Location: 43°54'28.9"N 131°55'21.8"E
The Vozdvizhenka Aerodrome is located a couple of hours by road North of Vladivostok, and from 1953 to 2009 was a heavy bomber airfield, first with the Soviets then the Russians. The 444th Heavy Bomber Aviation Regiment was based at the Vozdvizhenka Aerodrome (Aэродром Воздвиженка). The famed nuclear-weapon capable Tu-16K, Tu-22M3, as well as others would have flown from this base, to a "jump" base in the Arctic circle to refuel, then pop over the pole to launch a preemptive nuclear strike, or launch retaliation for an American nuclear strike. This airfield would have had nuclear weapons on-site, or in storage nearby... but where?
Map from Vladivostok, Russia to Vozdvizhenka Aerodrome
The aerodrome was decommissioned, but since so much of the base is intact, unlike other sites that have been abandoned and left in ruins, I'd guess this one is more in "cold storage" than "abandoned". The runway is in excellent shape, and I have read news reports, and seen pictures, of exercises being held nearby, using the airfield as an alternate for those exercises. Here two photos from Yuriy (Yuri?) Smityuk / TASS from February 18th 2016, just earlier this year.
Recent Vozdvizhenka Aerodrome Satellite Imagery from Google Maps
Notice the fuel tankers which are new, shiny, and being stored where the former fuel dump was located? I'm guessing a little, but it looks like each tank holds about 34,000 liters (9000 gallons) of fuel, presumably AV Gas. It is unclear to me what the brown/rusty tankers contain, are they simply older, or decommissioned? The railway that is beside the POL site, is likely functional since there is a single rail car parked there. Rail access to fuel dumps (or ammo dumps) is essential to get large amounts of fuel or heavy loads of weapons delivered.
Former POL Site, now busy storing tankers
What about munitions storage facilities at the Vozdvizhenka Aerodrome?
I'm not sure where conventional munitions, nuclear weapons, or other explosives (flares, etc) would have been stored near the flight line. There are dozens of earth covered buildings that look to be hardened aircraft hangers, but there are also a few buildings on the East side, far from the fuel depot, that could either be alert buildings where pilots would have stayed on alert ready to defend or strike, or perhaps munitions storage facilities, located in close proximity to the planes waiting on alert. Since I can't identify a large and highly secure nuclear storage facility at the aerodrome, I noticed another facility North of the Vozdvizhenka Aerodrome near 44°00'13.3"N 131°54'52.3"E
Located about 10 km North of the Vozdvizhenka Aerodrome (Aэродром Воздвиженка), on a road that only goes to this facility, is complex of buildings with many fences and only one road in or out. On Yandex maps it is called "urochishche Pervomayskiy 1-y" and elsewhere I could reference to "Pervomayskiy Pervyy". My poor Russian language skills show through here, as I'm not exactly sure what either means; other than the word "First" seems to be involved. Like, "1st Avenue"; might this might be "1st Pervomayskiy Hamlet"? With some more digging I discovered references to "Гарнизон Воздвиженка-2" and "РТБ в/ч 23477"; translated that might be "Garrison Vozdvizhenka-2", perhaps a reference to the 2nd garrison or garrison #2 of Vozdvizhenka. РТБ is an acronym in Russian roughly translating to RTB, repair and technical base; language used exclusively for nuclear weapons maintenance, storage, and assembly. в/ч 23477 means "Military Unit 23477". в/ч 23477 is part of the 12th Main Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Russia (12-е Главное управление Министерства обороны России); the directorate which is "responsible for nuclear security and technical support" of nuclear weapons.
The Vozdvizhenka Aerodrome is located a couple of hours by road North of Vladivostok, and from 1953 to 2009 was a heavy bomber airfield, first with the Soviets then the Russians. The 444th Heavy Bomber Aviation Regiment was based at the Vozdvizhenka Aerodrome (Aэродром Воздвиженка). The famed nuclear-weapon capable Tu-16K, Tu-22M3, as well as others would have flown from this base, to a "jump" base in the Arctic circle to refuel, then pop over the pole to launch a preemptive nuclear strike, or launch retaliation for an American nuclear strike. This airfield would have had nuclear weapons on-site, or in storage nearby... but where?
Map from Vladivostok, Russia to Vozdvizhenka Aerodrome
The aerodrome was decommissioned, but since so much of the base is intact, unlike other sites that have been abandoned and left in ruins, I'd guess this one is more in "cold storage" than "abandoned". The runway is in excellent shape, and I have read news reports, and seen pictures, of exercises being held nearby, using the airfield as an alternate for those exercises. Here two photos from Yuriy (Yuri?) Smityuk / TASS from February 18th 2016, just earlier this year.
