Ship victory. The steamer "Po ... trouble

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 that the USSR inherited as reparations were mainly sent to the Far East and 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 the 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

According to reparations, the USSR received from Germany a whaling flotilla - a whale depot with 17 small whalers-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, after having carried out mooring trials for 5-6 days before that, 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 Pobeda liner (German: Magdalena) was built by order of a German shipping company at the Schiehau shipyard in Danzig in 1928 for operation on the Europe - Central America - West Indies line.
The liner went on its first flight on December 29, 1928.
In February 1934, near the island of Curaçao, 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 five boats with people near it. 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 Hand. 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, the Wangoni was converted into a tourist 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 went on its 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, as well as 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.

Construction history

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, there were 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.

Investigation

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 cabin 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.

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 militarist era, 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.

Effects

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.

Further fate

"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.

ACCIDENT?

On September 5, 1948, a TASS message appeared on the last page of the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper under the heading "Accident on the ship Pobeda": "Odessa. 4 September. In early August, the motor ship "Victory" 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 were among the dead. The ship was delivered to Odessa. An investigation is underway." The coffin with the marshal's body was sent by plane to Moscow. According to the desire of the marshal's wife, the body was cremated. TASS reported that the relatives of the deceased, representatives of the Soviet Armed Forces and the public were present at the cremation. Military honors were given to the deceased ...

The author of these lines, who was then completing his studies at the Caspian Higher Naval School, was in September 1948 on vacation with relatives in Moscow. And in the summer he practiced on the Black Sea Fleet - on ships in Odessa and Sevastopol. Therefore, the message published in the Red Star interested me. I tried to find out any additional information about what happened through my acquaintances in the relevant competent circles. But, apart from the fact that a high commission has been created and an investigation is underway, nothing has been found out.

A few months later, having completed my studies at KVVMU and received the rank of naval midshipman, I was sent for an internship again to the Black Sea Fleet. And he ended up in Odessa, on a minesweeper, which participated in the demining of coastal waters. On land, that is, in the city itself, it was rare to visit. Nevertheless, rumors about an emergency at Pobeda reached me: an investigation is underway, but few people knew what happened and how. At the end of the internship, I ended up in Sevastopol, and I had a chance to see Pobeda myself. At the end of August, she was already at anchor and was waiting for a place to be vacated at the quay wall of the shipyard. Through binoculars it was possible to see its burnt upper front.

Arriving in Sevastopol in the late autumn of 1949, I again saw the Pobeda moored in the South Bay of the Sevastopol harbor. She stood next to several ships of the Slava whaling flotilla. Even without binoculars, the ominous black traces of a fire were clearly visible in the superstructure of the ship's hull, in the forward upper part, where the captain's and radio room were located and chic luxury cabins were located. Restoration work was already in full swing on the wrecked ship.

I had many acquaintances at the shipyard. From conversations with them, we managed to find out some details about Pobeda and the state of emergency on it. The fire broke out after the passage of Yalta. Crates of cargo taken on board caught fire and caused an explosion in the amidships of the ship under the captain's bridge. During the voyage, these mysterious boxes were repeatedly rearranged on the ship from place to place. At that moment, when the fire started and the explosion occurred, a movie was shown at Pobeda. Some of the passengers were in the cinema, the rest were in their cabins and were preparing for their arrival in Odessa. When smoke poured out of the ventilation of the cinema room, and then flames began to be knocked out, panic seized the passengers, people rushed to run in all directions. The fire quickly spread to neighboring rooms. Some witnesses subsequently claimed that the boxes with unknown cargo burned like sparklers. The Pobeda team began to fight the fire, but the water pressure in the fire main turned out to be weak, and many fire extinguishers and fire hoses (hoses) did not work. In the end, the crew managed to localize the main sources of fire, and the charred "Victory" reached Odessa on its own ... At the same time, the ship was controlled using a remote post equipped in the stern for trainees.

