“I was sitting under an oak table - that saved me.”

Memory is sacred

Funeral events will take place in the Turkmen capital at the “People's Memory” memorial complex. There will be a ceremony of laying flowers at the “Spiritual Worship” monument, dedicated to the victims of the Ashgabat earthquake, as well as at the “Sons of the People” and “Eternal Glory” monuments, dedicated to those who fell in the Great Patriotic War and other wars in which the Turkmen participated. In mosques and Orthodox churches across the country they will pray for their fallen fellow countrymen.

Fatal night

The night from October 5 to 6, 1948 became fatal for the “city of love” - Ashgabat. According to documents and eyewitnesses, at 1 hour 09 minutes after midnight, the capital of the Turkmen SSR was at the epicenter of a strong earthquake, which was located near the village of Kara-Gaudan, which is approximately 25 kilometers southwest of the Turkmen capital. Its source was at a shallow depth, and huge cracks formed on the surface of the earth.

Ashgabat was literally wiped off the face of the earth. 98% of the houses crumbled to dust, burying the townspeople alive under the rubble.

The darkness of the night, through the clouds of rising dust, was illuminated by the glow of numerous fires; the streets were filled with the screams and groans of the wounded, the cries and sobs of people distraught with grief.

All city communications were completely destroyed, bridges and roads were disabled, and the water supply and irrigation networks were severely damaged. The railway station and airport were also reduced to rubble.

During the earthquake, many residents of Ashgabat were already asleep. Those few night owls who were still on the streets of the city later spoke about a growing underground rumble, followed by a powerful shock.

“When I came to my senses, I realized that I was still standing at the open window and holding on to the frame, and outside the window there was something incredible, impossible. Instead of a dark transparent starry night, an impenetrable milky-white wall stood in front of me, and behind it were terrible moans, screams, cries for help. In a few seconds, the entire old clay and adobe city was destroyed, and in place of the houses, a terrible white veil of dust shot up into the air, hiding everything.”

This is how Academician D.V. Nalivkin recalled the first minutes of the disaster. On that fateful night, he found himself in the building of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Turkmenistan, where, as was customary at that time, there was a night meeting dedicated to the problems of Kara-Bogaz. This meeting was attended by many specialists and party workers who did not even suspect then that this would save their lives.

Deputy Minister of Health of the USSR, Chief Sanitary Inspector of the USSR Ministry of Health, Lieutenant Colonel of the Medical Service T.E. Boldyrev also later recalled this fateful night:

“Nothing foreshadowed the catastrophe that would take place. It was a warm, quiet and clear southern night. The strongest horizontal vibrations of the soil, accompanied by a strong underground rumble and ending with a vertical shock of enormous force, were so unexpected that not only people sleeping peacefully, but also those who were awake at home or at work on the night shift were taken by surprise. Many thousands of people sleeping peacefully were buried in the rubble of their homes. Hundreds of night shift workers died under the rubble of their factories. The electric lights went out. All surviving street clocks in the city stopped at 1 hour 09 minutes. The radio went silent.

In the pitch darkness that ensued, for several seconds the roar of collapsing buildings and the crack of breaking beams could be heard... A dull noise, like a heavy sigh, swept through the city, and immediately there was dead silence. The air was filled with thick, choking dust. Not a single sound, not a cry for help - as if absolutely every living thing had died under the ruins. Only after some time did the first signs of life appear - cries for help, groans of the wounded, children's crying, lamentations about buried, dead relatives.

In the pitch darkness, in the choking dust, everyone who got out from under the ruins or, by a lucky chance, found themselves outside the buildings, hurried with their bare hands to dig out their children, fathers, mothers, neighbors... The stormy morning of October 6 found tens of thousands of people deprived of clothing, almost naked.

Almost every family had deaths on this day. Help for the wounded in the first hours was provided by the population themselves.”

However, T.E. Boldyrev is wrong about one thing: there are so-called earthquake precursors, including those of natural origin. For example, the elders then noticed that the snakes and lizards left their holes before the disaster and reported this to the appropriate place. But the government of the republic simply did not take their warnings into account.

The force of the underground impacts reached, as was determined later, 9-10 points on the Richter scale. It was higher in the eastern part, and lower in the western part of the city.

The earthquake consisted of two shocks. The intervals between them are 5-8 seconds. The first shock was about 8 magnitude. The second, which is estimated at 10 points, demolished literally everything that survived the first. The next strong shock of 7-8 points occurred closer to the morning.

When dawn broke, a terrible sight was revealed to people: instead of a city, there were only trees and stone chimneys of home stoves. There were only a few complete buildings, and most of those that stood were in such disrepair that they subsequently had to be dismantled.

One of the survivors later described his feelings this way:

“In the middle of the night - a menacing roar, then - a roar and a crackling sound, the earth began to tremble and sway. Half-awake, I thought: I’m dreaming about war and bombing again! But this disaster was worse than the bombing. Realizing, he jumped out and ran into the yard; the house collapsed behind him. Clouds of rising dust. The swaying trees and falling houses were illuminated by some strange yellowish light. Then darkness fell, and screams and crying were heard from all sides; the crimson flames of the fires that broke out began to glow, and the earth continued to tremble from time to time. Here and there bricks fell, the remaining walls fell down... They dug up a pillow. Beneath it is the mother's face. She was alive. But she was wounded, unconscious and already suffocating. A neighbor ran up. We lifted the beam and pulled out the mother.”

For more than 4 days, the raging elements did not give rest to the unfortunate victims - underground tremors continued with a fading amplitude.

“Quarter after quarter - the same picture. It was creepy and difficult to watch. The number of human victims has not been precisely calculated, but the figure was clearly terrifying."

This is how academician D.V. Nalivkin describes what he saw a few days after the first shock, when he was flying on board a military transport plane over the city.

“Leader of Nations” and Ashgabat

When Stalin, as some sources testify, was informed about the Ashgabat disaster, he doubted the veracity of the picture painted to him.

Then the famous cameraman Roman Karmen was sent to Ashgabat, who shot a unique half-hour film - a documentary chronicle of those unforgettable days, then hidden in a “special storage” for many years.

Stalin did not limit himself to the presence of Carmen in Ashgabat. According to legend, he boarded a plane and went to the site of the tragedy himself. He circled for a long time over the destroyed capital of Soviet Turkmenistan, and then flew to Moscow.

Perhaps after this, the “leader of the peoples” decided to provide effective, immediate assistance to Ashgabat, which began to come from Moscow, Baku, Tashkent, Alma-Ata and other cities of the USSR?!

30 hours after the tragedy, the first official TASS report about the earthquake appeared in the Pravda newspaper:

“... an earthquake with a magnitude of up to 9 occurred... there is great destruction in Ashgabat... a large number of residential buildings. There are many human casualties.

From a telegram sent in the evening to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks:

“... 6 burial sites have been identified. Only 1,200 military people worked on digging graves. During the day, 5,300 corpses were collected and taken to burial places... 3,000 corpses were not identified...”

Then, for several days in a row, the Pravda newspaper published messages about assistance to the population affected by the earthquake in Ashgabat, as well as great article"Study of earthquakes in the Soviet Union." There are a few lines about the disaster itself: “A great natural disaster befell Turkmenistan, a flourishing republic of the fraternal family of nations Soviet Union. The earthquake took away a lot human lives and destroyed most of the buildings of the capital of the republic...". The article ends with the confidence that “the development of seismology... will make it possible in the future to warn of approaching earthquakes.”

General Petrov

Soon after the earthquake in one of military units on the western outskirts of Ashgabat, the radio operator managed to turn on the emergency lighting. He established a radio connection, which was interrupted almost immediately, and managed to broadcast a message about the earthquake. This radiogram was received by Tashkent.

The news of the disaster was able to be broadcast at the airfield through the on-board radio station by the wounded Muscovite flight mechanic Yu. Drozdov, who reached the IL-12 passenger plane in the darkness. This signal was received by signalmen at Sverdlovsk Airport.

