The path underwater is difficult and dangerous. For every 10 meters of diving, the pressure increases by 1 atm, since water is 800 times denser than air. At a depth of over 60 meters, you can only breathe with artificial air, which contains a neutral gas - helium. This requires appropriate clothing to protect against the cold, special equipment and equipment, breathing gas mixtures.
Since the appearance diving bell man sought to improve his underwater equipment. In the forties 
of our century, lightweight diving suits with compressed air cylinders were invented, which significantly expanded the possibilities of studying and mastering underwater world.
Everyone knows now scuba gear was created in 1943 by a French oceanographer, underwater exploration enthusiast Jacques Yves Cousteau and engineer E. Gagnan. It was a real revolution in research and.
Thanks to scuba gear, a person was able to swim in the water quickly and in any direction, dive into the hatches of sunken ships, and explore underwater caves.
In the mid-60s, the underwater research of Jacques-Yves Cousteau became known in the USSR. 
At this time, experimental underwater houses were actively being developed in the USA and France, on which millions of dollars were not spared, because the exploration and development of the depths of the sea promised untold riches.
In 1957, the first Soviet scuba tanks appeared, simple in design, reliable in operation and allowing one to descend to a depth of 60 meters. In 1958, the All-Union Underwater Sports Federation was formed under the chairmanship of Academician Arkady Benediktovich Migdal (1911 - 1991)
Many events were held here medical research, developed autonomous system life support "Chibis", including food in tubes, which was later used by astronauts, an underwater drilling rig was tested here for the first time. 
The creation of the First Underwater House “Ichthyander-66” was not a government program. First underwater house designed by underwater research enthusiasts, young scientists, engineers, doctors, geologists, miners and simply enthusiasts from Donbass, they did what the luminaries of science did not dare to do.
They installed and tested the first underwater house in the USSR, within the steel walls of which people could live and work. Many participants in this experiment are still enthusiastically engaged in underwater research.
Nowadays, only a stone with a memorial inscription, installed in Diver's Day - May 5 on Tarkhankut by Ukrainian pioneers of aquanautics.
And on seabed are still lying 
the remains of the first underwater house in the USSR...
At all times, Tarkhankut has attracted adventurers and travelers - determined and enterprising people
On the rocky shores of Tarkhankut, tent camps of scuba divers from different cities countries. Among scuba divers in love with the underwater world, a new hobby appeared - underwater photography, which helped capture the beauty of the fantastic world of Tarkhankut.
The Bolshoi Atlesh rocks on Tarkhankut were chosen by filmmakers from the Yalta Mosfilm film studio. The best are made in Tarkhankut documentaries about the beauties of the underwater world, more than 30 films were shot here: “Pirates of the 20th Century”, “Taman”, “Men and Dolphins”, “Rough Landing”, “Aquanauts”, “Return”. 
In the bays of Tarkhankut, pirates and smugglers could hide their ships and loot; one of the bays is called “Bay of the Ataman of Bhutan” - was there really such an ataman - who knows? And the legendary black flag “Jolly Roger” still flashes on the banks of Tarkhankut. At the height of the holiday season, auto shops selling bread, beer, pasties and other foodstuffs trade under this flag.
They store the wreckage of ships that were lost during strong storms and wrecked near the rocks of Tarkhankut. At a depth of 50 meters lies the Tsarevich Alexei, which sank here in the last century - this is a place of pilgrimage for scuba divers who love extreme diving.
How does it increase hydrostatic pressure with depth? 
Hydrostatic pressure increases with depth by 1 atm for every 10 m of depth and in deep-sea depressions is 1000 atm or more.
For example, at a depth of 1000 m, a piece of wood under pressure is halved in volume, becomes heavier than water and sinks.
Air at a depth of about 6000 m is compressed so much that its specific gravity becomes equal to specific gravity surrounding water. Rubber at great depths is similar to ebonite. Fluoroplastic loses its elasticity. 
Is sea water compressible?
