers met. In order to close the steel thread of the highway, it remained to lay the last rail link. What happened to which 10 years through the rocks and ice, swamps and mari, sparing no effort and labor, the BAM warriors went.

The figures speak eloquently about the scale of this accomplishment. For 10 years of the BAM epic, railroad warriors laid 1,449 km of the main track and more than 330 km of station tracks. More than 220 million cubic meters of earthworks have been completed, 1217 artificial structures have been built, including 45 large and 296 medium bridges, 527 km of communication lines. Over the years, new cities and towns have appeared on the Eastern section of BAM, about 30 stations and sidings have been built. For their arrangement, the BAM soldiers erected 174 thousand square meters. m of housing, 8 schools, 13 kindergartens and a number of other facilities (Appendix 4).

On April 18, 1984, the Military Council of the Railway Troops reported to the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Minister of Defense of the USSR about the opening of through train traffic throughout the Eastern section of BAM.

The Central Committee of the CPSU congratulated all the builders of the Eastern section of the BAM on the remarkable labor achievement of the railroad soldiers. The greeting said:

“Dear comrades! The Central Committee of the CPSU received with great satisfaction the message of your remarkable achievement - the successful fulfillment of socialist obligations for the early completion of the laying of the main track and the opening of through train traffic on the Tynda-Komsomolsk-on-Amur section of the Baikal-Amur Railway.

... It is gratifying to note that this great labor victory was won thanks to the selfless labor of railroad soldiers who contribute to strengthening the economic power of the Motherland, all teams of builders, sponsoring organizations of the allied and autonomous republics, territories, regions and cities, young men and women who came at the call of the Komsomol to this great construction site. This is the result of the active organizational and mass-political work of commanders, political agencies, headquarters, engineering and technical personnel, party, trade union and Komsomol organizations ... "

On April 28, 1984, celebrations were held dedicated to the opening of through train traffic from Tynda to Komsomolsk-on-Amur. In festive decoration, the train station named after the Hero of the Soviet Union V. P. Miroshnichenko. At the junction of steel rails, railroad warriors set up a pole with pointer arrows showing the distances: to Moscow - 7214 km, to Tynda - 491, to Komsomolsk-on-Amur - 995 km.

Representatives of the USSR Ministry of Defense, the Main Political Directorate of the Soviet Army and Navy, the Ministry of Railways, the Ministry of Transport Construction, the Khabarovsk Regional Committee and the Amur Regional Committee of the CPSU, the Central Committee of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League, the Red Banner Far Eastern Military District, patronage organizations.

Has come solemn minute. Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR, Head of the Logistics of the Armed Forces of the USSR Marshal of the Soviet Union S. K. Kurkotkin, First Secretary of the Amur Regional Committee of the CPSU S. S. Avramenko, First Secretary of the Khabarovsk Regional Committee of the CPSU A. K. Cherny, Deputy Head of the Main Political Directorate of the Soviet Army and Military -of the Marine Fleet, Colonel General M. G. Sobolev, Commander of the Red Banner Far Eastern Military District, Army General I. M. Tretyak headed to the docking site.

Docking command issued. Slowly floated in the air the last link, sank to the embankment. The warriors-travelers quickly and deftly mounted it, connecting it with neighboring links. There is a connection! Vostochny BAM is ready for the passage of the First train! Scarlet ribbon cut. Head of the Baikal-Amur Railway V.A. Gorbunov was given a symbolic key to the Eastern section of the BAM, and commemorative wands were handed to the locomotive drivers, Sergeant S. Timoshenko and Soviet Army worker A. Tropin. The orchestra played a solemn march, and under its sounds the First train set off. There is a huge poster on the locomotive: “Accept, Motherland, our gift is a through passage along the Eastern section of BAM!”.

Here at the place of docking a solemn rally was held. Marshal of the Soviet Union S.K. Kurkotkin read out the greetings of the Central Committee of the CPSU to the railway soldiers, all participants in the construction of the Eastern Section of the Baikal-Amur Railway, read out the greetings of the Minister of Defense of the USSR and the head of the Main Political Directorate of the Soviet Army and Navy.

The personnel of the 4th and 39th railway brigades, commanded by Colonels G. I. Kogatko and A. B. Malakhovich, Marshal of the Soviet Union S. K. Kurkotkin presented the Pennant of the Minister of Defense of the USSR "For courage and high labor heroism shown during construction of BAM.

The best excavator operator Private Vladimir Plotnikov sounded excited at the rally:

- Today we report: the task of the Motherland has been completed! he said. — This success was achieved on the eve of the Victory Day of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War. May our labor victory be a kind of salute to the veterans of the past war, to my father, who fought from Kursk to Berlin!

Vladimir Plotnikov handed over to representatives of central and local museums the keys that held the last, "golden" link together.

Elegant and festive was the capital of BAM - the city of Tynda on October 27, 1984. On this day, a rally dedicated to the early opening of train traffic along the entire length of the Baikal-Amur Mainline was held at its station square.

For ten years, the soldiers of the steel highways went to this major victory. It contains the work of thousands of warriors-machine operators, bridgemen, railway workers, signalmen, repairmen, all BAM soldiers who were fortunate enough to take part in the construction of the century. In this victory lies the many-sided organizational activity of commanders, the creative thought of engineers, the hard work of business executives, the mobilizing power of speech and the personal example of political workers. The opening of through traffic along the Eastern section of the BAM was a solid guarantee of the successful commissioning of the entire section in 1989 into permanent operation.

On September 29, 1989, the Eastern section of the BAM was put into operation of the existing lines of the Ministry of Railways. This event became the day of labor glory of the Railway Troops.

The Baikal-Amur Railway was built as a 1st category road. Today it is a modern, highly technically equipped railway with all the elements of arrangement achieved by scientific and technological progress by the end of the 80s. the last century.

