Project Ichthyander sent people to the sea to live under the Soviet Union

The world's first experiments on human underwater life were conducted in the waters of Crimea in the former Soviet Union .

'First day underwater. Right in front of us is a rock covered with bushes. It is full of life. Mitka the crab is hiding in a hole in the rock. Sometimes he comes out of his hiding place, ostentatiously crawls onto the rock, always chewing something while waiting. Night falls. Lightning flashes from another window. They are luminous microorganisms ,' wrote diver Alexander Haes - the first inhabitant of the Soviet underwater house - in his diary in August 1966.

Some images from the first test. (Photo: RBTH).

In the 1960s, the Soviet Union was eager to explore not only outer space but also the deep ocean. Divers from the Donetsk region were pioneers in living underwater . They were inspired by the successful experiments of the famous French explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau. In 1962, he lowered the world's first underwater house, 'Conshelf I', to the bottom of the sea. A year later, he built an entire village under the Red Sea.

Building houses from scrap

While in the West, the construction and testing of underwater houses was carried out by professionals, in the Soviet Union, the first attempts were made by a team of amateurs. These were members of the diving club 'Ichthyander' , named after a character in the novel 'The Amphibian Man' by Soviet science fiction author Alexander Belyaev.

They began assembling the underwater home in the fall of 1965 from scrap metal and old equipment.

Ichthyander 66 underwater house. (Photo: RBTH)

The Soviet Union's first underwater home resembled a small hangar with a dome-shaped roof. It was six square meters, enough room for two people. Inside, there was a bunk bed, a table with a telephone, monitoring equipment, medical equipment, and a toilet. Four windows provided a view outside. The ventilation system was designed so that scuba divers could smoke cigarettes from inside.

According to the plan, electricity, fresh water and air would be pumped in from shore through pipes and cables. A daily ration of 5,000 calories would be brought in by other divers.

On August 5, 1966, the specially designed house was brought to Cape Tarkhankut in Crimea. On the cape, the project team set up tents for 100 people. Engineers and rescue workers were stationed on shore, ensuring the experiment was safe. Doctors measured the divers' breathing, blood circulation, metabolism, and mental reactions. Meanwhile, newsreel crews recorded the historic moment. In total, three pioneer divers lived underwater.

Requires high precision

The first attempt to lower the house to a depth of 11 meters (36 feet) below the sea surface with the help of five half-ton concrete blocks was made on August 19. However, a three-day storm that swept the bay area ruined the plan. The second attempt on August 23 was successful.

The president of the diving club "Ichthyander", surgeon Alexander Haes became the first resident of the underwater house. He was escorted into the deep sea by his colleague Zhora Tunin. On the first day Mr. Haes was alone.

'The house shook all night. Several times I woke up in terror. I lost my sense of space; sometimes it seemed that the cable was about to snap and I had to rush to find an escape route, but where was it, from which side? How could I find the rock where the emergency diving equipment was hidden? Each time, I anxiously called the base, but a confident voice always answered: "Sasha, everything is absolutely fine". Now there was no doubt. Our experiment was a success,' Alexander Haes recalled in his diary.

At 7:30 a.m. on August 24, Mr. Haes was examined by doctors and had his health indicators checked. At 8:30 a.m., a diver brought him breakfast. That evening, engineer Dmitry Galaktionov from Moscow went down to the house to stay with Mr. Haes. On August 26, miner Yuri Soveto from Donetsk took his place so that Mr. Haes could go ashore.

Before surfacing, Dr. Haes had to undergo a process of desaturation in the underwater house – removing nitrogen from his body by breathing in an oxygen-helium mixture first and then pure oxygen. During the ascent, Mr. Haes paused for the first 20 minutes at a depth of seven meters. He then paused again at a depth of three meters. These pauses were for decompression – the process of slowly removing excess nitrogen from his body. After 60 minutes of resuscitation on the surface, the first Soviet 'ocean traveler' was healthy again after three days underwater.

The next day (August 27), a storm came. At 8 am, doctors dived down to check the health of the two 'cosmonauts' Galaktionov and Sovetov. But by 2 pm, they decided to cancel the entire experiment.

When the Ichthyander project team returned to Donetsk, they received a late notice from the Underwater Sports Federation about the ban on testing. However, a few months later, the Federation still awarded diplomas to the divers.

Ichthyander house model 67. (Photo: TASS)

Further tests

Project Ichthyander 66 was the beginning of another series of underwater experiments by the Donetsk divers. On August 28, 1967, again in Crimea, they lowered the Ichthyander-67 house to a depth of 12 meters. It was a four-room house designed to accommodate five people, with a kitchen, a bedroom, a bathroom, and a laboratory. The 'travelers' lived underwater for a total of 14 days in shifts. Their goal was to test how the human body would react to its unnatural environment. They also brought guinea pigs, rabbits, and cats to the bottom of the sea. The divers were also given an inadvertent mental test when water leaked into the house twice.

The last Ichthyander underwater house was lowered into the sea in 1968 in Laspi Bay. This time it was for geological research: a drilling rig was operating not far from the divers' house. The project was halted after four days due to a storm. And that was the last test of the Soviet amateur divers.

Ichthyander House 68. (Photo: RBTH).

In 1970, a plaque commemorating the first underwater house in the Soviet Union was erected at Cape Tarkhankut, reading: 'Look straight ahead and don't look back.' In 2006, 40 years after the first test, three black-and-white painted boxes were installed nearby to represent the shape of the second Ichthyander house.