On board the ship, along with the Chinese marshal, was his family - his wife, son and daughter. Everyone except the daughter was watching a movie, and the latter was taking a bath in her cabin. Marshal - already an elderly, overweight, but brave man - helped put out the fire and tried to get his way to his daughter's cabin. But, apparently, he inhaled carbon monoxide and smoke, lost consciousness and died. The marshal's daughter also died, they found her lying in the bathtub ...

The investigation went on for several months and went behind closed doors. Stalin was personally interested in its course. In early 1949, a closed trial took place. The off-duty projectionist Kovalenko, the captain of the Pobeda Pakholok and his two assistants, the radio operator (who did not transmit the SOS signal), and the dispatcher of the shipping company were declared the culprits of the incident. All of them received and almost completely served the appointed time.

The official version of the state of emergency - "accident during the fire of the film" - is highly doubtful. After all, it was not films that caught fire first, but boxes with some kind of filling in the room next to the captain's apartments. The film equipment of the ship was in perfect order. And during the voyage, the projectionist showed films many times, and the sailor Skripnikov, who helped him, then rewound the film for delivery to the base without any trouble.

WAR TROPHY

After the end of the Great Patriotic War, German ships, raised from a semi-flooded state and restored at German factories and shipyards, entered the USSR merchant fleet. One of these ships was the Iberia liner (built in 1928), which received the proud name Pobeda in the Soviet fleet. It was a rather large cargo-passenger motor ship for those times, designed to carry 340 passengers and 4000 tons of cargo. During the refurbishment after the war, its capacity was increased to 600 passenger seats. Passenger cabins on four decks were of different classes - from spacious suites to small rooms on the inner decks. Passengers had several restaurants, a music lounge, spacious foyers and other public spaces at their disposal. Passengers' property and commercial cargo were transported in six holds in the bow and stern of the ship. The liner was well provided with life-saving equipment (about a dozen large boats, life belts and circles), but there were clearly not enough fire-fighting equipment. The fire pump installed in the engine room could be used in case of a local fire, but it could not put out a large fire or supply water to the bridge and other upper rooms. However, it was believed that fire extinguishers installed in all service areas and corridors would make up for this shortcoming. In the spring of 1948, the liner became part of the existing cargo-passenger ships of the Black Sea Shipping Company for the transportation of passengers and cargo between Odessa and New York with the passing delivery of repatriates returning to the USSR from the Mediterranean and Black Sea countries. The crew of the ship consisted of 199 people, captain Nikolai Adamovich Pakholok - an experienced sailor, a native of Skadovsk, who grew up on the seashore. His assistant in the fire department was Alexander Filippovich Nabokin, who had a special fire-technical education, but apparently a rather passive person by nature. Other members of the commanding staff also had the necessary experience.

SPECIAL FLIGHT

In June-July 1948, the motor ship Pobeda, taking on board more than 50 trainees of nautical schools, made a safe passage across the ocean, and on July 31 set out on the return voyage from New York to Odessa. 323 passengers and 277 tons of cargo were taken 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, the family of a Chinese marshal, who was heading to China through the Soviet Union. Before the ship went to sea, important events took place that did not fall into the field of view of the investigation and the court. About them - below. After several days of sailing, the captain received a radiogram from the Black Sea Shipping Company, in which it was ordered to call at Alexandria and receive Armenian repatriates from Egypt for delivery to Batumi. On August 22, the ship left the Egyptian port and headed for Batumi. The captain reported that he took on board 2020 repatriates and 6 employees of our mission in Egypt with their families, 1500 tons of cargo were also loaded. In the last days of August, the Pobeda, having completed the most difficult section of the route, arrived at the port of Batumi and on August 31 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. However, at first this did not alert anyone. And only 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. They turned to the command of the Black Sea Fleet for help, and search aircraft of naval aviation were sent to the sea. At 2100, one of the pilots reported that he had found the burned-out motor ship Pobeda 70 miles southeast of Yalta, with five boats full of people near it. Help was sent to the emergency ship from Feodosia, Sevastopol and other places.

