Totskoye nuclear exercise

In mid-September 1954, nuclear bombing tests were performed at the Totskoye proving ground during the training exercise Snezhok ({{langx|ru|link=no|Снежок}}, Snowball or Light Snow) with some 45,000 people, all Soviet soldiers and officers, who explored the explosion site of a bomb twice as powerful as the one dropped on Nagasaki nine years earlier. After the first nuclear explosion, two additional non-nuclear bombs were exploded shortly after the main blast in order to imitate a second-wave nuclear strike.

The participants were carefully selected from Soviet military servicemen, informed that they would take part in an exercise with the use of a new kind of weapon, sworn to secrecy, and earned three months salary.[http://elib.biblioatom.ru/text/yadernye-ispytaniya_kn2_2006/go,122/ Memoirs of M. A. Kutsenko, a participant of the operation Snowball, published in Nuclear Exercises, V. II, 2006, p. 122] A delegation of high-ranking government officials and senior military officers arrived to the region on the eve of the exercise, which included First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev and Marshals of the Soviet Union Nikolai Bulganin, Aleksandr Vasilevsky, Konstantin Rokossovsky, Ivan Konev and Rodion Malinovsky. The operation was commanded by Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Zhukov and initiated by the Soviet Ministry of Defense.[http://elib.biblioatom.ru/text/yadernye-ispytaniya_kn2_2006/go,18/ Nuclear Exercises, V. II. 2006. p. 18] At 9:33 a.m. on 14 September 1954, a Soviet Tu-4 bomber dropped a {{convert|40|kt(TNT)|lk=in|adj=on}} atomic weapon—an RDS-4 bomb, which had been previously tested in 1951 at the Semipalatinsk Test Site[http://elib.biblioatom.ru/text/yadernye-ispytaniya_kn2_2006/go,11/ Nuclear Exercises, V. II, 2006, p. 11]—from {{convert|8,000|m|ft}}. The bomb exploded {{convert|350|m|ft}} above Totskoye range, {{convert|13|km|0}} from Totskoye.

The exercise involved the 270th Rifle Division,V.I. Feskov et al., "The Soviet Army in the Cold War 1945–90", Tomsk, 2004, p. 94 320 planes, 600 tanks and self-propelled guns, 600 armoured personnel carriers, 500 artillery pieces and mortars and 6,000 automobiles.[http://elib.biblioatom.ru/text/yadernye-ispytaniya_kn2_2006/go,19/ Nuclear Exercises, V. II. 2006. p. 19][https://bigenc.ru/military_science/text/4198966 Totskoye nuclear exercise, 1954] // Great Russian Encyclopedia

Following the explosion, a Li-2 airplane was put to use on a reconnaissance mission to report the movement of a radioactive cloud produced by the blast, and the most dangerous areas were explored and marked by special reconnaissance troops.[http://elib.biblioatom.ru/text/yadernye-ispytaniya_kn2_2006/go,142/ Memoirs of Colonel V. I. Levykin published in Nuclear Exercises, V. II, 2006, p. 142] After the reconnaissance was complete and the Soviet command gained enough information on the level of radiation, the army moved in. The soldiers wore gas masks, protective suits and respirators, special gloves and capes[http://elib.biblioatom.ru/text/yadernye-ispytaniya_kn2_2006/go,68/ Nuclear Exercises, V. II. 2006. p. 68] and moved around the territory in armoured personnel carriers, holding a distance of 400[http://elib.biblioatom.ru/text/yadernye-ispytaniya_kn2_2006/go,40/ Nuclear Exercises, V. II. 2006. p. 41]–600 metres from the hypocenter and avoiding the most dangerous areas of the explosion site. They moved 400–500 metres from the hypocenter, whereas tanks and armoured personnel carriers came even closer.

However, the protective measures were insufficient. According to one veteran in a Soviet documentary of the event, "Some, the majority even, had no protective clothing, and besides it was impossible to use gas masks" [in the 115 degree temperatures of the area]. Additionally, insufficient care was taken to remove and dispose of contaminated clothing of the event. Evacuations were haphazard, where villagers who chose to stay were told to "dig ditches" to avoid effects. Yuri Sorokin filed suit in 1993 against the Russian government to receive compensation for medical injuries that he attributed to the exercise.{{Cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1993/11/07/world/soviet-atom-test-used-thousands-as-guinea-pigs-archives-show.html |title=Soviet Atom Test Used Thousands as Guinea Pigs, Archives Show |newspaper=The New York Times |date=7 November 1993 |last1=Simons |first1=Marlise}}{{bsn|date=May 2025}}

