Matua island Japanese secret. Secrets of Matua: what the bowels of the Kuril Island hide

Matua is one of the few uninhabited islands that make up the Great Kuriles. But it is he, this small piece of land, that is fraught with so many secrets that they would be quite enough for all the Kuril Islands. According to one version, translated from the Ainu language, Matua means "hell mouth."

A little more than half a century ago, life was seething here, and not only on earth, but also underground. Today the island of Matua is absolutely deserted. There are no hunters, geologists, miners here, no tourists, and even on the air - complete silence. At the mouth of the Khesupo River, the only one on the entire island, a tribe of Ainu once lived in the amount of two hundred people.

In 1885, the Japanese resettled all the Ainu from the Kuriles to the island of Shikotan. Today, nothing reminds of the natives, but every piece of land tells about the Japanese who occupied the island. Having evicted the Ainu, the inhabitants of the Land of the Rising Sun placed a guard post, a weather station, a station for the protection of seals, a fishing station, and a polar fox receiver on Matua. And that was just the beginning.

Over time, the descendants of the samurai decided to transfer the 41st separate regiment of the Japanese army to Matua. Despite the fact that the island was reliably protected by impregnable cliffs and high banks, the new owners erected a whole network of fortifications on the island. As a labor force, they used either Chinese prisoners of war, or Koreans, or both of them combined.

There are no graves on the island. The question arises: did people not die? The climate there is harsh, and the Japanese are unlikely to stand on ceremony with the prisoners. Maybe the bodies were taken away from here and interred in another place or thrown into the sea? latest version looks the most plausible. Be that as it may, the Japanese still do not give out this secret, as, indeed, the rest.

By the end of the war, Matua had become impregnable fortress in the middle of the ocean, which was problematic to take. It was like an anthill - it was so pitted with underground passages, galleries, trenches, dugouts, anti-tank and anti-personnel trenches, artillery and machine-gun pillboxes.

These underground corridors, sometimes two- and even three-storied, were constantly winding, forming dead ends and labyrinths. Above-ground buildings, no less sinuous, were interconnected by a single underground gallery. That is, being at one end of the island, it was possible to safely get to the other through the underpass.

However, Matua has the only pillbox that is not connected by an underground passage to the general underground system of the island. It has no underground outlet at all. Therefore, our border guards called it a "bunker of suicide bombers."

Almost everywhere along the upper line of defense there was a narrow-gauge railway, along which trolleys went for a centralized supply of ammunition. All pillboxes were located in a certain sequence for the effective use of crossfire.

Until now, the pillboxes are in excellent condition, despite the fact that the Japanese have not been seen here since 1945. Needless to say, military engineers did not get their yen for pretty eyes.

Of particular interest is the way the Japanese arranged their life on the island. Each officer in a separate barracks was supposed to have his own small room with a narrow corridor. The rooms were heated by stoves, and several stoves heated the bathhouse. The steam room had a small pool with stone seats on the sides, the water in which, apparently, was constantly heated.

Another attraction of Matua is a huge hill artificially created by the Japanese with regular rounded outlines, almost 125 meters high, towering above the surroundings and second only to the owner of the island - Fuyo volcano, or Sarychev Peak.

A whole complex of buildings was located in the hill: barracks for soldiers, a hospital, headquarters, warehouses, and so on. And here the builders showed what they are capable of: all the stones are carefully hewn and perfectly fitted to each other.

However, the buildings do not go to any comparison with the airfield. This is simply a masterpiece of military engineering, it is not for nothing that the Japanese were so proud of it. Two parallel strips 1,570 meters long and 35 meters wide were covered with excellent concrete.

The quality of concrete can be judged at least by the fact that it has been preserved in at its best to this day and there are practically no cracks on it. The airfield is located in such a way that the winds that dominate Matua could not interfere with either takeoff or landing of aircraft.

But the most striking thing is that the runway is heated. To the bands from the local thermal springs, beating on the slope of the volcano, water was supplied through a special concreted ditch, which had the same high temperature all year round.

The chutes ran between two parallel runways, and pipes were laid under each of them. Hot water circulated along them the entire length of the strips, after which it went into the third strip, then turned around and went back.

As a result, the airfield was in full combat readiness all year round, even in the most severe frosts and snow storms. It did not need to be cleaned of ice or snow. The Americans repeatedly tried to destroy the airfield and island facilities, losing a dozen aircraft and at least two submarines in battle.

There are enough reasons to believe that there were some secret Japanese objects on Matua. It is likely that these were laboratories for the development of chemical or bacteriological weapons.

Submarines of the Third Reich came here, having made an almost round-the-world trip, which is indirectly confirmed by empty German barrels of those years marked Kraftstoff Wehrmaght 200 Ltr. ("Fuel of the Wehrmacht, 200 liters").

In August 1945, after the surrender of Japan, the power on Matua changed once again. The Japanese took care to hide their secrets from the Russians. There was plenty of time to destroy all the military equipment there or scrupulously hide it until better times.

Not a single aircraft, tank or gun was found on the island. For 3,811 surrendered Japanese soldiers and officers, only 2,127 rifles were available. At the same time, pilots, sailors and gunners disappeared somewhere, and only construction battalion workers and support personnel were captured. Perhaps it was the so-called funeral brigade, which preserved the island and hid everything.

It is believed that the Japanese drowned equipment and secret equipment in the sea, or hid it underground, blowing up the approaches to underground warehouses. Until now, disguised components and assemblies are found on the island military equipment, strange threaded numbering rods, the purpose of which can only be guessed at.

In 1946, the island was already under the Soviet flag. There was a border outpost and a military unit, apparently serving the radar. Broken installations and dumps of electronic equipment from the 1960s and 70s are scattered throughout the island.

In the southeastern part of the island there were two settlements- Sarychevo and Gubanovka. In 1952, sixteen border guards died on Matua during an earthquake under an avalanche.

In the late 1970s, three border guards disappeared there. Out of curiosity, the sergeant and two ordinary soldiers descended into one of the ventilation shafts of the round hill, and no one else saw them.

