Conversation
Notices
-
I went to read about soviet hydro power plants, because someone referenced those on telegram. For a couple days I’ve been reading articles on Wikipedia and looking at photos.
Damn, man, they’re gigantic! Some of them were biggest in the world when they were built. The title “Great constructions of communism” now sounds differently.
Watching at some photos, they looked weirdly familiar. Thinking about that later, I’ve realised – it was in Half-Life 2! “Through the canals”! I must say, that I of course already knew about those canals and dams (at least about some very important ones), but it’s one thing to see a blue comb on a physical map or a 5×3 cm small picture in the geography textbook, and a whole other thing to see a spillway in action on a 3000×1400 px photo. The memories of HL2 dams and gateways were replaying in my head and I was like “This is Volga HPP!” “That’s the view above Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP!”.
It’s only that in Half-Life 2 the canals and dams look… small, so there’s no real impression, that you’re crossing waterways connecting Black sea on the south with White and Baltic seas on the north. Now that I think of it, the scenery in HL2 changed from a post-soviet “big city with towers” (Moscow?) to a coastal area (Black sea?), and Gordon makes his way back (to the north?), and in the episodes nature becomes more woody, which hints at higher altitudes (Belarus? The Baltic? Saint-Petersburg area? or Karelia?), and in Half-Life 3 we were supposed to go to the Arctic, where Borealis is. So the game designers made good use of the actually existing canal system. Still, I wish it could show them wider, the dams – bigger and the nature more realistic. Alas, the ideas were good but hardly possible to implement for 2004 PC hardware.
rick.jpg
- likes this.
-
Don't they make it intentionally vague about where you actually are in HL2?
-
@Hoss @eisai Yeah, but you can guess from the clues. EP2 shows that Eli's rocket was launched to somewhere in European part of Russia. The Mi-8 Alyx wants to use to find Borealis has a range of about 1600 kilometers, so it's safe to assume that White Forest is somewhere in Northwestern Russia if Borealis is to be found somewhere around Arctic archipelagos like Svalbard or Novaya Zemlya.
-
@mint @Hoss > The Mi-8 Alyx wants to use to find Borealis has a range of about 1600 kilometers,
Makes sense.
[SallySubs] Flying Witch - 07 [BD 1080p FLAC] [1BD64B3E] 00:05:55.981.jpg
-
@Hoss @eisai Karelia is relatively flat, its peak Nuorunen is only 577 meters high. Kola might be a better match since its ranges are much more elevated (the peaks of Lovozero and Khibiny are twice that at 1120 and 1200 meters). Mining industry in Murmansk oblast is more developed as well.
Physical_map_of_Karelia.png
1280px-Вид_на_гору_Нуорунен_с_г…
Khibiny.jpg
-
Volzhskaya HPP (built 1950–58 on Volga river)
Looking at the first photo I though “Hydrop plant dams are the Roman aqueducts of the 20th century.” Though they are not carrying water, but passing it through themselves, still, the sight of such a large structure leaves an impression. Third Rome, duh.
Ah, there is it. Pic 2 reminds of the place in Half-Life 2, where you must open a gateway. Here it is also on the left. The towers overlooking the passageway are in place too.
Pic. 4 made me remember the railway bridge, that you need to cross underneath. Though such ladders can be seen anywhere. But still, it all can be seen there, following the canals.
Панорама здания ГЭС и водосливной плотины .JPG
Судоходные шлюзы Волжской ГЭС.jpg
Водосливная плотина (верхний бьеф) .jpg
Затвор водосливной плотины .jpg
-
Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP (built 1963–78⧸79)
The first photo here reminds of that moment in HL2 where you drop down on your airboat after a fight with a combine helicopter. There’s some woods down there and the slopes are stiff. Except in the game your point of view is from the bottom of the canyon. (This is a tongue-in-cheek semblance, the one with Volga HPP is more clear.)
Photos 4 and 5 show the shore spillway.
This HPP was one of the most complex constructions among those undertaken. First, Yenisei is a big river with a strong current, and the possibilities to dam it were few to begin with. Second, as any river flows from high altitudes to lower ones, it saws its way through the rock little by little. (Rivers are essentially remains of the glaciers thawing.) This process leaves more and more rock exposed to the weather, winds and water erode the rock, it crumbles down into the river and that’s how there are slopes (and not a crack in the earth). In a place, where a dam would be effective, the slopes must be high, but high slopes mean there was a long erosion. These slopes aren’t strong enough to fasten the dam ends to them. The geologists thus have to determine, where the solid rocks begin under the surface. A dam is costly by itself, and the need to make it wider only adds to the cost. However, this is worth it, because the prime cost of the energy after the HPP is built are pennies (in comparison to oil/gas/coal). Happily, the Soviets weren’t cheapskates and the dam stands to this day. What happens, when the investors cut the costs, can be seen on the example of Vajont dam in Northern Italy. Similar in structure, both places in seismically active areas, Vajont is much narrower, but somewhat taller than SShHPP (both over 200 m high), its construction has led to a catastrophe in 1963.
Саяно-Шушенская ГЭС. 2007.jpg
Вид с верхнего бьефа.jpg
Саяно-Шушенская ГЭС. 2021.jpg
Береговой водосброс Саяно-Шушенской ГЭС, ноябрь 2010.jpg
Береговой водосброс.jpg
-
Zhigulyovskaya (formely Kuibyshevskaya) HPP
Водосбросная плотина Жигулёвской ГЭС.JPG
-
Krasnoyarsk HPP (built 1956–67)
Gantry cranes on pic 2 tell about the size of the construction, as they can be seen on pic 1.
Общий вид Красноярской ГЭС.JPG
Козловые краны.jpg
Красноярская ГЭС.jpg
Ship elevator on Krasnoyarsk HPP.jpg
Memorial plaque.jpg
-
Some photos (not particularly related to HL2)
This is Novosibirsk HPP on river Ob. Built in 1950–57. A large water storage basin was created for it, which is called “Ob sea” by the locals. A tourist spot.
Новосибирская ГЭС в современном виде.jpg
147379455711776790.jpg
full-47b18c24bc0c4b62d79adbe74870a46e.jpg
Рассвет над водохранилищем зимой.jpg
-
@mint @Hoss Er, I’m not following, what should the altitudes be indicating?
-
@eisai @Hoss How steep the land potentially is. The White Forest area is pretty mountainous.
-
@mint @Hoss Aah. The last time I played Ep2 was so long ago, that I forgot.
eisai
Hoss Delgado
All ０７６萌ＳＮＳ content and data are available under the 
![[SallySubs] Flying Witch - 07 [BD 1080p FLAC] [1BD64B3E] 00:05:55.981.jpg](https://freespeechextremist.com/media/0f7f51ec-80c8-40ce-9476-c5240ee2fd97/%5BSallySubs%5D%20Flying%20Witch%20-%2007%20%5BBD%201080p%20FLAC%5D%20%5B1BD64B3E%5D%2000%3A05%3A55.981.jpg?name=%5BSallySubs%5D%20Flying%20Witch%20-%2007%20%5BBD%201080p%20FLAC%5D%20%5B1BD64B3E%5D%2000%3A05%3A55.981.jpg){kind=link}