The contribution to the victory at BAM is great for every soldier and civilian specialist directly involved in the construction, the contribution of those who worked at BAM and for BAM in other places is also noticeable and significant. The special merit of the direct organizers of the construction is F.I. Pribov, A.K. Volkov, Yu.M. Yudin, G.I. Kogatko, I.N. M. Zimina, A. Ya. Milko, N. P. Koshman, A. I. Demin, B. A. Shkibtan, V. V. Lapshina, G. P. Anikina, V. I. Shcherbinina, E. L. Leshchinsky, Yu. P. Pavlyuchkov, L. A. Smirnov, B. M. Boldyrev, V. G. Aidynyan, V. V. Leshchev, A. N. Matyunin, A. I. Belozerov, E. K. Neselovsky, V. N. Mirenkova, V. G. Omelchenko and many others. The apparatus of the Main Directorate of the Railway Troops worked smoothly and efficiently, the main task of which was long-term and operational planning, the effective solution of the mass of questions that arose and the provision of necessary assistance to units and formations. The greatest contribution to the achievement of final results was made by generals and officers A. M. Kryukov, M. K. Makartsev, N. Ya. Rylov, M. Ya. Rylov, N. A. Khomyakov, A. A. Vinogradov, I. S. Matveikov, V. T. Volobuev, G. I. Kupriyanov, Ya. M. Maiorov, I. M. Fedorov, A. F. Stolyarov, B. M. Zemtsov, V. A. Shemuratov, N. F. Ustinov, K. L. Puzyrev, G. P. Lunev, N. A. Chumak, K. A. Zhdanovich, V. G. Ivashov, S. E. Stepanyan, V. N. Vdovin, K. P. Petrov, A. S. Ryzhenkov, V. A. Karlashov, S. P. Danilenko, A. K. Sharikov, A. Ya. Andreev, I. D. Puzyrev, A. G. Komarov, A. K. Sakun, A. S. Butenko, I. I. Rusak, V. S. Malyshev and others.

The headquarters of the Central Committee of the Komsomol on the construction of the BAM and its leaders V. Filippov, V. Sushchevich, activists Yu. Larin, M. Zhilkin, V. Vasilenko, P. Karpov, A. Ivanov, I. Uretsky, V. Safoshkin and many others who stood at the origins of many initiatives aimed at accelerating the construction of the BAM.

The work of the military railway workers was highly appreciated by the country's leadership. More than 1000 people were awarded orders and medals of the USSR for the construction of the Eastern BAM, medals of the USSR Ministry of Defense - 180. More than 56 thousand military personnel were awarded the medal "For the construction of the Baikal-Amur Mainline", 25 Komsomol officers at BAM were awarded the Lenin Komsomol Prize in areas of production, and generals and officers G. I. Kogatko, V. V. Kupriyanov, M. K. Makartsev, S. N. Palchuk, A. A. Shantsev were awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor. General V. A. Vasiliev and Captain A. B. Chudakov became laureates of the USSR State Prize.

For high performance in the construction of the Eastern section of the BAM, 1 ZhDK (commander Major General Yudin Yu. M.) was awarded the Order of the October Revolution, the 35th railway brigade (commander Colonel V. I. Poverinov) - the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.

The BAM construction school was attended by many thousands of servicemen. Their experience of working in extreme conditions is an invaluable contribution to solving the tasks of the main purpose of the Railway Troops - technical cover and restoration of the country's railways, especially in the Far East region of the country. The construction of the Eastern section of the BAM allowed the troops to gain experience in managing formations and units in organizing the construction of a 1,500-kilometer railway line in the harsh climatic conditions of Transbaikalia and the Far East when conducting work on a wide front, including organizing redeployment and moving units to work sites.

The issues of organizing the life of personnel (including food supply in autonomous conditions of accommodation), the operation of equipment and the use of technologies for working in conditions of low temperatures, permafrost and mari, have been practically worked out.

BAM, like no other construction project, provided unlimited opportunities to test the production capabilities of units for construction and restoration work in the Far Eastern regions.

At BAM, the optimal structure of mechanization parts necessary for excavation work was determined for specific conditions for a special period. At the same time, it became necessary to equip these parts with mechanisms of greater unit power in the northern version: hydraulic excavators, powerful bulldozers and a sharp increase in the need for drilling equipment for drilling and blasting to loosen the soil.

Bridge parts have accumulated experience in the construction of both permanent and temporary artificial structures in conditions of low temperatures and permafrost. Temporary bridges were built across large water barriers, such as Bureya, Byssa, Duki, Gorin, Unakha, Olongro, Dess. In total, over 1700 linear meters were built. m of temporary bridges under railway track or combined rail and road traffic. The bridge across the Duki River, burned down by a forest fire in 1976, was being restored in conditions close to wartime, while the restoration rate was 30–35 running meters. m per day. Valuable experience gained in the operation of temporary bridges, especially during flood periods. More than 1,500 temporary bridges and pipes have been built for the highway road, with corrugated metal pipes being widely used. Technical solutions for the bases of temporary bridge supports for the difficult hydrological conditions of the Far Eastern rivers (metal and wooden piles immersed in pre-drilled leader holes, row foundations, etc.) have been identified and practically tested.

Experience in the construction of temporary bridges at BAM specified ways to find optimal solutions for the bases of bridge supports for areas with harsh climatic conditions.

When solving the problems of passing the movement of trains on temporary bridges (mainly due to the non-delivery of metal or reinforced concrete spans), they found their own practical use standard repair facilities, such as the REM-500 flyover, UZhV-LTMP collapsible supports, inventory collapsible spans. Ferry crossings from the property of NZhM-56, as well as ice and pile-ice crossings were used to organize seasonal traffic along highway roads across the Zeya and Selemdzha rivers.

The wide front and significant volumes of earthworks, the superstructure of the track and artificial structures created unlimited opportunities for conducting special training of personnel, improving organization and technology, and mastering the maximum pace of work. This made it possible to achieve the following annual rates of work:

construction of a highway road - 318 km;

earthworks - 25.7 million cubic meters. m;

construction of artificial structures - 155 units;

laying the main track - 195 km;

ballasting - 513 thousand cubic meters m.

