Old postcards Zeya HPP

The 1978 set on the Zeya Hydroelectric Station reads like a construction diary. It opens with “The Zeya HPP will stand here” and includes photos taken well before publication — “The second-stage foundation pit in spring 1973” and “The construction site in 1976”. The station was built on the Zeya River in the Amur Region, next to the town of Zeya, and its massive concrete buttress dam is the tallest of its type in Russia.

Key dates match the cards closely. The first cubic metre of concrete went into the dam on 30 January 1970, an occasion marked by a card showing a rally. The Zeya was blocked in October 1972, the first turbine unit started on 27 November 1975 and the sixth in 1980. From 1969 to 1974 archaeologists excavated the future reservoir bed, and the set includes “Archaeological excavations in the flood zone”.

Beyond the engineering — the trestle for the hydraulic hoists, the outdoor switchgear, “The lights of the Zeya HPP” — these Soviet postcards show life around the project: the settlement of Svetly, the airport in Zeya, construction brigades, a concert for the builders, and “Leisure on the Zeya Sea”, as the card calls the reservoir.

Taken together, the cards follow the project from a bare riverbank to a station lit up at night.