Steamer victory. "Mikhail Svetlov"

The tragedy with the Pobeda liner, which happened in the early autumn of 1948, was practically not mentioned anywhere for many years. The information was immediately hidden under the heading "secret". However, there was a man who, years later, still managed to thoroughly unwind this tangle of mysteries - a naval historian, a retired captain of the II rank, October Bar-Biryukov.

The correspondent of "MK" happened to meet with him more than once during the life of Oktyabr Petrovich. He spoke in detail about what he could learn about this fiery catastrophe.

For starters, concrete facts. July 31, 1948 "Victory", serving the international line Odessa-New York, set off from the coast of America to return flight. There are more than 300 passengers and several dozen crew members on board. The voyage lasted a whole month, and at the very end of it an emergency occurred.

On September 1, a severe fire broke out on the ship. The flames spread so fast that the sailors didn't even have time to give an SOS signal. Coastal services raised the alarm only almost a day later, when the ship did not appear in Odessa by the appointed time. Rescue ships reached the scene only on the morning of 3 September. By this time, the liner's sailors and passengers had already managed to neutralize the fire. However, dozens of people died from the flames and smoke. including the "most main passenger"- Chinese Marshal Feng Yuxiang.

Competitor of the Great Pilot

During the years of revolutionary upheavals in China and the struggle against the Japanese aggressors, this man gained immense popularity among his compatriots. Since the mid-1920s, the military leader has been “sinning” with politics, and in 1924 he even carried out a coup d'état and captured Beijing, being at the head of loyal troops. After that, the future marshal for some time went over to the side of the Kuomintang party and actively supported Chiang Kai-shek, who headed it. However, with the beginning of active military opposition to Japan, which occupied part of the Celestial Empire, Feng changed his political coloring and tuned in to rapprochement with the Chinese Communists (which caused considerable anger of the American administration). In addition, the politician with marshal's shoulder straps adhered to pro-Kremlin positions and repeatedly stated in public speeches that only the Soviet Union is and will continue to be "a true friend of the Chinese people."

The end of World War II, which ended with the surrender of Japan and the liberation of China from the invaders, found Feng in America. Meanwhile, in his homeland, there was still Civil War, in which the success of one of the opposing sides was clearly outlined: the Communist-led People's Liberation Army of China smashed troops loyal to the bourgeois Kuomintang. It was already clear that in the near future in the most populous country in the world a new government would have to be created that would unite the nation. But who will lead it?

Mao Zedong seemed confident as the No. 1 candidate. However, the last word had to come from the Kremlin: by this time, China was too dependent on the military support of the USSR. So the main "fixer" was Stalin. And the generalissimo, although he patronized Mao, was still not completely sure of him. Probably, the cunning "leader of the peoples" had another card up his sleeve to play the Chinese party.

Such a card could be Marshal Feng Yuxiang. At the very least, his journey in 1948 from America to China in a roundabout way through the USSR suggests that the “bride-in-law” of this politician was scheduled in the Soviet capital before deciding on his possible coming to the most important state post in the Celestial Empire.

Did Mao Zedong know about this? Surely he knew. Was he afraid of a competitor? It would be foolish not to be afraid. Therefore, the sudden death of the marshal turned out to be very beneficial for the future Great Pilot. It is so profitable that it makes you think: is it possible that the fiery state of emergency was set up on board the Pobeda?

To draw some conclusions, let's restore the chronology of the tragedy with the help of the facts collected by Bar-Biriukov.

At one time, Oktyabr Petrovich explained to the MK correspondent how he managed to connect to this topic: “In 1949, after graduating from the Caspian Higher Naval School, I was assigned to Sevastopol. I saw "Victory" there. Severely burned, she stood in the roadstead, waiting in line for repairs. Later, through the employees of the shipyard, I had a chance to get acquainted with the participants in the events - members of the crew of the liner. From them I learned the details of this incident. And then I was lucky to get to some documents ... "

Cinema is a hindrance to the guardhouse

Here is what happened on board the Pobeda, according to the official version.

On the afternoon of September 1, the liner passed the beam of Novorossiysk, about which the captain transmitted a corresponding radio message to the Black Sea Shipping Company. However, after that, the connection with the ship suddenly disappeared.

At the same time, one of the crew members, radio engineer Kovalenko, who also acted as a projectionist, decided to prepare his film industry for an imminent arrival at the home port. Among the urgent matters is rewinding and packing in tin boxes the films that Kovalenko has shown in recent days. The entire film library taken on a voyage was stored in a small room next to the cabins in the central part of the liner.

Here's an interesting fact. According to the stories of some members of the team, the Pobeda had a special pantry for storing films and working with them. It was located on one of the upper decks not far from the saloon, where films were played in the evenings. However, by order of the shipping company, shortly before entering the fateful voyage, this room was converted into a ship's guardhouse. The boxes with the film library that remained “homeless” as a result - and more than 40 of them were taken on that flight - had to be attached to a cramped closet that was completely unsuitable for this.

So, it was necessary to wind the watched parts of the films onto their "native" reels. Kovalenko instructed the sailor Skripnikov, assigned to help, to do this. The work is simple: know how to turn the handle of the machine! But at some point, the sailor apparently overdid it. In a hurry to quickly complete a tedious task, he dragged the film too quickly. And it was made according to the then technologies, from a very flammable material. From increased friction during fast rewinding, the film heated up - and suddenly flared up! The flame instantly spread to the rolls lying nearby. However, according to another version, the sailor, violating safety rules, lit a cigarette in the back room and overlooked the smoldering cigarette ...

Be that as it may, the fire broke out in a matter of seconds engulfed the room. Clothes on Skripnikov caught fire. Losing consciousness from suffocating clouds of smoke, he barely had time to jump out into the corridor.

The fiery element that had been roaming in the pantry broke free after him. Tongues of flame fled along the carpet paths, along the wooden paneling of the walls. A few minutes later, the fire penetrated the gangway to the deck located above, then attacked the bridge ...

Very quickly, the flames engulfed the entire central part of the liner. The cabins located here, the navigation and wheelhouses were on fire. The “Red Rooster” also entered the radio room - the watch radio operator Vedeneev was taken by surprise by fire and, saving his life, jumped out of the room through the porthole. He did not have time to send a radiogram about a fire that had started on the ship or an SOS signal. It was also not possible to use a spare walkie-talkie: it burned down in the chart room. Therefore, the ship in distress did not inform anyone about the tragedy that had unfolded on board. For coastal services and other ships, Pobeda turned into a ghost ship for several hours. But this "Flying Dutchman" was on fire.