At BAM, the structure of units and subdivisions for the temporary operation of finished sections of the road was checked, and the necessary experience in organizing operational work was accumulated.

Prior to putting the sites into permanent operation, temporary operation was carried out and labor movement trains on the sections of BAM under construction, which made it possible to check the structure of units and subdivisions for the temporary operation of finished sections of the road, to accumulate the necessary experience in organizing operational work.

The rear of the Armed Forces of the USSR, the Far Eastern Military District, and specifically Marshal of the Soviet Union S.K. Kurkotkin and General of the Army V.M. Arkhipov, commanders of the troops of the Far East Military District, Generals of the Army I.M. Tretyak and D.T. Yazov, provided great assistance to the troops at BAM.

The leaders of the Khabarovsk Territory and the Amur Region - A. K. Cherny and S. S. Avramenko, the leaders of the Far Eastern and Bamovskaya Railways - A. G. Andreeev and V. A. Gorbunov, were always aware of the state of affairs at the construction site and provided great assistance to the troops, BAM construction directorates - V. F. Degtyarev and L. G. Makhitarov.

With the commissioning of the BAM, favorable conditions were created for further progress in the construction of steel lines to the still uninhabited regions of the Asian part of Russia. The construction of the BAM is of great importance in strengthening the economy and the country's defense capability.
* * *
BAM is needed by everyone who knows the essence of the issue,
Who looks beyond his own nose
And he thinks about the future of the country.

History is not written in advance:
Brief elements do not dominate her.
BAM is forever! BAM lives and will not die,
As long as Russia itself lives and exists!

"Do you hear the time is buzzing - BAM! In the open spaces of steep - BAM!
And the big taiga submits to us!
Do you hear the time is buzzing - BAM! In the open spaces of steep - BAM!
This is the bell of our young hearts..."
(music by O. Feltsman, lyrics by R. Rozhdestvensky performed by Vladislav Konnov)

On July 8, 1974, the Decree of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 561 "On the construction of the Baikal-Amur Railway" was issued. Prior to this, on March 15, L.I. Brezhnev, at a speech in Alma-Ata, called BAM "the most important construction site of the IX Five-Year Plan", and on April 26, the "All-Union Komsomol Shock Detachment named after the XVII Congress of the Komsomol" was created - the first of such detachments at this construction site. On July 27, the Pravda newspaper published an editorial "From Baikal to Amur" - the first editorial on this construction site. An active propaganda campaign for a new "great construction" began, dating back to the 19th century.

The road joined at 10.05 Moscow time on September 29, 1984 at the Balabukhta junction, but the Golden Crutch nailing ceremony was held at the nearest major station - Kuanda. On the main course, the last rails were laid on October 27 and through traffic was opened along the BAM. At the same time, the Baikal-Amur Railway was organized, from Lena to Komsomolsk with an administrative center in Tynda. But all this vast economy was completely transferred to the operation of the Ministry of Railways only in 1989.

According to a well-established legend, BAM was built by three forces: The Skovorodino - Tynda (and then the village of Tyndinsky) - Neryungri section was built by convicts and this section appeared before anyone else. The first attempts at construction were made in 1932. The gold of Aldan, the coal of Neryungri and the forest of Kalara had to be taken out somehow. (See note no. 4)

The section Komsomolsk - Tynda was built by soldiers ("Komsomol members in military uniform", as they said then), so the road there is the most rotten and slow. Slave labor is the least productive.

The section Lena - Tynda was built by Komsomol volunteers from different parts of our country, and therefore the construction was completed later than everyone else. In addition to the road itself, the entire infrastructure of roadside cities and towns was raised from scratch. They were built by different republics and regions, so the station station New Chara similar to a yurt (Kazakh SSR), Severobaikalsk stations - on sea ​​wave(Leningrad), and Tynda station - on a swan (Moscow). A complete list of chef regions: Ukraine - Novy Urgal, Belarus - Muyakan, Latvia - Taksimo, Moldova - Alonka, Turkmenistan - Larba, Uzbekistan - Kuanda and Leprindo, Tajikistan - Soloni, Estonia - Kichera, Georgia - Niya. Russian Territories and regions built smaller stations.

I intended to drive along the entire highway (with the exception of the "Zekovsky" section) and understand what benefits the Soviet government was pursuing by harnessing itself to such a project. I remembered very well both the Komsomol romance and the obvious unwillingness of ordinary Komsomol members to embark on this dubious adventure. But money, however, could be made. I remember a cute ditty - “How I left for BAM \ With a leather suitcase \ And I returned home \ With x. ladies' rails..."

It is now clear that BAM did not and does not have national economic significance. It is needed only as a stand-in for the Trans-Siberian Railway in case of Chinese military aggression. The Trans-Siberian is located too close to the border and, although the entire border area was (and still is) occupied by Soviet / Russian troops, one offensive The PLA is capable of cutting off the Far East completely.

From Komsomolsk-on-Amur, the diesel locomotive puffs our train to the northwest. The only train on the road running daily - Komsomolsk-on-Amur - Tynda does not cause a stir. Three reserved seats, two compartments and one common car, that's all. The common carriage is filled with students going home to rest before exams. The compartment and reserved seat are filled with more serious people.

In the neighboring compartment car there is even such a luxury as a buffet. It is unprofitable to attach a restaurant car to such a train, so they settled for a gondola car. It consists of half a compartment car (5 pcs.) And a half car of a clean space with a tent and a bar counter. Very spacious and comfortable, you can eat right there. Assortment - nuts, chocolates, juices, beer, vodka, pizzas, pies - all with a moderate margin. Once again I will repeat - with moderate. Sometimes it is even cheaper for locals to buy food from the dining car than in local stores.