FROM INVESTIGATION MATERIALS

So what happened on the emergency ship according to the official version? On September 1, at 13.00, the liner passed the port of Novorossiysk, heading for Odessa. The weather was calm. N. Kovalenko, acting ship projectionist, radio technician, decided to prepare a batch of films for delivery to the cultural base and asked sailor V. Skripnikov to rewind the film after viewing. The films were stored in a small pantry in the center of the ship, next to the newly built 3rd class cabins. Some of the films were packed in tin boxes, and the other part, intended for rewinding, lay open on the table. About 2,000 gramophone records were stored in the same pantry. During rewinding on a manual machine, as a result of friction, the tape sparked and flared up. Coils lying nearby also caught fire from it. In a few seconds, the flames engulfed the entire pantry. The sailor's clothes caught fire. Skripnikov rushed out of the storeroom, slammed the door, and, screaming for help, rushed down the corridor. In the pantry, the hot air knocked out the door, and the fiery tornado that escaped engulfed the carpeted paths and plywood bulkheads of the cabins. The flame, drawn out by a powerful jet of air along the corridor, reached the gangway leading to the vestibule of the overlying deck, from where it quickly reached the upper bridge through two vertical shafts of stairs, like a huge chimney with powerful draft, igniting everything in its path. Literally 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 like a whirlwind through the living quarters, onto the boat deck, approached the cargo holds and the engine room. The watch radio operator V. Vedeneev, caught in the fire, jumped out of the wheelhouse through the porthole, not having time to give either a distress signal or a message that he was forced to leave the radio room. 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 on the forecastle.

Having received the news of the fire, the engine crew, headed by senior mechanic A. Zvoropo, took their places at the mechanisms. Water was supplied to the fire main. From the first minutes of the fire, part of the crew took up the rescue of passengers. Rescue boats and boats were launched into the water. Most of the women and children were put into five boats, which moved to a safe distance from the ship. Male passengers helped put out the fire. At the cost of incredible efforts, the fire was defeated, but the ship, although it did not lose its ability to move, was heavily damaged. In the middle superstructure, on the command bridge, all wooden bulkheads, room equipment and flooring, the navigational, steering and radio cabins were completely destroyed, the metal bulkheads of the cabins and the set of the superstructure were deformed. On the promenade deck, restaurants, saloons and other premises burned down, on all passenger decks, cabins, saloons, restaurants, service premises, gangways collapsed, metal bulkheads warped. The cargo holds in the bow of the ship, where the cargo started to ignite due to fire and sparks entering through the mines, were flooded with water, and the fire did not spread, but irreparable damage was caused to a significant part of the passengers' property. In the engine room, a watertight bulkhead was heavily affected by the fire, stopping the advance of the fire aft. Thus, the stern and bow parts of the vessel were practically not affected. The most terrible consequence of the fire was human casualties: 40 passengers and two crew members died (sailor V. Skripnikov and barmaid G. Gunyan - she was summed up by the new nylon clothes that broke out on her). The dead included 19 women and 15 children under the age of 16. Most of the people died in the first minutes of the fire that swept the passenger cabins. On the night of September 3, when rescuers approached the emergency ship, the main fire had already been extinguished. The ship was first taken in tow, but then it turned out that it could go on its own. On September 5, Pobeda arrived in Odessa, rescued passengers arrived on the Vyacheslav Molotov turbo ship.

UNRIGHTEOUS JUDGMENT

However, the main cause of the fire was still recognized as the ignition of the film. The radio technician of the liner, also known as the non-staff projectionist P. Kovalenko, the captain of the ship N. Pakholok, political assistants S. Pershukov and A. Nabokin, the head of the radio station V. Vedeneev, as well as employees of the coastal services of the Black Sea Shipping Company - the head of the radio station A. Tretiak and group dispatcher M. Nefedov. The well-known captain M. Grigor, the head of the maritime inspection of the Black Sea Shipping Company, was also brought to court. The investigation lasted about 5 months. On February 8, 1949, the Water Transport Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR, at an offsite session in Odessa chaired by Uspensky, with the participation of a prosecutor and lawyers, considered the case on charges of the leaders of the motor ship Pobeda in a fire on the ship that caused death of people and caused great material damage.

