The VAZ Technical Museum of Togliatti is one of the main attractions of the city. It was founded in 1998 on the initiative of K. G. Sakharov, who at that time was the vice-president of AvtoVAZ. Subsequently, after the death of the founding father, the museum was renamed in his honor.
Description
On the territory with a total area of 38 hectares, many "veterans" of past centuries have found their refuge. Some of them date back to the First World War, while others have joined the ranks of the exhibits quite recently. The main part of the museum is open-air and contains more than 500 units of various large equipment and more than 2000 small ones. The VAZ Technical Museum contains many examples of old military and civilian vehicles. Planes, helicopters, tanks, armored trains, radar and agricultural equipment - all this is just a brief description of what is here.
All exhibits in this museum are divided into groups. In one part, the Togliatti Technical Museum presents visitors with helicopters and planes, onceplowing through the air. In the other, there are monuments to rocket launchers and artillery, which at one time could force entire villages to capitulate with their very appearance, and now they are forced to burn in the sun and collect raindrops. There are also trains and armored trains on which ordinary people traveled. Radar antennas, spacecraft and even rovers - all this can be found in this place. But the technical museum of Togliatti pays a special place to military equipment. Indeed, having visited this park, having felt the echo of the war, looking at the equipment corroded by time, it is impossible to remain indifferent.
Military equipment
Basically, the military-technical museum in Tolyatti contains only Soviet equipment. But there are also foreign exhibits that are related to Russian history. For example, Studebaker cars, which were used in the filming of several Soviet films. In addition, a huge batch of these cars was delivered to the USSR during the war. They were the first carriers of the BM-13 and BM-31 complexes, which are better known under the names Katyusha and Andryusha, respectively. During the war, they played a huge role in the victory in breaking through the German defenses.
Also in this park there are many examples of German, American and British tanks from the Second World War. For example, the German tank Panzer 38. By the way, this tank is not entirely German - it is of Czech origin. Of coursethis museum presents most of the samples of Soviet tanks, such as: T70, IS-3, T54-2, and even the legendary tank that brought victory to our troops in the war - T34. Some of the presented samples really had the opportunity to visit the war in the distant past. Of course, since then they have been repeatedly reconstructed and changed, but perhaps one of today's forever frozen monuments could really have been in the thick of the battle and survive to our time.
The Technical Museum (Togliatti) also allocated a separate place for artillery with missile systems. On this site of the museum lie such giants as the Topol rocket launcher, or such multiple rocket launchers as the Smerch and Grad. In addition to these, it contains many other, less well-known weapons of the time.
Submarine
A separate place in the story should be given to the pearl of this place - a real submarine, which the Technical Museum (Tolyatti) acquired in 2002. Its full name is "Diesel submarine B-307 of project 641B Som". It has a height of 12 meters and a length of more than 90. It was rebuilt in 1980 and entered the service of the USSR Navy in seven months. It served for a long 18 years, until 1998, after which the boat was decommissioned. During her service, she managed to visit the Atlantic, the Barents, the Mediterranean and the Norwegian Sea.
Preparation for its transportation from Kronstadt to Tolyatti took 4 whole years. All weapons were removed from the boat and it was sealed tightly. She was transported in special tugboats throughmany water bodies - the Gulf of Finland, Ladoga, White and Onega lakes. And then she finally reached the Volga through several more reservoirs, to a specially built pier in the village of Primorsky. On the ground, it was transported by military tractors specially withdrawn from their units for this purpose.
This boat got to the AvtoVAZ technical museum just on the eve of the 60th anniversary of the Great Victory. With its size, it is quite difficult to imagine what its transportation on the ground looked like. However, the fact that she was indeed on combat duty as part of our fleet at one time gives this exhibit a special significance.
In addition to this submarine, there are numerous artillery, anti-aircraft guns that were installed on ships. And besides all this, torpedo systems and some types of underwater mines are also presented.
Engineering equipment
The VAZ Technical Museum of Togliatti contains another very interesting area, which is reserved for all kinds of engineering equipment. There are also machines for digging pits, and various conveyors (including "amphibians"), and equipment for clearing mines or removing rubble.
There is even such a specific machine as the ADS-50 station, which was intended for the extraction of liquid and gaseous nitrogen in the field. The variety of shapes and sizes of the local technology just rolls over. Here is a prototype of the STR-1 robot, which participated in the collection of highly active substances from the roof4th power unit at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. It is worth saying that only a prototype is present in the museum, none of the presented machines participated either in the elimination of the Chernobyl accident, or in any other man-made disaster - all exhibits are absolutely safe.
Railway equipment
One of the most interesting objects in this area is the captured locomotive TE-4844. The German inventory numbers, which have not changed since then, indicate that this locomotive was built at the Berlin plant. In addition to several more models of trains and locomotives, there are wagons of a combat railway missile system. In appearance, they do not stand out in any way, they look like typical refrigerated wagons. The train consisted of about ten cars, three of which were armed with RT-23 missiles, which could be fired directly from the train. A distinctive feature of the "armed" cars was a double number of wheelsets - ordinary cars had four wheelsets, with missiles - eight.
Space technology
The VAZ Technical Museum offers its visitors the opportunity to see not only "earthly" equipment. It also has a section dedicated to all kinds of spacecraft and lunar rovers. Most of the presented exhibits were invented by the All-Russian Research Institute "TransMash" and passed all kinds of tests. Many of the ideas proposed by this institute subsequently found application in the development of modern lunar and mars rovers. Of course, if you look at all thistechnique now, it will look rather primitive. However, modern machines that are designed for various space tasks could not have appeared without research with these "ancestors".
Tolyatti Technical Museum: opening hours
Museum is open daily from 9:00 to 17:00. Tours are conducted only for groups of 12 people and only by appointment. Additional services include the possibility of photo or video shooting - 40 and 60 rubles, respectively. An adult ticket will cost 60 rubles without a guide and 80 rubles with him. For schoolchildren, students, disabled people or military personnel - 30 or 40 rubles.
Conclusion
The Tolyatti Technical Museum offers the opportunity to admire not only the equipment and weapons of the past, but also various cameras, printing and sewing machines, all kinds of gramophones, gramophones and much more. Basically, it's all brought to the museum by the residents of the city. In addition, various historical reconstructions and festivals are held on the territory of the museum. A huge territory covered with all kinds of technology, festivals, reconstructions and interesting excursions make this museum an excellent place where you can spend your leisure time in a pleasant and useful way.
