Bratsk Hydroelectric Power Station

The Bratsk Hydroelectric Power Station (also referred to as 50 years of Great October) is a concrete gravity dam on the Angara River and adjacent hydroelectric power station. It is the second level of the Angara River hydroelectric station cascade in Irkutsk Oblast, Russia. From its full commissioning in 1967, the station was the world’s single biggest power producer until Canada's Churchill Falls was opened in 1971. Annually the station produces 22.6 TWh. Currently, the Bratsk Power Station operates 18 hydro-turbines, each with capacity of 250 MW, produced by the Leningrad Metal Works ("LMZ", Russian: ЛМЗ, Russian: Ленинградский Металлический завод) in the 1960s.

Design and specifications

Dam

Components:

On the top of the dam are the track of the Taishet-Lena railway line and a vehicle road.

Bratsk

Bratsk (Russian: Братск; IPA: [bratsk]) is a city in Irkutsk Oblast, Russia, located on the Angara River near the vast Bratsk Reservoir. Population: 246,319 (2010 Census); 259,335 (2002 Census); 255,705 (1989 Census).

Etymology

Although the name sounds like the Russian word for "brother" ("брат", brat), it actually comes from 'bratskiye lyudi', an old name for the Buryats.

History

The first Europeans in the area arrived in 1623, intending to collect taxes from the local Buryat population. Permanent settlement began with the construction of an ostrog (fortress) in 1631 at the junction of the Oka and Angara rivers. Several wooden towers from the 17th-century fort are now exhibited in Kolomenskoye Estate of Moscow.

During World War II, there was an increase in industrial activity in Siberia, as Soviet industry was moved to the lands east of the Ural Mountains. After the war's end, development slowed as resources were required in the rebuilding of European Russia.

In 1947, the Gulag Angara prison labor camp was constructed near Bratsk, with capacity for up to 44,000 prisoners for projects such as the construction of the railway from Tayshet to Ust-Kut via Bratsk (now the western section of the Baikal-Amur Mainline).