The court noted that the occurrence of a fire on the ship was the result of gross violations by the command staff of the ship and the freelance projectionist of the fire safety rules. Without completely rejecting the version of the film's flash from friction, the court concluded that the most likely cause of the film's ignition was sailor Skripnikov's smoking in the pantry. The investigation established that Captain Paholok and his fire department assistant Nabokin, before leaving for the voyage, knowing that the ship had a special storage for 8 films, took on board 41 wide-film films and allowed the storage of flammable film in an unsuitable room on the lower deck in the central part ship among the passenger cabins.

The projectionist Kovalenko allowed the sailor Skripnikov, who did not know the rules for handling film, to rewind the film. Assistant captain Nabokin did not conduct firefighting classes with personnel, did not pay attention to violations of fire safety, many crew members did not know how to use fire extinguishers. The radio operator Vedeneev did not give a message on the air about the fire on the ship and left the post when the fire engulfed the wheelhouse. Employees of the shipping company's radio station and on-duty dispatchers were accused of criminal negligence in the performance of their duties. The court passed a harsh sentence on the perpetrators of the fire: the captain's assistant for fire safety A. Nabokin was sentenced to 25 years in prison, the ship's captain P. Paholok and projectionist N. Kovalenko - to 15 years, pompolit S. Pershukov - to 10 years, radio operator V. Vedeneev - by the age of 8. Coastal service workers, indirectly responsible for the tragedy, were sentenced to more lenient sentences: the head of the radio station of the Black Sea Shipping Company A. Tretyak - to two years in prison, group dispatcher M. Nefedov - to corrective labor work at the place of service with a deduction of 25% of wages in during the year. The head of the maritime inspection of the shipping company M. Grigor was acquitted, since from April to September 1948 he was on vacation.

But for some reason, the events that took place before the exit of Pobeda from New York were absent in the investigative materials and at the trial. Then the local authorities started a strange disinfection of the ship. Despite the captain's protests, the ship's crew lived in hotels for two days, and the Americans put the "order" they needed on the Pobeda: In addition, a quarrel arose in one married couple of diplomats who were leaving the United States - the wife did not want to return home. As a result, she jumped out the window, and the Americans took her under their wing. Her luggage had already been loaded onto the Pobeda and was in the middle of the ship, where the fire started: It is also very strange that American radio broadcast a message about the fire even before it actually broke out. All this remained without due attention of the investigation and the court.

At the trial, the then head of the Black Sea Shipping Company, P. Makarenko, who was called as a witness, said: “A captain like Paholok and his crew cannot be judged, because during the accident they showed so much courage and courage that they saved the ship and brought it to the port themselves without outside help." To this, the chairman of the court said: "There is a trial! Leave your" Odessa things ".

Thus ended the case of the fire on the motor ship Pobeda, which continued to operate as part of the Black Sea Shipping Company on domestic and foreign lines. In the mid-50s, he 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, at the end of the 70s it was decommissioned from the fleet.

MARSHAL FENG

The arrival of Marshal Feng Yuxiang in the USSR in the autumn of 1948 was clearly not accidental. It was believed that he could take one of the key posts in the emerging government of the new China. Marshal enjoyed authority among a considerable part of the population. And suddenly one of the possible leaders of China dies as a result of an "accident" ...

Feng Yuxiang's path in politics was not smooth. Born in 1882 in the northern province of Zhili (Hebei) in the family of a bricklayer. He began his military service during the Xinhai Revolution of 1911-1913 and was soon promoted to command positions. Then he served in units of the so-called North Chinese militarists - one of the groups that fought for power in China, became a general. In October 1924, he openly opposed the leader of the Zhili clique, Peifu, captured Beijing with his troops and carried out a coup d'état. Became a marshal. He invited military advisers to his troops and began to reorganize them. Established contact with the revolutionary government of Sun Yat-sen in the south of the country. In 1926 he joined the Kuomintang Party. During the "Northern Campaign" in 1926-1927, launched on the initiative of the Kuomintang with the aim of uniting the country, Feng Yuxiang fought actively against the northern militarists. In the summer of 1927, the marshal supported the leader of the Kuomintang, Chiang Kai-shek, who broke off allied relations with the Chinese Communist Party. During the war with Japan (1937-1945), Feng was active, in contrast to Chiang Kai-shek, in favor of creating a "united front" and cooperation with the communists. After the war, while in the United States, he finally broke with Chiang Kai-shek ...