Two hours after the earthquake in Tashkent, the commander of the Turkestan Military District, Army General I.E. Petrov, learns about the tragedy in Ashgabat. At night he sends to Moscow the commander-in-chief ground forces telegram to Marshal I.S. Konev:

“On the night of October 5-6, a strong earthquake occurred in Ashgabat. There are no connections with Ashgabat. According to fragmentary data, there is severe destruction and casualties. At 9:30 a.m. local time I take off by plane to the scene of the incident. I’ll give you the details.”

In the morning, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Turkmenistan creates a republican commission. General I.E. arrived in Ashgabat. Petrov, who was included in this commission, immediately calls military units from neighboring garrisons.

To combat the consequences of the earthquake, 4 divisions were transferred to the city.

The first trucks with bread from military bakeries begin to drive around the city.

A curfew and a special situation have been introduced in Ashgabat, the city is cordoned off by troops. Patrols are organized from the arriving military units.

Special military teams travel around the city, soldiers in anti-mustard suits and gas masks dig up and collect corpses piled along the streets and squares. They are taken to ditches (mass graves). The soldiers removed the swollen corpses in a state of complete stupor (this was the body’s protective reaction to such stress). They worked day and night, like in war.

Largely thanks to the energy of General Petrov, the rampant looters were avoided.

Prisoners are selected from the damaged prison building. Just at this time, members of two detained gangs were there.

In the nearest destroyed police station, they find pistols, machine guns, a machine gun and, dressed in police uniforms, go to rob stores. They start in the wine department of the grocery store.

Then they attacked the State Bank. If it were not for the military units brought into Ashgabat on the orders of Petrov, then the looting of the Republican State Bank would have been added to all the troubles. Firing with machine gun bursts lasts two hours. The criminal raid is repulsed.

On one of the streets, a military patrol led by a Red Army colonel stops a group of suspicious persons. When the colonel demands to show his documents, a man in a police uniform shoots him at point-blank range.

This is how the son of General Petrov dies. After this, the order is given to shoot the looters on the spot.

Doctors

Everything in Ashgabat was destroyed medical institutions. Many doctors died. Survived professors of the Medical Institute B.L. Smirnov (famous neurosurgeon and translator of the Mahabharata), G.A. Beburishvili, M.I. Mostovoy, I.F. Berezin, V.A. Skavinsky and others quickly organized an amateur hospital on Karl Marx Square. With the help of the younger medical personnel and students were dug up in the ruins of the clinic surgical instruments and silk, bandages, iodine, cotton wool and alcohol were collected from the ruins of the pharmacy; stationery tables were pulled out from under the ruins of institutions and, putting them together in twos, surgical operations began.

Ashgabat doctors work without breaks all day on October 6 until dark, rescuing and rescuing many wounded.

By evening, their colleagues from Baku and Tashkent set up field hospitals nearby.

Ashgabat doctors move away from the operating tables and instantly fall asleep next to them, right in the ruins. And operations continue under the light of car headlights.

To the medical aid points deployed in different places Ashgabat, victims are being carried and transported from everywhere.

The military triages the wounded and prioritizes the assistance they receive. The seriously wounded are sent to the airfield. Army pilots are organizing a temporary airfield on the DOSAAF airfield. Every day more and more seriously wounded people are being evacuated by air.

Renaissance

Despite the horror of what happened, the surviving Ashgabat residents adapted to live in the open air next to the ruins of their houses. Then, with the onset of cold weather, they began to build temporary huts from auxiliary materials - themselves and with the help of the military.

The European part of the country was still in ruins. However, Comrade Stalin took control of the restoration of Ashgabat.

25 million rubles were allocated from the Union budget of the Turkmen SSR, of which 10 million were allocated for the provision of one-time benefits to those in particular need. Tens of thousands of tons of medicines, food, various goods, and building materials have been allocated.

In a word, planes flew here, to the foothills of Kopet-Dag, trains with the most necessary things in these difficult days arrived.

In the first days, 4 planes took off from Moscow with 700 kg of blood, 1600 kg of food and the necessary specialists. Then twenty planes deliver equipment, equipment and property from Moscow to organize a communications service.

Up to 4 thousand wagons with food and essential goods arrived in Ashgabat.

The main cargo comes from neighboring republics. Thousands of wounded and orphans were evacuated to Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan.

Following the first, comes the second Resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on providing assistance to victims.

The construction of the new Ashgabat began according to a hastily drawn up plan already in 1949.

And materials about the consequences of the Ashgabat tragedy served as the basis for the development of seismic research in the USSR. Although future tragedies, for example, in Tashkent and Spitak, have shown that problems in this area are being resolved extremely slowly and ineffectively.

“We want to send you to a resort, to the south...”

The Ashgabat earthquake is, according to UNESCO, as it became known only much later, one of the most destructive disasters of the 20th century, which, according to various estimates, claimed the lives of 110-176 thousand citizens - two-thirds of the population. Even in Moscow, displacements of earth layers were recorded.

General Petrov, recalling the tragedy years later, emphasized that in war conditions such destruction could have been achieved by bombing if 500 heavy bombers dropped bombs around the clock for six months.

In the late 1980s, on instructions from the leadership of the republic, the exact data of the victims of the Ashgabat earthquake of 1948, according to the archives of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Russia, and the central archives of the USSR, was revealed by my father Alexey Vladimirovich Golovkin, a well-known historian-archivist in the USSR (1918, Moscow - 1992, Ashgabat), head of the Main Archival Department under the Council of Ministers of Turkmenistan (until 1988).

In the Turkmen capital, where 150 thousand people lived in 1948, as he was able to establish, two-thirds of the population died - more than 110 thousand.

In 1988, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Ashgabat earthquake, my father was awarded the high title of “Honorary Citizen of Ashgabat” for saving the country’s archives.

But let's go back to 1948. At the end of November, when his father was an employee of one of the Moscow archives, he received a special assignment - to Ashgabat, which was destroyed by a catastrophic earthquake.

My father spoke about his business trip to Ashgabat to assist in saving the archival fund of Turkmenistan and restoring the archival service:

“- General Styrov, the new head of the GAU, called me and said:

Comrade Golovkin, we want to send you to a resort, to the south.

I was surprised and asked:

Where to, Comrade General?

There is a city in Ashgabat, in the south.

I speak:

An earthquake occurred there. In Moscow, rumors spread that Ashgabat had completely sunk. The lake has formed.

He laughs:

So you will live and work on the shore of the lake.

An order is an order. At that time, the archive service of the USSR was not an independent department reporting directly to the government, but was structurally part of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Therefore, we had strict discipline.

I was appointed deputy head of the archive department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Turkmen SSR and in December 1948 I arrived in Ashgabat.

Of course, I had to do not only archival work, but also daily participate in the removal of rubble, and then in the restoration of the city.

At this time it was still shaking. Throughout 1949 it shook violently here, and at the same time there was a rumble. You prepare yourself psychologically, you think: now it’s going to start shaking... The whole body was shrinking.

For a long time we kept the film shot by Roman Karmen closed. The film is scary, especially for those who have not seen what an earthquake is: there are ruins and victims...”

The Archival Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Turkmen SSR and the Central State Archives of the Republic occupied the building of the former military registration and enlistment office on Frunze Street, 12.

After the earthquake, as my father said, “the walls of the archive crumbled, but the documents lay on stable wooden shelves. This saved them. The majority of archivists are women. They would not have been able to cope without the help of the border guards. All archival files were moved to the basement on Labinskaya Street.

Despite the complexity of the situation, the main work - issuing certificates to workers - continued...

With the help of the same border guards, two large barracks were built on the site of the destroyed building (one is a temporary shed for archival storage, the other is like an administrative building).”

In Moscow, my father was left with his mother, a sick brother, a sister who had returned from the front, and an apartment that he kept for the duration of his two-year business trip. But this “business trip” lasted for the rest of my life.

No wonder, apparently, that Moscow friends joked: “If you drink Ashgabat water, marry a Central Asian girl, you’ll stay there!”

The parents met in Ashgabat pedagogical institute(now - Turkmen State University named after Magtymguly). They taught at the faculties of history and philology.

