Nuclear reactor near Minsk, built by residents of Pripyat. The story of the ATETs in Druzhny, which Chernobyl saved and buried
Today, few residents of Minsk know that a nuclear reactor could have operated just 40 kilometers from the Ring Road. In the early 1980s, the grandiose construction of the Minsk Atomic Thermal Power Plant began in the Pukhovichy swamps. This facility was intended to provide the capital with cheap heat, and an exemplary settlement, Druzhny, grew around the station. In the spring of 1986, over a thousand residents of Pripyat were evacuated there. People who fled the nuclear disaster hoped to continue working on Minsk's peaceful atom. However, it was the Chernobyl tragedy that put an end to the station, turning it into the longest-running and most unusual energy facility in independent Belarus.
Minsk CHPP-5 in Druzhny today. Photo: minskenergo.by
To heat a city of a million
The end of the 1970s presented the leadership of Soviet Belarus not only with the problem of electricity deficit, which was planned to be solved by building giant nuclear power plants throughout the republic, but also with a much more urgent task — heating Minsk.
The capital was rapidly growing, approaching a million inhabitants. Existing thermal power plants and numerous boiler houses, which ran on fuel oil and coal, could no longer cope with the load. Moreover, they emitted significant smoke, exacerbating the already difficult ecological situation in the industrial city. In addition, the USSR's transport system was overloaded with hydrocarbon supplies, and delivering thousands of tons of fuel to Minsk became a serious logistical problem.
Moscow and Minsk officials saw a way out of this situation in a new technology. Instead of building another classic nuclear power plant, which produces only electricity, far from large cities, it was decided to build an atomic thermal power plant (ATETs). Its main task was to be the production of thermal energy for heating Minsk apartments, with electricity considered a useful byproduct.
On June 26, 1980, the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR adopted a joint resolution: the Minsk ATETs was to be built, and it needed to be launched by 1988. What could go wrong is hinted at by the dates themselves.
Prospective sites for NPP construction considered in the 1970s-1980s. Highlighted in red are the Selyavskaya site, where the first Belarusian NPP was eventually to be built, as well as the Minsk ATETs, for the construction of which all the republic's efforts were redirected; in blue - NPPs built in neighboring Soviet republics. Photo: OSM / Nasha Niva
Model of the Minsk ATETs at a scale of 1:1000.
By February 1981, the site was finally determined. To minimize risks while maintaining heat transfer efficiency, it was decided to place the station exactly 40 kilometers southeast of the capital — in the Pukhovichy district, between the settlements of Svislach and Rudzensk. The project envisioned the construction of a gigantic heating main that would connect the nuclear boiler directly to Minsk's radiators.
It is worth noting that Soviet engineers took into account the proximity to the capital and did not intend to install channel-type reactors (RBMK-1000) there, similar to those that would later explode in Chernobyl. Designers from the Gorky branch of "Atomteploelektroproekt" laid out documentation for two VVER-1000 pressurized water reactors. At that time, this was a relatively new, but much safer and more stable technology. By the way, reactors of exactly this, albeit modernized, type are currently operating at the Belarusian NPP in Astravets.
The design capacity of the Minsk ATETs was to be an impressive 2000 MW of electrical and 1800 Gcal/hour of thermal energy. For comparison, the capacity of the modern Belarusian NPP in Astravets is only 2400 MW, while the nuclear power plant planned for construction near Vitebsk in the 1970s was to reach as much as 8000-10,000 MW.
Garden city in the swamps
Like any Soviet mega-construction, the erection of the ATETs began not with the laying of the reactor, but with the creation of infrastructure and a city for future nuclear workers. In 1983, about three and a half thousand people arrived in the Pukhovichy swamps.
This was, perhaps, the last classic Komsomol construction project in the history of the BSSR, where young specialists and workers from all over the Soviet Union converged.
The settlement of Druzhny was built on a swamp, from which millions of tons of peat were removed in advance, and even more soil was brought in. Photo: kp.ru
Start of construction. Photo: citydog.io
The starting conditions were spartan. The chosen site was a continuous swamp. Builders had to do colossal work: first, drain the territory, then remove millions of tons of peat (this process was called peat excavation), and then, using dredgers, pump in gigantic volumes of sand and soil from neighboring reservoirs. Only after compacting this artificial foundation did the driving of piles for the first panel houses begin.
Layout model of the Minsk ATETs settlement, which was less than half realized after the nuclear project was scrapped.
Soviet urban planners were not limited by either financing or space. The new "atomograd" was designed according to all standards of industrial utopia: wide avenues, abundant greenery, pedestrian boulevards, and complete social infrastructure.
The general plan had strict symmetry: residential areas were separated by a developed public center with a large Palace of Culture, and from above, the outlines of the city were supposed to resemble a gigantic butterfly flying south, echoing the textbook modernist planning of Brazil's capital by Lúcio Costa. It was a true paradise for pedestrians: flows of cars and people did not intersect, and parking lots were moved outside the ring road.
