The trip to Kharkiv turned out in the best way possible. The main goal is reached. Kharkiv tank maintenance depot is before us.

So, my friend Alex Brod [Morpeus] and I got there almost at night and, naturally, we got in there right away, not giving a damn about the city itself and everyone in it.

We climbed over the barbed wire and a truly post-apocalyptic sight appeared before our eyes. A tank graveyard!

A little information about the site. Kharkiv tank maintenance depot specializes in conducting full repairs and upgrades of such tanks as T-64, T-80, T-72 as well as 5TDF and GTD-1250 tank engines.

The depot also carries out tank aiming sight, laser ranger and precision guided artillery system repairs.

The T-55-64 tank which is the main Ukrainian combat tank was also designed here. It is a hybrid of T-55 and T-64 tanks.

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All these are tanks. There are so many! One of those who had visited the site before reported that there are more than 250.

Tank engines

Tanker’s helmets. If they were not this dirty, I could have taken one as a souvenir.

Suddenly: An Ural military motorcycle.

Well, the true size of the object can only be seen from the roof of the work shop. All these are tanks! Have you ever seen this many tanks?

I haven’t seen this many even in the movies, pictures or computer games. This is how powerful the Soviet Army was.

There are quite a lot of workshops, but we’ll stop only in one of them since we didn’t find anything in the rest of them when we looked inside.

We enter the workshop – its scale is stunning. All these are tank engines, the tanks’ torn out hearts.

A boat that will never sail

A cartridge belt

There are cartridge belts inside these boxes





Armored carrier tires

Tank electrical equipment

Sheaves

Tank turret rotation devices

The engine is simply astounding

We even found some missiles!

Tracks

A tank aiming sight

The paint shop

Beside tanks, there are also armored carriers here

And crawler-tracked amphibs.

Images by Vmulder, reproduced with permission