"Bulgaria", motor ship. The crash of the ship "Bulgaria" in the Kuibyshev reservoir. Disaster of the ship "Alexander Suvorov": the worst wreck on the Volga

Purely technically, the Volga has long been no longer the longest, full-flowing and any kind of river in Russia - ever since the great Russians became Siberian rivers. However, historically and culturally, the Volga is, of course, the main Russian river, which has the richest navigation traditions. Ships have been sailing along it for thousands of years, so sunken ships on the Volga are by no means uncommon.

The problem with antiquities

The first thought that arises with the phrase "wrecks" is somehow connected with the distant past, with antiquity. And in this regard, of course, the Volga for many centuries has collected a rich "harvest" of sunken ships - since it was the most important highway for a variety of peoples and countries, many civilizations arose, flourished and perished on its banks (remember at least the Volga Bulgaria or the Golden Horde). The Volga played an important role in the formation Russian state. Therefore, theoretically, ancient ships at its bottom must certainly be, and in considerable numbers. But so far no really high-profile similar finds have been made on the Volga. Firstly, systematic scientific searches have not really been carried out yet - scientists seriously engaged in underwater research on the Volga only in 2011. Secondly, in order for really old sunken ships to be preserved, many factors must coincide, which is rather problematic on the Volga, an actively “used” river.

So on this moment The maximum that researchers, professionals and amateurs have at their disposal, in terms of ancient sunken ships on the Volga, is merchant wooden ships two or three centuries old. One of these vessels was recently discovered near Samara by amateur scuba divers. A cargo barge was found for self-rafting downstream, about 25 meters long and 8 meters wide. The ship, dating back to the first half of the 19th century, is interesting for its unusual design - instead of single-layer boards made of very thick boards, a three-layer board construction is used, each layer of plating consists of not too impressive boards. This reduced the weight of the vessel and increased its maneuverability. The barge sank, apparently, during the flood and remained in place due to chance - if a huge stone had not rolled down from the shore and pressed it to the bottom, it would certainly have been carried away by the current and “dispersed” along the log.

traces of war

However, searchers of the sunken historical ships on the Volga you can not worry - thanks to the tragic and heroic pages Russian history the Volga bottom is a promising field for them to search. The point, of course, is about the Great Patriotic War, during which the Volga became the most important frontier, in fact, the front line. It was the struggle for access to the Volga that became the strategic cause of the legendary Battle of Stalingrad. Transportation personnel, transportation of ammunition, fuel, food, uniforms, military equipment and the like, in conditions of constant artillery shelling and air attacks, these are real fighting. Therefore, we can safely say that the ships on the Volga participated in the Battle of Stalingrad. Historians have established that in 1942, about 600 ships were mobilized from the Volga shipping companies to support military operations. Of these, 224 ships were sunk or damaged, leading to write-off, that is, about 40%. Some of them were raised after the war and even repaired, but the remains of many continue to lie at the bottom.

Among them, for example, towing steamer"Smolensk", which became one of the first ships sunk during the Battle of Stalingrad. By the end of July 1942, German aviation, using special mines with a magnetic-acoustic fuse, mined the Volga water area for about 400 kilometers. Only in the immediate vicinity of Stalingrad, at least 350 mines were dropped into the water. "Smolensk" was blown up precisely on one of these mines, and the barge towed by it caught fire as a result of a bomb hit. Also known is the history of the passenger steamer "Alexander Nevsky", which at the end of July 1942, during a voyage to evacuate several hundred civilians, was attacked by German bombers and caught fire. Most of the people were saved, as the captain of the ship managed to bring the ship to sandbar and evacuate passengers from it, but Alexander Nevsky himself died. And at the end of August of the same year it was destroyed passenger steamer"Joseph Stalin" - a ship carrying residents escaping from Stalingrad, was sunk by German artillery fire.

Snowless winter has prepared a lot of surprises this year! The camera can not be removed far away - every day, then new shots.