My mother Evgenia Nikolaevna Ershova (1924, Tashkent - 2017, Ashgabat, in the future she became a Doctor of Pedagogical Sciences, a university professor), the daughter of a native Muscovite from the old intelligentsia, whom fate had thrown to Central Asia a quarter of a century earlier, it was pleasant to meet a fellow countryman.

True, they were first brought together by an error in the class schedule: both came to give a lecture at the same time.

The parents lived together for just over 40 years. They rest in Ashgabat, which, almost a year after the terrible disaster, became the birthplace of our family. The wedding of father and mother took place on September 10, 1949, when the city was still in ruins.

Second birthday...

It just so happened that in 2008, when it was 60 years since the Ashgabat tragedy, I came with a group of writers from Moscow to my native Ashgabat for the III International Book Fair.

During our stay in Ashgabat, the terrible number of victims of the 1948 tragedy was heard again. Based on data provided by my father and adjusted in subsequent years, this figure, I remember, again shocked me to the core - 176 thousand dead in the capital and surrounding areas.

Perhaps the archivists of Turkmenistan, continuing the search for documents begun by my father, managed to establish a more accurate number of victims by the new memorable date.

People who survived the Ashgabat earthquake and now live both in Turkmenistan itself and in Russia and other countries celebrate October 6 as their second birthday.

And we, their grandchildren and children, remember on this day those of our relatives and friends, our fellow countrymen who died, and those who passed away years later, devoting themselves entirely to the revival and new prosperity that it has become today, Ashgabat, dear to all of us.

I also pray for them, having lived in Moscow for more than 20 years, but continuing to feel like a fifth-generation Turkestani and a third-generation Turkmenistan.

Low bow, love and gratitude, eternal memory!

From October 6 to October 26, 8,799 people were evacuated from Ashgabat to other cities of the USSR. 120 military and civilian aircraft took part in the evacuation, and from October 8, ambulance trains. The situation was aggravated by the fact that the earthquake occurred in the dead of night, when most of the city's residents were sleeping. The fragility of the buildings and the inability to detect signs of an approaching earthquake led to the fact that almost no one was able to leave the premises in advance. At one moment, tens of thousands of people found themselves under the rubble of their own homes, not having time to realize what was happening.

Description of the earthquake

A special seismic expedition of the USSR Academy of Sciences, as well as branches of the Academies of Sciences of the republics and government agencies USSR. The results of the research are presented in scientific reports and reports to the government of the USSR.

Tectonically, the area where the earthquake occurred is confined to the junction of two large structural complexes - the Karakum epi-Hercynian platform in the north and the alpine geosynclinal region of the Kopetdag in the south. Between them is located the Pre-Kopet Dag trough, which represents the transition zone - a relatively narrow depression with a steep southern wing and a gentle northern one. It is filled with a thick layer of Meso-Cenozoic sediments, under which at a depth of 10-2 km there is a Paleozoic crystalline basement. The southern side of the trough is sharply torn off by the Main Kopetdag deep fault, expressed in the near-surface part as a thrust.

The seismotectonic model of the Ashgabat earthquake is presented in the form of a subhorizontal tear-off of the Mesozoic-Cenozoic trough cover from the Paleozoic base in a relatively small area (the area of ​​the torn block is about 2 thousand sq. km). This is consistent with the idea of ​​D.N. Rustanovich, according to which during the earthquake the sedimentary rocks of the trough were torn off from the pre-Alpine base with a displacement to the north of 1.5 m.

The conditions for such rapid movements are predetermined by the tectonic position of the Ashgabat region - the tendency to squeeze out a local section (block) of the Pre-Kopet Dag trough in the field of submeridionally oriented tectonic forces. In this sense, the compression deformation in the trough, leading to the slow growth of the Kesheninbair and Pervomaisk brachyanticlines, is not compensated by purely neotectonic movements and, at some point, exceeds the adhesion strength of the sedimentary cover to the foundation and the resistance of the uplifted northern side of the trough. This process is accompanied by seismic movement along the Paleozoic foundation, in other words, a destructive earthquake. There is a loss of equilibrium of the rock mass and local displacements along the system of diagonal faults that compensate for the loss of support in the trough. Subsequent stress relaxation causes the observed diffuse aftershock activity of the earthquake and leads to the restoration of the course of secular movements in the trough. Accordingly, subhorizontal block failure leads to tectonic movements in the Aselma system of diagonal faults

The nature of the earthquake was strongly influenced by the hydrological features of the area. In the Ashgabat zone, the depth of groundwater tended to decrease from the mountains to the north, and at the tops of alluvial cones the groundwater table was at depths of the order of 80-100 m, on the southern outskirts of the city - 20 m, to the north - already up to 10 m, and in railway zone - 1-2 m. The strongest macroseismic effect was observed (9-10 points) where groundwater were located close to the day surface. Despite the presence of several earthquake isoseism maps, which differ in significant details, they reflect the general trend in the distribution of the macroseismic effect. However, despite this, these maps do not provide a clear picture of the mechanism and source of the earthquake. The isoseists of the Ashgabat earthquake have an ellipsoidal shape, the major axis of the ellipses is elongated in the direction from Southeast to Northwest and coincides with the direction of strike of the Kopetdag mountain range.

The Ashgabat disaster stimulated seismic research in different regions Soviet Union. Since the 60s of the last century, in the area of ​​​​the Garm (1941) and Khait earthquakes (1949), the Institute of Physics of the Earth named after. O. Yu. Shmidt of the USSR Academy of Sciences began to conduct large-scale studies of precursors and test methods for predicting earthquakes. Unique scientific data were collected and the beginning was made of long-term observations of the geophysical state of the Earth's interior, which were stopped in the early 90s due to the outbreak that began in Tajikistan. civil war. A special place The Ashgabat disaster ranks in the history of Soviet seismology also because it was the first experience of a comprehensive study of its causes - from geological and historical research to engineering analysis of the nature of the destruction. It became clear that strong earthquakes in this place do not occur by chance. They have happened quite often in the past and they have at least occurred here three times. A strong earthquake destroyed the capital of the Parthian state, the fortress city of Nisa, the ruins of which are located near Ashgabat.

The Ashgabat earthquake was accompanied by the occurrence of various natural phenomena. Most of the information is the memories of eyewitnesses of the disaster, other data was obtained as a result of the analysis of materials on various types observations carried out during the preparation and occurrence of the earthquake. A number of researchers have retrospectively identified numerous precursors of the 1948 earthquake.

Number of casualties and destruction

Total destruction of the city, mass death people, often entire families, the need to take prompt sanitary measures and the totalitarian regime of secrecy in former USSR led to the fact that today there are conflicting opinions about the number of earthquake victims - from tens to hundreds of thousands. However, there is no doubt that the number of city residents and the number of victims was known exactly to the country’s leadership, if only because before the earthquake in Ashgabat, the restrictions imposed at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War were canceled food cards. Without them, not a single person could survive in the USSR, since food was rationed for each family member, taking into account his age and employment. The area of ​​fiction includes the assumption of Admiral Ellis M. Zachariah, former deputy chief of the US Office of Naval Intelligence, voiced twice (12/12/1948 and 09/26/1949) in the radio show “Secret Missions” that the cause of the Ashgabat The 1948 earthquake may have been the first test of a Soviet atomic bomb (Karryev, 1992).

Dynamics of changes in the population of Ashgabat (Karryev, 1992) 1881-1948.

*An accurate picture of the population was facilitated by the USSR passport system, which was introduced in 1932.

Strict party control of the food supply to the population was based on the regular transfer of data on food reserves, labor and material resources to the leadership of both the republic and the country. Among other things, telegrams from the military command to the center with regular reports on the work done and the situation in Ashgabat indicate an accurate picture of the situation in the affected city just 12 hours later.

After its formation in 1881, the city's population grew continuously: 1881 - 1,200 people; 1891 - 17183; 1903 - 36286; 1915 - 45000; 1939 - 126,000 people. Moreover, rapid growth numbers in the 20-30s is due to the fact that Ashgabat (Poltoratsk) became the administrative center of the Turkmen Soviet Republic formed in 1924. At the beginning of 1948, the civilian population of the city without suburbs was 115,673 people, and by the middle of the year it was about 117 thousand, or with military personnel 132 thousand people.