As fellow travelers, I got two middle-aged peasants who lived near Tynda and worked on a rotational basis throughout the country. Now they were returning from Sakhalin, where they worked for half a year as drivers on the backfilling of the soil of the oil terminal of the Sakhalin-1 project. One of them, in his youth, worked on the construction of a highway in the Ulanmakit-Muyakan region, and I managed to ask him about the construction of the road and current life.

Outside the window stretched the fences of military units. This section of the BAM was built and settled by the military, so there are a lot of high frequencies here. Yes, and bridges over rivers are guarded much better. Now it is private security armed with real machine guns. Along the banks are armored caps, concrete trenches, and so on. Everything is booked now.

Holgasso is the first village with a huge inscription "Tambov Region". Almost every station has this kind of monuments. The highway itself was built by soldiers, convicts, and ordinary Komsomol members, but the settlements near the station were only free builders. Many of them stayed here to live.

At the Lian station, a motress (such a self-propelled railway car) rolled up to the parallel track, and a bunch of auditors ran from it to our train. Trains on the Far Eastern Railway are generally checked very often. During the entire trip, I encountered only two checks, and both of them fell on the Far Eastern Railway. (Khabarovsk and Lian)

Khurmuli, Mavrinsky, Gorin, Kharpichan, Evoron, Moni, Bolen

The first standing station is Postyshevo (Berezovy village), you can still drive to this place by car. Along the entire BAM, the road laid during construction is preserved. It is now and then gravel, but in some places the bridges have already rotted away. This area is passed year-round by Urals, and in seasons - even by cars. The village itself is very scattered over the area, which is rare for these places. Passengers from Liana got off here, but my fellow travelers and I fell asleep peacefully.

Stations Ebgun, Sonakh, Amgun, Eanga, Sektali, Dzhamku, Badzhal, Urkaltu, Talijan, Gerbi, Orokot, Mogdy, Suluk, Dusse-Alin, Naldy, I slept peacefully. None of them are more or less large. Only trips.

At Soloni station, I had already woken up and began to look out the window with renewed vigor ... Mmm, nothing interesting appeared there compared to yesterday. The settlement at the station was erected by the builders of the Tajik SSR, so it resembles some kind of mausoleum.

Mukunga, Turuk, Mugule, Chemchuko.

Urgal is not one village, but a whole bunch (Urgal, Urgal-1, Middle Urgal and Novy Urgal). On Novy Urgal, the largest parking lot is 32 minutes. A new big station, but there are no old women selling food. Everything is imported, they themselves are not enough. The village is neat and the names of the streets bear the seal of Little Russia - Crimean, Kyiv ... A short branch departs from Urgal to Chegdomyn station. There is even a daily local train Khabarovsk-Chegdomyn.

And beyond Uragl, Mari begins, i.e. endless swamps on permafrost. Square kilometers of grass and hummocks, and the trees are only standing alone, frail and crooked.

Bureinsk, Chebangda, Alonka, Stlannik, Tuyun, Sugara, Amgan are the stations in Mary. As a rule, at each of them a freight train is waiting for us to pass on the single-track further to the east. In the wagons there is wood, wood, wood, occasionally coal from Neryungri.

Etyrken is the last station in the Khabarovsk Territory, followed by the Amur Region. And therefore - the change of the time zone, I get an hour closer to Moscow, for the first time during this trip. Until now, I've only drifted away. A regular working train reaches Eterken from Urgal itself. And the road rises higher and higher into the mountains.

Here the train crosses large mountain ranges. Larch forests appear on the hills, swamps disappear. The landscape is enlivened only by rare clearings with power lines. There are no settlements in these places at all, all the sidings are served by one station attendant. As a rule, this is a woman dressed in a FULL railway uniform. And I was especially surprised that each DS had a uniform red cap. Some kind of fetishist's dream. Nowhere else have I seen such discipline in dress. Service in the Ministry of Railways is prestigious and respected in these places. In addition, this is almost the only job that pays at least some money. The second monetary work is logging. The whole BAM does nothing but cut wood and transport it to China, since here it is its only cargo.

Ulma, a station on the banks of the river of the same name, Mustakh, Gvozdevsky - tiny sidings with traditional attendants in red caps.

Small station Isa on the pass itself. A trip in three ways, a small hut on duty at the station and the most beautiful mountains around. There is a "serpentine" road, but here a "serpentine" railway. The rails are laid along stone recesses, literally hollowed out in granite mountains.

Isakan, Demchenko, Zvonkoe - here the mountains slowly recede and endless swamps with stunted forests begin again. But sawmills are working with might and main here.

Fevralsk is finally another big station. As always at BAM, a grandiose railway station built by the builders of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, and the absence of passengers. There is no excitement, trains run rarely, rarely. In addition to our daily, only local "scourges" or "scourges". What it is? These are one or two reserved seat cars attached to a diesel locomotive and representing a substitute for an electric train. Freight cars can also cling to passenger cars, in official timetables this is called a "working train". As at any major station in this section, a stele with the numbers of the military units involved in the construction of the road was installed next to the station. The granite monument covered with numbers looks like a stone phone book.

They say that buses run from Fevralsk to Blagoveshchensk and Ekimchan. Tickets are allegedly purchased at the station building. The large Selemdzha River, a tributary of the Amur, flows outside the city. The following stations - Chervinka, Skalisty, Drogoshevsk, Meun, Nora, Dugda, Tangomen, Kamnega are no different from their past brothers-sidings.

Tungala is considered a large station, but compared to any station in the European part, this is a small stopover. Although there is everything that is supposed to be here, and even the Tungalinsky track distance (this is the name of the railway operation office) with repair and recovery trains. The village itself was built by the builders of the Novosibirsk region. Brrr... It's scary to live in such places, natural wilderness.

The next station has an intricate name - "Razezd named after the hero of the Soviet Union Miroshnichenko", which is reflected in concrete letters on the monument next to the station.

Despite the summer, the evening is cold (no more than 6-8 degrees), and here it is also raining. It is bad if the weather will be like this tomorrow. We pass small stations Ulagir, Moldavsky, Ogoron. After Ogoron, sleep puts me on the shelf.

