Domes on the Tomnatyk: Once upon a time UFOs were chased and Matias Rust was tracked from here, now tourists and cows live here

At the very edge of Ukraine, a couple of kilometers from the border with Romania, on the second highest mountain of the Bukovynian Carpathians, Tomnatyk – a station that was the eyes of the Soviet Union in all directions ceased to exist.

In the 1960s, at the peak of the Cold War with the western bourgeois world, the USSR built a military station, which was supposed to provide a radio location of a huge area – from the Turkish coast to the Baltic Sea. Next to the village of Sarata, which is located deep in the Carpathians, next to Romania, on the Mount Tomnatyk, 1565 meters high, five white and huge domes appeared. They hid massive and powerful antennas.

At “Pamir”, they were tracing everything that was moving in the sky. They say that the flight of the German Matias Rust was following from here in 1987 until he landed on Red Square in Moscow. He was seen, but no orders “from above” were given.

There are many talks about the UFO here. Lights in the night sky were seen by Vitaliy Novikov, a soldier who served here in 1989-90. He says it was as if a large spotlight was flying overhead, even the windows were visible. But the system did not see anything. That’s how the UFO flew over Tomnatyk.

In total, there should have always been present 120 military personnel. But, as former soldier Novikov says, there were only 60 people on the spot, there was always a shortage of people.

And they didn’t get here voluntarily. Those were mostly guilty ones, said Novikov.

The Soviet Union collapsed, Ukraine became independent. At the same time, it received a huge military heritage from the “red empire”,  which it couldn’t handle. “Pamir” station was closed, the equipment was taken out. Only the domes and one huge antenna “P-14 Lena” remained. And half-destroyed administrative buildings.

Today, this domes, hide cows, sheep and rare tourists from the rain. The local authorities are trying to attract attention to the mountain and “Pamir”, but because of the lack of a normal road and transport route, their attempts look a little futile.

By the way, at the “Domes” a video for the song “1944” by the winner of Eurovision Jamala, was filmed. Furthermore, from 2017 in honor of the Independence Day, the Chernivtsi Regional State Administration initiated an ethnic “Festival on the Mount Tomnatyk”. Although it is set in the best of post-Soviet traditions, it still attracts the attention of locals.

Text and photo by Maxym Kozmenko