I suspect the base could be reactivated with a new heavy bomber wing if the need arose, but until then it's somewhat accessible by the public, you can find pictures that people have taken in some of the abandoned buildings on social media. I wouldn't recommend it, as it would still be trespassing on a military base. The Tu-22M3 planes (pictured farther below), which were derelict and sitting on the hard stands surrounded by berms by the runway have all disappeared from the satellite pictures. The fenced industrial area on the West side of the aerodrome seems to have Su-24 aircraft waiting outside. Are they are being dismantled, or repaired?
Recent Vozdvizhenka Aerodrome Satellite Imagery from Google Maps
Notice the fuel tankers which are new, shiny, and being stored where the former fuel dump was located? I'm guessing a little, but it looks like each tank holds about 34,000 liters (9000 gallons) of fuel, presumably AV Gas. It is unclear to me what the brown/rusty tankers contain, are they simply older, or decommissioned? The railway that is beside the POL site, is likely functional since there is a single rail car parked there. Rail access to fuel dumps (or ammo dumps) is essential to get large amounts of fuel or heavy loads of weapons delivered.
Former POL Site, now busy storing tankers
What about munitions storage facilities at the Vozdvizhenka Aerodrome?
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| Emblem of the 12th Main Directorate of the Russian Ministry of Defence |
Located about 10 km North of the Vozdvizhenka Aerodrome (Aэродром Воздвиженка), on a road that only goes to this facility, is complex of buildings with many fences and only one road in or out. On Yandex maps it is called "urochishche Pervomayskiy 1-y" and elsewhere I could reference to "Pervomayskiy Pervyy". My poor Russian language skills show through here, as I'm not exactly sure what either means; other than the word "First" seems to be involved. Like, "1st Avenue"; might this might be "1st Pervomayskiy Hamlet"? With some more digging I discovered references to "Гарнизон Воздвиженка-2" and "РТБ в/ч 23477"; translated that might be "Garrison Vozdvizhenka-2", perhaps a reference to the 2nd garrison or garrison #2 of Vozdvizhenka. РТБ is an acronym in Russian roughly translating to RTB, repair and technical base; language used exclusively for nuclear weapons maintenance, storage, and assembly. в/ч 23477 means "Military Unit 23477". в/ч 23477 is part of the 12th Main Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Russia (12-е Главное управление Министерства обороны России); the directorate which is "responsible for nuclear security and technical support" of nuclear weapons.
Гарнизон Воздвиженка-2 РТБ в/ч 23477 | Garrison Vozdvizhenka-2 operated by unit 23477
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| Воздвиженка-2 РТБ в/ч 23477 https://yandex.com/maps/-/CVTBmIix |
If you were going North along the road from the Aerodrome to the facility you would arrive at a guard post and parking lot in front of a facility surrounded by what looks like triple barbed wire fences in the middle of fields and grassland.
The parking lot looks busy, and I dont see any personal vehicles inside the gate. I assume those posted to the facility park outside or are bussed in and walk inside, past the barbed wire fences. If you were to drive into the facility and keep going straight, you'd come to a intersection with another guard post, this time with a covered inspection station, before going beyond another set of barbed wire fences. Beyond this 2nd checkpoint is a building which I speculate is a weapons assembly building, but before you can get to it, you guessed it, another fence. At the extreme West and East of the facility there seem to be storage areas; I believe these would be for parts of the weapons to be assembled; there might have been rocket engines at one end, and warheads at the other end. I'm completely guessing, but the high security makes me think this is a weapons assembly or production facility. The lack of heavy industrial buildings makes me think this is more an area to assemble weapons, than make them from scratch. Reviewing other nuclear facilities in Russia, this is the most secure of them all - even more secure than warhead assembly plants. But why?
I found a quote from an informed source that said they "stored nuclear warheads (for) missiles"; that convinced me of what I was looking at - a nuclear storage facility; missile assembly buildings above ground, and storage below ground. Another informed source told me the arms treaties (IMF, START) do not list these storage sites since they are not inspectable under the agreements; so in short, there is no official list of Russian military nuclear storage sites, as I'd hoped there would be.
Given the sparse amount of information I've been able to dig up about this one facility, I'm now wondering about how many other active sites like this there are. I'm quite interested in where the former Soviet storage locations were, to study their aerial imagery as well.
Here is a home-video filmed at the site just a few years ago.
Video shot here: 44.001869, 131.911964
Google Satellite Imagery of Vozdvizhenka-2
The best bulk of photos I could find of the air base were taken by KFSS.ru, so I must thank them, very much, for taking these pictures in 2011! Latest satellite imagery doesn't show any Tu-22M3 planes anywhere around the runway; I suspect they have since been cut up, but the Tu-22M3 is still in active service, so I can't be sure they weren't refurbished or put into storage under a roof.
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