I'm finally back posting something!
This time we visited a very large complex with a mysteriuos story and even if it has been completely vandalized, you can still find some very cool rooms or objects...
This is a former nuclear research laboratory, which focused on studying new technologies regarding nuclear energy and nuclear physics. For example, a new way to synthesize heavy water was developed here, they also used to measure the fission cross point of uranium 235 (which was a top secret info at that time), they even had a particle accelerator! This facility had been linked to nuclear power in Italy for many decades, in fact a model of a nuclear reactor for an actual power plant was tested here.
As I said earlier this place is enormous, there are more than 20 buildings and many tunnels, but the place is very vandalized. My main goal was to find the nuclear material storage area. But we couldn't find it! It actually took us 5 hours, and we were on the verge of surrender. But at that moment a homless person showed up and asked us what we were doing, yes it's the same situation everyone here is familiar with. But then I asked him if he knew where we could find the storage area. And he not only knew the exact location, but he offered to guide us throught this place. He told many things about this research center, but many of them were... "strange".
Let me say one thing: this man didn't even look like a homeless person: you could have thought he was some random dude who sneaked in this place for some reason. And most importantly, this man did not seem crazy or a psycho. He was very calm and he used some technical terms in his explanations... So, I cannot ensure you that what he told us was true or not. But nevertheless it was very interesting.
He studied this subject in the past and he knew what kind of experiments were conducted here. According to what he told us this place closed down suddenly in 2001 because of some kind of "radioactive leakage". Many underground tunnel were closed and the archive was burned to destroy all the secret papers (I actually found a very big archive completely burned). He also told us that some areas of this place are radioactive still today: not incredibly dangerous but still radioactive. And some parts are also polluted with heavy metals: he told us that if you burn some branches the flames will be green.
After explaining all of this he showed us a very small and hidden room where there were 4 holes on the floor: here there used to be some kind of barrels of radioactive waste for some kind of test. He explained us that even if they removed 4 barrels, there are still 2 of them that are still there. Here are a few pics I took with my phone: 1 , 2. Sorry for the low quality but our guide told us not to stay for too long there.
He then showed us the radioactive material storage area. It was hidden in the basement of a small shed and our guide pointed us some kind of nozzles: they should have "shot" water in case of some kind of emergency.
And before leaving us, this homeless man showed us the coolest thing: even if the archive was destroyed, he told us that he had saved a few documents and kept them safe. He showed us his "treasure": there were pictures of nuclear power plants all over the world (even those under construction), microscope images, test results of various kind, there were pics of the "crash tests" nuclear falsks are subjected to. You can see what I'm referring to >>here<<. In this complex you can even find a 1:2 scale model of one of these flasks. Here are some other pics I took with my phone: 1, 2, 3.
This man kept asking me if I wanted those pictures because "they made him get in trouble" and because "in case something happens to him, they would be in safe hands".
Now, here are some photos of this very unique place: https://flic.kr/s/aHsmFrp8nP
This was probably some kind of lab. The color here was very odd: all the other rooms in the building were white.
A nice corridor where scientists used to walk.
I think that this room is called cleanroom: it's a room where the air is extremely poor of particles; in this kind of cleanroom the external light is filtered aswell throught special orange windows.
Probably the particle accelerator was here: on the left you can see a sign saying "beam emergency switch".
We almost fell in this giant artificial pool. It was 30 meters long and 5 meters deep. Also, I have no idea about what was its purpose.
External view of only one small part of the complex:
The burned archive:
One of the many underground tunnels:
And finally, the nuclear material storage area. Until 2017 there was a "nuclear danger" sign but our guide told us that he had sold it.
And that was it! Thank you very much for reading all this.
This time we visited a very large complex with a mysteriuos story and even if it has been completely vandalized, you can still find some very cool rooms or objects...
This is a former nuclear research laboratory, which focused on studying new technologies regarding nuclear energy and nuclear physics. For example, a new way to synthesize heavy water was developed here, they also used to measure the fission cross point of uranium 235 (which was a top secret info at that time), they even had a particle accelerator! This facility had been linked to nuclear power in Italy for many decades, in fact a model of a nuclear reactor for an actual power plant was tested here.
As I said earlier this place is enormous, there are more than 20 buildings and many tunnels, but the place is very vandalized. My main goal was to find the nuclear material storage area. But we couldn't find it! It actually took us 5 hours, and we were on the verge of surrender. But at that moment a homless person showed up and asked us what we were doing, yes it's the same situation everyone here is familiar with. But then I asked him if he knew where we could find the storage area. And he not only knew the exact location, but he offered to guide us throught this place. He told many things about this research center, but many of them were... "strange".
Let me say one thing: this man didn't even look like a homeless person: you could have thought he was some random dude who sneaked in this place for some reason. And most importantly, this man did not seem crazy or a psycho. He was very calm and he used some technical terms in his explanations... So, I cannot ensure you that what he told us was true or not. But nevertheless it was very interesting.
He studied this subject in the past and he knew what kind of experiments were conducted here. According to what he told us this place closed down suddenly in 2001 because of some kind of "radioactive leakage". Many underground tunnel were closed and the archive was burned to destroy all the secret papers (I actually found a very big archive completely burned). He also told us that some areas of this place are radioactive still today: not incredibly dangerous but still radioactive. And some parts are also polluted with heavy metals: he told us that if you burn some branches the flames will be green.
After explaining all of this he showed us a very small and hidden room where there were 4 holes on the floor: here there used to be some kind of barrels of radioactive waste for some kind of test. He explained us that even if they removed 4 barrels, there are still 2 of them that are still there. Here are a few pics I took with my phone: 1 , 2. Sorry for the low quality but our guide told us not to stay for too long there.
He then showed us the radioactive material storage area. It was hidden in the basement of a small shed and our guide pointed us some kind of nozzles: they should have "shot" water in case of some kind of emergency.
And before leaving us, this homeless man showed us the coolest thing: even if the archive was destroyed, he told us that he had saved a few documents and kept them safe. He showed us his "treasure": there were pictures of nuclear power plants all over the world (even those under construction), microscope images, test results of various kind, there were pics of the "crash tests" nuclear falsks are subjected to. You can see what I'm referring to >>here<<. In this complex you can even find a 1:2 scale model of one of these flasks. Here are some other pics I took with my phone: 1, 2, 3.
This man kept asking me if I wanted those pictures because "they made him get in trouble" and because "in case something happens to him, they would be in safe hands".
Now, here are some photos of this very unique place: https://flic.kr/s/aHsmFrp8nP
This was probably some kind of lab. The color here was very odd: all the other rooms in the building were white.
A nice corridor where scientists used to walk.
I think that this room is called cleanroom: it's a room where the air is extremely poor of particles; in this kind of cleanroom the external light is filtered aswell throught special orange windows.
Probably the particle accelerator was here: on the left you can see a sign saying "beam emergency switch".
We almost fell in this giant artificial pool. It was 30 meters long and 5 meters deep. Also, I have no idea about what was its purpose.
External view of only one small part of the complex:
The burned archive:
One of the many underground tunnels:
And finally, the nuclear material storage area. Until 2017 there was a "nuclear danger" sign but our guide told us that he had sold it.
And that was it! Thank you very much for reading all this.
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