In 2000, the frontier post burned down, and the border guards left the island forever. Since then, it has been abandoned, and only birds and animals are hosting this piece of land. It seems that the spirit of Matua, which the Ainu spoke about, does not allow anyone to take root on this island.

The Novosti news agency reported on June 29 that it learned from sources in the Defense Ministry about plans to build a stronghold for the Russian Pacific Fleet on the Kuril island of Matua. Such "leaks" of information, as a rule, are sanctioned, and represent a deliberate communication to the world community of information that is undesirable for any reason to be disseminated through official channels. In this area, the Russian military presence cannot be considered weak, however, if a decision is made to strengthen it, then there are reasons for this, which are not customary to talk about. We can only speculate about them.

What is the island?

Matua occupies approximately the middle place in the Kuril ridge, it is located northeast of about. Asshua and southwest of Shiashkotan. The island is of volcanic origin and is crowned picturesque peak, perhaps not as majestic as Fujiyama, but also beautiful. In mid-May, a joint cartographic expedition, equipped by the Ministry of Defense and the Russian Geographical Society, landed here, it arrived on six ships and has two hundred participants. This event was reported by the press service of the Eastern Military District. The survey of the water area of bays, gulfs and the seabed has begun. The fact that a team of divers carried out work to determine the suitability of the terrain for navigation was not in doubt, however, along the way, many very interesting finds were made related to the relatively recent historical past.

Military facility of high importance

This small island, despite its modest size, is of great strategic importance, and this has long been understood, and not only in Russia. Before the Second World War and during it, when the Kuril ridge belonged to Japan, a large outpost was created here, including submarine bases, an airfield and ground fortifications. The objects are well preserved, and in the sea, scuba divers discovered the Zero aircraft, manufactured by Mitsubishi, judging by the inscriptions on the structural elements (serial number 1733), in 1942.

The light fighter apparently tried to fly to the base, having received damage in battles with US Air Force, or was shot down by a Soviet pilot after the USSR entered the war on pacific ocean in 1945. The position of the island makes it possible to control from the air the entire rather wide entrance to the Sea of Okhotsk, and the one who owns it can almost immediately block navigation in this most important region of the World Ocean for Russia. It's in Imperial Japan understood very well.

During the war years, a 3,000-strong garrison was stationed on Matua, provided with everything necessary for a long-term defense. There were no fights, however. Decisive and powerful action Soviet army, which defeated the millionth Kwantung grouping on the mainland, and bold landing operations on other islands showed the futility of resistance. Japanese troops from Matua were withdrawn by order of the command.

What is preserved?

On the island itself, a runway has been preserved, concrete, but already overgrown with grass, nevertheless, partially usable for its intended purpose after some reconstruction, as well as the remains of the airfield infrastructure, including a dilapidated control tower. The Japanese prepared for the defense seriously, they built underground concrete bunkers, and among the hills you can find light tanks, distinguished by riveted joints, not typical of more advanced Soviet armored vehicles. All this is very interesting for historians, the finds are valuable, and according to the current market times, any of these artifacts costs a lot of money and deserves its place in museums. The entire range, including Matua, became Soviet after the surrender of Japan.

First steps

In the period from mid-May to early June, the expedition managed to inspect the runway for its readiness to receive modern aircraft, clear the airfield drainage system, deploy a mobile aviation navigation system and flight support equipment. There are two lanes, their length is 1.2 km, width is 80 m. Helicopters are already ready to receive the island. Now work is underway to ensure the possibility of unloading overall equipment and equipment, which, as planned, will be delivered here by a large landing ship of the Pacific Fleet. The construction of not a temporary, but a full-fledged defense facility will begin this year.

Argument in territorial debate

Around the same time that preliminary infrastructure assessment and planning work was underway on the island of Matua further action, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe came to Sochi. With the President of the Russian Federation, he, among other issues, discussed the problem of " northern territories”, the return of which Tokyo unsuccessfully seeks for almost all post-war decades. In particular, the Prime Minister expressed his desire to show “ new approach". Direct relation to territorial dispute There is no Russian activity on Matua, since it is not among the islands for which Japan claims. However, the new base of the Pacific Fleet will significantly change the strategic situation in the region, and any hints of the possibility of resolving the issue by force will now make much less impression. And the balance of naval forces is now far from in favor of Russia, given the combined power of Japan and the US ships based in Okinawa.

Political counterpart

Not completely identical, but a similar situation is now unfolding around the Spartly archipelago, which is officially claimed by six states. It would seem that what does the United States care about the dispute over the Pacific Islands between China, Vietnam, the Philippines and other participants in the negotiations? However, instead of letting these countries solve their problems on their own, the Americans intervene in the conflict and even lifted the arms embargo on Vietnam, hinting at the possibility of a military confrontation in which "comrades" on both sides are by no means located. Moreover, the technical superiority of China over its closest South Asian neighbors is so obvious and obvious that there is nothing to talk about here. Currently, NAOC has deployed defense anti-aircraft systems in the archipelago on its own initiative.

What will happen on the new base?

Probably, a stronghold for long-range aviation will be created here. The basis of this part of the Russian Air Force is high-speed missile carriers Tu-22M3, capable of overcoming the air defense of potential enemies, but having a range insufficient to be considered strategic bombers. The difference in distances between take-off points from Sakhalin, for example, and the same island of Matua to the nearest probable target reaches thousands of kilometers, which can play a decisive role in determining the combat capabilities of Russian naval aviation. Tu-22s are armed with long-range cruise missiles, and they do not need to approach the US West Coast directly, for example, in order to have a chance to inflict unacceptable damage in the event of a war. This factor will have to be taken into account.

Another piece on the world chessboard

Strategists treat the world map like a big chessboard, only the rules of the game are more complicated. It is possible that the base on the island of Matua will become another important figure in this endless game between the superpowers. The airfield will, of course, have to be completely rebuilt, because the Tu-22 is not a Zero, the requirements for the runway are completely different, a thicker layer of concrete is needed, and the technical equipment must be at the most modern level. In addition, the aviation infrastructure is far from everything, the object cannot exist without a port, and somehow it is necessary to carry out material supply. However, judging by the general situation in the region, these costs are justified. The security of the country depends on them.