UNDERWATER BARGE

In the center of Yaroslavl, in the Kotorosl River, he took and surfaced a once sunken ship. Miracles and nothing more - they built a bridge here, and the children swam in the summer, but they never saw any ship. And here on you - the skeleton of an old wooden barge appeared above the water. It looks ominous - as if Jack Sparrow's team accidentally swam into Yaroslavl waters! The surprise was made by the river, which became shallow by almost two meters.

Where did the barge come from? The city was filled with rumors in a matter of days. Versions one another are more amazing.

Version one - prose

Perhaps this is a landing stage, which was used for the convenience of getting off the steamers ashore, the Yaroslavl mayor's office suggested. Maybe so - the piers in this place are clearly visible in the photo of the last century. But there are more interesting options.

Version two - rebellious

The ship sank during the White Guard rebellion! They say that it was this barge that became the "barge of death", on which the White Guards placed about a hundred prisoners, who then nearly died of starvation.

The "death barge" was intended solely to save the lives of those who were arrested by the whites, and to protect themselves so that those arrested did not defect to the Bolsheviks. At first they were supplied with food, but the delivery of provisions stopped, and a terrible famine began. The prisoners even ate leather belts.

It would be a beautiful story. But cruel scientists dispelled this myth.

This is not a “barge of death,” Andrey Danilov, a candidate of historical sciences, is sure. - she was in a different place.

Having completely rejected the version of the "death barge", the scientist immediately proposed another, no less interesting one.

In the center of Yaroslavl, in the Kotorosl River, a once sunken ship was picked up and surfaced. Photo: Elena VAKHRUSHEVA ("KP" - "Yaroslavl")

Version three - adventure

According to the historian, it is not at all excluded that a real treasure can be found on the barge!

In connection with the First World War, several barges with exhibits from the military artillery museum were evacuated from St. Petersburg, Danilov says. - It is possible that they were cannons, banners. There is circumstantial evidence that some barges sank under shelling, so... look for the treasure!

The St. Petersburg Military History Museum of Artillery liked the version with the treasure the most.

This is amazing! - the senior researcher of the museum Lyudmila Rudakova was delighted.

Indeed, in the summer of 1917, the exhibits were indeed brought from our museum to Yaroslavl on barges. One of them did not deliver the exhibits. Sunk under artillery fire.

Artillery barrels were the main exhibits of that sunken ship. But what exactly is unknown, because after 1923, when the exhibits were returned to St. Petersburg, comparisons of what was sent and what was accepted were never made.

What did you find on the barge? - Museum workers on the other end of the telephone wire seem to freeze in anticipation of good news.

So far, - we had to admit, - nothing ...

VOLGA-DNO

Such views have never been observed on the Volga near the locks in Rybinsk. Where the river usually overflows widely in summer and where four-deck giant motor ships sail, now you can ... walk!

Huge boulders, the tops of which sometimes only stuck out of the water, were now completely exposed. It seems that you can walk along the bottom right up to the middle of the river.

Such views on the Volga near the locks in Rybinsk have never been observed Photo: Alina KORNEVA

There were no such low inflow rates to the reservoirs for the entire period of operation of our HPPs. We expect a very low flood, - said Alexander Gorshkov, Deputy Chief Engineer of the Upper Volga HPP Cascade.

And Timur Khaziakhmetov, head of the RusHydro Regime Management Department, explained that there is so little water in the river because there was little snow this year. But Khaziakhmetov calmed down - the river flows are regulated by a cascade of hydroelectric power stations, water is accumulated in the reservoir. So there will be no problems with water supply for the population.

Rybinsk is generally lucky with floods. The other day, the Ministry of Emergency Situations for Yaroslavl region compiled a list of areas affected by flooding. Judging by the figures, Rybinsk literally comes out dry from the water - in 2007, only 4 residential buildings were flooded here (against 37 in Yaroslavl). This 2007 in Rybinsk, looking at the sandy bottom of the Volga, they remember - they write in social networks that then, after the same low flood, there was a rainy summer.

Huge boulders, the tops of which sometimes only stick out of the water, are now completely exposed. Photo: Alina KORNEVA

Memories, one might say, emerge from the depths of the river. Thus, the shallowed river showed the remains of a landing stage that burned down in 2011. Damp blackened boards stick out straight from the sand.

