A museum about nuclear missiles, at the last remaining intact Soviet missile silo in Ukraine? Sure, sounds fun!
History
For full background, see the wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_missile_forces_museum_in_Ukraine
The visit
Day 2 of our arranged tour of Ukraine’s abandoned wonders saw us meet early for a tour bus to visit the ICBM museum (http://tourkiev.com/tourtostrategic/). What wasn’t clear from the booking that the tour bus looked barely road legal, and it was going to take 4 hours driving just to get there. Once we arrived, we received a briefing about the site (in Russian!) and then we were guided around the site and into the silo control room. The drive back was also pretty long and consisted of dodgy Russian style driving, but we made it and many vodkas were consumed that evening. So on to the photos…
The sign says “No door to door salemen please!”
Site entry
Briefing video – in Russian! “Death to Yankees!”
Model of the living bunker
Nuclear artillery shell
Kh-22MP Cruise missile (L) and SS-18 “Satan” (R)
Bunker periscope mounted with 7.62mm machine gun
Lid to a SS-24 “Scalpel” silo. The lid weighed in excess of 10 tons.
No, heading into the bunker
“Bye bye, imperialist Western scum!”
Band of weekend warriors, from left : Me, Peter, Kev, Rob, and Neal
Bad passing
Long trip back
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