How a mud tsunami nearly destroyed Soviet Kiev: the Kurenev tragedy

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

On March 13, 1961, at 6:45 am, the destruction of the dam in Babi Yar began, into which wastewater (pulp) from local brick factories had been discharged since 1952. After a short time, the structure burst through, and the water rushing towards Kurenevka at high speed began to demolish everything that came in its way. A multi-meter mud tsunami washed away houses, uprooted trees, swept away vehicles. People who faced the ruthless element had no chance of surviving. According to official statistics, up to one and a half hundred people died in Kiev that day. But historians admit that the number of victims could have exceeded a thousand.

Accelerated Urban Development and Accident Precursors

In December 1952, the chairman of the City Executive Committee, Aleksey Davydov, signed a document on the construction of a construction waste dump in the area of the new residential area Syrets in the area known as Babi Yar. After this decision was made, the waste of brick factories that fell on human heads in 1961 entered the ravine hanging over Kurenevka for nine years. Davydov raised post-war Kiev from the ruins. In many ways, the city known today is his merit. As a leader, he was Stalinist tough, directive and domineering. They solved the impossible tasks: to revive Kiev in the shortest possible time, turning it into a showcase of communist well-being and an example of innovative urban planning. Hundreds of civilian, administrative and departmental objects were flowing. Disruption of timely delivery - up to jail. Urban construction required huge amounts of building materials, and they were produced around the clock. Of course, it was necessary to put the waste somewhere.

Dam fault and negligence of the city executive committee

In March 1950, Stroygidromekhanizatsiya requested permission from the Kiev authorities to store pulp in Babi Yar. At the same time, they decided to partially wash out the ravine with waste in order to build a street later. As a result, a huge bowl of dangerous slurry hung over Kurenevka. As it turned out later, the engineers did not calculate the force of pressure on the dam, and the designers did not even think about making its edges concrete. Convicts with prisoners of war who were employed in those jobs did not think about quality at all. And the hydraulic engineers made a mistake in assessing the impact on the construction of the elements. The clayey Kiev soil poorly absorbed water, and the usual winter glaciers displaced the liquid and flooded Kurenevka.

The party city committee and comrade Davydov did not have enough time to monitor some kind of auxiliary site for storing waste. Those attempting to complain about the flooding were sent home, threatening with reprisals for anti-Soviet rumors. It is not known exactly when the first destruction was formed in the dam and from what moment Davydov could have known about it. If such information reached him at all. The theory of total negligence is confirmed only by the oral testimony of the people of Kiev, who watched the leaking reservoir. Perhaps, except for ordinary citizens, no one else was concerned about the object. But on the night of March 12-13, 1961, the problem made itself felt loudly.

Urban tsunami and survivors

On that ill-fated Monday, clay slurry gushed over the embankment. Despite the fact that the flood lasted just over an hour, its consequences were disastrous. This incident is considered the biggest tragedy of the century before Chernobyl. The mud shaft, according to various estimates of eyewitnesses from 3 to over ten meters, rushed along the wide street, crashing into the tram depot. In parallel, a wave of waste raged near the St. Cyril Monastery, flooding the Spartak stadium and the nearby Frunze Street. Even multi-ton trams could not withstand the destructive force. The Spartak stadium was completely covered, even the tops of the fence could not be seen.

The situation with the tram fleet was aggravated by the fact that a timely command to cut off the power supply was not received. As a result, many people died from electric shocks. If it were not for the employees of the tram depot, who sacrificed their lives, who arbitrarily turned off the power substation, the number of victims could have been much greater. The rescue of people who were under the viscous wave was complicated by the fact that the sandy-clay pulp spread and immediately solidified, becoming hard as stone. The building of the Podolsk hospital managed to survive, on the roof of which people who climbed there were saving themselves. The bodies of people who died under the frozen pulp were removed for more than one week. According to some contemporaries of the tragedy, Aeroflot's planes were forced to change the traditional route so that passengers flew around the scene of the accident and did not know about the true scale of the incident.

The fight for non-disclosure of information and the mysterious death of the chairman of the city executive committee

As was often the case in Soviet times, they decided to keep silent about the tragedy. In order to avoid disclosure of information, long-distance and international communication in Kiev was promptly disabled. The avaricious condolences to the relatives of the victims were published in the newspaper "Evening Kiev" only days later. Even a criminal case on the fact of such a large-scale tragedy was opened in the order of exceptional secrecy. Six people were named guilty of negligence in economic affairs, and they were punished with imprisonment. At the same time, the chairman Alexei Davydov did not bear responsibility, being beyond suspicion. Many see the reason in the fact that Davydov was Khrushchev's man, and the protege of the first leader in the USSR had no right to fall so low. The case was quickly closed, it was not customary to remember it for many years.

Soon, the chairman of the Kiev City Executive Committee, Alexei Davydov, was gone, after whom the boulevard on Rusanovka was named. There were persistent rumors that he had shot himself. Some people claimed that there was even a suicide note in which he confessed in pangs of conscience because of the Kurenev tragedy. But at the official level, this information has not been confirmed. Even today superstitious people blame not the technical mistakes of the mayors for what happened, but the choice of a place for the accumulation of waste. Indeed, at that time, less than two decades had passed since the period when the bodies of tens of thousands of townspeople killed by the Nazis were forcibly buried in Babi Yar.

In 1946 there was another tragedy - a major fire in Minsk that killed 200 people.