We passed Verkhnezeisk late at night and could not see anything. And I really wanted to see Zeya and the giant reservoirs. They say it's very beautiful, but sometimes you also need to sleep.

Morning found us at Dipkun station. This is already not far from Tynda (6 hours drive) and the village itself looks more cheerful than others. Solid brick houses, paved roads, well, as everywhere - a civil station. And all night we passed only six stations (Ulyanovsk Builder, Izhak, Apetenok, Verkhnezeysk, Tutaul, Dess), such are the local distances.

Unaha, Marevaya, Jalingra,

Bestuzhevo. We can say that this is a satellite city of Tynda, with which it is connected by a good asphalt road. Here, 22 kilometers away, there are children's camps, a rest home and even a bomb shelter. A branch from South Yakutia, from Neryungri, also approaches the Bestuzhevo station. From there, coking coal is intensively transported and the road feels good. Even the continuation of the journey deep into Yakutia, to the Tommot station, and then, you see, to Yakutsk itself is being prepared.

The train crosses a bridge over the small Gilyui River, a tributary of the Zeya.

Shakhtaum, the last station before Tynda, the village of Vostochny is located nearby (5 five-story buildings, several barracks and that's it). There are only 7 kilometers left to the "Capital of BAM". The first and most difficult 1469 km to the house behind.

And now, behind the mountain, houses and pipes of the city of Tynda appeared. The capital of BAM was waiting for me. (that is, the continuation will follow ...)

Eastern BAM is a section of the railway from Tynda to Komsomolsk-on-Amur. This section, in general, is not as beautiful as the western one (from Lena to Tynda), but, nevertheless, it will be interesting for travelers, so you should not neglect visiting it. Some sections of the eastern BAM were built by the prisoners. During the Great Patriotic War, part of the rails was removed and sent to the West for military needs.
If the western BAM is sparsely populated, then the eastern one is practically unpopulated. Between Tynda and Komsomolsk, which is 1469 km, there are only a few urban-type settlements. The largest of them is Fevralsk (it seems that it even has the status of a city), located approximately in the middle of the site.

So, on the evening of August 2, the cargo-passenger train 963Z "Tynda-Komsomolsk-on-Amur" set off from Tynda and headed east - to the Amur.

For some time (up to the Bestuzhevo station, about 30 km from Tynda), the AYAM runs parallel to the BAM - the Amur-Yakutsk Mainline.

At present, the road has been built to the Tommot station, several hundred kilometers and a bridge across the Lena are left to Yakutsk.

Then AYAM goes to the left - to the north, towards Yakutsk.

We passed the unremarkable Gelingra station, 45 km from Tynda.

A little more nature of the north of the Amur region. One of the photos shows the Gilyui River.

The Marevaya station and the tiny village near the station were built by residents of the Tula region.

Mary is called a swampy area covered with a sparse oppressed larch forest, interspersed with areas of treeless swamps. In our country, this type of natural community exists only in Eastern Siberia and the Far East of Russia. When the BAM was built, temporary roads were laid along the mary from logs, along which the material was transported and dragged.

Evening came after Mareva.

Unfortunately, the Zeya reservoir was moved late at night. By the way, it cannot be seen from the train window during daylight hours and when moving back from Komsomolsk to Tynda.

In the morning, an absolutely flat plain stretched outside the window, covered with taiga and numerous rivers.

Heavy rains have recently been observed here, many rivers overflowed their banks, the Zeya reservoir was overflowing. To avoid the tragedy, it was necessary to drain the water and flood a number of settlements. This - a forced measure was aimed at preventing the dam from breaking, which could lead to a real tragedy.

As a result of the rains, the Selemdzha River overflowed its banks.

Fevralsk, parking 31 minutes. More than half of the train's population left the train, leaving the train almost empty.

The station building from the station square.

The bus station is also located here, most buses are tied to the arrival time of train 963/964. Podochel bus-pazik to Blagoveshchensk - the capital of the Amur region, it is about 400 km away, about 7 hours to go. The groove was packed almost to the eyeballs, there were many standing ones, I hope that they do not need to reach the final.

The central part of the city of Fevralsk, located a 10-minute walk from the station.

Approximately 4,600 people live in Fevralsk - quite a bit. The future of the village is connected with the railway, as well as with logging and mining in the Selemdzhinsky district. Thus, there are plans to build a railway line 144 km to the Ogodzhinsky coal deposit.

Low mountains appeared in the distance - this is the Turan ridge, which the railway crosses perpendicularly. The huge uninhabited territories are still surprising.

Middle of the day, extreme southeast of the Amur region, Isa station.

Crossing the Turan Ridge.

Near the road there is a stone with a commemorative plaque and a Cross, which, unfortunately, I did not have time to photograph in time, I noticed too late. This photo shows that the monument should be illuminated at night, as there is a lantern.

Station Etyrken, this is the Khabarovsk Territory. Here the time differs from Moscow by 7 hours already! I'm going to be in this time zone for quite some time.

On the slopes of the mountains in some places you can see whole strips of dried trees, it seems to be birches.

The serpentine road climbs to the next pass. And, finally, the ridge of Turan was left behind.

An unfamiliar plant appeared, which is a cross between sea buckthorn and rakita.

Station station and the village of Alonka. This settlement was built by the inhabitants of Moldova.

Immediately after Alonka, we drove through a very large burned-out area, it is clear that the fire was coming close to the railway. Low rocks from time to time come up from the left, then from the right. When there are no rocks, then vast expanses are visible. Vegetation began to change, it became richer, and this is not surprising - compared to Hani, the train went down quite significantly to the south, approximately to the latitude of Voronezh. And the ocean got closer.

The plain began again, in front of Novy Urgal we passed a bridge across the Bureya.

Novy Urgal station, parking 35 minutes. With Stanislav we went for a walk around the village, climbed the tiled path up to the BAM stele, where we took pictures.

View from the stele down towards the station.

