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Dnieper Hydroelectric Station (DniproHES)

The Dnieper Hydroelectric Station (DniproHES) is the largest hydroelectric power station on the Dnieper River, located in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine. The station was built in two stages. DniproHES-1 was originally built between 1927-1932, but was destroyed during World War II to make the river harder for the advancing German forces to cross. It was rebuilt between 1944-1950. DniproHES-2 was built between 1969-1980 and later modernized during the 2000s.

DniproGES is a true work of 20th-century architectural art. and a model of industrial architecture. It is a complex hydrotechnical construction complex consisting of: hydroelectric power station-1, hydroelectric power station-2, panel board, spillway and deaf dam, navigable structures, open switchgear. The dam is one of the largest components of the Dnieper cascade of hydroelectric power plants with a bridge and overpass over the floodgates where the motorway with sidewalks passes. The length of the spillway is 766 m, the radius of the curvilinear dam is 690 m, the highest height of the spillway is 41.6 m, the bullhead is 69.5 m. The length of the dam is 251 m. The nautical structures are located on the left bank: the upper side beacon, the three-chamber and single-chamber gateways and the lower approach channel. Structurally, the gateway is a rocky recess, the height of its retaining walls 52 m. The filling of the chamber occurs through the water intake, the drain - through the spillways of the gallery.

DniproGES is the heart of Ukrainian electricity, because every 4 kW of the country is the result of its operation. The construction of the station in Zaporizhzhya marked the beginning of the metallurgical, chemical, machine-building and industrial complex. Architectural characteristics are an example of the most successful combination of utilitarian engineering structures with high aesthetic qualities of architecture. The smooth arc of the mighty dam, dissected by the measured rhythm of the concrete foundations, combined into one whole power plant on one side and gateways on the other.

The Dnipro HPP was declared an all-Union construction project, where, in addition to the "fighters of the construction army", the unpaid and unprotected labor of prisoners was used. In 1927, a bridge was laid, and in 1932, the first unit of the new power plant was put into work. In 1939, the Dnipro HPP became the largest power plant in Europe and the third largest in the world.

By the middle of August 1941, the forces of the German army group "South" reached Dnipro River along the entire line from Kherson to Kyiv. According to the memories of the Chief of the General Staff of the German Land Forces Franz Halder, on August 17-18, 1941, one of the German tank divisions was already almost a kilometer away from the Dnipro HPP dam.

On the evening of August 18, 1941, the Chekists (servicemen of the 157th regiment of the NKVD, guarding the Dnipro HPP, disabled the station's equipment and blew up the dam. This came as a surprise not so much to the advancing Germans as to the retreating Red Army servicemen. The explosion killed Soviet soldiers who were crossing the dam at that moment. Those units of the Soviet troops that were downstream also became flooded.

Engineer-Colonel Boris Epov and Lieutenant-Colonel Aleksei Petrovskiy were responsible for the operation. But it is still not known exactly who determined the time of "extreme necessity" for detonation. Some historians believe that the order was given by the commander of the troops of the southwestern direction Semyon Budyonnyi, the others think that Stalin personally sent the code from Moscow, and the others think that the employees of the 157th regiment of the NKVD, who were supposed to set off the explosives, panicked prematurely.

The station was mined in advance (before the beginning of August) 157 by the NKVD regiment. More than 20 tons of explosives were used - ammonal, led by the operation of the Colonel Epov engineer Boris Alexandrovich. On August 18, 1941, the two divisions of the Wehrmacht (9th and 14th) approached Zaporizhia, the 18th Red Army was completely demoralized and after the first skirmishes began a retreat, the command gave an order to undermin Dneprogacy.

The explosion was formed by a break over 165 m, which provoked a wave with a height of about 30 meters, which washed off the coastal urban strip. The waves took over a thousand lives of the civilian population, destroyed the Zaporizhia flotilla, countless people were left without roofs above their heads, part of the German Wehrmacht only watched through binoculars As a result of the dam explosion, Soviet soldiers were killed, plus the Zaporizhye occupied by the Soviet troops at that time was flooded, significant parts of the Soviet troops were flooded, which were below the flow of water forced .