Long haul

- Guys, pack your things, tomorrow, according to the plan - a flight to Matua, - they called us from the press service of the Eastern Military District.

We took this call without much enthusiasm - it was already the seventh day of waiting for favorable weather for the flight on Iturup Island. And hope to get on Mysterious Island melted with each lingering milky mist in the morning. How long non-flying weather will last - no one knew. And those who know "consoled", they say, you can sit here for a month. Even here, to Iturup, the road was not easy. Traveling by "airlines of the Ministry of Defense" from Moscow to Khabarovsk via Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Ulan-Ude and Chita - "the plane flies with all stops." Flight to the Sakhalin airfield "Sokol". From it - a dash to the Iturup "Petrel" ...

Up to this point, everything went military-style clearly and without delay. But in the Kuriles, nature intervened in our strict schedule. When the weather was with us, it was not on Matua, which is about three hours away by helicopter. When the sun appeared over Matua, it disappeared from us, covering Iturup with gloomy clouds. When it was good both there and there, the pilots did not have enough time for a successful flight - the ubiquitous cyclones could intercept the "turntable" on the way.

May this year desert island Matua suddenly acquired the status of a strategic point, a "zone of special attention." The Ministry of Defense sent a powerful expedition to him, with equipment, professional search engines, doctors, biologists ... Officially, there are two goals. The first is to understand how suitable the island is as one of the places for the possible deployment of parts of the Pacific Fleet. The second is a study of the legacy left by the previous owners. 70 years ago, Matua was also a strategic point - Japan. Between the lines, of course, one can also read the third goal of Russia - to designate its presence on the Pacific borders.

Before the trip, we read almost all the reports about the few post-war expeditions to this island. And, as you understand, on the way to Matua, we had enough time for analysis. There were many questions. What did the Japanese do on this small volcanic island, where two runways were equipped at once? Why did they surrender it to the Soviet troops without a fight? Where did all the weapons and equipment go?

Motogo, Mutovo, Matsuwa and Matua!

The island has four names from different eras, and, as it seemed to KP correspondents, the current one does not suit him either. For the Russian ear. To whom you can’t say: “I’m going to Matua,” everyone sighs enviously, instantly imagining the coral paradise of the atolls southern seas. We write these lines in a tent that is torn by the wind and giggle. On the street - an unthinkable combination for central Russia - wind of 13 meters per second and fog, visibility of twenty meters. Moreover, the wind should disperse the fog, but instead it pulls more and more waves of water aerosols.

The island with a strange, unsuitable name seemed to us nice and cozy yesterday. The pilot affably opened the cockpit door so that we could see how the majestic Sarychev volcano floats onto the helicopter, covered in smudges of sugar snow, like an Easter cake in glaze. The island turned out to be small - only 11 kilometers long and 6.5 wide. Under the stubby helicopter wings, a rocky beach flashed, on which a couple of sea lions frolicked, then zigzags of trenches in full profile, caponiers of coastal batteries and, finally, the gray concrete of a Japanese airfield take-off. At the edge of the field there was a "motor league" meeting us, purring with a diesel engine. A soldier was sitting on the turret without a machine gun. When he saw us, he shouted joyfully:

− Bald! Here! and took off his uniform cap. The sun reflected for a second on the shiny, glossy scalp of his head, like a flashing beacon at the entrance to a safe harbor. It was the expedition commander, Vice Admiral Andrey Ryabukhin.

The armored car roared, and we slowly rattled iron around the island. What seemed like lovely greenery from above, in reality turned out to be a crooked northern alder, low - in human height, and absolutely impassable for a pedestrian. One of the discoverers of Mutov Island, the Cossack centurion Ivan Cherny, called it “roots”. And, judging by his notes, the island did not strike him with anything and did not interest him.

There were no sources of fresh water on Matua - only streams with melt water, because of their insignificance, the fish did not come here to spawn. Mice and foxes - all animal world. The Ainu tribe eked out a miserable existence on the island, teetering on the brink of extinction, but in the late 30s, the Japanese military drew attention to Matsua. The island was not of interest to the imperial fleet - it had no bays, so they decided to turn Matsua into a fortress. Active construction work around the clock went on for about three years. Northern part Matsua, occupied by a volcano-height of 1485 meters, defended itself with the most difficult terrain. Everything else Japanese engineering services literally turned inside out.

- I was shown American aerial photographs of the 43rd year - Andrey Vladimirovich tells us. - The shooting was done in winter, there is a fairly high snow cover here - the alder hides almost to the tops. And I noticed that all the white snow is in black dots. These are pipes from stoves in dugouts, the holes have melted!

There was no commercial timber on the island, so Japanese engineers dug trenches and burrows, hollowed out terraces in the hills, cast the caps of pillboxes and buildings from concrete.

On Matua, you can turn off the road anywhere and immediately stumble upon a winding trench, which in ten meters will intersect with another trench, then dugout towns, caponiers, firing points will go - always double, in case one of the machine guns is suppressed by the attackers ... Such a volume fortification works shocked military historians of the 21st century. Behind the obsessed industriousness of the Japanese, they saw some kind of super-goal, super-task or secret.

The capitulation of the island without resistance, only let in the fog, which is already enough here. In the last days of August 45, the Matua garrison surrendered to the Soviet paratroopers without a fight. Why was the island, which did not have a key strategic importance, directly subordinated to the imperial headquarters in Hokkaido? It is not yet known, but the Japanese are silent. By the way, the commander of the Matua garrison died without leaving any memoirs, unlike his colleagues...

Two years after the war, the island survived the eruption of the Sarychev volcano. Even now it noticeably puffs with hydrogen sulfide haze, and the camp of our expedition was set up based on a possible lava eruption or tsunami.

In the middle of the 20th century, an air defense unit stood on Matua, then there was a frontier post - it was removed in 2001 and the island again became uninhabited for as long as 15 years. But the history, if not the mysterious, then the strange island of Matua, has not yet been written to the end. It is on these days that "blank spots" are filled with new data, and fantasies are refuted or given a logical explanation.