The largest number of Russians (about 2/3 of all Russians in the republic) lived at that time in the capital of the country - where, throughout the Soviet period, Russians formed the basis of the population employed in the industrial production of the republic. For this reason, more than half of those killed by nationality were Russian.

After the earthquake according to the Ashgabat Statistical Office on November 28, 1948 (Kadyrov Sh., 1990) total number The city's population was 66,739 people (including 3,303 people who arrived after the earthquake), that is, almost half of the figure at the beginning of the year. An amount of cash benefits in the amount of 6 million rubles was allocated for the victims. On October 22, the city council began issuing them. It is necessary to take into account that by this moment, all the seriously wounded (about 10 thousand) had been evacuated, and approximately 23 thousand people left the city on their own.

When assessing losses, it is necessary to take into account the fact that a significant part of the people evacuated during the war years had left Ashgabat by 1948. Also, during the war years, almost all men over 18 years of age were sent from Ashgabat to the front (the defense industry in the city was not particularly important for liberation from the front) and most of them did not return from the war.

Thus, the possible number of deaths directly in Ashgabat was huge - 36-37 thousand people, that is, almost every third resident of the city died. Let us note that the fact that the number of deaths significantly exceeds those seriously injured is quite atypical for natural disasters. This could happen if the majority of buildings were built without taking into account seismic hazard, and the building materials were of poor quality (low-quality cement, raw brick, etc.). During an earthquake, this does not lead to damage to the structure of the building, but to its collapse. Dense rubble is formed, in which people trapped in them have no chance of salvation. The time allotted for their rescue is calculated in minutes and very rarely in hours. This happened during the earthquake in Uzbek Andijan (1906) where the number of seriously wounded was significantly lower than the number of dead. In Iranian Bam, etc. As in Ashgabat, people lived in houses made of adobe bricks with heavy clay roofs. When such buildings collapse, they do not create free spaces and the surviving people quickly suffocate from dust and lack of air.

Before the earthquake, Ashgabat occupied an area of ​​about 5,000 hectares on which there were more than 9,400 residential buildings. Of these private sector amounted to 6,719 houses with a living area of ​​268 thousand sq.m., communal 2,123 houses with an area of ​​172 thousand sq.m., the fund of organizations 862 buildings with an area of ​​118 thousand sq.m.

The buildings were mostly one-story structures. 2-3 storey buildings there were 227. There were 240 streets in the city. The total area of ​​green space was 819 hectares, and the length of water supply lines was 117 km. The city had 15 hospitals, 19 clinics, 5 maternity hospitals, 28 nurseries, 23 schools (more than 15 thousand students), 16 technical schools, agricultural, pedagogical, teaching and medical institutes. Since 1941, the Turkmen branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, consisting of five research institutes, functioned in Ashgabat.

Direct damage from the earthquake included: destruction of residential, industrial, and administrative buildings; loss and damage to industrial equipment; destruction of personal and private property of citizens; destruction of cultural, scientific, archival funds; reduction or cessation of material production; costs of rescue, clearance and restoration work. Indirect damage was determined by the impact of the earthquake on the economic, demographic and cultural situation in the republic.

The main stock of residential and industrial buildings was completely destroyed or brought into disrepair. More than 200 enterprises were damaged, and raw materials, goods and industrial equipment worth more than 600 million rubles. The scale of material damage can be judged by the allocation of financial resources allocated for the restoration of the city.

Almost 100% of residential one-story mud brick buildings collapsed and were destroyed. About 95% of all one-story buildings with baked brick walls were destroyed, the remaining part was irreparably damaged. About 85% of the two-story baked brick buildings with earthquake-resistant features were destroyed and damaged. In the city there were only a few buildings suitable for use, and then only after overhaul. Population losses were enormous and amounted to about 40% of all those living in the city.

By 1948, Ashgabat accounted for almost 50% of industrial products produced in the republic. The industry of the city in 1941-1944 produced products worth 117 million rubles. This was 5 million rubles more than in the previous 13 years. In 1949, by the Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR dated February 6, for this year alone, the volume of capital work to restore Ashgabat was determined in the amount of 316.9 million rubles. This amount amounted to 138% of the total industrial production of Ashgabat from 1928 to 1944, and was five times higher than the average annual volume for the republic.

Existing misconceptions about the victims of the 1948 Ashgabat earthquake are reflected in the table below.

Source	Description of the destruction	Number of victims (thousand people)
"Nature", 23.X.1948		0,4
Krumbach G., 1949	The city is almost completely destroyed	10
Taziev G., 1962		3
Gere J.M., Shah H.C., 1984	Serious destruction in Ashgabat	19,8
Golovkin A. V., 1973 (speech)		110
Drumya A.V., Shebalin N.V., 1985	Dire consequences for our country and for Iran	110
Nalivkin D.V., 1989	City destroyed	tens of thousands of dead
Kadyrov Sh., 1990	98% of residential buildings were destroyed (according to S. V. Medvedev, 1952)	35±2
Nikonov A. A., 1998	98% of residential buildings were destroyed, the rest are unsuitable for habitation (according to S.V. Medvedev, 1952)	at least 70 thousand dead at least 25 thousand wounded

Causes of destruction

The main causes of material damage and human losses were established by the USSR Government Commission (Karryev, 1992). Many years later, the causes of the disaster became clear. They boil down to the following.

1. When the city was formed in 1881, the seismic factor was not taken into account. At that time in Russian Empire There were no special studies of seismicity, and there was no information about strong earthquakes that occurred here. They were also absent during the Soviet period, until G.P. Gorshkov published the information he had collected in 1947.

2. Errors in determining the seismic hazard of the city territory. The first assessments of the seismic hazard of the territory of the republic were made based on the limited data on strong earthquakes in Iran and Turkmenistan. Accordingly, seismic standards were lowered by two to three points. In other words, since to assess the strength A logarithmic scale is used for shaking, the impacts on which the bulk of buildings built by 1948 were calculated turned out to be more than a hundred times less than those that actually hit Ashgabat.

3. When developing the city territory, the engineering properties of the soil, the hydrological conditions of the area and the location of the main tectonic seismogenic structures in relation to the built-up area were not taken into account.

4. The stage of intensive development of the city occurred during the territorial demarcation in Central Asia, when Ashgabat became the capital new republic in 1925. This led to the fact that the city’s territory began to be intensively built up and already in 1938 4.5 thousand square meters were put into use. m of living space, and two years later 42.6 thousand. At the same time, until 1934, buildings in Ashgabat were built without taking into account seismic danger and only then according to anti-seismic construction standards. However, if the average intensity of possible tremors was taken in 1940 at VIII points, then in 1943 it was reduced to VII points.

5. After the start of the Great Patriotic War Various institutions of the Soviet Union were relocated to Ashgabat. The city was overcrowded, there were not enough funds for its maintenance, and civil and industrial construction was carried out in small quantities. During the war period and until 1948, reconstruction of the city was not carried out, since fixed assets and funds were directed to the restoration of war-damaged cities in the western USSR. The housing stock was not repaired in a timely manner, and there were many dilapidated buildings in the city.

6. Due to lack of local sources of quality building materials- metal, wood, clay and others, local materials were used - sand and clay of poor quality, which were tested to be not earthquake-resistant. Reinforced concrete construction technology was just beginning to be used; there were few buildings made of reinforced concrete in the city. Most of the housing stock in Ashgabat consisted of one-story houses with a flat mud brick roof. This group of buildings is not earthquake resistant at all. Absence roofing materials led to the fact that the roofs of buildings were periodically smeared with clay to increase their water resistance. Over the years, a layer of clay up to half a meter thick accumulated on the roof, and the collapse of the building in most cases led to the death of people.

7. Buildings made of baked bricks, due to the lack of monolithic masonry and poor quality mortar in the bulk, turned out to be not earthquake-resistant. Solidity is achieved by the system of correct ligation of bricks in the masonry and the strength of adhesion of the mortar to the brick. Really specific climatic conditions - high temperature and low air humidity, the formation of salt deposits on the contact surface of the soaked brick due to the salinity of local brick clays, did not allow for good adhesion of the brick to the mortar. The weakening of strength also occurred due to the use of fine dune sands in the solution.