Water in general and in particular has little compressibility. Volume sea water immersed to the same depth and has the same higher density, the greater the depth of immersion, since pressure, and therefore compressibility, increases with depth.
It is estimated that if the water were absolutely incompressible, the level would rise by 30 m, and most, for example, Leningrad would have been flooded. Changes in water density caused by compressibility significantly affect the dynamics of currents.
Increasing the density of sea water due to salinity and compressibility increases its buoyancy force (the so-called Archimedean force), which is very important for the life of marine animals.
Based on materials from the site akvalang.ua - professional equipment and accessories for diving.
For those wishing to relax in the Crimean Federal District, please note. Who will be at Tarkhankut, pay attention -
"Ichthyander" - Soviet project on the settlement of underwater space by people.
From the description it is clear that the researchers lived well: “The first Soviet underwater house is Ichthyander-66.” The volume of the room is 6 cubic meters. Natural light provided by 4 plexiglass portholes with a diameter of 20 cm. Inside there were two bunks, one above the other, a small table with a telephone, a magazine, personal belongings, and scuba gear near the exit. Forced ventilation even allowed the aquanauts to smoke and effectively freed the room from harmful impurities. Electricity and air were supplied through cables and hoses from the shore, fresh water also served from the surface. Divers delivered food in special containers. The bathroom was no different from normal."
In July 1966, the house itself, as well as everything necessary equipment in two railway carriages they were sent to Evpatoria, and from there to Tarkhankut (this place was chosen because of its desolation). Next, the participants of the experiment flew out of Donetsk. A hundred settlers set up an entire tent city on Tarkhankut. In its center they pulled a parachute canopy for shade - it turned out to be Parachute Square. There were two tent streets leading from it - Holostyatskaya and Semeynaya. There were also in the town of Compressor Avenue - engineers worked there, and Aeskulapov settlements - doctors were concentrated there.
On August 5, the white house with the inscription “Ichthyander-66” on the side was moved to the seashore. On August 19, it was lowered to the seabed using 5 one and a half ton concrete blocks as ballast. But soon a storm began, a downpour, and concrete blocks were torn off and scattered throughout the bay. After bad weather that raged for three days, many left the camp, but those who remained were able to lift ballast from the bottom of the bay and continued to work. The house was towed to the dive site, and they pulled it with oars for 2 hours: the boat motor failed. On August 23, Ichthyander-66 finally found itself at a depth of 11 meters. Its first inhabitant was the head of the Donetsk club, surgeon Alexander Khaes. He lived at the bottom alone for a day (and spent three days in total in the underwater house), then Muscovite Dmitry Galaktionov joined him, and he was replaced by Donetsk miner Yuri Sovetov. And TASS proudly informed the whole world about the first aquanauts of the USSR.
Not only journalists, but also military personnel, prominent scientists, and employees of design bureaus working on space became interested in the experiment. A year later, in August 1967, Ichthyander-67 sank under water. This time, the underwater house was installed in Laspi Bay at a depth of 12 meters, and it lasted not three days, but two weeks.
Ichthyander-67 had a volume of 28 cubic meters and was built in the form of a three-rayed star. This underwater house had 4 rooms, and five people could live in it at the same time; the first five lived for a week, the second for a week. For the entire two weeks, experimental animals (guinea pigs, rats, rabbits) lived together with people in Ichthyander-67.
A year later, Ichthyander-68 sank to the bottom of the same Laspi Bay - it was created specifically for underwater surveyors and drillers, and the experiment was aimed at testing technologies in this area. It was also planned to create Ichthyander-69, but by order from above, this work was curtailed and was never resumed.
Tatiana Shevchenko, “Events”
Hydropolises- underwater settlements adapted for the life of several people, but not intended exclusively for scientific work. They can be underwater hotels, tourist centers, in the future - fish farms, etc.
Encyclopedic YouTube
1 / 1
Underwater houses of our submariners. History of creation
Subtitles
Name
The term “Hydropolis” as the name of an underwater city was probably first used by the Soviet science fiction writer Alexander Romanovich Belyaev in the novel “Underwater Farmers,” published in 1930.