Finally, the fire alarm sounded on the liner. By that time, the flames had already spread quite widely - and not only up, but also down: the fire approached the engine room. However, the sailors who were there, as soon as the first clouds of smoke entered the compartment, immediately batten down all the doors and hatches, preventing the flame from penetrating inside. From the fire in the adjacent hold spaces, the metal walls of the compartment heated up so that the paint began to swell with bubbles. I had to water these bulkheads with outboard water from hoses. As a result, the “heart” of the ship managed to be defended.

After the announcement of the fire alarm, the Pobeda crew acted with dignity. Part of the team launched the boats and organized the evacuation of passengers, others fought the fire. The sailors were also assisted by many of the male passengers. Unfortunately, not all regular fire extinguishing equipment turned out to be efficient. For example, some of the large fire extinguishers "sour". During the subsequent investigative check, it turned out that someone was smuggling contraband in these red cylinders: the bodies of fire extinguishers were stuffed with rolls of imported panne velvet, which was fashionable in those years ...

And yet the fire managed to curb. And even before help arrived.

The final elimination of the fire and checking the condition of the compartments took almost a day. After that, the emergency liner, surrounded by military and rescue ships, reached the port of Odessa on September 5 under its own power. The passengers of the Pobeda were taken there on another ship - the Vyacheslav Molotov.

Alas, the incident on the liner was not without human casualties. Two crew members were killed (one of them was the same sailor Skripnikov who rewound the films). And besides - 40 passengers. Including 19 women and 15 children.

Feng Yuxiang also appeared on this sad list.

"Accident"

Among the passengers who were on board the liner, there were many "elite". Including - employees of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Foreign Trade, returning with their families to their homeland after a long trip abroad. A few of the best cabins were occupied by the Chinese marshal, his wife, son and daughter.

However, at some point, the ship was literally overflowing with passengers with a completely different "rating". When the Pobeda approached Gibraltar, the captain received a radiogram from the shipping company: to enter the Egyptian port of Alexandria and take on board 2,000 Armenian repatriates returning to their historical homeland. As a result, the living quarters on the ship were filled with people beyond all norms. But all the Armenian families were safely delivered to the Russian shores and landed in the port of Batumi. This happened a couple of days before the tragedy.

As it turned out during the investigation, most of the victims on Pobeda died by suffocation in the smoke. As for the Chinese marshal, he, having not suffered in the first minutes of the fire, then showed real courage, actively helping the sailors to fight the fire. At some point, Feng Yuxiang discovered that his daughter was not among those evacuated from the zone attacked by the flames. The man rushed to the cabin, which she occupied, and tried to get inside. Subsequently, he was found lying there on the floor: apparently, the Chinese died by inhaling carbon monoxide. His daughter also died...

The incident on the ship Pobeda was immediately reported to Stalin. Apparently, on his “go-ahead”, an official publication about this tragedy appeared a day later. On the last page of the Red Star, in small print, there is a short TASS message entitled "Accident on the ship Pobeda":

"... In early August, the motor ship Pobeda left New York, heading to Odessa ... On the way, a fire broke out on the ship due to careless handling of films that caught fire. There are victims. Marshal Feng Yuxiang and his daughter are among the dead… An investigation is underway.”

This text, probably coordinated with the Kremlin, published at a time when firebrands in the Pobeda compartments had not yet cooled down, already indicated the cause of the emergency. It was hard to expect that the commission of inquiry, which then worked for several months, would risk putting forward some other version. And so it happened.

At the beginning of 1949, several members of the Pobeda crew were tried. However, the one who was considered the main culprit of the tragedy - the sailor Skripnikov - was already dead. And from among the other sailors of the liner, 5 people fell under the distribution. Senior assistant Nabokin, who was in charge of fire safety on the ship, was condemned the most severely: he was sentenced to the maximum possible term at that time - 25 years in the camps. The captain of Pobeda Paholok and projectionist Kovalenko each received 15 years in prison. The captain's assistant for political affairs, Pershukov, was given 10 years, and the radio operator Vedeneev, who did not broadcast the SOS signal, was given eight years.

Death from "disinfection"

Now it's time to mention what was left "overboard" of the official conclusions of the investigation. The fact that the emergency on the ship "Victory" could be the result of a terrorist attack. Here are just a few facts that Bar-Biryukov learned about.

It turns out that the fire on board the liner was preceded by very mysterious events. For example, shortly before sailing from New York, at the request of the port authorities, the Americans suddenly started disinfection work on the ship. All the time they were spent - almost two days! - the crew of the Soviet ship lived in a hotel, and some American specialists hosted the Pobeda. What could they have left behind somewhere in a secluded nook and cranny of a huge ship?.. The Soviet team that returned on board had no time to conduct a thorough inspection: the scheduled sailing dates were running out.

There is also specific evidence pointed out by people who survived the tragedy on Pobeda: according to them, many interior items - carpets, curtains, cabinets, tables, even bulkheads of cabins, treated by the Americans with some kind of "disinfectant" solution, during a fire ignited literally with reactive speed.

A suspicious episode also occurred during the landing of passengers in the port of New York. In front of numerous witnesses, the wife of one of the Soviet diplomats suddenly announced that she did not want to return to the USSR. After that, the woman managed to escape from the ship to the shore, where she was taken under her wing by representatives American intelligence agencies. And all the luggage of the defector remained on Pobeda. For some reason, none of the ship's authorities thought to check the contents of these several suitcases and boxes. They safely sailed to Odessa, being together with other luggage in one of the rooms in the central part of the ship. Some of the crew members later claimed that the fire did not start from the back room with films at all, but from this compartment located next door. And for some reason, the load folded there burned, scattering bright sparks around, like huge sparklers ...

The “invasion” of 2,000 Armenian repatriates in the port of Alexandria could also come back to haunt the fire. Where is the guarantee that there were no agents in this crowd who, once on the ship, carried out “preparatory measures” for a future emergency, and then, without drawing attention to themselves, went ashore in Batumi together with Armenian families? After the Batumi unloading, crew members found strange “souvenirs” in different places on the ship, most likely left by one of these passengers - pieces of some kind of substance resembling ore. According to the stories of some sailors, when they tried to set fire to the "ore", it flashed with a bluish flame, creating a high temperature ...