Surveyor's work at the construction site in Druzhny. Photo: minskenergo.by
The layout of the district resembled Minsk microdistricts of the Perestroika era, but with interesting nuances. For example, in addition to standard five- and nine-story buildings, peculiar "townhouses" were built here — two-story apartments with their own front gardens, which were distributed in the usual queue to ordinary builders and doctors.
In the autumn of 1985, the first houses were ready for occupancy. At the same time, the settlement received its name. According to local legend, the name was chosen through a school essay competition. Children wrote that since people of different nationalities from all over the USSR came here and live in harmony, the settlement should be called Druzhny (Friendly).
Construction of the administrative and amenities building. Photo: minskenergo.by
Modern view of the administrative and amenities building. Photo: Google Maps
Pouring the foundation for the Minsk ATETs chimney. Photo: minskenergo.by
However, the peaceful and bright life of Druzhny did not last long. Construction was proceeding briskly, the start-up and reserve boiler house, necessary for launching future reactors, was already assembled, and concrete was being poured into the station's foundations. But April 26, 1986, was approaching — a day that would forever change the fate of the settlement itself and the attitude towards nuclear energy in the world.
Tragic irony: Pripyat landing in Druzhny
The explosion at the fourth power unit of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the spring of 1986 divided the history of Soviet energy into "before" and "after". Its immediate consequences affected the fate of the Pukhovichy construction site just a few days later.
When in early May Soviet authorities finally recognized the scale of the disaster and began the total evacuation of the 50,000-strong Pripyat (the satellite city of the Chernobyl NPP), a problem arose: where to put thousands of highly specialized nuclear specialists and builders?
Builders at the construction site in Druzhny. Photo: drugniy.info
The optimal solution was their redistribution to other similar facilities in the Soviet Union. Thus, Druzhny, where the housing stock was being built faster than the station itself, received one of the largest "landings" of evacuees.
Already in May 1986, literally a couple of weeks after the tragedy, residents of Pripyat began to arrive en masse in Druzhny. In total, about 1200 people were resettled here — specialists, engineers, builders, and their families. A terrible historical irony: people who had just lost their homes, jobs, former lives, and health due to a nuclear reactor explosion, traveled 300 kilometers to... continue building another nuclear reactor very close to the million-strong Minsk.
The building in the foreground is an unusual example of blocked two-story townhouse-style houses for Soviet construction. Photo: citydog.io
For many "Pripyatians", the choice in favor of the Minsk ATETs was dictated not only by the availability of free apartments, although initially, due to the lack of furniture, resettlers had to sleep directly on the floor in empty rooms. Belarus was considered a calmer and more prosperous republic, and geographically and mentally close to their native Ukrainian-Belarusian borderland. They expected their experience would be useful at the new station, which guaranteed all the social privileges of closed "atomograds".
Construction of Druzhny. Photo: citydog.io
However, sentiment among local residents and especially in Minsk itself was rapidly changing. As people received real information about the scale of radioactive contamination and the consequences of Chernobyl, a panicked fear of the peaceful atom — radiophobia — began to grow in society.
The prospect of having another nuclear power plant just 40 kilometers from the capital began to be perceived not as a technological breakthrough, but as a potential ticking time bomb. Residents of the surrounding villages and Minsk residents were categorically hostile to the continuation of construction.
Conservation and fears for the future
Under pressure from public opinion and risk analysis, the Union authorities were forced to concede. On July 1, 1987, a resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR "On the conservation of the Minsk NPP" was issued. At that time, construction had already progressed quite far: the foundation for the first reactor had been laid, a significant part of the industrial infrastructure had been built, communications had been brought in, and the start-up and reserve boiler house had been put into operation.
The cessation of the project was perceived by the residents of Druzhny not with relief, but with anxiety. Construction departments began to massively leave the settlement to build a new city for nuclear workers in Ukraine — Slavutych. For the builders, and especially for those 1200 resettlers from Pripyat, conservation meant the collapse of hopes for a stable future.
Everyone understood perfectly: without the status of "nuclear construction" and a strategic object, the settlement would instantly lose its elite Moscow supply. Instead of guaranteed products and manufactured goods, people faced the prospect of being left alone with the deficit that was already beginning to totally engulf the Soviet economy.
Article in the newspaper "Izvestia" about the cessation of construction of the Minsk Atomic Thermal Power Plant. 1988.
Moreover, the construction of the city itself also stopped. The master plan was implemented barely by half, and the ideal "butterfly" remained with one wing. A public center with a gigantic Palace of Culture never appeared (later a church would be built in its place), and a huge hospital, where they allegedly wanted to place a research center for oncology for Chernobyl victims, remained in the form of two unfinished buildings.
