Bykhov. Aerodrome.

After driving past the railway station in Bykhov, you will find yourself in a suburb, which in Soviet times was a city within a city - it is a former military camp of military pilots. Once is a classified closed zone, where it was impossible to enter without special documents. And now you can safely drive through the town, passing the airplane monument, then turn right and go straight to the territory of the largest and most important military airfield in the territory of Soviet Belarus. You will be able to drive along the concrete runway, visit the earthen bunkers where the planes were stored, and if you really want to, if you ask the local natives, they will show you the bunker where nuclear weapons were stored. Bykhov was first mentioned in connection with aviation in 1914, when the legendary aviator Pyotr Nikolayevich Nesterov made a flight from Kyiv to Petersburg, and one of the places where he decided to refuel his plane was Bykhov. This historical event took place on May 24, 1914. In 1938, a military airfield with a dirt runway was equipped in Bykhov, and work was carried out on the construction of a concrete runway. When the war started, bombers, fighters and attack aircraft were based here. At the beginning of July 1941, the Nazis bombed the already empty airfield, because the Soviet aviation managed to transfer to the reserve airfield near Klimavichy. During the occupation, the Nazis used the airfield and it was repeatedly bombed by Soviet aircraft. Immediately after the war, long-range bomber aircraft began to be based at the airfield and the construction of a new concrete airstrip, which was originally built by German prisoners of war, resumed. And with the arrival of new military equipment, a nuclear arsenal is being built, which itself was a semi-underground structure. For these purposes, 2 concrete factories worked. Construction was carried out very quickly and qualitatively. In 1975, the concrete runway was reconstructed. The length of the strip is 3400 meters, and the width is 80 meters, the thickness of the concrete cover is 80 centimeters. The 57th Red Ensign Smolensk Marine Missile Aviation Division, which was based here, was considered the best in aviation of the USSR Navy. 30 pilots of the division were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. During the reconstruction and thawing of the airfield in Bykhov, great attention was paid, and in the fall of 1990, the President of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev, paid a visit here. But all this was during the Soviet years. To date, the airfield is neglected. Here, anyone can come for a ride, take pictures and talk to the natives about the former military power of the Soviet Empire.