2,500-year-old city of Balaklava holds many secrets (09/05/04)

2,500-year-old city of Balaklava holds many secrets

by Danylo Kulyniak

KYIV - There is much that impresses in Balaklava: a dramatic 300-meter drop off into the sea at the Cape of Aya; the ruins of a nearby castle, and waves the color of bright emeralds that slap at your feet at the base of the rocky quay.

When you find yourself on Balaklava's streets it's as if you are walking in some enchanted town described in fairy tales, for the city is one of the most ancient in Ukraine, having also been known as Chymbalo and Yambol.

This year Balaklava is 2,500 years old, an event that will be officially celebrated on September 8-9 in conjunction with another notable moment in this region's rich history: the 150th anniversary of the Crimean War and the battle made famous by Alfred Tennyson's epic poem, "The Charge of the Light Brigade."

Invitations have gone out to many countries including Russia, Great Britain and France. London has said that it will send a member of the royal family. Balaklava is preparing. The British cemetery where the earl of Marlboro, a relative of Winston Churchill, was killed and buried during the war in 1854 is undergoing restoration. Other cemeteries and the city as a whole are undergoing a general facelift.

Yet, for all its renown as the site of the great battle of the Crimean War, few people realize that Balaklava also played a significant role in the Soviet Union's defense structure. During the Soviet era it housed the empire's nuclear submarine repair facility for its Black Sea and Mediterranean fleets. Until 1991 it was among the most secret places in the world with special permits needed to enter the city. Now plans call for it to be transformed into an international center of tourism.

In July 2002 President Leonid Kuchma ordered the development of the State Naval Museum devoted to the 10th anniversary of Naval Forces of Ukraine. The Balaklava Naval Museum has been receiving visitors for almost a year now. There is no other place like it in the world, inasmuch as it includes the underground bases and submarine repair and maintenance centers that were vital for maintaining Soviet power in the Black and Mediterranean seas.

The repair facility, housed partially in natural underwater caves and tunnels, and partially constructed in a mammoth project, was called "object 825 GTS." It was built incrementally beginning in 1954. Today it is open to visitors, who are attracted by the grandiosity and magnitude of its natural dimensions. Here is a whole city built underground with merely two exits for submarines into the sea.

During construction of the facility, workers excavated 200,000 square meters of rock from the western slope of Tavros Mountain to create a deep-water channel about a kilometer in length, as well as dry docks, repair facilities, underground roads, arsenals and depots, a command post and submarine berths. The first part, finished in 1961, was the repair center for submarines. The second section, finished in 1963, included fuel storage tanks that could hold 9,500 tons of oil and an ammunition depot that held nuclear warheads. A special underground climate control system was created to maintain stable atmospheric conditions.

The facility was reinforced with materials of the highest standards for radiation protection. The two-lane channel for the submarines, along with the entire underground infrastructure, was built to withstand a nuclear attack from a 100-kiloton atomic device. It was stocked with supplies and provisions for several thousand men who would be able to maintain and repair up to 10 nuclear submarines for several months.

In 1994 the underwater facility was taken out of operation. In 1995 the last Russian submarine was moved out, and the underground harbor of submarines came under the jurisdiction of Ukraine. Today, in the huge room that was the storage facility of the fleet's nuclear devices, the largest exhibition of weapons and ammunition in the world - from antiquity to modern times - is being created.

The Balaklava Museum is devoted to more than simply the underground submarine repair facility. Its role is to identify and commemorate the many historical aspects of the city and the region, from the time of its founding and including its role in Byzantine history, the Crimean War and its key role in the creation of the Ukrainian navy in 1992.

The range of the projects is extensive and grandiose. It not only includes the reconstruction of the large underground Soviet military fortress, but also the restoration of remains of the ancient Roman Temple of Jupiter Dolichenus, which were discovered and excavated some years ago under the auspices of the Khersones Tavriisky Reserve, located nearly in Sevastopol.

This archeological find is of worldwide importance because it is the best-preserved Jupiter Dolichenus Temple ever found in Europe. The mystery cult of Jupiter Dolichenus was very popular among the Roman legionnaires. In Balaklava, where a Roman Legion subsection known as the First Italian Legion was located, a temple was built in the later part of the second century, ascertained from the Latin inscriptions on upturned stone plates. Archeologists have also found statues of Hercules, Diana and other cult figures at the site.

In the second century the independent state of Khersones Tavria fell upon hard times and turned to the Roman Empire for military help. One of the divisions sent by Rome was dispatched to Balaklava not far from Khersones. An inscription in Latin on a stone plate at the Jupiter Dolichenus ruins states: "to Jupiter, the best and the biggest Dolikhen."

Antony Valenti, the military tribune of the First Italian Legion, built this temple with the help of Novia Ulpian, a centurion of the same legion. The two almost exclusively used locally available materials. While essentially a fortress, the Jupiter Dolichenus ruins also contain features of typical cult temples of that era.

Future plans call for the restoration of the site to its original design and for adding it to the historical and archeological preserve of Khersones Tavriiskyi in Sevastopol.

Dmytro Kulyniak is a Ukrainian journalist whose articles have appeared in the magazine Ukraine (found on Aerosvit flights), as well as in Nadzvychaina Sytuatsia, a magazine of the Ministry of Emergency Situations.

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