Totskoye is a military range established in September 1941 to the north of Totskoye

Totskoye

Totskoye is a village in Orenburg Oblast, Russia. It is the administrative center of Totsky District. Population: 7,201 ....

 village, about 40 kilometre from Buzuluk

Buzuluk

Buzuluk is a town in Orenburg Oblast, Russia, located on the Samara, Buzuluk, and Domashka Rivers northwest of Orenburg. Population: It was founded in 1736 as the fortress of Buzulukskaya on the Samara River near the mouth of the Buzuluk River along Russia's southern frontier. It was later moved...

 in Orenburg Oblast

Orenburg Oblast

Orenburg Oblast is a federal subject of Russia . Its administrative center is the city of Orenburg. From 1938 to 1957, it bore the name Chkalov Oblast in honor of Valery Chkalov...

, Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

 (in Southern Urals) under the jurisdiction of the South Urals Military District

Military district

Military districts are formations of a state's armed forces which are responsible for a certain area of territory. They are often more responsible for administrative than operational matters, and in countries with conscript forces, often handle parts of the conscription cycle.Navies have also used...

. Marshal Georgy Zhukov

Georgy Zhukov

Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov , was a Russian career officer in the Red Army who, in the course of World War II, played a pivotal role in leading the Red Army through much of Eastern Europe to liberate the Soviet Union and other nations from the Axis Powers' occupation...

 picked the range for the then-upcoming nuclear test, which for some 50 years (until 1993) was considered top secret.

History

In mid-September 1954, nuclear bombing tests were performed in Totskoye range

Totskoye range

Totskoye is a military range established in September 1941 to the north of Totskoye village, about from Buzuluk in Orenburg Oblast, Russia under the jurisdiction of the South Urals Military District...

 during the training exercise Snezhok (Snowball or Light Snow) with some 45,000 people, all Soviet soldiers and officers, who were exposed to radiation from a bomb twice as powerful as the one dropped on Hiroshima

Hiroshima

is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture, and the largest city in the Chūgoku region of western Honshu, the largest island of Japan. It became best known as the first city in history to be destroyed by a nuclear weapon when the United States Army Air Forces dropped an atomic bomb on it at 8:15 A.M...

 nine years earlier. The exercise was commanded by the Marshal of the Soviet Union, Georgy Zhukov. At 9:33 a.m. on 14 September 1954, a Soviet Tu-4 bomber

Tupolev Tu-4

The Tupolev Tu-4 was a piston-engined Soviet strategic bomber that served the Soviet Air Force from the late 1940s to mid 1960s...

 dropped a 40 kt(TNT) atomic weapon from 8000 metres (26,246.7 ft). The bomb exploded 350 metres (1,148.3 ft) above Totskoye range, 13 kilometres (8 mi) from Totskoye

Totskoye

Totskoye is a village in Orenburg Oblast, Russia. It is the administrative center of Totsky District. Population: 7,201 ....

.

The experiment was conceptually similar to others

Human radiation experiments

Since the discovery of ionizing radiation, a number of human radiation experiments have been performed to understand the effects of ionizing radiation and radioactive contamination on the human body, specifically with the element plutonium....

 performed at the time by the United States, the United Kingdom and other atomic countries, and was designed to test the performance of military hardware and soldiers in the event of a nuclear war. It involved the 270th Rifle Division

270th Rifle Division

The 270th Rifle Division was a Red Army infantry division formed twice during World War II, in 1941 and 1942. After World War II it became a motor rifle division and became part of the Russian Ground Forces after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991....

, 320 planes, 600 tank

Tank

A tank is a tracked, armoured fighting vehicle designed for front-line combat which combines operational mobility, tactical offensive, and defensive capabilities...

s and 600 armored personnel carriers. The soldiers were told that there would be a regular military exercise featuring a mock nuclear explosion and that it would be filmed. The military personnel were not issued any protective gear. Deputy Defense Minister Georgy Zhukov witnessed the blast from an underground nuclear bunker. The planes were ordered to bomb the explosion site five minutes after the blast, and three hours later (after the demarcation of the radioactive zone) the armored vehicles were ordered to practice the taking of a hostile area after a nuclear attack.

The residents of selected villages (Bogdanovka and Fedorovka) that were situated around 6 km (4 mi) from the epicenter of the future explosion were offered temporary evacuation outside the 50 km (31.1 mi) radius. Most of the local population was never warned, however.

Consequences

Thousands who are believed to have sought help in local hospitals would later be surprised to find that their medical cards, containing their histories of sickness, had disappeared from the regional hospital. That fact was confirmed by a former soldier who participated in the exercise, Alexey Petrovich Vavilov, in his interview with the television news broadcasting program Podrobnosti (Telechannel INTER

Inter (TV channel)

Inter is the major TV channel in Ukraine. Based on it later was formed the whole new media group with variety of different other channels. Inter is among the top-rated networks in Ukraine, competing with such as 1+1 and Pershyi Natsionalnyi channels...

) more than 50 years later.

Over half a century later, this matter is still under strict control of the federal government. The local law enforcement personnel continue to harass the journalists who try to obtain footage from the range. The exercise became widely known only in 1993. Even the soldiers who participated in the exercise did not know that they had taken part . The government congratulated the local population for their heroism in providing the nuclear shield for their Motherland.

September 14 in Russia is considered to be the day of creation of the State nuclear shield.