On the evening of October 5, 1948 Ashgabat lived an ordinary life. The evening was warm and quiet, with a clear starry sky. There was music playing on the dance floors in the parks. IN student dormitories prepared for classes, published wall newspapers. Couples in love walked along the shady streets and sat on benches. Ashgabat residents enjoyed the evening coolness. The windows of the houses were wide open. The city gradually calmed down, the inhabitants retired. In warm weather, many people preferred to sleep on the roofs of adobe houses, in the breeze... They did not know that this would save their lives.

Around one o'clock in the morning, belated night owls saw strange flashes and reflections of light over the mountains. At the same time, dogs in the city began to howl and worry; many of them began to rush out of the house or run up to their owners and drag them into the street by their clothes. Some perplexed owners went out for a walk with them... They did not know that this would save their lives.

In the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Turkmenistan, according to the fashion of that time, there was a night meeting. It was dedicated to the problems of Kara-Bogaz, and was attended by many specialists and party workers. They didn't know that it would save their lives...

At 1 hour 14 minutes 1 second October 6, 1948 began what Ashgabat residents initially mistook for the third world war and the atomic bombing.

From the memories of survivors of the Ashgabat earthquake:

“In the middle of the night - a menacing roar, then a roar and a crack, the earth shook and swayed. Half-awake, I thought: again I was dreaming of war and bombing! But this catastrophe was worse than the bombing. Realizing, I jumped up and ran out into the yard, the house collapsed behind me. Clouds of flying dust , the swaying trees and falling houses were illuminated by some strange yellowish light. Then darkness fell and screams and crying were heard from all sides; the crimson flames of blazing fires lit up, and the earth continued to tremble from time to time, bricks fell down, and the remaining walls fell. ...They dug up the pillow, and under it was the mother’s face. She was alive, but wounded, unconscious and already suffocating, a neighbor ran up, we lifted the beam and pulled out the mother.”

"In the dead of night, an unexpected vertical blow of terrible force shook the area. Even heavy objects jumped high into the air, and a moment later everything began to move. Our familiar, strong and motionless earth swayed like the deck of a ship in a storm. Something was shaking, pushing, it was difficult stand on your feet. A dull underground rumble was heard. The night lights went out, the leaves rustled, as if a gust of wind swept through the gardens. Thick clouds of smoke (dust) enveloped the city. It was difficult to breathe. Then everything calmed down.

"Everyone in the house was asleep. I finished work and was looking through the newspapers. The tremors began immediately very strong... I immediately jumped out of my chair, ran across the room to the opposite wall to grab my sleeping son and run into the yard. But the ceiling began to collapse... and That’s why I lay down on him - it was too late to leave.”

Instead of a transparent starry night, there was an impenetrable milky-white wall over Ashgabat, and behind it were terrible moans, screams, and cries for help.

In pitch darkness, in a dense curtain of dust, people who accidentally escaped and managed to get out from under the ruins frantically dig out their loved ones and neighbors by touch, with their bare hands. In some places there are fires. In their incorrect light, it is necessary to provide help to the saved, but there is nothing at hand. Those who were dug out in the first few hours were saved, the rest were unlucky: before dawn, a new shock with a power of 7-8 points finally buries them under the rubble. Many survivors were unable to survive the deaths of loved ones and went crazy for a time or forever.

There was no electricity, telephones went silent, the radio station and telegraph were destroyed. The airfield and railway are damaged and not functioning. Any connection within the city, with nearby settlements and with outside world absent. Nobody knows anything about the situation in neighboring houses and neighborhoods. There is no way to send a distress signal. People think the third one has begun world war and the Americans dropped an atomic bomb on the city.

In one of the military units on the western outskirts of the city, a radio operator managed to turn on emergency lighting, established radio communications, and broadcast messages about an earthquake. The connection was interrupted, but Tashkent received the information. At the airfield, the wounded Muscovite flight mechanic Yu. Drozdov reached the IL-12 passenger plane in the darkness and sent the news of the disaster over the air via the on-board radio station. The signal was received by signalmen at Sverdlovsk Airport.

Two hours after the event, Army General I.E. Petrov, commander of the Turkestan Military District, while in Tashkent, learns about the fact of an earthquake that occurred in Ashgabat. At night, he sends a telegram to the Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces, Marshal I.S. Konev, in Moscow: “On the night of October 5-6, a strong earthquake occurred in Ashgabat. There are no connections with Ashgabat. According to fragmentary data, there is severe destruction and casualties. At 9:30 minutes of local time, I’ll fly to the scene of the incident.”

In the morning, the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Turkmenistan creates a republican commission. General I.E. included in it. Petrov immediately calls military units from neighboring garrisons.

The city was defenseless. The police disappeared. All central, regional and local institutions were destroyed. The people remaining in the city are in complete isolation.

The cars, mostly trucks, that were parked in light plywood garages have been preserved. They show responsible workers, who gathered on their own initiative at the Central Committee building (they are afraid to enter the building), having received instructions from the first secretary Sh. Batyrov, driving around the city, fortunately it is possible to drive along many wide streets - they are partially blocked. By order of the Republican Commission, the communications group leaves the city, finds a place where the telephone line is not broken and, using an overhead telephone, contacts the nearest city (Mary), reports the situation, and calls for help.

Prisoners are selected from the damaged prison building. Just at this time, members of two detained gangs were there. In the nearest destroyed police station, they find weapons, a machine gun and, dressed in police uniforms, go to rob shops. They start in the wine department of the grocery store.

All medical institutions were destroyed, many doctors died. Survived professors of the Medical Institute B.L. Smirnov, G.A. Beburishvili, M.I. Mostovoy, I.F. Berezin, V.A. Skavinsky and others quickly organized an amateur hospital on Karl Marx Square. With the help of junior medical staff and students, surgical instruments and silk were dug up from the ruins of the clinic, bandages, iodine, cotton wool and alcohol were collected from the ruins of the pharmacy, stationery tables were pulled out from under the ruins of the institution and, putting them together in twos, surgical operations began.

From the recollections of doctors: “The anesthesia was only enough for a few operations. The rest of the victims were held tightly by the students with their hands,” “Hundreds of crushed, torn people with such terrible wounds as were never seen at the front,” “When the surgeons’ feet began to slip in the blood, the tables were moved to a new place.” Due to the lack of necessary medications, doctors had to amputate arms and legs that could have been saved under other conditions, since the wounded were at risk of gangrene.

At 8 a.m. Moscow time, that is, nine hours after the disaster, a message about it reaches the USSR Government.

Karl Marx Square is full of screaming and moaning wounded all day long. Ashgabat doctors work all day until dark without breaks. By evening, doctors from Baku and Tashkent set up field hospitals nearby. Ashgabat doctors move away from the operating tables and instantly fall asleep next to them, right in the ruins. Operations continue under car headlights. Over 100 qualified medical workers are flying out from Moscow.

Patrols are organized from the arriving military units. The first trucks with bread from military bakeries begin to drive around the city.

In the evening, the criminals who escaped to freedom attack the bank using a machine gun, but encounter resistance from military guards. Firing with machine gun bursts lasts two hours. The attack is repulsed. On one of the streets, a military patrol led by a Red Army colonel stops a group of suspicious persons. When the colonel demands to show his documents, a man in a police uniform shoots him at point-blank range. This is how the son of General I.E. dies. Petrov, commander of the Turkestan Military District. After this, the order is given to shoot the looters on the spot.

Day two. Order in the city is maintained by the military. They also restore connections between the main institutions (groups responsible persons) within the city and external relations.

Victims are being carried and transported from everywhere to the aid stations deployed by doctors in several squares of the city. The military triages the wounded and prioritizes the assistance they receive. The seriously wounded are sent to the airfield. Army pilots organize a temporary airfield on the DOSAAF airfield, and in a day they manage to evacuate almost 1,300 seriously wounded by air (470 people the day before).