To understand the reason for such a long journey of the Chinese Marshal Feng Yuxiang - from the USA to the USSR and further to China - let's remember how events unfolded at that time in his homeland. The defeat of the Kuomintang army was completed by the troops of the communist People's Liberation Army of China (PLA) opposing it. In 1948, the question of creating a nationwide Chinese government was already on the agenda. Moscow's word in this process was far from being the last.

In October 1954, when Soviet Pacific sailors brought a group of destroyer warships, minesweepers and small submarines to the Chinese port of Qingdao, this story continued. The transferred ships were to become the basis of the Chinese Navy, which was then created with the help of the USSR. Among the Chinese sailors who mastered the new ships was the son of Marshal Feng, who spoke Russian well. He told the Soviet sailors that after the death of his father, he was offered to enter the Caspian Higher Naval School (only then foreigners were trained there). After consulting with his mother, he agreed. For several years, Victor (as he asked to be called himself) learned Russian and mastered the navigator's specialty, and after graduating from college, he began to serve on Chinese warships. By the way, his mother - the widow of Marshal Feng Yuxiang - was a member of the PRC government as Minister of Health. In private conversations with Soviet sailors, Viktor repeatedly stated that his father was removed by enemy intelligence services. He said he had good reason to believe so. However, the marshal's son did not bring them ...

The once all-powerful Chinese Marshal Feng himself, who for a long time controlled the provinces of Henan, Shaanxi, Gansu, had already passed the zenith of political glory at the time of his death. The attitude towards him in China was ambiguous. He either joined Chiang Kai-shek, then entered into a military confrontation with him, then he fought the communists, then he cooperated with the CPC. Feng Yuxiang made his last political turn just on the eve of his tragic death. He defected to the CCP. The only party to which this controversial Chinese politician had unfailing friendly feelings was Moscow. Marshal Feng has repeatedly stated that the "true friend of the Chinese people" has been and will remain the Soviet Union. However, at that time, many Chinese politicians swore in love and loyalty to the USSR. This is not surprising given that Moscow had influence over both opposing Chinese camps. There is also evidence that Feng Yuxiang was on friendly terms with the Soviet resident ambassador to Chiang Kai-shek, Alexander Panyushkin, and repeatedly told him confidential information in private conversations. This fact can hardly be called a sensation, given that at that time not only Feng, but also other political figures in China were willing to make contacts with Soviet "advisers" (Feng's one was Primakov, a prominent commander of the Red Army).

One way or another, Stalin had a choice. Moscow's role in shaping the political establishment of the new China and resolving the Chinese political crisis of the late 1940s has not yet been fully elucidated. It is known that Stalin did not trust Mao very much, calling him a "radish": red on the outside and white on the inside. An interesting detail: most of the captured weapons of the defeated Kwantung Army were transferred by the Soviet Union not to Mao, but to his party rival from northeast China, Gao Gan, who committed suicide under mysterious circumstances in the early 50s. It is also known that, while providing certain military-technical assistance to the Chinese communists, Moscow gave priority to the then-legitimate government of Chiang Kai-shek.

Stalin's hesitation on which of the then Chinese rulers to stake on continued for a long time. Perhaps, reflecting on the fate of China, he developed several options at once with the involvement of "reserve" figures. One of them could be Marshal Feng Yuxiang. In any case, his return to China was most likely to the detriment of Mao. The mysterious death of Feng on the Soviet motor ship "Victory" on the eve of the collapse of the Chiang Kai-shek regime and the coming to power of the Communists makes us think about this. It is possible that the death of Feng Yuxiang confused Stalin's cards in his difficult Chinese game and violated his future strategic plans. As a result, the "leader of all peoples" was forced to accept and accept Mao Zedong in his Kremlin office in 1950 as an equal.