All these strange and suspicious episodes were ignored by the investigation - at least in the official conclusions. Although you can find indirect evidence that the version of the terrorist attack on Pobeda was considered seriously, and at the highest state level. Just one of the arguments in favor of this: just a few days after the tragedy off the coast of Crimea, on September 14, 1948, a decree of the USSR Council of Ministers was issued on the immediate curtailment of the program for the repatriation of Armenians.

By the way, the son of Feng Yuxiang, who survived the fire, subsequently did not hide the fact that he considers the death of his father marshal a pre-planned sabotage.

"Island of bad luck"

The facts and evidence collected by Bar-Biriukov still did not help him to fully solve the mystery of the fire on board the ocean liner.

Most of the victims were then buried in Odessa. A memorial complex appeared at one of the cemeteries with the inscription: “To the sailors and passengers of the m / v Pobeda, who tragically died on September 1, 1948.” Well, the coffins with the bodies of Feng Yuxiang and his daughter were sent by plane to Moscow, where they were cremated in accordance with the wishes of the marshal's widow. Later, the ashes of the commander were buried with military honors in China.

As for Pobeda itself, after repairs, it again continued to work on the lines of the Black Sea Shipping Company until the end of the 1970s.

The most interesting thing is that the ship, whose history is overshadowed by such a tragic secret, is well known to almost every adult inhabitant of Russia. The fact is that during the filming of the famous comedy by Leonid Gaidai "The Diamond Hand" in the role of the cruise liner "Mikhail Svetlov", on board of which many events of the film unfold, two Black Sea ships - "Victory" and "Russia" were filmed at once. The scene in which the hero of Andrei Mironov sings a song about the island of bad luck was filmed on upper deck"Victory" - where a fire raged 20 years before that destroyed dozens of lives ...

In the movie "The Diamond Arm" Andrey Mironov sings his famous song "The Island of Bad Luck" on the deck of a cruise ship. The scenery is the ship "Victory", the former German "Iberia".
The fate of this ship, like in a mirror, reflected many important political events of the middle of the 20th century.

GERMAN ORIGIN
The ship was built by order of the German shipping company at the Schichau Werft shipyard in the city of Danzig (Polish Gdansk) in 1928 for operation on the Europe - Central America- West Indies. The first flight was on December 29, 1928.
After a six-month repair and re-equipment in Hamburg at the Blohm & Voss shipyard, the Magdalena liner left the factory as a single-pipe motor ship with the new name Iberia (German: Iberia).
After World War II, the Iberia served as a floating base for the German Navy in Kiel during the war. Initially, after the war, on June 9, 1945, the British Navy received it. On February 18, 1946, the Iberia, which had not suffered in the hostilities, was transferred by the USSR to the Black Sea Shipping Company for reparations. Here the liner received a new name - "Victory".

FATAL FLIGHT
On July 31, 1948, the motor ship Pobeda left the port of New York with 323 passengers and 277 tons of cargo on board. Among the passengers were mainly employees of the ministries of foreign affairs and foreign trade with their families, as well as several representatives of other departments, as well as the family of Chinese Marshal Feng Yuxiang, who was heading to China through the Soviet Union.
On the approach to Gibraltar, an order was received: to go to Alexandria and take on board about 2,000 more Armenian repatriates from Egypt, returning to Armenia. Nevertheless, all repatriates were safely delivered at the end of August to the port of destination - Batumi.
Shortly after the fateful flight of the "Victory" the Armenian repatriation was stopped.

On September 1, the radio station of the Black Sea Shipping Company received a report from the ship: "Victory" passed Novorossiysk and expects to arrive in Odessa by 2 p.m. on September 2. The ship did not make contact again. However, at first this did not alert anyone. Only on the morning of September 2, the Black Sea Shipping Company requested ships and ports along the route of the liner, but it turned out that none of them had any connection with Pobeda and did not hear SOS signals on the air. Command Black Sea Fleet sent out search planes, and at 9 pm one of the pilots reported that he had found a charred ship 70 miles southeast of Yalta; near him were five boats with people.

ARMENIANS

In July 1945, at the Potsdam Conference, Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov told Truman and Churchill that "in 1921, the Turks took advantage of the weakness of the Soviet state and took part of Soviet Armenia from it. Armenians in the Soviet Union feel offended."
The allies were not going to surrender Turkey, but Stalin did not want to back down from his demands. And since the coming annexation was proclaimed the restoration of historical justice for the Armenians, the USSR had to have the proper number of representatives of this people in order to quickly populate new lands. On November 21, 1946, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR adopted a decision "On measures for the return of foreign Armenians to Soviet Armenia." A new campaign for the repatriation of Armenians to their historical homeland has begun. In 12 states, including the USA, France, Romania, Egypt, Bulgaria, Lebanon, and Syria, about 360,000 people declared their desire to emigrate to the USSR.

Eyewitnesses tell about their stay on Pobeda:
It was hard for sailors and in the parking lots in ports. “Victory” began picking up Armenians from Marseilles. Then she went to Egypt, to Alexandria. Then to the Lebanese port of Beirut. Then to the Syrian port of Latakia. From there to Greece, to Piraeus. He brought the ship his passengers to Batumi, from where railway they were delivered to Yerevan.
Each Armenian family carried a lot of luggage. Many had cars that were rare for the USSR in those days. And all this had to be loaded, placed and secured in case of stormy weather.
Taking passengers on board with their luggage, the sailors were knocked down, the chief assistant of the captain puzzled over where to put the cars, and the passenger assistant fought off the Armenian mothers, who begged to give their children such a cabin, “so as not to rock.”
The returnees were traveling into the unknown. Some are happy about the upcoming meeting with their historical homeland Armenia, others are in disarray. There was a case when the husband of a young Armenian woman, a Frenchman, while passing the Bosphorus, jumped overboard and swam to the shore.

