CONSTRUCTION OF GEORGI DIMITROV DAM CONTINUES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-00809A000700030281-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 17, 2011
• Sequence Number: 281
• Publication Date: December 1, 1951
• Content Type: REPORT

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/10/17: CIA-RDP80-00809A000700030281-5
CLASSIFICATION SECURITY1INFORMATION DONFIDEN
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY REPOR
INFORMATION FROM
FOREIGN DOCUMENTS OR RADIO BROADCASTS CD NO.
COUNTRY Bulgaria DATE OF
T INFORMATION 1951
SUBJECT Economic - Dam construction
HOW Daily newspaper DATE DIST.TSAK1951
PUBLISHED
WHERE
PUBLISHED Sofia NO. OF PAGES 2
DATE
PUBLISHED 4 Aug 1951
SUPPLEMENT TO
LANGUAGE Bulgarian REPORT NO.
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The reservoir near the "Georgi Dlmltrov" Dam will cover an area of 8,000
decares, will have an average depth of 30 meters, and will have a capacity of
100 million cubic meters of water. The dam wall will be 640 meters long, 80
meters wide at the base, and 8 meters wide at the top. The concrete piers of
the wall have been wedged 12 meters deep in the rocks; the fissures extending
40 aeters below the piers have been filled up with clay by huge filling machines.
The wall itself will be ILO meters high.
An electric power plant with a capacity of 7,000 kilowatts will be built
below the dam. The main power plant will have a capacity of 25,000 kilowatts.
Together, the two power plants will produce 8 million kilowatt-hours per year.
The water will flow from the dam's reservoir through the main irrigation
canal and will irrigate the Stara Zagora Plain. The canal is lined with stone
blocks from the reservoir to Gorno Panicherevakt Bani, a distance of 26 kilo-
meters. At certain places large concrete slabs hold the moist, crumbly soil.
From Gorno Panicherevski Bani, the water will pass through the heart of the
Sredna Gore (Mnilntains) through a 12-kilometer tunnel and will emerge at
Trite Chuchura (Three Fountains) /-near Stara Zagora2 7. There the-
main power plant will be eructed. T.Ms w,11 be the longesT tunnel in Bulgaria
and in the Balkans. At the Yigoda end of the opening, the digging of the tunnel
has progressed a distance of 1.5 kilometers. Almost the same distarce has been
reached by the miners on the other side, at the Bedechka opening. For 2 weeks
the miners have used a Soviet loading machine, which promises to double the
speed in excavating the tunnel.
The entire tunnel is expected to be dug by the beginning of 1954, at
which time the large power plant near Trite Chuchura will 'begin to operate.
The water of the Tundzha River will flow through the irrigation canals to the
fields of Kolarovo, Yastrebovo, and Stakhanovo, irrigating almost 500,000 de-
cares of black Boil. The a-ea of Stara Zagora Plain sown to grain will be
smaller, but the yield of the grain crops will be greater. Instead of wheat,
1 _ CONFIDEN Uih%
STATE
ARMY
CONFIDENTIAL
DISTRIBUTION
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/10/17: CIA-RDP80-00809A000700030281-5
 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/10/17: CIA-RDP80-00809A000700030281-5
CONFIDENTIAL
20 percent of the area of Stara Zagora Plain will be sown to cotton. About
100,000 decares of Stara Zagora black soil will yield three to four times more
cotton than the entire country at present. In a few years, cotton fields will
appear on the two sides of the fs-tara Zagora.. Khaskovo highway.
The present director in charge of constructing the dam is Engineer Kodzheykov
who is a graduate of the Bulgarian Polytechnical Institute. The builder of the
canal, Engineer Chernev, was graduated 3 years ago. Engineer Kunchev, who is 30
years old, is in charge of the tunnel construction.
Three years ago, Soviet specialists, including Moyseyev, Lofitakiy, and
Kriger, gave lectures here on drilling rocks. They surveyed quarries, made
studies as to the type of dam to be erected, and drew the blueprints for the
tunnel.
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CONFIDENTIAL CONFIDEN T;. L
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/10/17: CIA-RDP80-00809A000700030281-5