Exactly 63 years ago, on September 1, 1948, the radio station of the Black Sea Shipping Company received a report from the ship Pobeda: “We passed Novorossiysk and by 2 pm on September 2 we expect to arrive in Odessa”. The ship did not get in touch again, but 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. The command of the Black Sea Fleet immediately sent out search planes, and at 9 o'clock in the evening one of the pilots reported that 70 miles southeast of Yalta he had found a burnt ship and five boats with people around it.

REFERENCE: After the end of the Great Patriotic War, a number of German ships, restored at German shipyards, entered the USSR merchant fleet. Among them was the liner "Iberia" (once - "Magdalena"), which received the name "Victory" in the Soviet fleet. It was a luxurious cruise liner (it was on the deck of the Pobeda that Andrey Mironov sings about the “Island of Bad Luck” - 20 years after the events described, this ship was filmed in the “Diamond Arm” as “Mikhail Svetlov”).
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.

On September 5, in the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper, a mean TASS message appeared on the last page: “In early August, the motor ship Pobeda left New York on its way 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 were among the dead. The ship was delivered to Odessa. An investigation is underway".
The fire killed two crew members (sailor Skrypnikov and barmaid Gunyan, on whom a new thing broke out - a nylon dress) and about 40 passengers (data on the number of victims vary), some of whom memoirists still remember. For example, Jenny Afinogenova - the widow of a famous Soviet playwright, an American who sailed to the USSR. And Anatoly Gromyko, the son of the long-term head of the Soviet Foreign Ministry, will later write about the girl Klava - his school love. But the loudest name of those who died in that fire was the Chinese Marshal Feng Yuxiang, who was traveling to the USSR on an important mission (it was believed that, in contrast to the rising power of Mao, whom Stalin did not like very much, Feng could take one of the key positions in the government of the new China).

Today, no one remembers this Marshal Feng, but then his death became the No. 1 news in Europe and America. In the 1920s, Feng was one of the "militarists" - major military leaders who divided the Celestial Empire. 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. During the war with Japan, Feng was a supporter of cooperation with the communists, and in 1926 he handed over to the Bolsheviks their sworn enemy, the former white ataman Annenkov. He simply invited him to visit, and then gave it to the Chekists. Feng was also interesting in that it was his guns that in 1928 smashed the famous Shaolin Monastery.
They say that when the fire started, the marshal made his way through the distraught crowd to the cabins to save his daughter (she stayed to take a bath). But either he suffocated in the smoke (he was a hero from a young age, he became obese over the years), or his heart could not stand it. His daughter also died (by the way, her mother, the widow of Marshal Feng Yuxiang, later served in the PRC government as Minister of Health).

Marshal Feng was the most eminent passenger of the Pobeda, but not the only one - there was another, exotic from the Soviet point of view, group of people on board: Armenian repatriates from the Armenian diaspora scattered around the world. In 1946, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR adopted a decision "On measures for the return of foreign Armenians to Soviet Armenia." The idea was actively supported by the then Catholicos Gevork VI and in 1946-48. More than 100 thousand people moved to the Union “through the Armenian line”, and more than 350 thousand Armenians from 12 countries of the world declared their desire to return. But after the fire at the Pobeda, the repatriation was stopped: the decision of the Council of Ministers of the USSR of September 14, 1948 forbade the reception of Armenians - they say that the Soviet authorities suspected that there were American intelligence officers among the Armenian settlers, who carried out sabotage.

However, the investigation, which continued behind closed doors for several months, showed that the Armenian saboteurs had nothing to do with it. As the investigation found out, on the evening of September 1, 1948, some of the passengers gathered in the cinema hall of the ship to watch a film. At this time, a freelance projectionist Kovalenko asked the sailor Skripnikov to rewind the films after watching. 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. At about 15 o'clock, when rewinding on a manual machine, the tape sparkled and flared up. Gramophone records caught fire from it, after a few seconds the flames engulfed the entire pantry, and a few minutes later the fire, escaping from the pantry, engulfed the central part of the ship, 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 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. Several independent, randomly formed groups in different parts of the ship were engaged in extinguishing, and quite successfully - when rescuers approached the ship on the night of September 3, the main fire was already 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 turboship.

