Thanks to the existence of an untouchable reserve of Russia (at that time the USSR), millions of people were saved during the years of World War II. The same state system made it possible to quickly localize the fire at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which broke out in the early hours of the ill-fated April 1986 day, and to save Ukraine, Belarus and part of Europe from a nuclear explosion.
Reserves of Ancient Russia and Tsarist Russia
In the USSR, they joked that an untouchable reserve should provide the population with everything necessary for ten years of nuclear war. However, the history of the formation of an inviolable state reserve began in the time of Ancient Russia, when food supplies were kept in vast uninhabited areas - in monasteries. To this day, information has come down about the Solovetsky Monastery, in which food supplies would last for several years. The monastery, by the way, exists to this day, it is located on the Solovetsky Islands (these are the very well-known Solovki) in the White Sea.
By the end of the 18th century, imperial Russia had stocks of bread (grain) and salt; in 1913, some cereals and flour were added to the list of products. During the period of the October Socialist and February bourgeois revolutions, state reserves were expectedly depleted, but the first Soviet government in 1926 laid the foundation for the creation of a reserve fund, which is regulated at the highest state level.
Early Soviet State Reserve History
In fact, NZ in the USSR appeared in 1931, when the Committee of Reserves was formed, and V.V. Kuybyshev was appointed its head. Since then, the entire inviolable stock of products has been regulated by one authority, and not by individual institutions, organizations and enterprises. The fundamental document on the formation of state reserves was drawn up in 1939. The then structure of state reserves in general has been preserved until today.
The untouchable reserve in the pre- and post-war years
Let's open the bins of our homeland. The pre-war situation necessitated an increase in NK. An untouchable reserve was now able to meet the needs of industry. At this stage, it was not exclusively a mobilization reserve for the troops, as it was before. Since 1939, untouchable emergency stock has been laid down for storage. It consists of products and materials for weapons and military equipment, food, fuel, household and medical (dressings, drugs) property.
In many ways, it was the formed untouchable reserve that helped make up for the enormous losses of the Soviet Union in the early years of World War II. No matter how contradictory, but during this period, the reserves of the USSR not only did not decrease, but almost doubled due to tin, aluminum, nickel, zinc, bread and canned meat. After the Great Victory, attempts were repeatedly made to revive the state reserve system, but in fact it was possible to do this only by the 60s.
NZ in the last decade of the twentieth century
In 1990, the Office of Material Resources for Emergencies was formed. The structure was created to form a state reserve system consisting of food, medical, financial, material and technical stocks.
The system is developed on the basis of statistical data and with the aim of promptly taking priority measures in case of possible emergency situations: natural disasters, technological disasters, military aggression of other states against Russia and other accidents of national scale. The storage of untouchable reserves is carried out at the state reserve's own enterprises or at certain points located in all regions of Russia.
“On the State Material Reserve”
The modern inviolable reserve (its formation, storage and composition) is regulated by the 1994 Federal Law “On the State Material Reserve”.
The document established that the state reserve in Russia is intended for:
- ensuring prompt elimination of natural disasters and man-made disasters;
- timely provision of humanitarian aid and state support to the affected regions and constituent entities of the Russian Federation: their residents, enterprises, institutions and organizations;
- providing regulatory impact on the market during an economic or energy crisis;
- meeting the needs of Russia during the period of mobilization.
The structure of the Russian reserve
In 2006, in honor of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the state reserve system, federal services slightly opened the curtain of strictest secrecy and allowed a small part of journalists to Rosrezerv. In a special report, “The Safe Reserve”, small grains of information about the most important secret structure of the Russian Federation were published.
So, it is known that at the moment the state reserve totals about 10 thousand items of food products, medical products, military equipment and industrial goods. Only two people know exactly how much stocks are in the country: the president of the Russian Federation and the head of the structure of the Federal Reserve. The latter, incidentally, assured that there would be enough reserves to provide the entire population of the Russian Federation for three months of emergency. Of course, we are talking primarily about food. Medicines, dressings, equipment, clothing and fuel are stored for much longer.
In addition to essential goods, the structure of the NZ includes several institutions: a research institute, a pilot experimental mechanical plant, a polytechnic college, and an information and computing center.
The reserves store not only products with a long shelf life, but even threads and needles, the main list of medicines, dressings, clothes and fabrics, raw materials, machinery, fuel and even dismantled railway bridges across the main rivers. More than half of NZ are food products, therefore, the stock is updated every one to two years, the rest (metals, equipment, clothes, etc.) - every 15 years.
Localization and equipping of Rosrezerv's storage facilities
Storage of a stockpile is in the strictest confidence. Each storehouse is equipped with powerful pumps in case of flooding with groundwater, as well as almost half-meter iron doors.
These rooms, which are located at least 150 meters underground, can withstand a nuclear explosion or a serious natural disaster. It is believed that repositories are located far from settlements, but the exact localization is known only to the two above-mentioned people.