The railway is not working. But, fortunately, in most of the city the water supply was not damaged, and flour reserves at the flour mill were preserved. Flour is distributed to everyone. Later they begin to distribute meat from the stocks of the collapsed meat processing plant.

Attempts to dig out the living and the dead continue mainly with the help of surviving relatives, but military rescue teams are also getting involved. The military organizes the removal of some of the corpses according to lists. In some places there are self-defense units against looters.

12 surgical teams of military doctors and 9 civilians work continuously.

The heads of a number of enterprises and institutions are gathering their surviving employees and trying to organize collective action to save people and property.

The city power plant begins to produce current. By evening, the first 60 street lighting lamps are turned on.

Five pharmacy points are being set up on the ruins of pharmacies.

In vast areas of individual housing estates, where rescue teams have not yet reached, thousands of people continue to suffocate and die under the ruins of collapsed houses. Having dug up the dead, relatives bury them right in their yards.

The first official (after 30 hours) TASS report about the earthquake appears in the Pravda newspaper:

"... an earthquake with a magnitude of up to 9 occurred... there is great destruction in Ashgabat... a large number of residential buildings have been destroyed. There are many casualties.

From a telegram sent in the evening to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks: “... 6 burial sites were identified. Only 1,200 military people worked on digging graves. During the day, 5,300 corpses were collected and taken to burial places... 3,000 corpses were not identified... "

The fact that the strength of the earthquake reached 10 points, the area of ​​the 9-point zone was 1000 square kilometers, that 98% of city buildings were destroyed, and the death toll was tens of thousands, as well as the destruction of dozens of settlements around the capital of the republic - about everything We found out about this later.

Day three. A curfew and a special situation have been introduced in the city; the city is cordoned off by troops. Special military teams travel around the city, soldiers in anti-mustard suits and gas masks dig up and collect corpses piled along the streets and squares. They are taken to ditches (mass graves) near the former Agricultural Institute and outside the city. The corpses brought in do not have time to be buried. There are so many corpses in the city and the smell is so terrible that it is impossible to walk along some streets.

In residential areas, survivors continue to dismantle the ruins of their former homes, removing from the ruins bricks, beams, boards - any remains suitable for the construction of future temporary shelters. They are still digging up the living and the dead.

Cars drive around the city distributing food and blankets. In some places food is already being prepared on fires and barbecues in the courtyards.

A flyover of the city by responsible workers: “It is impossible to imagine a picture of more complete destruction.” According to General I.E. Petrov, such destruction could result from the continuous bombing of 500 bombers for six months.

The evacuation of seriously wounded by air continues throughout the day. 2,000 victims are taken away per day. The entire road from the city to the airfield is clogged with seriously wounded people. Many die before being sent.

Movement is restored to railway, exit of victims is carried out using special passes.

Postal and telegraph workers and relief teams are located in the gardens under the trees and begin to receive people. Street trading begins. All important facilities have military guards.

Day five. Medics continue to arrive to provide medical care(in total, up to 1000 people are involved), the evacuation of seriously wounded and injured people is in full swing by rail and air.

Health workers organize disinfection and treatment of possible foci of infection. Sanitary control over water sources and food products is being introduced.

There is almost no cadaverous smell.

Employees of the internal affairs bodies, mostly those who have arrived, go around the courtyards and, using the method of questioning, register the survivors and, as far as possible, the dead.

The activities of a number of institutions are carried out outdoors under trees.

Typewritten food coupons are issued, salaries begin to be paid (the bank survived), and “retail outlets” are opened.

There is a temporary court that immediately considers cases of criminals.

Those who survived and are able to work begin to build temporary shelters on their sites from the rubble.

For several days in a row, the Pravda newspaper has been publishing messages about assistance to the population affected by the earthquake in Ashgabat.

25 million rubles were allocated from the Union budget of the Turkmen SSR, of which 10 million were allocated for the provision of one-time benefits to those in particular need. Tens of thousands of tons of food and goods have been allocated and shipped. In just one day, 4 planes took off from Moscow with 700 kg of blood, 1600 kg of food and the necessary specialists. Twenty planes are delivering equipment, equipment and property from Moscow to organize a communications service.

The main cargo comes from neighboring republics. Thousands of wounded and orphans were evacuated to Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan.

Seventh or eighth day. Full speed ahead Organizational and rescue work is underway, electricity is supplied within the city, communication services are operating in emergency mode. Up to 25 thousand military personnel are working to clear the rubble.

A commission from the Academy of Sciences arrives in Ashgabat to study the consequences of the earthquake and establish the operation of a seismic station. The scale of destruction and loss amazes seasoned seismologists.

Cinematographer Roman Karmen, on behalf of I.V. Stalin is making a film about the lost city, about the heroism of the people and the varied help that came. But the footage is so terrible that the film is not released and it remains in the archives for 30 years. The moving cinemas are starting to work. They are showing “Young Guard”.

Pravda publishes a large article, “Study of earthquakes in the Soviet Union.” There are a few lines about the catastrophe itself: “A great natural disaster befell Turkmenistan, a flourishing republic of the fraternal family of peoples of the Soviet Union. The earthquake claimed many lives and destroyed most of the buildings of the capital of the republic...” The article ends with the confidence that “the development of seismology. .. will make it possible in the future to warn of approaching earthquakes."

The second Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on providing assistance to victims is issued. It really comes from different directions. Up to 4 thousand wagons with food and essential goods arrived in the city.

A mass exodus of the population from the city lying in ruins begins.

Eleventh day. Newspapers begin to appear in the city. They contain massive examples of heroism, dedication, mutual assistance, obligations and reports.

The matter also reaches the surrounding regions: the Council of Ministers of the USSR adopts a resolution “On providing emergency assistance to collective farms and the population of the Ashgabat and Geok-Tepinsky districts”... Before that, help only went to the capital of the republic. About 100 trains carrying emergency aid go by rail to Ashgabat.

The Seismic Commission of the USSR Academy of Sciences convenes a meeting with proposals for coordinating surveys carried out by different organizations. In three days, the Ashgabat seismic station begins work. The most important seismic events are behind us. The commission leaves to survey the surrounding area.

Fifteenth to twenty-fifth day. The cold weather is coming. There is no housing. Rumors about possible new aftershocks. People are leaving the city (13 thousand people by rail).

The soldiers of the Turkestan Military District alone buried 14,487 corpses. According to the commander’s report, “3,350 living people were dug out from under the ruins; the wounded were collected and transported to medical aid centers and evacuated - 7,340 people. material assets in the amount of over 300 million rubles." Much later it would become known that property losses reached 200 billion rubles.

Army units, together with the remaining able-bodied residents, are clearing rubble, building temporary shelters and priority life support facilities.

On November 8, under the heading “Salute of Ashgabat,” it is reported about the general celebration in the city of the anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution...

5 years later. Remembers B.G. Rulev in 1998: “We were working then at the seismic station in the village of Vannovsky near Firyuza. Ashgabat had been rebuilt by that time one-story houses. Driving on October 6 by car past the hills outside the city, we heard terrible crying and wailing coming from a dark mass of people far from the road. This was the cemetery for the victims of the Ashgabat disaster. Never in my life have I heard such heart-rending crying."

Monument to the victims of the Ashgabat catastrophic earthquake of October 6, 1948

Zhanna POVELITSYNA

Original taken from madi_ha in Unique photos of Ashgabat, destroyed by the 1948 earthquake

I was very lucky again. One of the topics that does not leave me indifferent is the Ashgabat earthquake that occurred on October 6, 1948. (Ashgabat is my hometown, if anyone doesn’t know).

When reading materials on the Ashgabat earthquake, I always come across a mention of a certain documentary film shot by Roman Karmen in the very first days after the earthquake. Legend (?) says that in October 1948, Carmen urgently flew to Ashgabat on the orders of Stalin. Capture footage consequences of the elements, so that later, when the city is restored, they can be used in a propaganda chronicle about how the Soviet people heroically restored Ashgabat.
But what Carmen filmed horrified Stalin. Complete ruins, streets littered with corpses under the scorching sun (approximately 176,000 people died), deep shock among the miraculously surviving. The film was classified and its further fate is unknown.
Until now, I cannot find any information about this film in open sources and it is not listed on official resources dedicated to the activities of Roman Carmen.