But the main cause of this fire was declared to be nitrocellulose-based film, which was then used by the entire world film industry. Nitrofilm suited everyone in all respects: it was flexible, plastic, provided a clean and clear image, and had only one drawback - flammability. Already at a temperature of plus 40, it could flare up like gunpowder (in principle, it was almost gunpowder - the chemical composition is very close). On the Internet, you can find the memories of old projectionists about how fires started. That break during the session, the mechanic hesitated, did not turn off the device, and the film lights up simply from the light stream. They were carrying yaufs (iron boxes for film) in a car, there was an undischarged battery on the floor, from the shaking of the yauf it was thrown at him, the terminals closed, a spark slipped through. Moreover, the nitro film burned with the release of deadly poisonous compounds of hydrocyanic acid. Therefore, there were the strictest fire regulations regarding cinematographic equipment and the organization of film screenings. But strict instructions exist in any area - only for some reason planes crash, trains fly down a slope and the Chernobyl nuclear power plant explodes.

At the beginning of 1949, a closed trial took place over the perpetrators of what happened, who received long sentences (by that time the death penalty had been abolished in the USSR). They were announced: the projectionist, it is clear why; chief officer responsible for fire safety; a radio operator who did not transmit SOS in time, a captain in charge of everything on the ship; and shipping manager, for the company.
Feng's body was cremated in Moscow (farewell passed with full military honors) and later the urn was solemnly reburied in China. In 1961, Armenian repatriation was resumed. And most importantly, the transfer of film production to film with a non-flammable acetate base has begun.
But life is life, and the old tapes were in use for a long time. In November 1957, a film shifter arrived in the Western Belarusian village of Bussa. The hall of the rural school was packed to capacity - they brought the pre-war "Guy from the Taiga". The mechanic was sitting with his installation not in a separate booth, but in the doorway, he spread the reels of nitrofilm on the floor, refueling them by the light of a kerosene lamp standing on the table. The lamp overturned - 65 dead. The tragedy was reported to Khrushchev, but then they did not look for saboteurs, but simply classified any information about the incident and, by categorical order, accelerated the introduction of acetate film.

These are the consequences for China, for foreign Armenians, and for the Soviet film industry (seemingly non-intersecting things) a fire had on board one ship. And it is never given to us to foresee how a seemingly simple task will respond on the other side of the Earth - a sailor rewinding a film on a steamer going from Yalta to Odessa.
And the motor ship Pobeda itself continued to work as part of the Black Sea Shipping Company on domestic and foreign lines until the mid-70s. In the 50-60s, the ship was still among the best ships of the shipping company, during the Caribbean crisis in 1962 it was used to transport Soviet troops to Cuba, and only at the end of the 1970s was withdrawn from the fleet and disposed of.

Page 6 of 7

Four German liners, which also went to the USSR as reparations from Nazi Germany, became a remarkable replenishment of the passenger Black Sea Shipping Company. First to the Black Sea arrived liner "Victory", which already on April 15, 1947, left Odessa on its first flight to the Crimea-Caucasus line.

The history of this liner began back in 1928 at a shipyard in Danzig. The ship received its first name - "Rio Magdalena". The entry into operation of the liner took place on December 14, 1928, and already on December 29, Magdalena set off on her maiden voyage from Hamburg to the West Indies. The vessel was painted in Harag's traditional colors - black hull and white superstructures. For solidity, the liner had two smokers, but during the overhaul in Hamburg they were replaced with one wide pipe. The total (gross) tonnage of the vessel was 9779 GRT, The hull length reached 148.1 m, width - 18.5 m, draft - 10.5 m. Two Shihau eight-cylinder diesel engines had a total power of 6800 hp. and provided a full speed of 15 knots, working on two four-bladed propellers. The overhaul and re-equipment lasted from May 28, 1934 to February 1935, and the liner was named "Iberia" after the repair. The ship could take on board 123 passengers of the 1st class, 102 - of the 2nd class, 106 - of the 3rd class. The crew of the ship was 177 people.