FIRE
At this time, the radio engineer Kovalenko, acting ship projectionist, decided to prepare a batch of films taken on a voyage for delivery to the cultural base, and asked the sailor Skripnikov to rewind the films after viewing. The films were stored in a small storeroom in the central part of the ship. The part was packed in tin boxes, and the part intended for rewinding lay open on the table. About 2,000 gramophone records were stored in the same pantry. At about 15 o'clock, when rewinding on a manual machine, the tape sparkled and flared up. Coils lying nearby caught fire from it. A few seconds later the pantry was engulfed in flames, the clothes on the sailor flared up. Skripnikov jumped out of the pantry, slammed the door and, shouting for help, ran down the corridor. The hot air in the pantry knocked out the door, and the fiery tornado that escaped engulfed the carpet paths and plywood bulkheads of the cabins. The flame, drawn along the corridor by a powerful stream of air, reached the ladder leading to the vestibule of the upper deck, and from there it reached the upper bridge along two vertical shafts of stairs, igniting everything in its path. In a matter of minutes, the fire engulfed the central part of the vessel, including the navigational, steering and radio room, the cabins of the captain and navigators. The fire began to spread through the living quarters to the bow and stern, to the boat deck, approached the holds and the engine room. The watch radio operator Vedeneev, caught in the fire, jumped out of the wheelhouse through the porthole, not having time to transmit either a distress signal or a message that he was forced to leave the watch. The captain ordered to give an SOS signal on the spare radio, but it had already burned down in the chart room. The ship's general fire alarm was announced only a few minutes later by the ship's bell.

The extinguishing was carried out by several independent, randomly formed groups in different parts of the vessel. On the night of September 3, when rescuers approached the ship, the main fire had already been extinguished. The ship was taken in tow, but then it turned out that he could go on his own. On September 5, Pobeda arrived in Odessa, the rescued passengers arrived on the Vyacheslav Molotov turbo ship.

The fire killed two crew members - the barmaid G. Gunyan and the sailor V. Skripnikov and 40 passengers, including 19 women and 15 children, among them were the Chinese Marshal Feng Yuxiang and his daughter.

Oktyabr Bar-Biryukov writes: “The investigation assumed that in Alexandria, when landing such a large number passengers boarded the ship saboteurs, who organized a fire. Moreover, in Batumi, on a ship in different places, pieces of some substance similar to ore were found. According to eyewitnesses, during a trial arson, they burned with a blue flame with a high temperature.
The author of these lines, who was completing his studies at the Caspian Higher Naval School, in the summer of 1948 had an internship on ships in Odessa and Sevastopol. A few months later, having received the rank of naval midshipman, I was again sent to the Black Sea Fleet. There I ended up in Sevastopol, and I had a chance to see Pobeda. She stood on the outer roadstead and waited for a place to be vacated at the quay wall of the shipyard.
At the plant, I had many acquaintances who communicated with the crew of the ship. From conversations with them, I managed to find out some details of the state of emergency. The fire, according to my interlocutors, broke out after the passage of Yalta. In the middle part of the vessel under the captain's bridge, boxes of cargo taken on board caught fire. During the flight, they were repeatedly rearranged from place to place. Some witnesses subsequently claimed that the boxes with unknown cargo burned like sparklers.
Before leaving New York, the wife of one of the Soviet diplomats who were leaving the United States did not want to return to her homeland, and the Americans took her under their care. However, her luggage was loaded onto the Pobeda and was in the middle of the ship, where the fire started. In addition, before leaving New York, local authorities started disinfecting the ship. The crew lived in hotels for two days, while the Americans put things in order on Pobeda, despite the protests of the captain. As a result, according to various indications, many items - furniture, carpets, curtains, and even the surfaces of decks, bulkheads of cabins and other rooms, impregnated with a "disinfectant" composition - burned especially actively. In the end, all of this went unnoticed."

CHINESE MARSHAL

But the most intriguing circumstance is connected with the Chinese marshal. He went to the USSR on an important mission. It was believed that he could take one of the key posts in the government of the new China.
He was a man with a great biography. Feng Yuxiang entered the military during the Xinhai Revolution of 1911-1913 and was soon promoted to command positions. In October 1924, already a general, Feng captured Beijing with his troops in a coup d'état, and in 1926 joined the Kuomintang party. In the summer of 1927, he supported the leader of the Kuomintang, Chiang Kai-shek, who broke off relations with the Chinese Communist Party. However, during the years of the war with Japan (1937-1945), Feng was a supporter of cooperation with the communists.
In 1948, the defeat of the Kuomintang army by the troops of the communist People's Liberation Army of China was completed. On the agenda was the creation of a national government. The once all-powerful Feng has already passed the zenith of political glory. But he has just made another political turn, completely going over to the side of the Communist Party. In addition, Feng Yuxiang until the end of his life retained the Christian religion, relatively atypical for the Chinese hinterland of the early 20th century, for which he received the nickname "Christian General". Despite the opposition of his entourage, he baptized not only his son, but even some of his soldiers.

It is known that Stalin did not trust Mao very much, calling him a “radish”: red on the outside and white on the inside. It is also known that, while providing certain military-technical assistance to the Chinese Communists, Moscow gave priority to the then-legitimate Kuomintang government of Chiang Kai-shek. Perhaps, reflecting on the fate of China, Stalin developed several options with the involvement of "reserve" figures. One of them could be Marshal Feng Yuxiang. His return to China was most likely to disadvantage Mao. Feng's mysterious death on a Soviet ship may have violated Stalin's strategic plans. And, quite obviously, cleared the way for Mao to the supreme sole power.

COURT
In early 1949, a closed trial took place over the perpetrators of the incident. They were the freelance projectionist Kovalenko, the sailor Skripnikov who helped him, the captain of the motor ship Paholok and his two assistants, as well as the radio operator who did not transmit the SOS signal, and the dispatcher of the shipping company. The ship's captain Nikolay Pakholok and projectionist Kovalenko were sentenced to 15 years in prison, Pompolit Pershukov - to ten, radio operator Vedeneev - to eight. Coastal service workers indirectly responsible for the tragedy received lighter sentences. And the starpom Alexander Nabokin, who was in charge of fire safety, was punished most severely of all: he was sentenced to 25 years in prison - the then highest measure.

Photo by Vladimir Mandel from http://www.shipspotting.com/

"Victory" continued to work as part of the Black Sea Shipping Company on domestic and foreign lines. In the mid-1950s, she was among the best ships of the shipping company. In 1962, during the Caribbean crisis, the ship was used to transport Soviet troops to Cuba; in the late 1970s, it was decommissioned from the fleet and disposed of on the shores of Gadani Beach in the city of Chittagong (Bangladesh).