Two boring riddles

The whole expedition is divided into several groups. Geologists, for example, have already finished their work and are packing samples and samples into boxes. Explosions roar in the hills, machinery roars. We leave our backpacks at the camp and go down to the coast - there are several groups working there at once. At low tide, there is an opportunity to view the found remains of the Japanese port. Initially, it was believed that Matua was supplied with the help of landing "Daihatsu", which approached the beaches of the island and dropped cargo along the ramps. When they began to study the coastline seriously, it turned out that the Japanese had a full-fledged port here with mooring walls, to which a serpentine road descended from a high, sheer coast. The leader of the expedition tells us that the bridges on this road were built from a special "stone" tree - round logs were sawn off for a few hours - the saw did not catch the wood with its teeth. The coast is fortified with walls made of processed stones, but the Japanese simply blew up the piers themselves. They knew well how important the port was for the island, on which there is “no weather” for aviation for almost half the days of the year. We wander along the stones along the coast to where several dozen fighters bite into the fat coastal land. Using brute force, the expedition is trying to find answers to two important questions: how did the Matua garrison get fuel and water? The dominance of barrels on the island is a legacy of the Soviet period. There are also German barrels with the inscription "Wehrmacht".

On the basis of these barrels, some researchers built dizzying theories about the cooperation of the Third Reich and Japan, plunging deeper and deeper into violent fantasies - to the very centrifuges, which enriched uranium in the dungeons of the island of Matua. In fact, several millions of high-quality German barrels for fuel remained after the war - they were used in the national economy of the USSR everywhere until they served their time. The Japanese garrison was most likely supplied with fuel by pumping it from tankers. Pumping stations and reservoirs were blown up, but the pipeline network remained. There are also parts of the pumps. The second secret of Matua is hidden here - in Dvoinoy Bay. There are no sources of fresh water on the island - and for a garrison of many thousands, it needs a lot. Concrete reservoirs and a network of ceramic (and therefore eternal) pipes, valves, and pumps have been preserved near the coastline. On each unit - Japanese markings in hieroglyphs. But, as the Vice Admiral put it:

- We still do not understand exactly what flowed in and where, and where it flowed from.

It sounds prosaic and boring, but for the development of the island, water is more important than trophies and treasures hidden in the bowels of the Kruglyaya hill. The Japanese successfully solved this problem, but how?

Ghost of Unit 731

A medical laboratory based on ZIL-131 with a trailer stands on the outskirts of the camp - out of harm's way. It is in it that experts conduct research on water, soil and finds of search engines. Biologists confirm that there is a problem with water supply. And there is no solution yet.

“On the island, we found only three suitable sources,” Vadim Simakov, head of the sanitary and epidemiological group, told us. - Moreover, two have already been exhausted. The water is generally clean, but needs additional mineralization. Basically - flood, due to melted snow, precipitation. Even according to the system of the Japanese army, it accumulates in various bunkers. But the buildings are already dilapidated, the system is not fully functional, so the tanks are more like swamps. If we talk about the finds, then in test tubes, bottles, mostly solvents, alcohols were found, there were no biological agents. Information about this place was scarce, and unconfirmed information about the presence of bacteriological weapons was especially alarming. Given the fact that 70 years have passed, it could be assumed that only anthrax spores could survive here. We studied both mice, and air, and soil, in bunkers, next to them. Traces of anthrax, as well as other dangerous viruses, we did not find.

“The presence of some kind of chemical laboratories here could be judged from the words - prisoners of war, illiterate Japanese soldiers,” confirms Igor Volkov, a bacteriologist at the main center for sanitary and epidemiological surveillance of the Ministry of Defense. - There were prerequisites. Japan during the war actively worked with biological weapons, but on the territory of Manchuria. The famous Detachment 731, numbering about 4,000 employees, was engaged in testing it on Soviet and Chinese prisoners of war. The detachment had six branches. The main direction is the plague. It was explained simply - Europe was afraid of the plague. Although they used many pathogens in Manchuria, they did not achieve much success. They tested people with plague, and anthrax, and cholera, and even dysentery. But it's not just about breeding a combat strain. Means of delivery are needed, the pathogen must be preserved during the explosion. And the Japanese spent a lot of time on these researches. It was not enough for them to fully use it. By the way, the Americans intercepted the leader of Detachment 731, and he was still working in the USA for a long time. On Matua, according to legend, there was either a warehouse of this detachment, or some kind of small laboratory. But so far no traces of either have been found. There must be signs - test tubes, flasks, certain long tables, pieces of equipment, autoclaves that cannot be confused with anything. For example, "bacteriological loop".

The doctor shows us a wire - on the one hand a pen, on the other - a loop-ring. Shows with precise movements how, with the help of this primitive device, you can “infect” a dozen test tubes at once.

- Wire, usually made of platinum, could not rot in the ground. We have not found anything of the kind here. Biological munitions are also specific. They are small, no more than five liters. But the main thing is that they were made of clay and porcelain. This is also not.

However, a complete survey of the island is still far away. Almost in front of our eyes, an excavator and a bulldozer cut off the slope of the hill next to the field camp. Above, on satellite images, it looks perfectly round, which has already given rise to legends about its man-made origin. On the Internet, you can find a lot of "evidence" that 54 floors of secret communications are hidden inside the hill. But this is from the realm of folk myths. Although, a powerful power cable leads uphill, which means that there is still something inside. The bucket scoops up cubic meters of earth until a crevice is shown on the surface. It is immediately clear from the wooden spacers that the hole in the rock is the work of human hands. The entrance was blown up by the Japanese, through a narrow gap, a flashlight snatches out a long corridor carved into the mountain in human height. The first group of army scouts to go inside ... Although, "leave" is a big word. Rather, they crawl like snakes.

To be continued...

Recently, the mention of a small island Matua Kuril ridges has become frequent not only in Russian, but also in foreign media. So why is this "mysterious island" so famous?

"Matua" in translation from the Ainu language means "Little burning bays." This island is located in the middle part of the Kuril chain between the islands of Raikoke and Rasshua.

Recall that in early May, a scientific expedition departed for the most little-studied Kuril island of Matua, which included six (!!!) warships of the Pacific Fleet, on board of which more than two hundred people - scientists and specialists equipped with heavy equipment, underground search tools, various materials and equipment.