And just recently, one of my old friends, a fellow countrywoman with whom we talked in Ashgabat (although we never discussed the earthquake), and now we both live in Moscow, wrote to me that she had photos of those events taken by Roman Karmen himself.
The photographs ended up in her family due to family ties with Carmen, which I will not write about.
These photographs give rise to many questions for me and even, for some reasons, give rise to doubts about whether this story with a secret film even happened.

But the photographs themselves are there. All of them are signed on the back and, according to family information, signed by Carmen himself.

But these are historical photographs! Photos are exhibited with the permission of the owner of the originals.

Particular attention should be paid to the building with a round dome. On the original photo it is labeled "Museum of Fine Arts". However, initially, it was the most famous Bahai temple. http://infoabad.com/forum/thread794.html

The article at the link tells his story. Among other things, the article states that it was badly damaged during an earthquake and was blown up in 1963 for safety reasons. However, from my grandfather and other elderly residents of the city, I heard that the “Baha’i temple” (no one called it a museum), just on the contrary, was one of the units of buildings that withstood a series of shocks of 8-point Richter. And in 1963 it was blown up for ideological reasons, and they had to blow it up several times - the temple seemed invulnerable.

Ashgabat earthquake of 1948: Chronicle of the disaster On the evening of October 5, 1948, Ashgabat lived an ordinary life. The evening was warm and quiet, with a clear starry sky. There was music playing on the dance floors in the parks. In student dormitories they prepared for classes and published wall newspapers. Couples in love walked along the shady streets and sat on benches. Ashgabat residents enjoyed the evening coolness. The windows of the houses were wide open. The city gradually calmed down, the inhabitants retired. In warm weather, many people preferred to sleep on the roofs of adobe houses, in the breeze... They did not know that this would save their lives. Around one o'clock in the morning, belated night owls saw strange flashes and reflections of light over the mountains. At the same time, dogs in the city began to howl and worry; many of them began to rush out of the house or run up to their owners and drag them into the street by their clothes. Some perplexed owners went out for a walk with them... They did not know that this would save their lives. In the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Turkmenistan, according to the fashion of that time, there was a night meeting. It was dedicated to the problems of Kara-Bogaz, and was attended by many specialists and party workers. They did not know that this would save their lives... At 1 hour 14 minutes 1 second on October 6, 1948, what the Ashgabat residents initially took to be the third world war and the atomic bombing began. From the memoirs of survivors of the Ashgabat earthquake: “In the middle of the night there was a menacing roar, then a roar and a crash, the earth trembled and swayed. Half-awake, I thought: again I was dreaming of war and bombing! But this catastrophe was worse than the bombing. Realizing, I jumped up and ran out into the yard, behind me. the house collapsed. Clouds of flying dust, swaying trees and falling houses were illuminated by some strange yellowish light. Then darkness fell and screams and crying were heard from all sides; the crimson flames of flaring fires began to light up, and the earth continued to tremble from time to time. bricks fell, the remaining walls fell... They dug up a pillow, under it was the mother’s face. She was alive, but wounded, unconscious and already suffocating. We lifted the beam and pulled out the mother.” "In the dead of night, an unexpected vertical blow of terrible force shook the area. Even heavy objects jumped high into the air, and a moment later everything began to move. Our familiar, strong and motionless earth swayed like the deck of a ship in a storm. Something was shaking, pushing, it was difficult stand on your feet. A dull underground rumble was heard. The night lights went out, the leaves rustled, as if a gust of wind swept through the gardens. Thick clouds of smoke (dust) enveloped the city. It was difficult to breathe. This lasted 10–12 seconds. Then everything calmed down." "Everyone in the house was asleep. I finished work and looked through the newspapers. The tremors began immediately very strong... I immediately jumped out of my chair, ran across the room to the opposite wall to grab my sleeping son and run into the yard. But the ceiling began to collapse... and so I lay down on it - it was too late to leave." Instead of a transparent starry night, an impenetrable milky-white wall stood over Ashgabat, and behind it there were terrible moans, screams, cries for help. In the pitch darkness, in the dense In the curtain of dust, people who accidentally escaped and managed to get out from under the ruins frantically dig out their loved ones and neighbors by touch, with their bare hands, fires appear in some places. the first few hours were saved, the rest were unlucky: before dawn, a new shock with a power of 7-8 finally buried them under the rubble. Many survivors could not survive the death of their loved ones and went crazy for a while or forever. There was no electricity, telephones went silent, the radio station and telegraph. The airfield and the railway are damaged and are not functioning. There is no communication within the city, with the nearest settlements or with the outside world. No one knows anything about the situation in the neighboring houses and neighborhoods. There is no way to send a distress signal. People think that the third world war has begun and the Americans dropped an atomic bomb on the city. In one of the military units on the western outskirts of the city, a radio operator managed to turn on emergency lighting, established radio communications, and broadcast messages about an earthquake. The connection was interrupted, but Tashkent received the information. At the airfield, the wounded Muscovite flight mechanic Yu. Drozdov reached the IL-12 passenger plane in the darkness and sent the news of the disaster over the air via the on-board radio station. The signal was received by signalmen at Sverdlovsk Airport. Two hours after the event, Army General I.E. Petrov, commander of the Turkestan Military District, while in Tashkent, learns about the fact of an earthquake that occurred in Ashgabat. At night, he sends a telegram to the Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces, Marshal I.S. Konev, in Moscow: “On the night of October 5-6, a strong earthquake occurred in Ashgabat. There are no connections with Ashgabat. According to fragmentary data, there is severe destruction and casualties. At 9:30 minutes of local time, I’ll fly to the scene of the incident.” In the morning, the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Turkmenistan creates a republican commission. General I.E. included in it. Petrov immediately calls military units from neighboring garrisons. The city was defenseless. The police disappeared. All central, regional and local institutions were destroyed. The people remaining in the city are in complete isolation. The cars, mostly trucks, that were parked in light plywood garages have been preserved. They show responsible workers, who gathered on their own initiative at the Central Committee building (they are afraid to enter the building), having received instructions from the first secretary Sh. Batyrov, driving around the city, fortunately it is possible to drive along many wide streets - they are partially blocked. By order of the Republican Commission, the communications group leaves the city, finds a place where the telephone line is not broken and, using an overhead telephone, contacts the nearest city (Mary), reports the situation, and calls for help. Prisoners are selected from the damaged prison building. Just at this time, members of two detained gangs were there. In the nearest destroyed police station, they find weapons, a machine gun and, dressed in police uniforms, go to rob shops. They start in the wine department of the grocery store. All medical institutions were destroyed, many doctors died. Survived professors of the Medical Institute B.L. Smirnov, G.A. Beburishvili, M.I. Mostovoy, I.F. Berezin, V.A. Skavinsky and others quickly organized an amateur hospital on Karl Marx Square. With the help of junior medical staff and students, surgical instruments and silk were dug up from the ruins of the clinic, bandages, iodine, cotton wool and alcohol were collected from the ruins of the pharmacy, stationery tables were pulled out from under the ruins of the institution and, putting them together in twos, surgical operations began. From the recollections of doctors: “The anesthesia was only enough for a few operations. The rest of the victims were held tightly by the students with their hands,” “Hundreds of crushed, torn people with such terrible wounds as were never seen at the front,” “When the surgeons’ feet began to slip in the blood, the tables were moved to a new place.” Due to the lack of necessary medications, doctors had to amputate arms and legs that could have been saved in other conditions, since the wounded were at risk of gangrene. At 8 a.m. Moscow time, that is, nine hours after the disaster, a message was reported. it reaches the Government of the USSR. Karl Marx Square is full of screaming and groaning wounded people all day long until dark without breaks. By the evening, doctors from Baku and Tashkent are setting up field hospitals nearby and immediately fall asleep nearby. right in the ruins. Operations continue under car headlights. Over 100 qualified medical workers are flying out from Moscow. Patrols are organized from the arriving military units. The first trucks with bread from military bakeries begin to drive around the city. In the evening, the criminals who escaped to freedom attack the bank using a machine gun, but encounter resistance from military guards. Firing with machine gun bursts lasts two hours. The attack is repulsed. On one of the streets, a military patrol led by a Red Army colonel stops a group of suspicious persons. When the colonel demands to show his documents, a man in a police uniform shoots him at point-blank range. This is how the son of General I.E. dies. Petrov, commander of the Turkestan Military District. After this, the order is given to shoot the looters on the spot. Day two. Order in the city is maintained by the military. They also restore connections between the main institutions (groups of responsible persons) within the city and external relations. Victims are being carried and transported from everywhere to the aid stations deployed by doctors in several squares of the city. The military triages the wounded and prioritizes the assistance they receive. The seriously wounded are sent to the airfield. Army pilots organize a temporary airfield on the DOSAAF airfield, and in a day they manage to evacuate almost 1,300 seriously wounded by air (470 people the day before). The railway is not working. But, fortunately, in most of the city the water supply was not damaged, and flour reserves at the flour mill were preserved. Flour is distributed to everyone. Later they begin to distribute meat from the stocks of the collapsed meat processing plant. Attempts to dig out the living and the dead continue mainly with the help of surviving relatives, but military rescue teams are also getting involved. The military organizes the removal of some of the corpses according to lists. In some places there are self-defense units against looters. 