This is an addition to the article “On the Division of the Fleets of the Defeated Countries by the Allies in the Anti-Hitler Coalition after World War II”, in terms of which German civilian ships the USSR received as reparations.
But I'll start with the headquarters ship of the Black Sea Fleet "Angara".
In the previous article, it was told about the Crixmarine submarine control ship "Aviso Hela", which we began to call "Angara".
In the Navy, this ship served mainly representative functions and was used as a government yacht.

At different times, the Angara was visited by the heads of government of the USSR and foreign countries. So, in September 1954, on board this yacht, Malenkov, Molotov, Khrushchev and Kirilenko cruised Sevastopol - Yalta - Sochi - Yalta.
In 1955, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his daughter Indira Gandhi took a boat trip on the Angara.
The Angara was visited by Josip Broz Tito, King of Afghanistan Muhammad Zahir Shah, Urho Kekkonen, Vladislav Gomulka, Janos Kador and other leaders.
Visited the "Angara" and the Minister of Defense G.K. Zhukov.
Here is what the Sevastopol journalist S.P. Gorbachev in the book "Angara" - from the swastika to the St. Andrew's Cross ":
“Somehow, the marshal, while on the Angara, suddenly saw the incredible: on the upper decks of the ships standing in the roadstead and at the berths, the personnel were in all white. This not only shocked him, but angered him. He did not know that on the occasion of the arrival at the main base of the Black Sea Fleet, the Minister of Defense was ordered to appear on the upper deck of the ships only in uniform No. 1 (for officers - a white tunic and white trousers).
"Why do people wear underwear on the upper deck of ships?" - the minister was indignant and, without even listening to the explanations of the commander of the fleet, ordered such a form ... to be canceled.
Since then, only uniform 2 has remained in the fleet (a white jacket and black trousers for officers and a white uniform and black trousers for sailors).
It must be said that G.K. Zhukov always did not understand and did not want to understand the sailors, "he loved the fleet very much", with the People's Commissar of the Navy N.G. Kuznetsov, he had a very difficult relationship, and he did everything to dismiss him after the tragedy with the battleship Novorossiysk.
Well, of course, the navy also “loved” him very much, especially after, on his orders, on the deck of ships (cruisers), and for other ships, on the shore, drills began to be held with sailors, instead of combat training.
And the irony of fate was that it was in the Navy that he held what is called his “last parade” in the rank of Minister of Defense.
October 4, 1957 Minister of Defense G.K. Zhukov set off from Sevastopol, on the cruiser Kuibyshev, on a visit to Yugoslavia and Albania.
The commander of the cruiser then was Captain 1st Rank V.V. Mikhailin (later Admiral Commander of the Baltic Fleet, then Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Navy). So he gave the last report to G.K. Zhukov as Minister of Defense, meeting him on the cruiser.
The farewell was solemn, the entire command of the Black Sea Fleet, the Crimean authorities were present. But he returned almost no longer in the rank of minister. During his foreign business trip, the issue of his removal was already resolved.
On October 27, 1957, he flew to Moscow, and on October 29, 1957, after the October plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU, he was removed from the Presidium of the Central Committee and the Central Committee of the CPSU, released from the post of Minister of Defense of the USSR, and in February 1958 he was dismissed.

The sailboats received under reparation - the barges "Kruzenshtern", "Sedov" and "Tovarishch" are described in the previous article.
But in addition to these large sailboats, the USSR received another 20 German cruising yachts.
In August 1947, a train with captured German yachts arrived at the Khimki station.
Here are the names of all twenty received German yachts that arrived in Moscow after the Great Patriotic War and greatly contributed to the development of sailing in the capital. Their names, of course, are already Russian:
"Maria", "Eagle", "Nika", "Eos", "Captain Petrov", "Trouble", "Waterman", "Corsair", "Viking", "Nerpa", "Turtle", "Sadko", " Samarga", "Gemma", "Phoenix", "Storm", "Shark", "Loon", "Sperm Whale" and "Wave".
In 2000, the captured yachts "Nerpa", "Turtle", "Samarga", "Gemma", "Phoenix" and "Storm" still sailed on the Klyazma reservoir.

Now about passenger liners.

As a result of the reparation section, the largest ship of the German passenger fleet, the transatlantic liner Europe (of the Bremen type), was transferred to the United States, which then transferred it to France in the form of compensation for the Normandie that died in New York and was renamed Libert.
This liner owned the Blue Ribbon of the Atlantic from 1930 to 1933.

Liner "Europe"

Under the name "Liberte", the ship sailed across the North Atlantic for about 15 years.
England got the big German liners "Monte Rosa", "Milwaukee", "Thuringia", "Potsdam", "Pretoria", "Antonio Delfino", "Ubena".

Passenger liners inherited by the USSR for reparations were mainly sent to Far East and to the Black Sea.

The first in such a list is the Rossiya diesel-electric ship
The ship was built in 1938 in Hamburg and was called "Patria".

Dieselelectrohod "Russia"

"Russia" went to the Crimean-Caucasian line (Odessa-Batumi), where it was very popular. It was considered the flagship of the Marine Passenger Fleet.
The ship was decommissioned in 1985 and scrapped in Japan.
The motor ship was filmed in the feature films "Diamond Arm", "Reserve Player", etc.
The history of the arrest of Grand Admiral Doenitz is connected with this ship.
At the end of April 1945, after Hitler's suicide, at the head of the "Third Reich", was the "government" of Grand Admiral Doenitz. His refuge was the naval school in the border (near Denmark) city of Flensburg.
On May 12, members of the Allied Control Commission began to arrive in Flensburg.
They have chosen for their work and residence the passenger ship "Patria", which is at anchor. While the Soviet members of the commission had not yet arrived, Admiral Doenitz sought to hold separate negotiations with the British and Americans. He came to the Patria twice.
On May 22, on board the Patria, the Allied Control Commission, already with the participation of representatives of the USSR, announced that the Allies did not recognize the "government" of Doenitz, it ceased to exist, and the grand admiral and his ministers were arrested and should consider themselves prisoners of war. Jodl was also arrested there.
Under guard, all the Germans were taken from the Patria to the shore and taken to prison. At the Nuremberg Trials, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Passenger liner "Peter the Great".