The liner spent the Second World War in Gotenhafeni (Kiel), was used by the Kriegsmarine as a base ship for German submarines. The USSR liner was transferred for reparation on February 18, 1946 and moved to the Black Sea under its own power. The ship received a new name - "Victory". In September 1948, after leaving Batumi, a fire broke out on the ship with numerous casualties, and Chinese Marshal Feng Yu Xiang and his family were killed. All forty dead passengers and two crew members were buried at the memorial of the 2nd Odessa Christian cemetery. The coffin with the body of Marshal Feng Yu Xiang was sent by plane to Moscow, where he was cremated. After the accident, the ship was repaired in Wismar (Germany) until 1950, after which the updated Pobeda returned to the Black Sea, to its native Crimean-Caucasian line. Demoted and deprived of visas, sailors called the Crimean-Kalymskaya line. And ordinary passengers simply adored the trip from Odessa to Batumi and back. For some little money, they plunged into another world - travel and adventures, southern nights and love adventures. Even if you were completely broke, you could buy a deck ticket, one night on a sun lounger on deck, if you didn’t have enough charm to get better, and you are already in Yalta, or one more night - and you are in Sochi ... The Pobeda had the most beautiful, among passenger ships, a two-story, mahogany-lined restaurant.

And also "Victory" was filmed in a feature film. Together with the ship "Russia" she starred in the comedy by Leonid Gaidai - "The Diamond Arm" as a passenger ship "Mikhail Svetlov", bound for a cruise on the route Leningrad - Odessa - Leningrad, with a stop in Istanbul. It is on the deck of the Victory that Andrei Mironov sings a song about the Island of Bad Luck. The liner was operated until 1977, and then was sold abroad for scrap.

Motor ship "Russia" was considered the flagship of the passenger fleet of the Black Sea Shipping Company. All Odessans of the older generation remember the famous liner. The diesel-electric ship was built in Hamburg (Germany). The ship was launched on January 15, 1938 and it received the name "Patria". Patria was the largest diesel-electric passenger ship in the world at the time.

On August 27, 1938, the liner entered its first regular flight from Hamburg through the Panama Canal to the western coast of South America. With the outbreak of World War II, the Patria moved to Stettin, where it remained until 1942 as a floating barracks. Then the ship was transferred to the parking lot in the port of Flensburg, where it continued to be used as a floating base for the Navy. After the death of Hitler, in the first days of May 1945, the German imperial government, headed by Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz, was stationed on the liner. Then the British liked the liner, underwent repairs at the Belfast shipyard and, under the name "Empire Welland", was used for military transportation. In February 1946, the liner was reparated to the Soviet Union and in the same year under the new name "Russia" made a flight from Liverpool to New York.

Since 1948, "Russia" has been on the Crimean-Caucasian line. The liner had a total capacity of 16,595 GRT.

Hull length - 182.2 m, width - 22.5 m, draft - 11.1 m. The propulsion system of the ship consisted of six MAN diesel engines (five 8-cylinder and one 6-cylinder), six diesel generators and two electric motors. The total power of the power plant reached 15,000 hp. and full speed - 17 knots.

The liner took on board up to 730 passengers (since 1969 - 792), incl. 185 first class and luxury. The number of crew and maintenance personnel reached 240-260 people.

The diesel-electric ship "Rossiya" was very popular with vacationers and often took on board an additional 200 - 250 (and, if necessary, up to 500) "deck" passengers who spent the night in sun loungers on the promenade decks, not having their own cabin places. Such passengers handed over things to the lockers.

In addition to cruise and line flights, Odessans, and not only, are very fond of 2-3-day walks Odessa - Yalta, Odessa - Sevastopol. Over time, the venerable liner looked already old-fashioned, against the backdrop of younger ships built in the 1960s - 1980s, but still somehow unusual, grandiose and very majestic. "Rossiya" sailed without accident until the end of 1984, was decommissioned, and in 1985 was sold for scrap to Japan.