VAZ Togliatti Technical Museum is one of the main attractions of the city. It was founded in 1998 at 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 found their refuge. Some of them date back to the First World War, while others have joined the ranks of exhibits recently. The main part of the museum is in the open air and contains more than 500 units of various large equipment and more than 2000 small ones. The VAZ Technical Museum contains many samples of old military and civilian vehicles. Airplanes, helicopters, tanks, armored trains, radar and agricultural machinery - 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 that once plowed the air. In another, there are monuments to rocket launchers and artillery, which at one time with their own appearance could force capitulate entire villages, and now are forced to sunbathe and collect raindrops. There are also trains and armored trains on which ordinary people traveled. Radar antennas, spacecraft, and even rovers - all of this can be found in this place. But a special place is given to the technical museum of Tolyatti by military equipment. Indeed, having been in this park, having experienced the echo of war, looking at the time-worn equipment, it is impossible to remain indifferent.
Military equipment
Basically, the military-technical museum in Togliatti contains only Soviet equipment. But there are also foreign exhibits that are relevant 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 during the war was delivered to the USSR. They were the first carriers of the BM-13, and BM-31 complex, 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 defense.
Also in this park there are many samples of German, American and English 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 course, in this museum most of the samples of Soviet tanks are presented, such as: T70, IS-3, T54-2, and even the legendary tank, which brought victory to our troops in the war - T34. Some of the presented samples really had the opportunity to go to 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 survived to our time.
The Technical Museum (Togliatti) allocated a separate place for artillery with missile systems. On this site of the museum lie such giants as the Topol RK, or such volley fire systems as the Tornado and the Grad. In addition to them, there are many other, less well-known tools 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 (Togliatti) 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 within seven months. It served for 18 years, until 1998, after this 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 as long as 4 years. All armaments were removed from the boat and sealed tightly. She was transported in special tugboats through many water bodies - the Gulf of Finland, Ladoga, Beloye and Onega lakes. And then she finally reached the Volga through several reservoirs, to a specially built berth in the village of Primorsky. On the ground it was transported by military tractors specially recalled for this from their units.
This boat fell into the technical museum of AvtoVAZ 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 really carried combat duty in our fleet at one time gives this exhibit 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 technology
The VAZ Togliatti Technical Museum contains another very interesting site, which is reserved for all kinds of engineering equipment. There are machines for opening pits, and various conveyors (including "amphibians"), and equipment for mine clearing or debris removal.
There is even such a specific machine as the ADS-50 station, which was intended for the production of liquid and gaseous nitrogen in the field. The variety of shapes and sizes of the local equipment is just off scale. There is a prototype of the STR-1 robot, which participated in the collection of highly active substances from the roof of the 4th 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 technology
One of the most interesting objects on this site is the captured trophy TE-4844. The German inventory numbers that have not changed since then indicate that this steam locomotive was built at the Berlin factory. In addition to several more models of trains and locomotives, there are wagons of a military railway missile complex. In appearance they do not stand out, they look like typical refrigerated wagons. The train included about ten cars, three of which were armed with RT-23 missiles, which could be launched directly from the train. A distinctive feature of “armed” wagons was the doubled number of wheelsets — ordinary wagons with four wheelsets each, with missiles — eight each.
Space technology
The VAZ Technical Museum offers its visitors the opportunity to see not only "earthly" equipment. It also has a site dedicated to all kinds of spacecraft and moon rovers. Most of the 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 rover rovers. Of course, if you look at all this technique now, it will look rather primitive. However, modern machines that are designed for various space tasks could not have appeared without research with their "ancestors".
Technical Museum of Togliatti: working hours
The 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, people with disabilities or military personnel - 30 or 40 rubles.