Story
Underwater houses - description
The main purpose of the underwater house is to prevent divers from having to undergo long-term decompression during each ascent to the surface when carrying out any underwater work (especially deep-sea work).
When diving under water, the pressure of the diver's breathing mixture, which increases in proportion to the depth of the dive, correspondingly increases the amount of gases dissolved in the blood. When rising to the surface, the external pressure and the pressure of the respiratory mixture, on the contrary, decrease, which causes a proportional decrease in the amount of gases dissolved in the human blood. However, if the decrease in external pressure occurs too quickly, for example, during a rapid ascent to the surface, then excess gases dissolved in the blood begin to be released in the form of bubbles. The blood “boils.” The resulting bubbles clog the blood vessels, which leads to serious consequences for the diver’s health, the so-called. decompression sickness - injury or even death. To avoid the occurrence of decompression sickness, the diver's ascent is usually much slower than the dive, stopping at certain time at certain depths, in accordance with pre-calculated decompression tables. In this case, there is a gradual removal of excess gases dissolved in the blood, without the formation of bubbles, and decompression sickness does not occur. This process is called decompression.
The presence of an underwater house allows you to avoid decompression risks and loss of time - the diver does not need to be brought to the surface each time at the end of his working time. Typically, the internal pressure in an underwater home is maintained at the same level as the external water pressure, so decompression is not required when moving from water to home.
Underwater houses - development
The first underwater houses began to appear in the 60s of the 20th century. The pioneer here, apparently, should be recognized as Jacques-Yves Cousteau, who in September 1962 created the first underwater house “Precontinent-1”, located at a depth of 10 meters, not far from the shore, in the harbor of Marseille. At the same time, Cousteau relied on ideas and experimental results US Navy Medical Research Laboratory, headed by George Bond. “Precontinent-1” was made from an ordinary metal tank and was unofficially nicknamed “Diogenes” for its resemblance to a barrel. The Diogenes crew consisted of two people - Albert Falco and Claude Wesley, who stayed at a depth of 10 m for one week. The experiment was considered successful, and Cousteau began organizing the next stage - the creation of the Precontinent-2 underwater house in the Red Sea, 25 kilometers from Port Sudan, in the lagoon of the Shab-Rumi reef. Wanting to give the experiment a certain commercial flavor, Cousteau chose fantastic shapes for the designs of Precontinent-2 - for example, the main house was made in the shape of a star, reminiscent space station from a science fiction film about space. (Currently, the remains of Cousteau's underwater house, located on the seabed, are used by travel companies as one of the diving sites). The Precontinent-2 project included several underwater structures: the main star house at a depth of 11 meters, an underwater garage for a diving saucer located near it, a storage shed and a double Rocket house located deeper, at a depth of 27.5 meters. . Work on Precontinent 2 was reflected in Cousteau’s film “The World Without Sun.”
Also considered successful, the Precontinent-2 project was continued in the form of the next one, Precontinent-3, already at a depth of 100 meters. The Precontinent-3 underwater house was much more developed in engineering and technical terms than its predecessors; its autonomy (independence from support vessels) was also significantly increased.
Despite the success of all three Precontinents, the project did not receive proper financial support and was not continued.
In 1964-1965, under the leadership of George Bond, the US Navy also experimented with underwater houses. The first American underwater house, Sealab-1 (Sealab - “marine laboratory”), was located 26 miles from Bermuda at a depth of 58.5 meters and was designed for four aquanauts. The second Silab-2 house was installed in the La Jolla area on the California coast Pacific Ocean, at a depth of 61 meters and was designed for a crew of 10 people.
The first project to create an underwater house in the USSR was Ichthyander-66, created in 1966 by amateur divers. Sadko-1 was created by a small margin, and after that another serial project was implemented Chernomor.
