Abandoned water tower (Ufa)

Photos

  • Заброшенная водонапорная башня (Уфа). Photo 1
  • Заброшенная водонапорная башня (Уфа). Photo 2
  • Заброшенная водонапорная башня (Уфа). Photo 3

Description

The city water tower, also known as the "vodokachka", is an abandoned cultural heritage site in the city of Ufa. It was built at the highest point of New Ufa to supply the city with water through a pipeline. This is the only surviving object of the first city water supply and water intake of the Ufa province.

Located at an altitude of 150 meters (181 meters according to other sources), the tower provides a beautiful view of the Dema railway bridge and the floodplains of the Belaya and Dema rivers. Historically, a gazebo was installed next to the tower in the 1950s.

There are several projects to use the tower, such as creating a museum of the Ufa water supply system or an observatory with a planetarium and a film club. However, most of them were never implemented.

The tower itself is an octagonal four-tier building with eclectic elements. The first three tiers are made in brick style, and the fourth, wooden tier, has not survived. Water rose through wooden and cast iron pipes under pressure from a steam pumping station, and was then distributed through the water supply system.

The tower served until 1963, after which it was decommissioned. Later, the upper wooden tier burned down, and the tower was adapted as an observatory for observing artificial Earth satellites. Currently, the tower is in disrepair and abandoned, although in 2021 it was included in the register of Russian cultural heritage sites as an object of regional significance.

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