It does not work. The unique “Testing and assembly station for heavy-duty products” – workshop No. 8 of the Dagdizel plant – is located in the Caspian Sea, at a distance of 2.7 kilometers from the shore. The grandiose structure was built on a stone foundation laid on the seabed. Its main purpose was to test the products that the plant produced – torpedoes.
Construction of the workshop began in 1934, and the work was completed in 1936. The area of the station is five thousand square meters. Construction was carried out in an unprecedented way: on the shore, with the help of dredgers, a huge pit with a capacity of 530 thousand cubic meters was dug. A reinforced concrete “box” with a height of 14 meters was built at its bottom. After the underwater part of the station was built, the builders destroyed the artificial embankment that separated the pit from the sea, the “box” surfaced, it was towed almost three kilometers from the shore, where the stone platform was located, and installed on it. On this gigantic massif they built the above-water part of the station, with a huge (42 meters high) observation tower. Workers were transported to it by a special elevator.
The workshop was built in such a way that, in the event of a storm, workers could stay there for a long time. The premises included a dining room, a library, a hotel, and a gym for volleyball and basketball. Two port breakwaters, as well as a ship repair shop, were built on the shore to operate the station.
In 1942, the plant was evacuated to Kazakhstan, and the work of workshop No. 8 was suspended. And in the 60s, new, more modern torpedoes were developed, which required greater depths for testing. So the station was no longer in operation. The abandoned structure is still located in the Caspian Sea.