Baherove Air Base (, ; also Bagarovo or Bagerovo) is an air base in Baherove,

Crimea Crimea ( ) is a peninsula in Eastern Europe, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, almost entirely surrounded by the Black Sea and the smaller Sea of Azov. The Isthmus of Perekop connects the peninsula to Kherson Oblast in mainland Ukrain ...

. It is located 3 km northwest of Baherove village, and 14 km northwest of

Kerch Kerch, also known as Keriç or Kerich, is a city of regional significance on the Kerch Peninsula in the east of Crimea. It has a population of Founded 2,600 years ago as the Colonies in antiquity#Greek colonies, ancient Greek colony Pantik ...

. The airfield is an "out-of-class" airport, which can accommodate aircraft of all types. The airfield was abandoned in 1996.

History

Baherove Air Base was the 71st Air Force training ground, also known as "Polygon". It was established in Baherove on August 21, 1947 by

USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

Council of Ministers Council of Ministers is a traditional name given to the supreme Executive (government), executive organ in some governments. It is usually equivalent to the term Cabinet (government), cabinet. The term Council of State is a similar name that also m ...

resolution. The base was created to provide security for

nuclear testing Nuclear weapons tests are experiments carried out to determine the performance of nuclear weapons and the effects of Nuclear explosion, their explosion. Nuclear testing is a sensitive political issue. Governments have often performed tests to si ...

and refining delivery methods for nuclear warheads, mainly via aviation. The first atomic charges were designed for aerial bombs, compatible with long-range bomber

Tu-4 The Tupolev Tu-4 (; NATO reporting name: Bull) is a piston-engined Soviet strategic bomber that served the Soviet Air Force from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s. The aircraft was a copy of the American Boeing B-29 Superfortress, having been reve ...

. The 35th Bomber Aviation Regiment was involved in the testing. A fighter regiment was attached to the 71st Air Force Test Range until the 1960s. The airfield had a 3.5 km (2.2 mi) concrete runway, 100m (328ft) wide, which still stands. It was one of the USSR's three airstrips built for the space shuttle Buran. In 1973, the Voroshilovgrad Higher Military Aviation School of Navigators opened a branch there, training personnel for front-line and Army Aviation, including navigators. The 228th Training Aviation Regiment (military unit 25570) was established at the base in 1977, equipped with

MiG-21 The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 (; NATO reporting name: Fishbed) is a supersonic jet aircraft, jet fighter aircraft, fighter and interceptor aircraft, designed by the Mikoyan, Mikoyan-Gurevich OKB, Design Bureau in the Soviet Union. Its nicknames in ...

fighters and L-29

training aircraft A trainer is a class of aircraft designed specifically to facilitate flight training of pilots and aircrews. The use of a dedicated trainer aircraft with additional safety features—such as tandem flight controls, forgiving flight characteristic ...

. The former 71st range's sea area was used for anti-submarine aviation navigator training (training for dropping sonar buoys from aircraft Be-12). The runway was updated in the late 1980s with a standard PAG-18 concrete surface layer. The branch and school were transferred to

Ukrainian Air Force The Ukrainian Air Force (, PS ZSU) is the air force of Ukraine and one of the eight Military branch, branches of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (ZSU). Its current form was created in 2004 by merging the Ukrainian Air Defence Forces into the Air Fo ...

in 1992 and dissolved in 1996, with the garrison falling into neglect. After Russia's annexation of the peninsula in 2014, the air base was dismantled by Russian authorities in 2016 and only two partially intact taxiways remain.

References

External links

Unofficial home page
{{authority control Airports in Crimea Airports built in the Soviet Union Soviet military air bases in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic Military facilities in Crimea Military installations closed in the 1990s Lenine Raion