The city of Kadykchan, built by prisoners during the war, today
could be considered abandoned if, according to official data, 4
people did not live in it. We did not meet these four in the city,
but we got acquainted with the local colorful landscapes of an
abandoned once-working town.
The city Kadykchan got its name
in honor of the word "kadagach", meaning a small gorge or gorge.
This is a non-residential urban-type settlement in the Susumansky
district of the Magadan region.
In winter, it is harsh and
deserted here, the temperature reaches minus 50 degrees of cold. But
during the summer months, the heat is fierce.
Although this
town is considered non-residential, but as I noted earlier, four
residents are registered and live in it. Kadykchan is considered an
official subject of Russia and is marked on maps as an urban-type
settlement with houses indicated.
The city was founded in
wartime during the Second World War in 1943. It was built by the
forces of the prisoners of the local camps of Magadan. There were
rumors that this city was built by political prisoners, from which
local residents, harsh miners and employees of local mining
enterprises, experienced some discomfort in Soviet times. After all,
the whole of Magadan in Soviet times was "places not so remote",
considered a place of exile and a place of strict regime colonies.
The inhabitants of this city called themselves - Kadykchane,
Kadykchanin, Kadykchanka, Kadykchantsy. The postal code of the town
- 686350 - is printed on the mailboxes.
The city arose during the Great Patriotic War as a working settlement
at the enterprise for the extraction of coal from the Arkagalinsky
deposit. The mine and the settlement were built by prisoners, among whom
was the writer Varlam Shalamov[3]. Mining was carried out underground
from depths of up to 400 meters. Coal was used mainly at the
Arkagalinskaya GRES. The village arose in stages, so it was secretly
divided into three parts: Old, New and Newest Kadykchan. Old Kadykchan
is closest to the highway, Novy surrounds the city-forming mine (No.
10), and Newest is 2-4 kilometers away from both the highway and the
mine and is the main residential village (with its construction, Old and
New Kadykchan were used more and more for conducting farms (greenhouses,
gardens, pigsties, etc.)). In the east there was another coal mine
(popularly - "seven", No. 7, which was abandoned in 1992).
In
November 1996, an explosion occurred at the mine, killing six people.
The mine was closed after the explosion. People began to be evicted from
the village, giving them from 80 to 120 thousand rubles for
resettlement, depending on the length of service. In 2001, the houses
were mothballed, disconnected from heat and electricity. However, even
in 2001, four streets remained residential in the village (Lenin,
Stroiteley, Shkolnaya (there was an automatic telephone exchange) and
Yuzhnaya (the house farthest from the center) and one house along Mira
Street (which housed a clinic, and by that time a hospital). , as well
as utilities).In 2010, the village was completely empty.
Geographically, Kadykchan is located in the basin of the Ayan-Yuryakh River (a tributary of the Kolyma), 65 km northwest of the city of Susuman, on the famous highway Magadan - Ust-Nera. This road was built by prisoners and in the people it is called the Kolyma tract. Since the early 2000s, Kadykchan has been abandoned and is a strange ghost town where you can meet tourists and travelers, traces of cars, dogs and, according to the census, 4 local residents.