The village of Novy Urgal was built by the inhabitants of Ukraine. After a little walk and buying mineral water, we moved on. After 11 km station Urgal 1, parking 18 minutes. The train "Khabarovsk-Chegdomyn" arrived on the neighboring track, Chegdomyn station is located 17 km from the main BAM branch, I would never have thought that a whole train from Khabarovsk goes to this branch! After all, only 15 thousand people live in it! It is noteworthy that in Fevralsk, which has the status of a city, the population is 3 times less.

For some time the branch to Chegdomyn runs in parallel.

For the first time in many days, I saw cumulonimbus clouds, but they were of no use.

The Bureinsky Ridge appeared - a tough nut to crack on the way of the BAM builders.

We are approaching the Dusse-Alin tunnel. The mountains covered with taiga look very beautiful in the rays of the evening sun.

Dusse-Alinsky tunnel has a length of 1806 meters 75 cm. It was punched in the rocks and permafrost back in the fifties. But it so happened that the tunnel did not find application then: the construction of the line was mothballed. Time did not spare the unique structure. Drainage devices fell into disrepair, inspection wells were covered with rock. For decades, water and severe cold have destroyed the tunnel. In the end, the tunnel was completely blocked by ice. The railroad soldiers had to clear the tunnel and lay the rails. The tunnel was cleared of ice four times faster than planned. The rails were laid through the tunnel in 2 days!

~~~~~~~~~~~

"Morning BAM". Artist Marat Samsonov

The correspondent of the Russian Planet, concurrently the author of this article, who got to the construction site as a railroad soldier, recalls how he saw the great Soviet construction site.

Tynda

I got to BAM almost 30 years ago - in the late autumn of 1984. In the capital of BAM - Tynda - I, a junior signalman sergeant from a training camp near Moscow, was taken along with a whole echelon of military railway workers.

Here we were greeted by dog ​​cold, at the end of November there were already decent frosts. I was immediately struck by the local railway station - there were no such places anywhere else in the USSR at that time: the covered viaducts and exits to the platforms looked like huge transparent corridors, inside which passengers walked back and forth. An unusual structure towered over the entire station complex - two wide columns, each as high as a 9-story building, stood next to each other, and almost at the very top they were connected by some kind of room that had the shape of a regular polygon. It was the station control room, which then became the unspoken symbol of Tynda, the hallmark of the young city of railway workers.

Our unit was located on a small hill, that is, we had to go downhill, and soon all the arrivals began to experience severe shortness of breath. As the fathers-commanders explained to us, shortness of breath began “out of habit”, since in Tynda, due to the high, 500 m above sea level, the location of the city, there is a lack of oxygen. Later, we learned from the commanders that the natural radiation background slightly increased in Tynda.

Even among the military, Tynda was famous for its garrison guardhouse, which was commanded by a Georgian major famous for his rigidity. There were such chilling stories about his cool temper all over the track that not only soldiers were afraid to get on this “lip” military service but also officers. That is, our first impression of the BAM capital was not very cheerful. Although the place is beautiful - the city is surrounded by hills, it seems to be at the bottom of a huge pit.

I don’t know how it is now, but then - 30 years ago - it was a stretch to call Tynda a city. At best, it was an urban-type settlement, since there was only one street proper - Krasnaya Presnya. Only there were modern high-rise buildings and shops. The rest of Tynda mainly consisted of small village houses and construction trailers with stove heating.

If you look at Tynda from the hill in the morning, then during the cold weather (and they last here for about 9 months), the city is practically invisible. The houses are barely distinguishable, they are like in a dense fog. But this is not fog, but smoke from stoves. The soot from the smoke was everywhere, so the snow in the city was light gray. When a new snowball fell during the day, everything again became white for a short while. Therefore, the snowdrifts in Tynda had a layered-striped structure - layers of white snow alternated with gray soot.

The harsh climate and permafrost, on which Tynda and almost the entire eastern section of the BAM was built, made very serious adjustments to the construction. High-rise buildings were built on piles, but something else was surprising - the houses seemed to hang on these piles, that is, they were at a meter height from the ground. There was nothing in the gap between the earth and the house - winds and cats walked there. The window frames had three rows of glass. All this was done solely for the sake of warmth, which in these parts is worth its weight in gold.

In those days, the capital of the last Komsomol construction site was well supplied with food and manufactured goods. In the local department store, some imported jeans, Adidas sneakers and Salamander shoes were quietly lying, various household appliances stood on the shelves. In the bookstore, one could buy Dumas and Zoshchenko, and in grocery stores one could buy coffee, sausage, mayonnaise, butter, condensed milk, buckwheat, powdered milk, and egg powder. All this "on the mainland" was a terrible deficit. My friends and I immediately pounced on condensed milk, which was sold by weight, and ate so much of it that later, even after a few years, we could not look at it. From Tynda I sent home several parcels with books.

It was also here that I first saw Soviet canned food destined for foreign countries. I don’t know how they got to Tynda, but then we were all very impressed: the usual “Mackerel in Oil” had such a beautiful glossy label with inscriptions in English and French that caused pride for their country. Like, we can do it when we want.

The problems here were with perishable products. I have never seen real milk, kefir, sour cream and cottage cheese at BAM. It was also difficult to find a normal - not frozen - potato. Many vegetables and fruits, especially apples and pears, were Chinese. Although in those days, relations between China and the USSR were truly hostile.

This is how the capital of BAM lived, but on the highway itself, living conditions and supplies were, of course, much worse.

Warriors of BAM

The most difficult sections of the Baikal-Amur Mainline, where civilian specialists simply refused to work, were built by the railway troops (ZhDV). The conditions in which military railroad workers served were often simply inhuman.

The railway battalions, as during the war, were not directly called by their military numbers (for example, military unit 30976), but had signs with the inscription "economy" and then came the name of the unit commander. For example, if some major Ivanov was the battalion commander, then there was always a sign in front of the checkpoint with the inscription "Ivanov's economy." Such "secrecy" was explained by the proximity of the Chinese border.