In 1938, it was laid down by order of Turkey at the Blom and Voss shipyard in Hamburg under the name Dogu. In February 1941, the ship was mobilized in the Kriegsmarine under the name "Duals". From June 28, 1941 to January 26, 1944, "Duals" provided combat training for submariners, and then was reclassified as torpedoes.
In 1946, the USSR was transferred.
The ship received a new name "Peter the Great".
However, in 1947 the USSR handed it over to Poland, where it was called "Jagello".

Motor ship "Peter the Great"

In 1949, the ship was returned to the USSR and under the name "Peter the Great" was enrolled in the Black Sea Shipping Company with the home port of Odessa.
After modernization and increase in passenger capacity (up to 600 people), since 1954 he went on the Odessa-Batumi line.
Decommissioned in 1973 and scrapped in the Spanish port of Castellon.

Motor ship "Admiral Nakhimov"

Built in Germany in 1925 under the name "Berlin". Until 1939, he made regular flights across the Atlantic between the ports of Bremerhaven and New York. Transferred under the reparation of the USSR.
From 1949 to 1957, Admiral Nakhimov was undergoing a major overhaul in the GDR
"Admiral Nakhimov" was transferred to the Black Sea Shipping Company.
The tragic fate of passengers and the ship is described in the article “On the “baptism” of ships, their names and fates,” which was posted on my blog earlier.

whaling flotilla

Under reparations, the USSR received from Germany a whaling flotilla - a whale depot with 17 small whaling hunters. The lead whaleship "Wikinger" had a displacement of 28,000 tons and a speed of 12 knots.
Small whalers could reach speeds of up to 14.5 knots.
The base was named "Glory".
In 1946, for the first time in the history of the Russian fishing fleet, the Soviet whaling flotilla "Slava" with a scientific group on board set off from Odessa on its first Antarctic expedition.
It was led by ice captain V.M. Voronin. This was the start of Soviet whaling in Antarctica.

On the first two voyages, Norwegian specialists were invited to train our sailors. They worked as harpooners, masters of butchering and fat melting. Only on its third voyage did the whaling flotilla "Slava" go out equipped exclusively with our sailors. Several harpooners and cutting specialists arrived from the Far East, the rest of the team was recruited in Odessa.
Starting from the second voyage, the flotilla was headed by Captain-Director Alexei Solyanik.
He was the captain-director of the Slava flotilla until 1959, and from 1959 he headed the Soviet Ukraine whaling flotilla, already of domestic construction. At that time, A. Solyanik was the most famous and popular person in Odessa.
Since 1956, whalers began to build for the whaling flotilla at the Nikolaev plant named after. 61 Communards.

Whaling base "Glory"

I had to see how our whalers were built at the plant 61 Communards. They were literally baked like pancakes.
Almost every month a new whaler left the factory for sea trials, having previously carried out mooring trials for 5-6 days, with his nose against the wall, with working propellers,

Whaler of the construction of the plant 61 Communards.

Motor ship "Victory"

The fate of this ship was very dramatic
The liner "Victory" (German "Magdalena") was built by order of the German shipping company at the shipyard "Schihau" in Danzig in 1928 for operation on the line Europe - Central America - West Indies.
The liner went on its first flight on December 29, 1928.
In February 1934, curacao islands the ship ran aground, from which it was removed only on August 25. After a six-month repair and re-equipment at the Blom and Voss shipyard in Hamburg, the Magdalena liner came out with a new name, Iberia.

With the outbreak of World War II, Iberia was mobilized and used as a Kriegsmarine floating base in Kiel. There, on June 9, 1945, she was captured by the British.
In February 1946, Iberia, which had not suffered in the hostilities, was transferred to the USSR for reparations and became part of the Black Sea Shipping Company under the name Pobeda.

The liner cruised on the line Odessa - New York - Odessa.
On July 31, 1948, the ship "Victory" with 323 passengers and 277 tons of cargo on board left the port of New York for Odessa. The passengers were mainly employees of the ministries of foreign affairs and foreign trade with their families, as well as several representatives of other departments and the family of Chinese Marshal Feng Yuxiang, who was heading to China through the Soviet Union.
In Alexandria, about two thousand Armenian repatriates from Egypt were taken on board, returning to Armenia, who were safely delivered to Batumi, from where on August 31 the Pobeda headed for Odessa.
On September 2, radio contact with the ship was cut off. The search began immediately.
Search planes of the naval aviation of the Black Sea Fleet on the evening of September 2 found the burnt-out motor ship Pobeda 70 miles southeast of Yalta and near it were five boats with people. Rescuers went to the emergency ship from Feodosia, Sevastopol, and other places,
As the investigation later established, the fire broke out in the pantry of films, where the projectionist rewound films after watching the film. About 2,000 gramophone records were stored in the same pantry.
In a matter of minutes, the fire engulfed the central part of the vessel, including the navigational, steering and radio room, the cabins of the captain and navigators. The fire began to spread through the living quarters to the bow and stern, to the boat deck, approached the holds and the engine room.
The watch radio operator, caught in the fire, jumped out of the wheelhouse through the porthole without having time to transmit a distress signal. Spare walkie-talkie, burned down in the chart room.
The fire killed two crew members and 40 passengers, including 19 women and 15 children, among them Chinese Marshal Feng Yuxiang and his daughter.
On the night of September 3, when rescuers approached the ship, the main fire had already been extinguished. The ship was taken in tow, but then it turned out that he could go on his own. On September 5, Pobeda arrived in Odessa, the rescued passengers arrived on the Vyacheslav Molotov turbo ship.
After the repair, the Pobeda liner continued to be used by the Black Sea Shipping Company on domestic and foreign lines. In the mid-1950s, he was considered one of the best ships of the shipping company.
In 1968, the motor ship Pobeda starred in Leonid Gaidai's comedy The Diamond Arm. She played the role of the ship "Mikhail Svetlov", and it was on the deck of the "Victory", 20 years after the tragedy, that Andrei Mironov sings a song about the Island of Bad Luck.

The passenger steamer "Ilya Repin" was built in 1927 at the shipyard in Stettin under the name "Rugard". Its capacity is 1358 brt.
In September 1939, Rugard was commissioned into the Kriegsmarine and used in the Baltic Sea as a command ship and a mother ship.
In May 1945, the Rugard was captured by the Allies in Kiel and in 1946 handed over to the USSR. The ship was renamed "Ilya Repin" and put in for repairs in Wismar.