The expedition was not organized by social activists or semi-underground treasure seekers, which happened more than once, but for the first time jointly by the Russian Geographical Society (RGO) and the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation itself. We also recall that General of the Army Sergei Shoigu is not only the Minister of Defense Russian Federation, but plus the president of the Russian Geographical Society. Agree, this leads to certain thoughts.

“There are a lot of mysteries, a lot of interesting things, the island is mysterious,” the President of the Russian Geographical Society and the Minister of Defense said in parting words to the expedition participants, noting that there are many fortifications, mines, grottoes, runways, a road leading to the volcano on Matua ... He did not hide that the expedition - speleologists, researchers underwater worlds, military experts.

“And there are many different mysteries in the military part. To this day, no one can answer where the huge amount of equipment and ammunition that were prepared to repel the Soviet troops went. And where did two-thirds of the garrison that was on this island disappear, ”Sergey Kuzhugetovich recalled.

Such a degree of awareness of the highest official of the Russian military department indicates that the situation has been studied and the decision to reconnoiter has been made.

Yes, and the expedition is headed by the Deputy Commander of the Pacific Fleet (Pacific Fleet), Vice Admiral Andrey Ryabukhin. And this is a direct target designation for "reconnaissance in combat terrain."

The commander of the Eastern Military District (VVO), Colonel General Sergei Surovikin, completely opened the curtain of secrecy: “The Russian military is considering the possibility of basing the forces of the Pacific Fleet (Pacific Fleet) on the island of Matua in the Kuril ridge,” he said.

1. Matua Island is one of the geological and historical gems of the Kuril chain. The island is elongated meridionally in the form of an oval, convex to the east, slightly concave to the west. Length from northwest to southeast about 11 km, width 6.4 km, area 52 km2.

Most of the island is occupied by conical active volcano Fuyo (Sarychev Peak) 1485 m high, constantly smoking and at times ejecting lava flows flowing down from the crater along the northeastern slope.

The volcano got its name in honor of the honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy, Admiral G.A. Sarychev. This polar explorer was the first to most accurately establish the position of the island of Matua.

Towards the shore they take the form of hills and, descending more and more, pass into a flat sandy coast with two capes; the continuation of the latter are underwater reefs up to 1.8 km long.

The slopes of Mount Fuyo are dissected by hollows, but for the most part they are covered with stone placers, especially thick at the sole.

Approximately one third of the foot of the volcano is occupied by undersized shrubs. Their dwarf growth, no more than a meter, they obviously compensate for their extraordinary density. The thickets are so thick that you can't get through.

In the highlands, a strip of alpine meadows begins. And even higher - unstable slag and stones. At the top, hydrosolfators plentifully throw jets of water vapor into the air.

The crater, from which sulfurous gases hiss and roar, is filled to the brim with lava. On the southeastern side, its walls rise 40 m above its boiling interior. On the eastern side, they almost disappear, and in the west they are almost equal to the level of the volcanic funnel.

There is a version that on this side part of the crater was specially blown up by the Japanese so that during the eruption the lava would flow into the Sea of Okhotsk. Since 1760, at least a dozen volcanic eruptions have been known.

Thus, in 1946, volcanic bombs were thrown out by an explosive wave of terrifying force through the Dvoynaya Strait (1.6 km) onto Toporkovy Island. The ash from the eruption reached as far as Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky itself. Hot avalanches that year flowed into the bays, forming three new capes.

On the other side of the island, a giant tsunami wave that penetrated deep into the gentle coast of Ainu Bay brought and piled up huge tree trunks, washed away a layer of soil and opened the entrances to old half-flooded adits. Similar structures are pierced in the rocks throughout the island.

Most southern cape Matua Island is called Yurlov after the skipper, who was part of the Second Kamchatka Expedition and wintered on the island in 1756-1757. True, a typo crept into the maps, and now this place is often called Cape Orlov.

There are no completely closed bays on Matua. If you look at the island on maps or aerial photography, it may seem that there is no good shelter for a ship near the island at all.

In practice, it is convenient and relatively safe place There is. This is the strait in the southwestern part of the island, covered from the west by the small island of Ivaki (Toporkovy). It was here that the Japanese raid was located, the berths were located.

Approaches to the islands from the sea are safe everywhere up to 0.18 km from the coast. Anchorages - in two bays.

Ainu Bay (Ainu, Ainuwan) is located in the southwest of the island and serves as a refuge for a few ships in calm and easterly winds. Depth 14-25 m; sandy soil. Landing is convenient on the sandy shore near the mouth of the Khesupo River.

Yamato Bay (Yamoto). Located between the islands of Matsuwa and Iwaki. The best of all the bays of the ridge. It is divided into two parts by a bridge connecting the islands. You can go from one bay to another along a hollow near about. Iwaki, 9 m deep.

The soil in both parts of the bay is sandy. Depending on the winds, you can use the northern or southern parts of the bay

Despite the proximity of a very restless and formidable volcanic "neighbor", the Ainu from time immemorial equipped their dwellings on Matua, which were located on the banks of the only fresh stream. The last Ainu families were resettled by the Japanese in Shikotan at the beginning of the 20th century.

After the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, according to the Treaty of Portsum, the Kuril Islands and half of Sakhalin were ceded to Japan. The Japanese have long laid eyes on the island of Matua because of its successful middle - geographical location, not a foggy climate and the convenience of anchoring ships of various types.

They equipped fishing camps, a fur farm and a marine reserve on Matua. Then a guard post, a weather station, a Shinto shrine were built here.

Fortification surprises, military secrets and political mysteries of the island of Matua

During the years of the Great Patriotic War The Japanese turned Matua into a naval fortress - a miracle of fortification art.

The entire coast of the island along the perimeter was cordoned off by a dense ring of pillboxes made of stone or hollowed out in the rock. They were made so soundly that members of amateur expeditions, who have been studying the island for many years, claim that today the pillboxes could be used for their intended purpose.

Moreover, their device was not limited only to preparing a point for firing. Each such position had an extensive network of underground passages, also carved into the rock.