Military units were located right next to the section of the highway that was being built or completed, that is, directly in the taiga. And the taiga in those places, although beautiful, is extremely unfriendly - permafrost, gauze - bottomless frozen swamps, mosquitoes and midges. Add to this 35-50-degree frosts and 9 months of winter. Spring and autumn here last no more than two weeks. Summer is also very short, as they say here “June is not yet summer, July is no longer summer”.

Mehbat, where we were sent from Tynda, like all similar units, stood on the so-called "filling". This meant that sand with a total area of ​​about 3 km2 was poured directly onto the haze swamp from above. The thickness of the sand layer was about 1 meter. On this "dump" was placed a mechanized battalion with all its infrastructure.

It turned out that the battalions actually lived all year round in the swamps. Swamp pathogenic microbes led to the fact that any wounds on the body did not heal, but began to rot for a long and painful time. Even a minor mosquito bite that was scratched could result in a non-healing funnel that rots right down to the bone. Among the military, it was called the "BAM rosette." For some reason, no medical remedies worked on the "roses". Therefore, soldiers often simply burned them with cigarettes or cigarettes. True, this also did not always help. Traces on the body from the "roses" remained for life and resembled traces of severe smallpox.

The "BAM warriors" weren't fed very well. Kashi began to alternate with pasta. In the morning they gave "oil". It was supposed to be creamy, but it was mixed with some fats, and from this everyone had wild heartburn. The "butter" was very frozen and it was impossible to spread it on bread, so it was eaten as a bite, dipped in hot tea. On holidays, they gave boiled eggs, caramel sweets and cookies.

Sometimes there was "mashed potatoes" of frozen potatoes. The "puree" was dark brown in color and had a disgusting sweetish aftertaste. The frozen potatoes themselves were peeled exclusively in mittens, since it is impossible to hold an icicle potato in your hands for a long time - you will frostbite your palms. Because of this "mashed potatoes", many had a stomach ache, and some had dysentery.

Until a bakery was built in the unit, we were fed the so-called "bread for geological parties." Each loaf of this "bread" was hermetically sealed in a cellophane bag with alcohol vapor, as a result, the loaf did not get stale for 2 months. True, such “bread” had a persistent aftertaste of rubber and it was disgusting to eat, but there was no other.

When their own bakery appeared, they began to make bread - white wheat and black rye. White turned out almost perfectly, but there was not much of it and there wasn’t enough for everyone, so it went mainly to officers, demobilizations and Caucasians. But with black bread there were big problems. For some reason, it didn’t bake at all: the crust burned to coals, and batter remained inside. It was two times smaller than an ordinary loaf and looked rather creepy - all black and black, like a burnt firebrand. The soldiers were fed exactly this “bread”. Going to “demobilize”, I hid one such loaf to show at home what they fed us, but the political officer, who searched our suitcases, took away the “bread”, and with the words “why do you need it in civilian life?” threw it away somewhere.

We had no money, but even if we had, there was practically nothing to buy with them. The mobile shops that came once every two weeks were completely bought up either by officers or Caucasians. However, there was no special assortment there: cigarettes, cookies, sweets, condensed milk, tomato juice. There was also the cologne "Sasha", which was strictly forbidden for soldiers to buy, since many used it inside.

It was possible to be treated only in the medical unit. Three people worked in our medical unit, who could very conditionally be called doctors, because only the eldest of them had an unfinished medical education― he was expelled from the 4th year of medical school. And the other two played the role of nurses, having only a school certificate behind their souls. They “treated” all diseases with the help of the “army triad” (analgin-aspirin-amidopyrine), adding to this set in wild quantities soldiers’ vitamins and obligatory “occupational therapy” - chopping firewood and cleaning the premises. Once I had a terrible toothache, and it was pulled out in the medical unit without any anesthesia with ordinary pliers. The jaw after this "operation" ached for several months.

Railway officers lived, as a rule, in construction trailers. But the soldiers slept even in 50-degree frost in army tents, where stoves "a la potbelly stove" were installed, made from 200-liter iron barrels. A “cardan” stretched through the entire tent - an exhaust pipe that heated an area of ​​2 meters around itself. As a result, the temperature regime in the tent in winter was very peculiar: water froze on the lower tier, and +40-45 degrees on the upper tier.

Of particular note are the toilets. If in Tynda the staff toilets had electric heaters, then there was no heating in the toilets on the highway. It is clear that all human waste in such conditions quickly froze, forming giant, terrible-smelling ice "stalagmites". Periodically, they had to be removed so that they did not interfere with the further process. Especially guilty soldiers were engaged in cleaning, who, like miners in a mine, hollowed out the hardened excrement with crowbars and axes.

Water was imported, and it was only enough for cooking and sometimes for an officer's bath. The "water carrier" - a car that carried water - often broke down, and then it was necessary to melt snow and ice in large tanks. Due to the lack of water, the soldiers went unwashed for several months. Everyone had lice from this, and there was only one way to get rid of them: completely wash yourself with gasoline, diesel fuel or kerosene. But only an old-timer could get the required amount of these oil distillation products.

The morals among the BAM soldiers and officers, who were truly brutalized from such a life, were also wild. We were brought to the battalion from Tynda already after midnight, but the local "grandfathers" met us as expected: they beat us until 6 in the morning, that is, before getting up. Not a single officer showed up during the night.

Terrible hazing was combined with community and ethnic hatred. At the same time, in our mehbat there were guys from almost all over the Union: Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Lithuanians, Moldovans, Ukrainians, Armenians, Georgians, Azerbaijanis, Chechens, Ingush and Russians.

Armenians and Azerbaijanis from Nagorno-Karabakh served in my platoon, who were so hostile that sometimes ordinary domestic quarrels ended in a stabbing. Azerbaijanis constantly and cruelly mocked young soldiers.

The officers of our unit were formed in Ukraine. And even then it was clear that terry nationalism was flourishing there. It was with great surprise that I learned then from the Slavic brothers that Ukraine had “seen in the grave” impoverished Russia, which the Ukrainians fed and watered, and that without Russia Ukraine would live like the United States, because Muscovites do not know how to work.

