The Chirkeiskaya hydro-electric power plant is located on the Sulak river (15km upstream from the Miatlinskaya hydro-electric power plant) in Dagestan. It is the largest power plant in the North Caucasus and the highest arch dam in Russia.

The Sulak river, the dam of the Miatlinskaya hydro-electric power plant and its reservoir.

The Chirkeiskaya hydro-electric power plant has been built in the gorge 200m deep (the width of the gorge in its lower part is 15m, in the upper one – 300m). The conditions of the construction were rather hard due to the uneven relief. The construction works were started in 1966.

During the construction of the power plant, for the first time in the USSR, there was widely applied a blasting by presplitting method. Grade 8 earthquake in 1970 became a serious interruption of the building work and it was suspended nearly for a half of a year.

Thanks to a high scale of the building mechanization there was achieved the highest efficiency of that time – 12 m3 per 1.

The Chirkeiskaya hydro-electric power plant was placed into production operation in 1981.

The whole construction of the Chirkeiskaya hydro-electric power plant consists of an arch dam, the building of the power station, a service spillway,  an open distribution system with voltage 330 kV. The height of the dam is 232,5 m, the crest length – 338 m.

The dam and rock mass strengthening of the left bank.

The Chirkeisky reservoir has an area of 42,4 km2, its capacity – 2,78 km2.

The wastewater outlet is made like a tunnel. 85 m from the dam is a hole 22 m wide.

Transformer platform and the left bank.

Concrete wall

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