In one of the coastal cliffs, numerous Chinese and Korean prisoners of war cut down a huge cave where a submarine could easily hide. Nearby was the underground residence of the garrison command, disguised in one of the surrounding hills. Its walls were carefully lined with stone, nearby there is a pool and an underground bathhouse.

The island's airfield was built even more carefully.

It is located so well and made so technically competently that aircraft could take off and land in wind of any strength and direction along three (!!!) runways (runways) up to 85 meters wide and up to 1850 m long.

Japanese engineers also provided for an "anti-icing" design. Pipes were laid under the concrete pavement, into which hot water from thermal springs flowed. So icing runway Japanese pilots were not threatened, and planes could take off and land both in winter and in summer.

Most of the fortification works are carefully disguised and still are. Here is the private opinion of enthusiastic researcher Yevgeny Vereshchaga: “There is an unusual hill on Matua, more than 120 meters high and 500 meters in diameter. Nature does not like such regular shapes. This involuntarily suggests that all this whopper was made by human hands.

This is an artificial hill that served as a camouflaged aircraft hangar. A very wide man-made depression, overgrown with trees and shrubs, clearly stands out on its slope. Probably, here was the gate to the hangar, which was first blown up, and then covered with ash from an erupting volcano.

But even these conspicuous or disguised grandiose structures are only the external, visible part of the Japanese secret underground fortress. More than 70 years have passed since the end of World War II, but no one has managed to unravel the secrets of the dungeons.

The Japanese, referring to the secrecy of this information, stubbornly did not respond to requests from first Soviet and then Russian researchers of the island of Matua.

According to its fortification data, the naval Matua fortress theoretically and practically impregnable. Take the word of the author - a fortification officer by military education.

However, on August 26, 1945, 3,795 Japanese soldiers and officers "valiantly" surrendered to 40 Soviet border guards.

But the trophies amounted to only 2127 rifles, 81 light machine guns, 464 heavy machine guns and 98 grenade launchers, which is clearly "not a lot". In addition, among the listed trophies taken on Matua, there were no artillery pieces, anti-aircraft guns and tanks.

Why? Where are the food, stocks of uniforms and means of communication of the garrison. And where did about 10,000 Chinese and Korean prisoners of war disappear to?

In fact, there are many questions in the history of the landing of Soviet troops on Matua. One of the participants in amateur expeditions made a seemingly incredible assumption: "Perhaps the Japanese threw all their ammunition and prisoners into the mouth of the volcano, and then blew it up, causing a powerful eruption."

This version, at first glance, sounds like a fantasy. But a road has been laid up the cone of the volcano, where traces of caterpillar vehicles can be discerned even decades later. One can only guess what the Japanese carried along it.

And is there more. At the Potsdam Conference in 1945, US President Harry Truman, out of nowhere, turned to Stalin with an unexpected request to provide the United States with only one of the islands in the center of the Kuriles, which should be occupied by Soviet troops - Matua.

“For friends, nothing is a pity!” - answered the generallisimo. But as an "allaverda" he asked for one of the Aleutian Islands.

With what small island Matua so attracted the President of America? The answer to this, perhaps, should be sought in the secrets of the development and mastery of nuclear weapons by the United States, the USSR, Germany and Japan. Yes, and Japan.

At dawn on August 12, 1945, three days before Japan announced its surrender, a deafening explosion sounded in the Sea of Japan, not far from the Korean Peninsula. A fireball with a diameter of about 1000 meters rose into the sky. It was followed by a giant mushroom cloud.

According to the American expert Charles Stone, Japan's first and last atomic bomb was detonated here, and the explosion power was about the same as that of the American bombs detonated a few days earlier over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In his article, McNally writes that American intelligence had reliable data on the development of nuclear weapons by the Japanese on one of the islands of the Kuril chain (Matua?) and on a large Japanese nuclear center in the Korean city of Hynam, but kept information about these objects secret from the USSR.

Moreover, on the morning of August 14, 1945, American aircraft brought to their airfields air samples taken over the Sea of Japan near the east coast of the Korean Peninsula. The processing of the obtained samples gave stunning results. She testified that in the aforementioned area Sea of Japan on the night of August 12-13, an unknown nuclear device exploded!

If we assume that in underground city on the island-fortress of Matua, the development of the most terrible weapon of the 20th century, nuclear, was really going on, this gives an answer to many questions that baffle the organizers of amateur research expeditions.

Maybe the interest of the American president in Matua, and the volcano that woke up at the wrong time, and the refusal of the Japanese to provide materials are not a random chain of events? And maybe, in the secret, not yet found dungeons of the island-fortress, not only rusty and useless military equipment is hidden, but secret laboratories that developed secret weapons that were never used during the war?

Say - fiction. Then I ask you to pay attention to the latest facts. The aforementioned expedition had no time to set off for the Great Kuril Ridge, when the Prime Minister of Japan suddenly hurried to set off ...

Not to Washington at all, but to Sochi, to Russian President Vladimir Putin, ignoring the insistent recommendations of his "big brother" - the President of the United States - to refrain from such a step. The details of this high meeting remained "a mystery with seven seals." I do not think that this is a coincidence of facts and events. Other than that, time will tell.

Better late than never

The answer to the surprises, mysteries and mysteries of the island of Matua still waited for their researchers. Ships of the Pacific Fleet are taking part in today's expedition - the large landing ship "Admiral Nevelskoy" and the killer ship KIL-168.

On board are representatives of the Ministry of Defense, the Eastern Military District and the Pacific Fleet, as well as the Russian Geographical Society, Moscow experts in the field of soil science, geomorphology, paleogeography and other sciences.

“The Japanese created an impressive number of antiamphibious defense facilities on Matua, erected numerous long-term firing points,” said Igor Samarin, one of the expedition members. - Our task is to find them, describe them, put them on a map. I have been to Matua twice already, doing this work. But there are still so many unexplored objects, not enough for one such expedition.

In addition to scientific tasks, the military leadership is considering the possibility of promising deployment of the Pacific Fleet forces there. In the meantime, all the infrastructure necessary to ensure the life of the expedition members has been deployed on the island.