The officers constantly beat the soldiers severely. Once I witnessed a bloody skirmish between two senior lieutenants: one almost killed the other with a steel fork in the heart. The incident was immediately hushed up by employees of the military prosecutor's office, which was created, apparently, in order to "not wash dirty linen in public." By the way, the soldiers were not given forks, fearing the mass nature of such incidents.

There were no weapons in the railway units on the highway. It was dangerous to have weapons in such conditions: the people could simply shoot each other.

Route-84

Anyone who drove 30 years ago along the sections of the BAM open to traffic involuntarily had a feeling of recent hostilities. Everywhere along the road lay various mangled and semi-dismantled tractors, dump trucks, excavators, trucks, railway platforms and even trains.

The post-war feeling was intensified when drained peat bogs began to burn along the entire route in summer. Then the fire and smoke stretched for hundreds of kilometers, since no one extinguished them: it was useless.

Oddly enough, but in those socialist times there was a lot of construction equipment from the "capitalist countries" at BAM. Japanese Kato cranes and Komatsu excavators, American Caterpillar bulldozers and Magirus dump trucks from Germany. However, there were also Tatra dump trucks from socialist Czechoslovakia.

Some of the methods of operating the railway itself were also surprising.

For example, ground supports of bridges - bulls - looked very strange in some places. They looked like some kind of giant hedgehogs, as they were all in huge "needles". In fact, these "needles" were large hollow pipes, which were unusual refrigerators! They froze and fixed the soil around them. The principle of operation of such refrigerators is original and simple: kerosene was poured into the pipes, which in winter, cooling, sank to the bottom. Even in summer, such refrigerators froze the soil within a radius of 1.5-2 meters.

Dean Reed on the set of the video

Since many sections of the BAM and bridges were built by the military, the quality of these facilities was terrible. Therefore, train wrecks often occurred on the track. For this reason, civilian railway workers in those days moved with great caution on the highway.

To ferry the freight train across the dangerous bridge, the railway workers acted cunningly. In front of an unreliable bridge, the driver stopped the train, got out of the cab and walked to the other end of the bridge. The driver's assistant cut in the quietest speed and immediately jumped to the ground in front of the bridge. The composition slowly walked along the bridge without people. At the opposite end of the bridge, a driver jumped into it, who stopped the train and waited for an assistant to run up. And only after this procedure they again moved on the road.

The people came "to the track" very different. Among the BAM workers there were also absolutely asocial personalities: vagrants, former convicts, criminals, chronic alcoholics, people without documents, hiding from law enforcement agencies and simply downcast. On the track they were called "scourges", and the places where they lived were called "bicharnies". The authorities and the military "scourges" were afraid, because no one knew what to expect from them. The “scourges” lived in small isolated colonies, organizing the same isolated brigades, which competed very fiercely with each other for money.

I did not happen to see real Komsomol members, whom “a Komsomol ticket called on the road”, and romantics who went “behind the fog and the smell of the taiga”. Most of the BAM builders in the 1980s still just wanted to make money, because at first they paid very well here. Therefore, the local hard workers remade the song “about the fog” as follows: “I’m going, and I’m going for money, only fools go for the fog.”

Many expected to save up a decent amount, so that later they could leave and buy housing or a car “on the mainland”. That is, people perceived work at BAM as temporary, in order to earn extra money and go home. But this was not the case for everyone and not always. Life sucked. In addition, in the 80s, pay became worse and it was already more difficult to save the necessary amounts. To go, as a rule, there was no longer anything and nowhere.

Songs by Dean Reed about BAM

JW our way onBAM : V In July 1974, the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR adopted Decree No. 561 on the construction of the Baikal-Amur Railway. The word "BAM" came into life rapidly and firmly established itself in it. Millions of people looked at geographical maps with interest in order to connect Baikal and Amur with their mind's eye.
I was struck by the vast expanses of the region, the grandiose scope of the upcoming construction. The main line crossed an extremely complex natural region, most of it passed in the mountains, and the central section - in a zone of high seismicity, met with such full-flowing rivers as the Lena, Upper Angara, Olekma, Gilyui, Selemdzha, Byssa, Bureya, Amgun, Amur, passed over vast areas of permafrost. In these northern regions, where the earth is shrouded in 50-60-degree frosts, there were almost no roads, not even trails. Rare Evenk settlements, which found shelter along the banks of the rivers, were separated from each other by many kilometers of taiga.
857 Training Center of the Railway Troops was established on August 1, 1996 on the basis of 1 separate training railway regiment, which began its history on October 5, 1918. During the entire period of activity of the military unit, its main task was the training of highly qualified sergeants and junior specialists intended to fill positions that determine the combat capability of military units and formations of the Railway Troops. Over the past years, tens of thousands of junior commanders and specialists have been released from the military unit and sent to the troops. Graduates of the training military unit performed their tasks with honor and dignity on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War, during the restoration of railways in the war and post-war period. The personnel made a great contribution to the development of the country's railway transport during the construction of the Ivdel-Ob, Abakan-Taishet, Tyumen-Surgut, Baikal-Amur Mainline railway lines. Hundreds of graduates of the unit were awarded government awards for the successes achieved in improving the combat readiness of military units and formations. Currently in training center The Railway Troops continue to work on the training of squad commanders and specialist soldiers. Training is conducted in 14 specialties, determined by the order of the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation of 2006 No. 480 “On approval of the List of military positions filled by soldiers, sailors, sergeants and foremen, for which military personnel are subject to training in training formations and military units of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation”.

This is: foreman (for repair and storage of road engineering equipment)
copier (for 4 types of crane equipment)
driver (for 2 types of pile driving and pile driving units)
track machine operator
radiotelegrapher (radio station of medium and low power)
mechanic (telephone ZAS)