In 1946-1950. "Repin" sailed around the Baltic, port of registry - Leningrad, and in 1950-1959. - in the North, port of registry - Murmansk.

Antarctic whaling flotilla "Yuri Dolgoruky"

It was created in Kaliningrad in 1959 on the basis of the former German cargo-passenger ship "Hamburg", which was built in 1926 at the shipyard in Hamburg.
In April 1945, the Hamburg was flooded and only in September 1950 was raised and delivered for rebuilding to Antwerp, then to the GDR at the Varnoverf enterprise in the port of Warnemünde.

The ship, converted into a whaling base, was launched in March 1960 and received a new name - "Yuri Dolgoruky".
The composition of the whaling flotilla "Yuri Dolgoruky" included 17 whaling ships of the "Mirny" type built by the Nikolaev shipbuilding plant.
From 1960 to 1975, the whaling flotilla "Yuri Dolgoruky" went to the Antarctic 15 times to hunt whales.
The flotilla was disbanded in 1975.

Whaling base "Yuri Dolgoruky".

German ships received under reparations and sent to the Far East

Steamboat "Chukotka"
Former German steamship Wangoni.
It was built in 1921 in Hamburg at the Blom und Voss shipyard and was used on the African line. In 1934, "Vangoni" was converted into a tourist a cruise ship, increasing the passenger capacity to 340 people.

Steamboat Chukotka (Vangoni)

"Vangoni" was transferred to the USSR in the second half of 1947, arrived in Vladivostok and was used on the Primorskaya line until 1968,

Steamboat "Gogol"
The former German cargo and passenger steamer Wadai was built in Hamburg in 1920.
In 1946, after the official division of the captured fleet, Vadai was transferred to the Soviet Union.

The steamer called "Gogol" became part of the Far East Shipping Company. In 1970, it was cut into scrap metal in Japan.

Steamboat "Primorye"
The former German steamship Salon was built in 1939 at a German shipyard. In 1940, the ship was confiscated for the needs of the German Navy and renamed Windhuk.

It was captured by the Allies in Hamburg and transferred to the USSR.
After carrying out repair work in Wismar, the ship received a new name - "Primorye"
In September 1950, the steamer "Primorye" arrived in Vladivostok and began to be used on the Primorskaya line.
The ship "Primorye" sailed on the line until the mid-1970s, and then was commissioned for metal.

Steamboat "Siberia"

The former German steamship Sierra Salvada was laid down at the Vulkan shipyard in Stettin in March 1913.
In 1927, the liner received the name "Ocean".

Steamboat "Siberia"

During World War II, the Okean was used by the German Navy as a floating barracks in Gotenhafen and Stettin.
In 1946, the liner was transferred to the USSR and in January 1948 it arrived at the Warnowwerft shipyard in Warnemünde, where it underwent repairs and modernization.
The ship was named "Siberia" and in June 1948 left Warnemünde and headed for the Far East. By this time, the passenger capacity of the vessel was 1200 passengers.
The liner "Siberia" was in operation until 1963.

Steamboat "Asia"
The former German steamship "Sierra Marena", in 1934 was renamed "Der Deutche" ("German")

.

ship "Asia"

The liner arrived in Vladivostok in October 1950 and began to operate on the line Vladivostok - Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. In 1967, the liner was cut into scrap metal.

Liner "Soviet Union"
Former German steamship "Albert Balin".
It was laid down on August 24, 1921 at the Blom and Voss shipyard in Hamburg. The length of the liner was 205 m, capacity 20,815 GRT, speed up to 19 knots. The liner could take 250 passengers in the 1st class, 340 passengers in the 2nd class and 960 passengers in the 3rd class.
In 1935, the liner received a new name - "Hansa".

With the outbreak of World War II, in 1939, the Hansa was mobilized and used as a floating base in the German Navy. In March 1945, the floating base at the crossing was blown up by a mine. The ship tried to reach Warnemünde under its own power, but, not having reached only 9 miles, ran aground. Later, the liner capsized and lay on the bottom of the left side.
In 1949, the rescue service of the Baltic Fleet raised the ship, and she was taken to Warnemünde, where the shipyard "Warnow Werft" carried out refurbishment.
Since this liner was the largest passenger ship in the USSR, they decided to call it the "Soviet Union". The official assignment of the new name took place in 1953. In general, restoration work lasted five years.

Liner "Soviet Union"

In 1955, the Far Eastern branch of Sovtorgflot took the liner Sovetsky Soyuz into operation. But before moving to the Far East, the ship had to perform control docking. At that time, in the western ports of the USSR there was only one place where such a large vessel could be docked - the dry dock of the Sevmorzavod in Sevastopol.
On October 13, 1955, the Soviet Union turbo ship arrived in Odessa, from where it moved to Sevastopol. At the Sevmorzavod, docking was carried out in the dry dock of the plant.
During the stay in Sevastopol, the First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee N.S. Khrushchev, Minister of Defense G.K. Zhukov and Politburo member L.I. Brezhnev.
In May 1957, the "Soviet Union" arrived in Vladivostok,
Turboship "Soviet Union" completed work on the Kamchatka passenger line in 1980.
It was renamed to "Tobolsk", because with the name "Soviet Union" it simply could not be subject to cutting into scrap metal.
In March 1982, Tobolsk independently entered the last flight and was officially handed over for cutting into metal by one of the Hong Kong companies.

Steamboat "Ilyich"
It was built in 1932-1933. at the shipyard "Blom and Foss" under the name "Caribia".

Steamboat "Ilyich"

Its passenger capacity was 450 passengers.
Until the beginning of World War II, the ship operated on lines connecting Germany with Central America and the West Indies. In 1940, "Caribia" was mobilized into the German Navy, where it was used as a floating barracks.
In 1945, "Caribia" was transferred to the USSR, she was given the name "Ilyich".
At the beginning of 1946, "Ilyich" arrived in Vladivostok, where it was operated on the Kamchatka line.

Motor ship "Rus"
The former German motor ship "Cordillera" was built in Hamburg in 1933, like the same type of motor ship "Ilyich"
In March 1945, the ship was sunk in the port of Swinemünde during a British air raid.
It was possible to raise the ship only in January 1949. The ship went through a refurbishment in Warnemünde. Number of passenger seats 880.
In August 1952, he arrived in Vladivostok and operated on the express line Vladivostok-Petropavlovsk until 1977.

