Klyuchi - Uka Pole Line (Lyzik - Sarapul Section)

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KURA MISSILE IMPACT RANGE
Section length: 53 km

Soviet Military Topo Maps 1:100 000, sheets:

O-58-85 (1978, 1986)
O-57-96 (1978, 1986)
O-57-108 (1978, 1986)

Long linear structure stretching in the tayga in the NE-SW direction. Its visible part is cropped by high-quality satellite images in the area (see Bing Satellite and Here Satellite layers), is about 41 km long a consists of 8 sections which are perfectly linear even in the difficult terrain - the longest straight section is about 10 km long. Somewhere it is visible as there forest strip was cut down but somewhere it seems there were expensive ground works (causeways, cuttings). It overcomes several rivers, but there is no bridge and even no ruins of bridges (i.e. bridges were never built).

The structure is approximately perpendicular to the expected ICBM reentry vehicles arrival direction and it is likely it once connected IP-15 (former) and IP-19 tracking sites of the KIK network (its Kamchatka ONIS-43 subsystem). Its purpose was perhaps to make easier the deployment of the measurement instruments and to make easier the access of the searching teams through the difficult terrain of the impact area. Nowadays it is apparently abandoned, just some part are used by terrain vehicles.

Some important places (parts of the impact range) are located in its near vicinity - the tower, the circular structure, the house.

AN IMPORTANT FACTS WERE FOUND RECENTLY ON THE LINEAR STRUCTURE:
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From variety of sources was found the marked linear structure is located exactly where an electric power line was once directed. The power line started at the town of Klyuchy and ended in the settlement of Ukha (at the shore of Ukha Bay); it was also routed aroud several IPs/OIPs and some other installations of the Kura Impact Missile Range. It used to be about 250 km long and nowadays it is likely unused and torn down (but at some places there are remnants of poles visible in the high-resolution satellite pictures). Many sections of the power line was accompanyed by the road, but somewhere the power line crossed the empty tayga.

It supplyed important sites of the Kura Impact Missile Range with electricity, whether some other lines (telephone/telegraph/teletype) were installed collaterally is unknown, but it is very likely. However, in the early years of the ICBM rocketry it was an important component of the Kura Impact Missile Range and also had to be a major construction challenge, as it stretches cross the totally wilderness, with no settlements and roads for hundreds of kilometers in any direction at the time of construction.

It is going to be documented and re-marked in WM at all its original length.