"Military vehicles and people who were moving along the dam at that time, of course, died. An almost thirty-meter avalanche of water swept through the Dnipro floodplain, washing away everything in its path. The entire lower part of Zaporizhzhia with huge stocks of various goods, military materials, tens of thousands of tons of food products, etc. was washed away in a matter of minutes. Dozens of ships, along with their crews, perished in that terrible current. [Soviet] military units were in positions in the Dnipro floodplains tens of kilometers to Nikopol and beyond. A huge stream came unexpectedly. A large number of Red Army soldiers and officers with artillery and military equipment were killed. In addition to the military, tens of thousands of cattle and many people who were at work died in the floods," the eyewitness Fedir Pihido-Pravoberezhny described those events.

Assessment of the number of victims by various researchers ranges from 20,000 people (F. Pigido, V. Moroko) to 75-100 thousand (A. Rummo). A very effective means of destruction and everything is a simple turn of the handle with one person! " To determine the exact number of dead almost impossible, the available sources allow us to estimate only the approximate loss of warring parties. It is known about the likely death of 1,500 German soldiers [Moroka V.N. DniproNes: Black August 1941 / Scientific work of the Historic Faculty of Zaporizhzhya National University. - M.: ZNU, 2010. - VIP.xxih. - C.200].

From the Soviet side, a large part of 200.000 militias of the region, a Rifle division (one of her regiments remained on about. Hortietsa), a regiment of the NKVD, two artillery regiments, as well as smaller divisions. The personnel of these parts total numbers more than 20.000 fighters. In addition, on the night of August 18 in a wide band from Nikopol to Kakhovka and Kherson, a departure began on the left bank of the two common arms and the cavalry corps. These are another 12 divisions (150-170 thousand soldiers and officers).

In addition to the military, the inhabitants of the Zaporozhye Lynovny streets suffered from sudden flood, sat on both banks of the Dnieper, refugees. The estimated figure of people in the damage zone is 450 thousand people. Based on these data, the number of dead redarmeys, militia and civilians from the Soviet side in historical studies are estimated from 20-30 thousand (F. Pigido, V. Moroko) to 75-100 thousand (A. Rummo) [Moroka V.N. DniproNes: Black August 1941 // Scientific work of the historic faculty of the Zaporizhia National University. - M.: ZNU, 2010. - VIP.xxih. - C.201; Rummo A.V. Tell people the truth // Sociological studies. - Moscow, 1990. - No.9. - p.128].

But memoirs do not contain information about those killed in the flooding of comrades, nor in some reports are not reflected such losses, they did not appear even during the years of restructuring and independence "miraculously surviving" soldiers. One-time loss of this size is simply impossible to hide. Similarly, there are no similar facts in the memoirs of the inhabitants of coastal villages. There are neither stories miraculously survived, no memories of the dead rodies, nor the descriptions of thousands thrown on the shore of the decaying corpses. About the corpses of cows, goats and dogs, many remember, but no one about human bodies. On the banks of the Dnieper there is no mass grave "Victims of Dneproga".

Goebbels Propaganda, which used any even the slightest crime of Soviet power (and many and writing), never used the undermining of the Dneprogacy in their activities.
It would seem - here it is !!! Remove kilometers of photos and film pictures, invite the Red Cross and international organizations !!! Tens of thousands of bodies including women's and children's, crying relatives, mass funerals. How is the monstrous crime of the Soviet regime !!! Where is all this? And nothing !!! Maybe it's because there was nothing ?

After the explosion of the Dnipro HPP, the defense of Zaporizhzhia lasted for another month and a half. During this time, almost all the equipment of large factories managed to be taken out of the city.

The Germans restored the plant already in the summer of the following year, and in the fall of 1943, during the withdrawing, they again tried to blow it up. In 1943, the situation on the Eastern Front changed, the Soviet troops went on the offensive. Now the Germans have already started preparing to blow up the Dnipro HPP. Mining began in March 1943, more than half a year before the actual withdraw from Zaporizhzhia. About 200 tons of explosives and aerial bombs were supposed to completely destroy the station. But Soviet sappers and reconnaissance men managed to damage part of the wires that went to the detonators. Because of this, the Germans managed to blow up only part of the dam.

The reconstruction project of the station was managed by the Moscow constructivist architect Viktor Vesnin, who made "changes aimed at enriching its architectural image" in the appearance of the station. The equipment of Dnipro HPP was also updated. In 1946, the American company General Electric delivered new generators with a capacity of 90 MWt to replace the destroyed ones, the capacity of which was 77.5 MWt. The first unit of the station was launched already in March 1947. And three years later, in June 1950, the last, ninth unit was put into operation.