Industry
Construction through the lens
Photographers document the dam and its builders: a work in progress, not yet a monument to an era.
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1960s
A river becomes power
Selected events and details from published sources. A curated selection, rather than an exhaustive chronicle.
Origins
The station becomes Gidrostroitel
After its station building is constructed, Osinovka station is renamed Gidrostroitel. Relocated Zayarsk households form a residential area across the railway.
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The last residents leave old Bratsk
The chronicle records the completion of old Bratsk’s evacuation: homes, families and institutions move out of the future reservoir basin.
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The Bratsk Sea’s commemorative birthday
This date becomes the reservoir’s commemorative birthday. Filling was a process, not the instantaneous creation of a full reservoir.
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Industry
The Angara generates power
The first generator delivers electricity. Filling the reservoir transforms the Angara landscape and the lives of riverside communities.
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The first television tests
Bratsk television centre makes its first test transmissions, creating another connection between the scattered districts.
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The first large-panel housewarming
The city’s first large-panel apartment building is occupied. Panel construction becomes one way to replace temporary accommodation with permanent microdistricts.
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Names for the new centre’s streets
The new central residential district gains familiar street names: Mira, Podbelskogo, Komsomolskaya, Yuzhnaya and Kirova. These belong to the new city, not the flooded village.
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A single control room
The station’s central control room enters service. Completing the project means creating an operating control system as well as a concrete dam.
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Timber becomes an industrial system
The Bratsk timber complex takes shape, linking timber processing with pulp and paper production. Its separate commissioning stages cannot be reduced to one founding date.
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Trains cross the dam
Freight and passenger trains cross the crest, making the dam part of the transport connection between the banks.
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Road traffic between the banks
Road traffic opens across the dam, providing an important everyday connection between the city’s separated parts.
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The first aluminium
The Bratsk aluminium plant produces its first aluminium. River power becomes metal.
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The eighteenth unit
The final generating unit comes under load. Permanent commissioning of the complete complex follows in 1967.
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The station is commissioned
The Bratsk hydroelectric complex enters permanent operation, then the world’s largest hydroelectric station.
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The city photographs itself
The Bratsk photography club holds its first exhibition at Lesokhimik Palace of Culture, showing over eighty works.
Culture
The puppet theatre’s first performance
The puppet theatre opens with Merry Little Bears. Its distinct history begins well before the later drama theatre.
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