Motor ship "Rus"

In addition to passenger ships, two large German sea ferries, the Aniva and Krillon, the former Deutschland and Pressen, were sent to the Far East. The passenger capacity of each was 700 people.

Ferry "Aniva"

Ferry "Aniva" as part of the Far Eastern Shipping Company. operated until 1960.

Ferry Crillon (Pressen)
In March 1946, the Crillon was handed over to the USSR in the port of Lübeck.
Repair "Krillon" took place in Odessa, and from there in 1947 he went to Vladivostok. Initially, it was used as a ferry on the Vladivostok - Kholmsk line.
In 1951 it was converted into a comfortable passenger liner. Passenger capacity has become over 500 passengers.
The liner was operated until 1975 on the Korsakov - Vladivostok line, sometimes making flights to Japan.

Liner "Krillon"

Under reparations, the USSR also received a number of German bulk carriers and tankers.
For example, dry cargo ship "Admiral Senyavin". The ship was built in 1928 in Kiel. Displacement 5900 tons,
Dry cargo ship "Admiral Ushakov" was built in 1938 in Berlin. Displacement - 10 800 tons.
Both ships were part of the Soviet navy until 1970.
According to reparations, not only sea, but also river vessels arrived in the USSR.
This article shows only passenger ships received by the USSR for reparations.
These motor ships made up a significant part of the USSR marine passenger fleet after the end of the war, and, unlike the received warships, they were used by us for quite a long time.
In the end, 769 German ships and vessels were transferred to the Soviet Union, of which 155 were warships, the rest were ships for various purposes.
In addition, the Soviet Union received 39 floating docks and 9 pontoons.

The current version of the page has not yet been reviewed by experienced contributors and may differ significantly from the one reviewed on August 10, 2016; checks are required.

Victory- passenger ship, used for passenger traffic on the line Odessa - New York - Odessa, belonged to the Black Sea Shipping Company. The ship was originally named "Magdalena"(German "Magdalena").

The ship was built by order of the German shipping company HAPAG at the Schichau Werft shipyard in the city of Danzig (Polish Gdansk) in 1928 for operation on the Europe - Central America - West Indies line. The first flight was on December 29, 1928.

Two-shaft power plant of two 8-cylinder diesel engines "Sulzer" brand 8SM68 with a capacity of 3,500 hp each. with. each at 105 rpm. allowed the ship to develop a speed of about 15.5 knots, working on two 4-bladed propellers.

On August 31, the ship headed for Odessa. There were 310 passengers and crew members on board. On September 1, at one o'clock in the afternoon, the radio station of the Black Sea Shipping Company in Odessa received a scheduled report from the ship that they had passed Novorossiysk and that they were supposed to arrive in Odessa by two o'clock on September 2. After that, radio contact with the ship ceased.

On the morning of September 2, the Black Sea Shipping Company began to take measures to find out the reasons for the silence of the ship, requesting ships at sea and ports along the route of the liner: no one had any connection with Pobeda and did not hear SOS signals. The leadership turned to the command of the Black Sea Fleet for help, and search aircraft of naval aviation were sent to the sea. At 21.00, one of the pilots reported that he had found the charred motor ship Pobeda 70 miles southeast of Yalta, with five boats with people near it. Help was sent to the emergency ship from Feodosia, Sevastopol and other places. From Odessa, cadets and teachers of the Odessa Higher Nautical School were sent to help.

According to the investigation, on September 1, 1948, at about 13:00, the liner passed the port of Novorossiysk. At this time, the radio engineer Kovalenko, acting ship projectionist, decided to prepare a batch of films taken on a voyage for delivery to the cultural base, and asked the sailor Skripnikov to rewind the films after viewing. The films were stored in a small storeroom in the central part of the ship. The part was packed in tin boxes, and the part intended for rewinding lay open on the table. About 2,000 gramophone records were stored in the same pantry. At about 3 pm, while rewinding on a manual machine, the film sparkled and flared up. Coils lying nearby caught fire from it. A few seconds later the pantry was engulfed in flames, the clothes on the sailor flared up. Skripnikov jumped out of the pantry, slammed the door and, shouting for help, ran down the corridor. The hot air in the pantry knocked out the door, and the fiery tornado that escaped engulfed the carpet paths and plywood bulkheads of the cabins. The flame, drawn along the corridor by a powerful stream of air, reached the ladder leading to the vestibule of the upper deck, and from there it reached the upper bridge along two vertical shafts of stairs, igniting everything in its path. In a matter of minutes, the fire engulfed the central part of the vessel, including the navigational, steering and radio room, the cabins of the captain and navigators. The fire began to spread through the living quarters to the bow and stern, to the boat deck, approached the holds and the engine room. The watch radio operator Vedeneev, caught in the fire, jumped out of the wheelhouse through the porthole, not having time to transmit either a distress signal or a message that he was forced to leave the watch. The captain ordered to give an SOS signal on the spare radio, but it had already burned down in the chart room. The ship's general fire alarm was announced only a few minutes later by the ship's bell.

42 people died in the fire: two crew members - barmaid G. Gunyan and sailor V. Skripnikov and 40 passengers, including 19 women and 15 children, among them were Chinese marshal Feng Yuxiang, a member of the era of militarists, with his daughter and the widow of the writer A. N. Afinogenov Evgenia Bernardovna (Jenny Schwartz).

The fire on the ship Pobeda and the death of the Chinese marshal were immediately reported to Stalin. There is an opinion that sabotage was initially suspected in the incident. By a resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR of September 14, the repatriation of foreign Armenians to the USSR was completely and immediately canceled and the admission of Armenian settlers to Armenia was prohibited.

In early 1949, a closed trial took place over the perpetrators of the incident. They were the freelance projectionist Kovalenko, the sailor Skripnikov who helped him, the captain of the motor ship Paholok and his two assistants, as well as the radio operator who did not transmit the SOS signal, and the dispatcher of the shipping company. The ship's captain Nikolay Pakholok and projectionist Kovalenko were sentenced to 15 years in prison, Pompolit Pershukov - to ten, radio operator Vedeneev - to eight. Coastal service workers indirectly responsible for the tragedy received lighter sentences. And the starpom Alexander Nabokin, who was in charge of fire safety, was punished most severely of all: he was sentenced to 25 years in prison - the then highest measure.