A field camp has already been equipped by the military forces of the Air Defense Forces on Matua, water and electricity supplies have been organized, a communications center and a logistics center have been created. One of the tasks that was announced was the assessment of the state of the local airfield.

The expedition settles on about. Matua, May 2016...

The headquarters of the Eastern Military District (VVO) note that the runways of the airfield are well preserved. “Their favorable location, taking into account the wind rose and the local climate in those years, ensured the landing and take-off of aircraft at any time,” the press service of the BVO informed.

"In time, the airfield on the island of Matua in the Kuril chain will become a full-fledged aviation base of the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS)," said General of the Army Pyotr Deinekin, ex-commander of the Russian Air Force.

P. Deinekin noted that one of the important criteria for assessing the air power of the state is the ground infrastructure. “In military affairs, there is such a thing as operational basing density. When a large number of aviation equipment is located at one airfield, it can be put out of action in one missile strike or an enemy air raid. And in order not to repeat the air pogrom of 1941, our airfield network is expanding.

The scientific and survey expedition of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation and the Russian Geographical Society (RGO) has begun engineering work to restore the airfield on the island of Matua in the center of the Kuril ridge, the Russian Defense Ministry reports.

The runway (RWY) was surveyed, mobile airfield complexes and equipment for flight support were prepared for operation, the airfield drainage system was cleared, and the landing site for helicopters of any type was completed.

The airfield has three runways with a length of more than 1200 m and a width of 85 m with concrete and asphalt pavement.

“As for the airfield on Matua, it is currently too small to support heavy aircraft flights. But in the future, everything will be done to turn this airfield into an aviation base,” P. Deinekin said.

The Headquarters of the Pacific Fleet (Pacific Fleet) informs that the expedition of the Ministry of Defense and the Russian Geographical Society has begun engineering work on the island of Matua to restore the mooring facilities of the island of Matua, and is also exploring fortifications from the Second World War.

The primary task is to prepare the coastal section of the island in Dvoynaya Bay for the approach of a large landing ship"Admiral Nevelskoy" to the shore using the "point-blank" method for carrying out full-fledged loading and unloading operations.

In addition, experts have already begun to examine the previously discovered underground fortifications.

There is also an active search for entry points to underground utilities and transitions between structures.

Conclusion

Naturally, this is only part of the information collected by the expedition that is open to the public.

Even after more than 70 years since the liberation of Matua, more questions arise on the island than there are answers to them.

Boris Skupov

"Matua" in translation from the Ainu language means "Little burning bays." This island is located in the middle part of the Kuril chain between the islands of Raikoke and Rasshua. During the Second World War, allied aviation, bombing everything that belonged to Japan in the Pacific, bypassed Matua (Jap. Matsua). And when the war ended, American President Truman turned to Stalin with an unexpected request to provide the United States with only one of the islands in the center of the Kuriles occupied by Soviet troops. Why did the small island of Matua attract the President of America so much?

Matua is a small island located in the very center of the Kuril chain. During the Great Patriotic War, the Japanese turned it into an impregnable fortress, planning to use it as a springboard in case of war with the USSR. The war really began, but in 1945, 3811 Japanese soldiers and officers "valiantly" surrendered to 40 Soviet border guards.

The island, which went to the USSR, was pitted up and down with ditches, trenches and artificial caves. Numerous pillboxes and hangars were built to last. The entire coast of Matua along the perimeter was cordoned off by a dense ring of pillboxes made of stone or hollowed out in the rock.
They were made so soundly that members of amateur expeditions, who have been studying the island for many years, claim that today the pillboxes could be used for their intended purpose. Moreover, their device was not limited only to preparing a point for firing. Each such position had an extensive network of underground passages, also carved into the rock.

The island's airfield was built even more carefully. It is located so well and made so technically competently that the planes could take off and land in the wind of any strength and direction. Japanese engineers also provided for an "anti-snow" design. Pipes were laid under the concrete pavement, into which hot water from thermal springs flowed. So the icing of the runway did not threaten the Japanese pilots, and the planes could take off and land both in winter and in summer.

In one of the coastal cliffs, the industrious Japanese cut down a huge cave, where a submarine could easily hide. Nearby was the underground residence of the garrison command, disguised in one of the surrounding hills. Its walls were carefully lined with stone, nearby there is a pool and an underground bathhouse.

One of the secrets of the island is the disappearance of all military equipment without a trace.
Despite extensive searches since 1945, nothing has been found on the island. Moreover, there is an amazing, downright mystical pattern: people who tried to search, died in fires, which often happened on the island, fell into snow avalanches. In the late 1990s, as a result of an accident, the deputy head of the frontier post, who led these searches, died. And when they tried to restore the destroyed communications, a volcano suddenly woke up, located in the center of the island. The eruption occurred with such force that huge blocks flying out of the vent knocked down birds that soared hundreds of meters from the crater!

Here is an opinion about unsolved mysteries explorer-enthusiast Yevgeny Vereshchaga: “There is an unusual hill on Matua more than 120 meters high and 500 meters in diameter. Nature does not like such regular shapes. A very wide man-made depression, overgrown with trees and shrubs, clearly stands out on its slope, probably the gate to the hangar was located here, which were first blown up and then covered with ash from an erupting volcano.

By the way, about the volcano. There were many questions about where the military equipment disappeared, which, judging by the underground structures, was literally stuffed with the island-fortress. One of the participants in amateur expeditions made a seemingly incredible assumption: “Perhaps the Japanese threw all their ammunition into the mouth of the volcano, and then blew it up, causing a powerful eruption. This version, at first glance, sounds like science fiction. But up the cone volcano, a road was laid where, even decades later, traces of caterpillar vehicles can be discerned. One can only guess what the Japanese drove along it. "

But all these conspicuous grandiose structures are only the external, visible part of the Japanese secret underground fortress. More than half a century has passed since the end of World War II, but no one has managed to unravel the secrets of the dungeons.

The Japanese, referring to the secrecy of this information, stubbornly did not respond to requests from first Soviet and then Russian researchers of the island of Matua. It was also not possible to understand the strange interest in the island of the American president.

