Bechevinka () was a naval base of the

Soviet 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 ...

and Russian Navies in a remote portion of

Kamchatka Peninsula The Kamchatka Peninsula (, ) is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of about . The Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk make up the peninsula's eastern and western coastlines, respectively. Immediately offshore along the Pacific ...

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

. It was established in the 1960s for use by submarines of the

Soviet Pacific Fleet The Pacific Fleet () is the Russian Navy fleet in the Pacific Ocean. Established in 1731 as part of the Imperial Russian Navy, the fleet was known as the Okhotsk Military Flotilla (1731–1856) and Siberian Military Flotilla (1856–1918), f ...

. The site was abandoned in 1996 and is currently a tourist destination as a

ghost town A ghost town, deserted city, extinct town, or abandoned city is an abandoned settlement, usually one that contains substantial visible remaining buildings and infrastructure such as roads. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economi ...

. In May 2020

Novatek Novatek (, , ) is Russia's second-largest natural gas producer (behind Gazprom), and the seventh-largest publicly traded company globally by natural gas production volume. The company was originally known as OAO FIK Novafininvest. Novatek is bas ...

proposed to develop the site into a transhipment hub for

liquified natural gas Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is natural gas (predominantly methane, CH4, with some mixture of ethane, C2H6) that has been cooled to liquid form for ease and safety of non-pressurized storage or transport. It takes up about 1/600th the volume o ...

Naval base

Bechevinka is situated on an inlet of the in

Kamchatka The Kamchatka Peninsula (, ) is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of about . The Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk make up the peninsula's eastern and western coastlines, respectively. Immediately offshore along the Pacific ...

. The local area is known as the "land of fire and ice" due to the presence of volcanoes and glaciers. The base was constructed in the 1960s for submarines of the

. It was codenamed

Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky (, ) is a city and the administrative center of Kamchatka Krai, Russia. It is located in the Far East of the country and lies along the coast of Avacha Bay by the Pacific Ocean, nearby Khalaktyrskoye Lake. As of the 202 ...

-54, after the nearest town and the last two digits of the base's post code. The site was remote and in the winter could only be reached by boat, helicopter and sledge. It was serviced by a weekly supply ship from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. The site had eight three- to five-storey accommodation blocks, a headquarters building, a school, supermarket, post office, leisure centre (with space for orchestral performances), boilerhouse, stores warehouses and a refuelling facility. The site suffered a severe fire in 1987. The naval base was abandoned in 1996 and the submarines transferred to a nearby facility.

Abandonment and future use

After its abandonment the site became a

. One of the former supply ships remains as a beached and rusted wreck. Despite its remoteness it had become a tourist destination. Bechevinka was featured in Robert Grenville's 2019 book ''Abandoned Cold War Places''. In May 2020 the former naval base was selected as a site for a new

transhipment hub for

. It is intended to handle of product per year, largely for the Asian export market. The work is forecast to cost $1.5 billion.

References

{{Reflist Kamchatka Peninsula Russian and Soviet Navy bases Populated places disestablished in 1996