Balaklava sits on a near-perfectly enclosed bay on the Crimean coast, so hidden from the open sea that Black Sea fleets used it for centuries as a concealed anchorage. During the Cold War, the Soviets hollowed out the surrounding mountain to house a submarine base — Object 825 GTS — capable of surviving a direct nuclear strike. The facility was decommissioned in 1993, just over a decade before this coin was issued, and by 2004 had opened as a museum.
Balaklava sits on a near-perfectly enclosed bay on the Crimean coast, so hidden from the open sea that Black Sea fleets used it for centuries as a concealed anchorage. During the Cold War, the Soviets hollowed out the surrounding mountain to house a submarine base — Object 825 GTS — capable of surviving a direct nuclear strike. The facility was decommissioned in 1993, just over a decade before this coin was issued, and by 2004 had opened as a museum.