Modern projects of hydropolises
Implemented mini-project
Today there is only one small underwater hotel with two rooms, which is completely hidden under the water - Jules Undersea Lodge in Florida. The length of the structure is 15.24 meters, width - 6.1 meters, height - 3.35 meters. The airlock room for scuba diving is located at a depth of about 6.5 meters. Air, drinking water and electricity are supplied via a powerful hose-cable from the shore; in the event of an accident, an autonomous life support system is also provided. The hotel opened in the mid-1980s as an underwater base for ocean scientists. Named after Jules Verne. The rooms have a shower, toilet, air conditioning, refrigerator, microwave, TV, stereo system, DVD player.
Project under construction
Planned project
Hydropolises in culture
- The underwater city from Willard Price's Diving Adventure.
- Captain Nemo and the Underwater City is a 1969 British film; Much of the plot takes place in an underwater city called Templemere, which was built by Captain Nemo and his cohorts.
- Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea - American TV series
The world's oceans, as is known from the geography course high school, occupies 2/3 of the entire land surface of our planet, which sounds quite attractive considering that the Earth's population recently crossed the figure of seven billion.
Of course, people cannot live in water, like, say, fish (at least not yet), but more and more often architects are thinking about how to make such a dream come true - to build a house under water or on the surface of the water . But some took a risk and went beyond their dreams - and now several dozen habitable properties are in water element. Some of these houses are sometimes unusually bold and innovative projects, which life-affirmingly say that you can also live under water. True, now mostly underwater houses are temporary housing - hotels, recreation centers, resorts, but there are also projects that offer mansions for permanent residence.
Underwater houses
1. Photos of this unique home spread all over the world in 2010. The name of this underwater residence is quite symbolic - "H2OME". This is a joint French-American project: technical side US scientists from Submarines Inc. worked on the house, but the interior interior was entrusted to two designers from France, Frank Darnay and Karine Rousseau. Thanks to the spacious above-water plateau, the owners of this home can return home either by private helicopter or by private boat. But the residential part of this mansion can be located at a depth of 10 to 18 meters. The area of "H2OME" is 340 square meters. In addition to the living room and kitchen, there are three bedrooms and the same number of bathrooms. Thanks to the huge unique windows, which at the same time are walls, the residents of the house will be able to enjoy underwater views at least 24 hours a day!
2. Underwater cottages Iceberg invented and created by Finnish architect Daniel Andersson. Only the yacht berth will be on the surface of the water, and the rest of the house will be below the fairway.
3. In Germany in the park LEGOLAND there is an underwater residential building in which any citizen can live. And although this is just one of the attractions, nevertheless, there are always many people who want to try “what is it like to live under water”.
4. For those who want to have their own own house on the water, scientists propose a round house-boat, which has its own observatory - its name Trilobis 65. This building only includes latest technologies, which are capable of providing residents with for many years everything you need.
Underwater hotels
1. The Maldives has one of the most unusual hotels in the world - some of its rooms are located under a certain layer of water at a decent depth. But due to the fact that there are no walls in such rooms - they are perfectly replaced by huge glass, you can enthusiastically enjoy the underwater views. Full name of this establishment Conrad Maldives Rangali Island Hotel.
2. Mandalay Bay Hotel, which is located in enchanting Las Vegas, boasts that its corridors are also located under water, although these are just artificially created huge aquariums, nevertheless, their views are truly mesmerizing. Thanks to the solid glass walls, you can imagine that you are at a depth of several tens, or even hundreds of meters!
3. Water Discus Underwater Hotel is located in Dubai. Some of the rooms in this hotel are underwater, and the second part is above the water, so vacationers can choose their own room. The comfort and luxury here are truly transcendental. Therefore, alas, it is almost impossible for an ordinary citizen to afford to stay here for at least a day.
4. Fiji Island Poseidon Mystery keeps up with modern fashion trends - recently an underwater one has also appeared here "first luxury hotel" Poseidon Undersea Resort. The uniqueness of this structure lies in the fact that people can live in a kind of capsules for as long as they want - they can rise from a 12-meter depth at any time, but it is here, at the depths, that there is a wide variety of entertainment designed to fulfill any wishes of vacationers. In each room, 70% of the walls are made of ten-centimeter glass, so there will be something to see in the room.