12 surgical teams of military doctors and 9 civilians work continuously. The heads of a number of enterprises and institutions are gathering their surviving employees and trying to organize collective action to save people and property. The city power plant begins to produce current. By evening, the first 60 street lighting lamps are turned on. Five pharmacy points are being set up on the ruins of pharmacies. In vast areas of individual housing estates, where rescue teams have not yet reached, thousands of people continue to suffocate and die under the ruins of collapsed houses. Having dug up the dead, relatives bury them right in their yards. The first official (after 30 hours) TASS report about the earthquake appears in the Pravda newspaper: ". .. an earthquake with a magnitude of up to 9 occurred... there is great destruction in Ashgabat... a large number of residential buildings have been destroyed. There are many human casualties. From a telegram sent in the evening to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks: “... 6 burial sites were identified. Only 1,200 military people worked on digging graves. During the day, 5,300 corpses were collected and taken to burial places... 3,000 corpses were not identified... “The fact that the strength of the earthquake reached 10 points, the area of ​​the 9-point zone amounted to 1000 square kilometers, that city buildings were destroyed by 98%, and the death toll was tens of thousands, as well as the destruction of dozens of settlements around the capital of the republic - about everyone found out about this later. Day three. A curfew and a special situation have been introduced in the city; the city is cordoned off by troops. Special military teams travel around the city, soldiers in anti-mustard suits and gas masks dig up and collect corpses piled along the streets and squares. They are taken to ditches (mass graves) near the former Agricultural Institute and outside the city. The corpses brought in do not have time to be buried. There are so many corpses in the city and the smell is so terrible that it is impossible to walk along some streets. In residential areas, survivors continue to dismantle the ruins of their former homes, removing from the ruins bricks, beams, boards - any remains suitable for the construction of future temporary shelters. They are still digging up the living and the dead. Cars drive around the city distributing food and blankets. In some places food is already being prepared on fires and barbecues in the courtyards. A flyover of the city by responsible workers: “It is impossible to imagine a picture of more complete destruction.” According to General I.E. Petrov, such destruction could result from the continuous bombing of 500 bombers for six months. The evacuation of seriously wounded by air continues throughout the day. 2,000 victims are taken away per day. The entire road from the city to the airfield is clogged with seriously wounded people. Many die before being sent. Traffic on the railway is being restored, and victims are leaving with special passes. Postal and telegraph workers and relief teams are located in the gardens under the trees and begin to receive people. Street trading begins. All important facilities have military guards. Day five. Medics continue to arrive to provide medical assistance (up to 1,000 people are involved in total), and the evacuation of seriously wounded and injured people is in full swing by rail and air. Health workers organize disinfection and treatment of possible foci of infection. Sanitary control over water sources and food products is being introduced. There is almost no cadaverous smell. Employees of the internal affairs bodies, mostly those who have arrived, go around the courtyards and, using the method of questioning, register the survivors and, as far as possible, the dead. The activities of a number of institutions are carried out outdoors under trees. Typewritten food coupons are issued, salaries begin to be paid (the bank survived), and “retail outlets” are opened. There is a temporary court that immediately considers cases of criminals. Those who survived and are able to work begin to build temporary shelters on their sites from the rubble. For several days in a row, the Pravda newspaper has been publishing messages about assistance to the population affected by the earthquake in Ashgabat. 25 million rubles were allocated from the Union budget of the Turkmen SSR, of which 10 million were allocated for the provision of one-time benefits to those in particular need. Tens of thousands of tons of food and goods have been allocated and shipped. In just one day, 4 planes took off from Moscow with 700 kg of blood, 1600 kg of food and the necessary specialists. Twenty planes are delivering equipment, equipment and property from Moscow to organize a communications service. The main cargo comes from neighboring republics. Thousands of wounded and orphans were evacuated to Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan. Seventh–eighth days. Organizational and rescue work is in full swing, electricity is supplied within the city, and communication services are operating in emergency mode. Up to 25 thousand military personnel are working to clear the rubble. A commission from the Academy of Sciences arrives in Ashgabat to study the consequences of the earthquake and establish the operation of a seismic station. The scale of destruction and loss amazes seasoned seismologists. Cinematographer Roman Karmen, on behalf of I.V. Stalin is making a film about the lost city, about the heroism of the people and the varied help that came. But the footage is so terrible that the film is not released and it remains in the archives for 30 years. The moving cinemas are starting to work. They are showing “Young Guard”. Pravda publishes a large article, “Study of earthquakes in the Soviet Union.” There are a few lines about the catastrophe itself: “A great natural disaster befell Turkmenistan, a flourishing republic of the fraternal family of peoples of the Soviet Union. The earthquake claimed many lives and destroyed most of the buildings of the capital of the republic...” The article ends with the confidence that “the development of seismology. .. will make it possible in the future to warn of approaching earthquakes." The second Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on providing assistance to victims is issued. It really comes from different directions. Up to 4 thousand wagons with food and essential goods arrived in the city. A mass exodus of the population from the city lying in ruins begins. Eleventh day. Newspapers begin to appear in the city. They contain massive examples of heroism, dedication, mutual assistance, obligations and reports. The matter also reaches the surrounding regions: the Council of Ministers of the USSR adopts a resolution “On providing emergency assistance to collective farms and the population of the Ashgabat and Geok-Tepinsky districts”... Before that, help only went to the capital of the republic. About 100 trains carrying emergency aid go by rail to Ashgabat. The Seismic Commission of the USSR Academy of Sciences convenes a meeting with proposals for coordinating surveys carried out by different organizations. In three days, the Ashgabat seismic station begins work. The most important seismic events are behind us. The commission leaves to survey the surrounding area. Fifteenth to twenty-fifth day. The cold weather is coming. There is no housing. Rumors about possible new aftershocks. People are leaving the city (13 thousand people by rail). The soldiers of the Turkestan Military District alone buried 14,487 corpses. According to the commander's report, "3,350 living people were dug out from under the ruins; the wounded were collected and transported to medical aid centers and evacuated - 7,340 people. Material assets worth over 300 million rubles were dug up." Much later it would become known that property losses reached 200 billion rubles. Army units, together with the remaining able-bodied residents, are clearing rubble, building temporary shelters and priority life support facilities. On November 8, under the heading “Salute of Ashgabat,” it is reported about the general celebration in the city of the anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution... B.G. remembers. Rulev in 1998: “We were working then at a seismic station in the village of Vannovsky near Firyuza. Ashgabat by this time was rebuilt with one-story houses. Driving on October 6 in a car past the hills outside the city, we heard terrible crying and lamentations coming from a dark mass of people far from roads. This was the cemetery of the victims of the Ashgabat disaster. Never in my life have I heard such heart-rending crying."