Turkmen leader orders ice palace in one of the hottest deserts on earth

President Niyazov of Turkmenistan has ordered the construction of a palace made of ice in the heart of his desert country, one of the hottest on earth.

It is the latest in a series of colossal building projects instigated by the all-powerful president that seem to defy the country's environment.

"Let us build a palace of ice," said President Niyazov, "big and grand enough for 1,000 people."

President Niyazov made the announcement in a speech broadcast on Turkmen television, which in effect made it a presidential order.

The idea is to build the palace in the Copa Deg Mountains outside Ashgabat, now baking in the summer heat, with a long cable-car running up from the city.

"Our children can learn to ski," Mr Niyazov enthused, "we can build cafes there, and restaurants."

President Niyazov's extravagant buildings are a hallmark of his idiosyncratic regime.

He is currently building one of the biggest mosques in the world, and has a chain of conventional palaces.

But the latest have a special quality - of challenging Turkmenistan's desert environment.

As well as the ice palace, there is to be a vast aquarium. The projects tend now to be sites of recreation for the people, like a Disney-style theme park instead of state palaces.

That is in keeping with Mr Niyazov's image as a servant of his people, who lays on every sort of amenity for them.

Ice palaces were popular in the Soviet Union, to which Turkmenistan once belonged, but they were built in the freezing cities of the north, far away.

The Turkmen mountains are relatively high, but it is hard to imagine the palace remaining frozen without some sort of technical help.

He should hire a Canadian to do it. We can also build a navy for him.

http://www.combinedops.com/Pykrete.htm

PYKRETE - ICE SHIPS IN THE ROCKIES!

George H Pitt, Alberta, Canada

Ice ships in the Rockies? The improbable but true story of a top secret WW2 project to build ships from a mixture of ice and sawdust. Project Habbakuk! Behold ye among the heathen, and regard and wonder marvellously: for I will work a work in your days, which ye will not believe, though it be told to you. So reads a biblical quotation from the book of Habakkuk ... a name adopted by the top secret project to build ice ships. After you've read this page why not visit the Index Page to see the links to the other 100 pages about WW2 Combined Operations?

In 1942 the Allies were already developing plans for the re-occupation of Europe, and Winston Churchill favoured large floating platforms to support the landings. In addition the allies were suffering heavy merchant shipping losses from German U-boats, due, largely, to the limited range of patrolling aircraft and the resulting "mid Atlantic Air Gap." Churchill therefore welcomed the idea of building large ships made of ice as presented to him by Lord Louis Mountbatten,

Mountbatten was Chief of Combined Operations, an organisation responsible to the Chiefs of Staff for the development of equipment and special craft for offensive operations. One of his scientific advisers, Geoffrey Pyke, presented the idea of constructing "berg-ships" - up to 4,000 feet long, 600 feet wide and 130 feet in depth – that could be made cheaply, and in great numbers, from ice. The ships would be insulated and cooled, made practically invulnerable to bombs or torpedoes. They could be used by aircraft to provide protection for shipping, particularly in the mid Atlantic, and as a base for invasion. With Winston Churchill’s enthusiastic endorsement, the project got underway.

Studies commenced into the two paradoxical elements of ice – plastic flow and brittleness. One such study involved the construction of a structure, 60 long by 30 feet wide and 19.5 feet high on a lake in the Canadian Rocky Mountains - Patricia Lake in Jasper, Alberta.

The structure was of wood frame construction with 3 inch x 6 inch studs and 3 inch x 8 inch floor joists and was filled with ice cut from the lake. The structure was insulated and included 3 Freon compressors driven by 10 hp electric motors. Cold air was distributed throughout the ice by a network of 6 inch galvanized-iron cooling pipes. This study was to determine problems of construction and thermal behaviour of ice in summer.

A further experiment was conducted simultaneously in front of the Chateau Lake Louise, near Banff, Alberta. The requirement of this project was to determine ways to reinforce large ice units. The work at Lake Louise indicated that a hull at least 35 feet thick, would be needed to contain damage from bombs and torpedoes.

In early 1943 two American professors discovered that a very tough material could be produced by adding a small amount of wood pulp to water before freezing. They called this material pykrete, in honour of Geoffrey Pyke.

Lord Mountbatten had a block of pykrete prepared by a Canadian engineering company, and took this block to the Quebec Conference in the fall of 1943. As it appeared that "Habbakuk" would run into supply and technical problems, not to mention the high costs ($100 million for the first ship), it was Mountbatten’s aim to get the Americans to take over the project. It is reported that he fired a revolver at the pykrete block during a coffee break, and the bullet bounced off and struck one of the senior officers who were present - thankfully without serious injury!

By this time the Battle of the Atlantic had been virtually won and new aircraft carrier construction was promising to further strengthen defences. Reluctantly the project was shelved.

The floating structure in Patricia Lake in Jasper was abandoned at the end of August 1943. After removing all machinery, and left to sink in place. In the 1970’s scuba divers discovered the remains and they were subsequently studied by the Archaeology Department of the University of Calgary.

In 1988, the Underwater Archaeological Society of Alberta marked the site with an underwater monument. The following year, with the assistance of the National Research Council and the National Parks branch a plaque, commemorating these unusual wartime events,. was erected on the shore of the lake.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.