4 more underwater hotels, as well as 6 extraordinary underwater cities more >>>
This year marks 50 years since the first underwater house was built in Crimea. The following is a history of underwater houses with memories of participants in those events.
The beginning of the history of underwater houses
The world's first underwater house was designed by Jacques-Yves Cousteau in France. “Precontinent-1” was popularly dubbed “Diogenes” for its resemblance to a barrel. It was sunk to a depth of 10 meters in Marseille harbor in September 1962. The next project, “Precontinent-2,” was made in the form of a star, adjacent to which was a garage, a warehouse-shed and a double house “Raketa.” His remains still attract divers in the Red Sea near the port of Sudan. The Prectorion-3 project was lowered to a depth of 100 m. Aquanauts lived in it for 23 days. All of these projects were successful, but subsequently did not receive funding and were closed. America replaced France. Over the course of several years, Silap-1 and Silap-2 were created in the USA.
The Union also became interested in similar projects, and the first house was lowered under water in 1966 in Crimea.
“In the 60s, a thaw came in the Land of the Soviets,” says Igor Opsha, an aquanaut who participated in the creation of Ichthyander. - The state pretended to pay salaries, and people pretended to work. Those who wanted to think did it in the kitchens and staircases of institutes. It was there that the idea of creating the first underwater house was born.
By that time, the films of Jacques-Yves Cousteau had managed to leak into cinemas, despite " iron curtain", and people, inspired by the conquest of space, wanted to conquer and depths of the sea. Scuba diving was widely developed in the Land of Soviets.
“There were five powerful scuba diving clubs in Donetsk, and their participants went to Crimea in the summer to dive,” says Igor Opsha. - We had homemade masks and scuba gear. And so, several ordinary engineers became interested in the possibility of exploring the underwater depths.
The first underwater house was designed in Donetsk in an abandoned building, adjacent to which was a small piece of land.
– At the institute where we worked, they asked for decommissioned equipment. Then all this was delivered by train to Crimea, and from there to the seashore. No one in the Union expected anything like this. The resonance was very strong. True, I did not participate in the construction of the first house. Then I was only 14 years old, and I was actively involved in scuba diving. I joined the project later, in 1969.
The story of "Ichthyander"
Club employees saved money for the delivery of equipment to Crimea, for living on the expedition and for research. wages. The state did not support the project.
“I still have the Ichthyander archive,” says Igor Opsha. - Everyone who worked at Ichthyander in the summer worked at the institute as ordinary engineers in the winter for 120 rubles a month. There was only one person who worked as a miner and received 200 rubles.
The first underwater house was built on the principle of an inverted bottle. The volume of the room is 6 cubic meters. Natural lighting was provided by 4 plexiglass portholes with a diameter of 20 cm. Inside there were two bunks, one above the other, a small table with a telephone, a magazine, personal belongings, and scuba gear near the exit. Forced ventilation even allowed aquanauts to smoke and effectively freed the room from harmful impurities. Electricity and air were supplied through cables and hoses from the shore, and fresh water was also supplied from the surface. Divers delivered food in special containers. The bathroom was no different from normal. “Ichthyander-66” was lowered under water to a depth of 170 m. The first female aquanauts Maria Barats and Galina Guseva took part in the development and diving.
- All our work was scientific direction and was aimed at allowing a person to work underwater, for example, servicing wells,” says Yuri Baratz. - But it turned out that this house should still have a connection with the shore. Nowadays, special pressure chambers are used for this, serviced from ships. We studied human life in an unusual environment. Both physical and psychological factors, for example, compatibility, choice of leader, life in the absence daylight hours, being in “hydro-weightlessness”.
Ichthyanderites collaborated with space institutes, used their developments to study life in the sea, including nutrition.