However, such feints are by nature for local residents not only surprising, but also beneficial - the people have already picked up metal detectors and rushed to look for old coins and utensils on the opened bottom of the Volga.

STOP, CAR!

An unfavorable situation has developed at the Ivankovsky, Uglichsky and Gorky reservoirs due to low water. According to the Moscow Canal, on April 17, the water level in the reservoirs was below the design levels: at the Ivankovsky reservoir - by 77 cm; on Uglichsky - by 125 cm; on Gorky - by 37 cm.

Due to such low water levels in reservoirs, it is possible to limit the draft of ships in sections of inland waterways: from Tver to Uglich; on the Moscow Canal from lock No. 1 (Avanport) to lock No. 2; from the Rybinsk hydroelectric complex to the Kolkhoznik pier. That is, in these places, large, heavy ships can simply run aground.

Recently, experts from the Saratov region of waterways and shipping discovered another ship sunk in the Volga. Now the official list includes about 70 Volga "Titanics".

mine at the bottom

But this list of sunken ships is far from complete. One can only guess about the environmental damage they cause.

Ship-lifting works in the Saratov region have been carried out since 1998. During this time, it was possible to raise or collect 78 flooded, semi-submerged, or even simply abandoned boats on the shore. And yet the river does not become cleaner, because every year up to a dozen new orphan objects are revealed only in the Saratov section of the Volga water area.

First of all, we are talking about barges and motor ships flooded in recent decades. But, according to the rivermen, if you look carefully, then, for example, between Saratov and Engels you can even find paddle steamers that ply a hundred years ago. There is evidence that an icebreaker built in 1896 lies at a depth near one of the pillars of the automobile bridge, and in the area railway bridge- even downed german planes. They found a minesweeper on the Engels side last year. Now it has already been raised, but other ships lie at the bottom, and they also represent a time bomb. Explode will not explode, but there is a lot of harm from them. For example, last year, on the Engels side, a pleasure boat with children on board came too close to the shore and landed right on the sunken ship, as if stranded.

And yet, the main problem is that for decades, hundreds of thousands of tons of metal have been decomposing in the Volga water (there are ships weighing 150-200 tons or more). At the same time, one should not forget that the Volga is the main source of drinking water supply for a number of cities in the region, including Saratov itself.

More than 70 tons of fuel were extracted from the tanks of the already raised objects, Vladimir Fedotov, assistant prosecutor of the Saratov Interdistrict Environmental Prosecutor's Office, told the RG correspondent.

In particular, there were 8 tons of fuel oil in the lifted paddle steamer "May 1", one of the oil barges - 20 tons, and in the motor ship "Professor Mechnikov" - 40 tons of oil products. All these "additives" were carried by the Volga current over the water area for years.

Vessels without owners

Most of the objects appearing in the "underwater list" do not have owners. But even when it is known that the found pile of metal was once registered with one or another organization, it turns out to be unrealistic to force the owner to dispose of the vessel. So, after the bankruptcy of the instrument-and-mechanical plant, a 650-ton dry-cargo ship, flooded within the boundaries of Saratov, also unexpectedly turned out to be ownerless.

At first, the management of the plant wrote that there was no money for ship-lifting work. Then the ship disappeared altogether from the company's balance sheet. It was not in the bankruptcy estate put up for auction, - says Vladimir Syrov, head of the department for supervision of water bodies and the safety of the GTS of the Rosprirodnadzor department for the Saratov region.

True, recently the controlling structures have a very effective lever of influence on the owners of scrap metal. In March last year, a methodology for determining the damage caused by environment sunken ships.

When environmentalists were able to estimate a specific amount of damage (for example, 5 million rubles), it immediately became clear that raising the ship would be cheaper than paying for sanctions, says Vladimir Syrov.

iron catch

In the late 1990s, about a dozen objects were raised in the region at the expense of the federal eco-fund. But with its liquidation, the work to clean up the Volga water area from scrap metal came to a standstill. Today, the main work to rid the Volga of rusty iron is carried out by entrepreneurs. The ever-increasing demand for the metal made the job profitable.

