Duga-1 Control Buildings and Chernobyl-2 Military Town
In order to operate the Duga OTH radar system, a vast array of buildings was necessary to contain all of the control hardware and operational facilities. As mentioned previously, with this being a top secret facility it was necessary to build a self contained military town (Chernobyl-2) to house the operatives and their families. This town featured all of the normal facilities one would expect; accommodation, fire station, school, hospital and a community centre type building called the Club.
One of the highlights of the visit was seeing all of the architecture and the fantasticly colourful pieces of Soviet art work that featured on or in most of the buildings. The Duga control building features an incredible couple of pieces showing a vision of utopia and space travel. We would see a lot more of this sort of thing in Pripyat.
The layout of the town can be seen in the below Google Maps satellite image, it really illustrates quite how nature has taken hold since the sites abandonment.
Duga-1 Control Buildings
The control buildings adjacent to the receivers contain enormous spaces filled with old electrical switchgear and racks that would of once held computer hardware that would of interpreted the signals received. In addition to these computer rooms there was a large auditorium style operations room as well as some smaller control rooms and the expected ancillary rooms.
Chernobyl-2 Fire Station
There wasn't a great deal to see really within the fire station, however one of the rooms featured a detailed scale model of the Duga-1/Chernobyl-2 complex, which was quite amazing.
Chernobyl-2 Hospital
The first of a few hospitals we would see on the trip, this featured a few nice rooms with beds.
Chernobyl-2 Club
Most towns in the Soviet Union featured some kind of Club, larger towns having bigger facilities called Palaces of Culture. The Club in Chernobyl-2 housed a gymnasium, cinema and a library.
Chernobyl-2 School
Another first of many for the trip. This was a nice small school, featuring some nice bits and pieces. The wall display about the UK was quite a nice bonus.