After the first project “Ichthyander-66”, which took place on Tarkhankut, on next year was created in Laspi new project"Ichthyander-67", which had a volume of 28 cubic meters and was built in the form of a three-rayed star. This underwater house had 4 rooms, and five people could live in it at the same time; the first five lived for a week, the second for a week.
The house was lowered to a depth of 12 meters for two weeks. Together with the aquanauts, experimental animals lived there: guinea pigs, rats, rabbits.
The next year, in the same place in Laspi, the Ichthyander-68 project was carried out, which was created specifically for underwater surveyors and drillers, and the experiment was aimed at developing technologies in this area. It was also planned to create Ichthyander-69, but by order from above, this work was curtailed and was never resumed.
With this, the story of the ichthyander-house was completed. In 1969 terms of reference"Ichthyander" has been changed. Scientists came to the conclusion that the house could be reduced to a spacesuit, and testing of its fragments began in Sudak.
“I joined the expedition in 1969,” says Igor Opsha. - They chose me and Sergei Khatset. I became the youngest aquanaut in the world, I was 17 years old. I stayed underwater for 26 hours in an unheated suit, setting a world record. Sergei Khatset was lowered after me, having spent 36 hours under water, but wearing a heated suit.
Sunset underwater house
Dozens of PhD theses have been defended on “Ichthyander”. It was created at a high level of research and development. But 1970 was his last.
“Other people came to power and asked: “Where are you stealing money?” says Igor Opsha. “They tried to explain to them that all this was repaired, written-off equipment, and that the money was being saved from salaries. But they didn’t understand one thing, why we need this. As a result, one person from our team was imprisoned. We poked everyone's eyes. The USSR Academy of Sciences could not do anything like this, but we did it. Of course, then they created Chernomor, but the medical and other support on it was carried out by the Ichthyanderites.
Following Ichthyander, other underwater houses began to be created. "Sadko-1" was designed by the Leningrad Hydrometeorological Institute. Then, on Kara-Dag, Muscovites built the Sprut, then there was the Sadko-2, and finally, from 1968 to 1974, the Institute of Oceanology launched the Chernomor project.
“When Ichthyander was closed, we were invited to work at the Sevastopol Hydrophysical Institute,” says Yuri Barats. - In Katsiveli we had to build a laboratory for underwater research. We worked there for a year. There were 15 of us, we lived in a hostel in spartan conditions. They promised to build a residential building for us, and we planned to finally move to Crimea. But then the institute ran out of funding and we had to leave.
In 1994-1997, JSC Bars built the submarine Sadko on the territory of Petrozavod. Sea trials were carried out in the Gulf of Finland, after which the Sadko was transported to the island of Santa Lucia. Then "Sadko" was transported to the Mediterranean Sea, based on the island of Cyprus, where it carries tourists.
This November, a meeting of participants in the Ichthyander projects will take place in Israel. It should be visited by 130 people. Among them is Sevastopol resident Valentin Selin, who also participated in the construction.
“The most reliable people I have ever met worked on the Ichthyander project,” says Valentin Selin. - I joined the team in 1968. In addition to studying the life of people in an underwater house, we also studied their life away from people. We built a raft on which 4 people lived for a week, who had no contact with us all this time. All our guys had high compatibility, like astronauts, and even greater interest and aspirations.
– Are such projects interesting for Sevastopol and Crimea?
– This is a must! This work began in Katsiveli, and there is everything for this: good depth and access to the sea. We already have space tourists, while a person can be launched under water without any special problems or tinting. It is possible to develop life in an underwater house, where a person could feel himself in equal conditions with fish.
Similar interesting projects are still created by our architects. For example, Alexander Asadov designed the Aero Hotel several years ago.
“This is a hotel on the water, in the middle of the sea,” says the architect. - It must be serviced from airships. These are different technologies than building an underwater house. Personally, I have not seen projects of underwater houses in Russia. But once I had the opportunity to visit a similar building in Israel. There, part of the aquarium was taken out to sea directly to the coral reefs. Such projects can pursue not only entertainment and tourism, but also scientific purposes. And today for Crimea similar work could be very interesting.