What does the Kuril Island hide in its depths? But what if the death of the military researchers of the island, and the volcano that woke up at the wrong time, and the interest of the American president in Matua, and the refusal of the Japanese to provide materials are not a random chain of events? Perhaps, in the secret, not yet found dungeons of the island-fortress, there is not rusted and no one needs military equipment today, but secret laboratories that developed secret weapons that were never used during the war?

At dawn on August 12, 1945, three days before Japan announced its surrender, a deafening explosion sounded in the Sea of Japan, not far from the Korean Peninsula. A fireball with a diameter of about 1000 meters rose into the sky. It was followed by a giant mushroom cloud. According to the American expert Charles Stone, Japan's first and last atomic bomb was detonated here, and the explosion power was about the same as that of the American bombs detonated a few days earlier over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

C. Stone's statement that during the Second World War, Japan was working on the creation of an atomic bomb and achieved success, was met with great doubt by many US scientists. The military historian John Dower was more cautious about this information. According to this famous scientist, it is impossible to completely exclude the possibility that at dawn on August 12, 1945, Japan's first and last atomic bomb was detonated in the Sea of Japan off the coast of Korea. Evidence of this can serve as a huge secret military Khinnam complex, located on the territory of modern North Korea. It was powerful enough and equipped with everything necessary for the production of an atomic bomb.

The plausibility of Ch. Stone's unexpected hypothesis is confirmed by the research of the former American intelligence officer Theodore McNally. At the end of World War II, he served in the analytical intelligence headquarters of the commander of the Allied forces in the Pacific, General MacArthur. In his article, McNally writes that American intelligence had reliable data on a large Japanese nuclear center in the Korean city of Heungnam, but kept information about this facility secret from the USSR. Moreover, on the morning of August 14, 1945, American aircraft brought to their airfields air samples taken over the Sea of Japan near the east coast of the Korean Peninsula. The processing of the obtained samples gave stunning results. She showed that in the aforementioned area of the Sea of Japan on the night of August 12-13, an unknown nuclear device exploded!

If we assume that the development of the most terrible weapon of the 20th century, nuclear, was really going on in the underground city on the island-fortress, then this gives an answer to many questions that baffle the organizers of amateur research expeditions.

Why did President Truman, addressing Stalin, ask to transfer the island of Matua to the USA?

Even before the end of World War II, the Americans began to prepare for an armed clash with the USSR. After the declassification of materials about the Second World War, a folder was found in the British archives with the inscription Operation Unthinkable, for more details -.
Indeed, no one could think of such an operation! The date on the document is May 22, 1945. Consequently, the development of the operation was started even before the end of the war. The plan was described in the most detailed way ... a massive blow by the Anglo-American troops against the Soviet troops!

The main trump card in a military clash could be nuclear weapons, available only to the United States. Soviet tank divisions that went through the Second World War were located in the center of Europe. If Stalin had received, in addition to his superiority in ground forces, nuclear weapons created by Japanese scientists, then in the event of a military clash, the outcome of the war would have been a foregone conclusion, and Europe would have become completely socialist.

Why do the Japanese, referring to the secrecy of information, stubbornly refuse to respond to requests from first Soviet and then Russian researchers of the island of Matua?

And how should they act? If an underground secret center were discovered on the island of Matua, in which nuclear weapons were developed, and not only developed, but also the technology for their manufacture was brought to practical implementation, this would lead to a reassessment of the events of World War II.

3,795 Japanese soldiers and officers surrendered on the island. Trophies amounted to 2127 rifles, 81 light machine guns, 464 heavy machine guns and 98 grenade launchers. Strange, but among the listed trophies taken on Matua, there were no artillery pieces. Why? In general, there are many questions in the history of the landing of our paratroopers on Matua.

The Japanese garrison on the island of Matua, after the announcement of the surrender of Japan, had plenty of time to resolve all issues either with the destruction of all military equipment there, or very professionally hide it just in case. The only thing the Japanese could do was to drown the equipment and secret equipment in the sea, or hide it underground, blowing up the paths to the underground warehouses.
Until now, on the island there are disguised components and assemblies of military equipment, strange numbered rods with threads, the purpose of which can only be guessed at. Exploring the island, you can find many things and objects belonging to Japanese soldiers.

In the late 1970s, three border guards disappeared here. The sergeant and two enlisted men, out of curiosity, descended into the Japanese installations, and no one else saw them. Then they figured out that they were descending into one of the ventilation shafts of the round hill. Then an order was issued strictly forbidding any climbing on Japanese workings. By the way, because of this ban, many border guards who were on urgent duty on the islands did not leave the location of the unit for their entire service.

The clue to the island of Matua is waiting for its researchers...

June 2016. On the Kuril island of Matua, a former Japanese airfield from the Second World War is being restored. The territory is being cleared with the help of construction equipment, which the expedition of the Ministry of Defense brought specially for reconstruction from the mainland.

During World War II - a Japanese military base, immediately after - an almost deserted border zone. This is one of the islands of the Kuril ridge - Matua, where in 2016 Russia organized a major expedition. Unique footage of the journey - in Alexander Lukyanov's film "Inhabited Island".

Note:

the Japanese also developed bacteriological weapons ... and from the airfield of Matau Island to the United States there is a convenient way ...

"Once, a terrible factory started working on the hills of Manchuria. Thousands of living people became its "raw materials", and "products" could destroy all of humanity in a few months..."See for more details.

"Squad 731": death conveyor -

Judging by the fact that the United States and England did not start the Third World War against the USSR in the second half of the 40s, ours did manage to intercept some of the archives and "products" of the Japanese secret "Detachment 731" ... and add them to their developments, and in 1949, the USSR had already acquired its own atomic bomb ... and the aircraft designer Tupolev had already copied and improved the American B-29 strategic bomber (we produced it like the Tu-4 / bomb load up to 8000 kg, range 6200 km / - http:// www.tupolev.ru/68_(tu-4)) - before that, the USSR had obsolete TB-7s with a range of only 2000 km. In addition, Stalin held back in the rear for the time being, "for every fireman" - more than 2000 tactical fighter-bombers "King Cobra" ( Bell P-63 Kingcobradelivered under Lend-Lease from the USA