Naval museum complex Balaklava, Naval museum in Balaklava, Crimea.
The complex is an underground military facility in Balaklava, Crimea, formerly used as a submarine base. The facility contains dry docks with massive pressure gates, maintenance halls with cranes, and storage rooms connected by wide channels for submarines.
Soviet military engineers built the base during the Cold War as a secret center for maintaining nuclear submarines of the Black Sea Fleet. The facility remained operational until 1993, when it was decommissioned and later opened as a museum.
The exhibitions document the Black Sea Fleet's role with uniforms, communication devices, and navigation equipment from Soviet times. Visitors see reconstructed living quarters where crews stayed during their missions, furnished with original fixtures from the 1960s and 1970s.
The tour through the underground tunnels takes about one hour and requires warm clothing, as the interior temperature stays cool year-round. The passages are lit, but some sections have low ceilings and uneven surfaces.
The main channel was wide enough to accommodate seven diesel submarines or nine smaller vessels simultaneously, all protected by locks from the open sea. The engineers installed a cooling system that pumped seawater directly from the bay to cool reactors during extended maintenance cycles.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 60,000 contributors worldwide.
