Survival and Basic Badass Podcast
Aug 2, 2026 · 37 min · 10 segments
Some people panic when everything falls apart. Others get to work. What makes them different? In this episode of The Survival and Basic Badass Podcast, we’re talking about the men and women who…
Uh, well, I've got this guy, uh, uh, Tengiz Charava- Char- Charavaidze.
All right.
I'm gonna ask him-
... to put you on the spot.
That's it.
I was gonna say, what, what's his nationality?
Yeah.
And he was, uh, he was captured, escaped from, uh, the prison camp, and became a guerrilla fighter in Belarus.
Um, so he used his, his railway knowledge, being an engineer-
Mm-hmm
... and, uh, basically they did- they didn't have enough explosives, the guerrilla fighters, to really blow up trains.
That was, that was the main thing is they wanted to stop the, uh, the German supply lines.
Right.
So he came up with, uh, basically it's like a, a false rail.
Okay.
So if you blow up the engine on a, on a tank, on a, on a, excuse me, on a train, it locks up the air brakes.
And so you can stop the train, but you're not really destroying it.
So he came up with, uh, this design that you could bolt onto the railroad tracks that would just drive the train off the tracks and destroy the whole thing.
Um, so it came, it was, uh, called the Charavaidze wedge.
Right.
And he designed that, and you could basically just make that in a forge, you know, in a random farm somewhere.
So he started manufacturing a bunch of these.
Uh, well, I've got this guy, uh, uh, Tengiz Charava- Char- Charavaidze.
All right.
I'm gonna ask him-
... to put you on the spot.
That's it.
I was gonna say, what, what's his nationality?
Yeah.
And he was, uh, he was captured, escaped from, uh, the prison camp, and became a guerrilla fighter in Belarus.
Um, so he used his, his railway knowledge, being an engineer-
Mm-hmm
... and, uh, basically they did- they didn't have enough explosives, the guerrilla fighters, to really blow up trains.
That was, that was the main thing is they wanted to stop the, uh, the German supply lines.
Right.
So he came up with, uh, basically it's like a, a false rail.
Okay.
So if you blow up the engine on a, on a tank, on a, on a, excuse me, on a train, it locks up the air brakes.
And so you can stop the train, but you're not really destroying it.
So he came up with, uh, this design that you could bolt onto the railroad tracks that would just drive the train off the tracks and destroy the whole thing.
Um, so it came, it was, uh, called the Charavaidze wedge.
Right.
And he designed that, and you could basically just make that in a forge, you know, in a random farm somewhere.
So he started manufacturing a bunch of these.
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