Sergey Zelentsov (1927–2017), a military officer who was the first to reach the middle of the hypocenter, described his experience in the following words: "Not reaching the area of strong radioactive contamination, we crossed the road which the columns of advancing troops had passed before us. It was empty and quiet around, only the radiometers were clicking, notifying us of the increased level of radiation. The troops proceeded past the hypocenter, outside of the area of severe radioactive contamination. Directly in the zone adjacent to the hypocenter of the explosion, the ground was covered with a thin glassy crust of melted sand, crunchy and breaking underfoot, like a thin ice on spring puddles after a night frost. And there were no footprints on it, except for my own. I walked quietly along this crust, since the radiometer registered a level of radioactivity not exceeding 1 R/h."[http://elib.biblioatom.ru/text/yadernye-ispytaniya_kn2_2006/go,127/ Nuclear Exercises, V. II. 2006. p. 127]

The residents of villages (Bogdanovka, Fyodorovka and others) that were situated around {{convert|6|km|mi|0|abbr=on}} from the hypocenter of the future explosion were offered temporary evacuation outside the {{convert|50|km|mi|abbr=on}} radius. The nearest villages were generally not affected by the blast, except for a number of houses located less than {{convert|8|km|mi|abbr=on}} from the explosion site that caught fire and burned down. They were evacuated by the military and temporarily accommodated in military tents. During the exercise, the residents received daily payment, while their property was insured. Those of them who decided not to return after the operation was complete, were provided with newly built four-room furnished houses near the Samarka river or obtained financial compensation.

A few days afterwards, Soviet scientists received detailed reports on the test and began to study the impact of the nuclear blast on model houses, shelters, vehicles, vegetation and experimental animals affected by the explosion. On 17 September 1954, the Soviet newspaper Pravda published a report on the exercise: "In accordance with the plan of scientific and experimental works, a test of one of the types of nuclear weapons has been conducted in the Soviet Union in the last few days. The purpose of the test was to examine the effects of nuclear explosion. Valuable results have been obtained that will help Soviet scientists and engineers to successfully solve the task of protecting the country from nuclear attack".[http://elib.biblioatom.ru/text/yadernye-ispytaniya_kn2_2006/go,8/ Nuclear Exercises, V. II. 2006. p. 8] The results of the exercise were discussed at a scientific conference at the Kuybyshev Military Academy in Moscow and served as the basis for the Soviet program of defense against nuclear warfare.[http://elib.biblioatom.ru/text/yadernye-ispytaniya_kn2_2006/go,143/ Memoirs of Colonel V. I. Levykin published in Nuclear Exercises, V. II, 2006, p. 143]

• List of nuclear weapons tests of the Soviet Union
• Desert Rock exercises, the United States's closest counterpart.

{{reflist}}

• "Nuclear Testing in the USSR. Volume 2. Soviet Nuclear Testing Technologies. Environmental Effects. Safety Provisions. Nuclear Test Sites", Begell-House, Inc., New York, 1998
• A.A. Romanyukha, E.A. Ignatiev, D.V. Ivanov and A.G. Vasilyev, "The Distance Effect on the Individual Exposures Evaluated from the Soviet Nuclear Bomb Test in 1954 at Totskoye Test Site in 1954", Radiation Protection Dosimetry 86:53–58 (1999) [http://rpd.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/86/1/53 online abstract]
• {{Cite web |url=http://www.iss-atom.ru/ksenia/tockoe/soder.htm |script-title=ru:Тоцкое войсковое учение (научно-публицистическая монография) |author=Генерал-лейтенант С.А. Зеленцов |title=IPage |trans-title=Totskoye Military Exercise |language=Russian |accessdate=2011-03-05 |archive-date=2013-01-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130126224146/http://www.iss-atom.ru/ksenia/tockoe/soder.htm |url-status=dead }}
• {{Cite web |url=http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/radevents/1954USSR1.html |title=Totsk nuclear test, 1954 |author=Wm. Robert Johnston |date=2005-05-05 |accessdate=2011-03-05}}
• [http://scbist.com/blogs/admin/494-v-zone-yadernogo-udara.html In the zone of nuclear blast (Russian)] by General of Aviation Ostroumov
• [http://www.mk.ru/editions/daily/article/2004/09/13/104911-pravda-poligona-smerti.html Truth about the testing site of death (Russian)], a publication by Moskovskii Komsomolets

• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUaayUycatI Witness of the nuclear explosion (memoir by Valeriy Astafiev about Totskoye nuclear exercise), in Russian]

Category:Explosions in 1954

Category:1954 in military history

Category:Russian nuclear test sites

Category:1954 in the Soviet Union

Category:Soviet nuclear weapons testing

Category:History of Orenburg Oblast

Category:Human subject research in Russia

Category:Soviet military exercises

Category:September 1954 in Europe

Category:Explosions in Russia