The Union government, realizing that millions of rubles and hundreds of thousands of tons of concrete had already been poured into the Pukhovichy swamps, made a compromise decision. Engineers were tasked with repurposing the facility: instead of an ATETs, a conventional thermal power plant was to appear here, which would run on organic fuel — natural gas and fuel oil.
Belarusian designers from the branch of UNDPTEnergoprom were entrusted with converting the NPP into a CHPP. This decision allowed for the preservation of jobs and gave the settlement a chance for survival. But no one at that moment suspected how long and agonizing the path to launching the first power unit would be.
The difficult birth of the unique CHPP-5
The transition from a nuclear project to a gas-oil one coincided with another global cataclysm — the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the early 1990s, funding from Moscow stopped, and newly independent Belarus was left alone with the legacy of the Union giants.
The darkest times began for the construction near Rudzensk. There was no money for expensive equipment, supplies stopped, and thousands of builders and engineers faced the threat of unemployment. The task for the facility's management was to preserve the unique professional team (about 2500 people) at all costs and prevent the infrastructure from turning into ruins.
During this period, Druzhny was actually maintained by the start-up and reserve boiler house, which heated the settlement itself, Svislach, and neighboring enterprises.
Despite all the financial vicissitudes, construction, though slowly, continued. Repurposing the nuclear power plant into a conventional thermal power plant required extraordinary engineering approaches, and as a result, the new station, named Minsk CHPP-5, incorporated many unique technologies atypical for the energy sector of that time.
The main visual and technical feature of CHPP-5 became the absence of traditional cooling towers — huge concrete towers for water cooling, which usually dominate any large power plants. Their construction was deemed too expensive.
Spray ponds of Minsk CHPP-5. Photo: Minskenergo
Instead, an effective cooling system was implemented through spray ponds (sprinklers). Hot technical water, having completed its cycle, is ejected into the air under pressure through hundreds of fountains, cools down, and falls into a specially created artificial lake, from where it is again taken for the station's needs. Natural water losses are replenished from the resources of the Svislach River.
Today, these gigantic fountains are not only a technical solution but also almost the main local attraction, where rainbows constantly hang on sunny days.
Minsk CHPP-5 control room. 2001. Photo: operby.com
In addition, CHPP-5 became the first station in Belarus where a fully automated microprocessor control system was implemented as early as the equipment installation stage. All processes, from the state of valves on pipes to emission control from the 240-meter chimney, were monitored and controlled from monitors on the central panel.
Lukashenka at the ceremonial launch of the first power unit of Minsk CHPP-5. August 13, 1999. Photo: president.gov.by
The epic of the construction of the first stage concluded only on the eve of the new millennium. On August 4, 1999, the first power unit with a capacity of 330 MW finally supplied electricity to the country's unified energy system.
This was a landmark moment: CHPP-5 became the first large thermal power plant in the entire former USSR to be commissioned after its collapse.
Construction of Minsk CHPP-5 in 2001. Photo: operby.com
From Atomograd to satellite city
Today, more than forty years after the first piles were driven into the Pukhovichy swamps, CHPP-5 and the settlement of Druzhny live their own lives, far from nuclear ambitions. In 2012, another important stage was completed at the station: with the help of Chinese investments and specialists, a second, more modern and economical combined-cycle power unit was launched, which increased the total capacity of the station to more than 700 MW. Although this is half of what was planned in the original nuclear version, CHPP-5 remains one of the most important nodes of the Belarusian energy system.
Modern development of Druzhny. Photo: Yandex Maps
Modern development of Druzhny. Photo: Yandex Maps
As for Druzhny itself, the fate of its residents turned out to be strongly linked to the capital. Today, about 10 thousand people live in the settlement. Of the 1200 resettlers from Pripyat, about a fifth remain — many eventually returned to Ukraine or dispersed to other countries, but those who stayed have become an integral part of local history.
Druzhny was never completed, the western "butterfly wing" never appeared, and the eastern one was only partially realized. Photo: Google Earth
Druzhny on a satellite image from 2021. Vacant territories are gradually being built up with housing, no longer adhering to the plan of an ideal socialist city. Photo: Google Earth
The paradox of the situation is that only a small fraction of Druzhny's residents work at CHPP-5 itself. Every morning, thousands of people head to work in Minsk, turning the settlement into a classic commuter appendage of the capital.
Wide avenues and cozy townhouses, laid out in Soviet times with the expectation of an elite "atomograd" status, today require modernization and repair. Local residents complain about the lack of entertainment infrastructure for youth and occasional problems with communications.
Development scheme of the Minsk agglomeration with the CHPP-5 production cluster.
In recent years, authorities have returned to the idea of developing this agglomeration, which includes Druzhny, Rudzensk, and Svislach, granting it the status of an official satellite city of Minsk. It is planned that large-scale housing construction will begin precisely on that gigantic field, which was cleared in the 1980s for the second half of the nuclear workers' city.
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