According to the rivermen, this business, although it requires big investment forces and means, but brings a good profit. Nevertheless, oddly enough, but those who want to earn money by doing a good deed are becoming less and less. If five years ago there were 4-5 firms officially working in the region involved in raising sunken ships, this year only two announced their intentions to clean up the Volga.

And it's all about the inescapable bureaucratic chain. In order to obtain permission for the disposal of a floating craft, today, on average, a legal business needs about a year. “Good” must be received from a huge number of various authorities, ranging from the fish inspection (which, by the way, currently does not have its own division in Saratov, and therefore documents have to be sent to Astrakhan for approval) and ending with a hydrometeor monitoring the pollution of the Volga.

We started paper work in November last year and only finished it on June 4, - Sergey Byaigo, deputy CEO one of the firms starting to develop the Volga bottom.

Another major problem for ship salvage entrepreneurs is metal hunters working illegally on semi-submerged objects.

These pirates cut off the tops, and then the remains of the ship are silted up. When only one "sole" remains from him, the costs increase significantly, - explains an entrepreneur with experience Vladimir Kulapin.

In addition to the fact that it is both more difficult and more expensive to raise such a vessel (pumps for pumping water from holds and pontoons are no longer enough - a powerful floating crane is required), there is a minimum of useful metal left in it. And often it becomes simply economically unprofitable to engage in the disposal of such objects.

It happens that the life of the "Volga orderlies" is complicated by the unexpected appearance of the owners of sunken ships. Before lifting them, most often you won’t find them with fire during the day, but after that, citizens are actively declaring their rights to a pile of iron and trying to bargain with entrepreneurs for their share. If the parties do not come to a consensus, work can stand up for a long time.

According to assistant environmental prosecutor Vladimir Fedotov, it would be advisable to give the opportunity to apply to the court for recognition of the right to ownerless boats not only to municipalities, but also to other interested parties. Especially since local authority often does not exercise his right. Perhaps then the cleaning of the Volga banks would go faster.

Unknown ship of the times civil war lay in the water for about a hundred years.

The sunken ship was found at a depth of 20 meters near the village of Svetly Yar. Historians have already called this find unique. And the thing is that the ship and its crew did not die during the Great Patriotic War(there are more than enough such ships at the bottom of the Volga), but much earlier. Most likely, we are dealing with a ship from the time of the Civil War, built back in the 19th century. The sensational discovery brought together Volgograd divers who made more than a hundred dives, examining the ship that lay on river bottom about a century.

And it all started at the end last summer when instructor Konstantin Redkin and his students from the Dive Guide club decided to dive near the village of Svetly Yar. During one of the dives, the students pointed to an unidentified sunken object - in appearance a pile of iron, overgrown with algae and shells. Unfortunately, there were no treasures on board, but the ship did not lose its value from this.

For a very long time we could not even find out approximate age and the origin of the ship. It's all to blame for minimal visibility and a frantic current, - says one of the most experienced divers who examined the find, Sergey Tsypkin. - Only in early December, the current calmed down, visibility improved by one and a half meters. Now we plan to dive every weekend.

In the coming days, divers will again descend to the depths with one single goal - to find out the name of the ship by cleaning the plate on board from growths and river debris.

"Vanya the Communist"

Sergei Tsypkin admits that this is one of the oldest ships he has ever seen.

The ship was built approximately in the nineteenth century. The vessel is most likely a military vessel, he suggests. - This is evidenced by the structures themselves: riveted fasteners of parts, metal sides, sealed from the inside with wooden beams. On board we found a spent naval artillery shell. And on it the date of manufacture is 1913!

But that's not all. Every meter of the surveyed vessel was filled with discoveries: here are the details steam engine, followed by a wheelhouse with a surviving steering wheel.

What was this ship? According to divers, some signs indicate that the Volgograd ghost ship is similar to the legendary gunboat"Vanya the Communist". This paddle steamer was produced back in 1905, and during the Civil War it was converted to combat. As part of the Volga military flotilla, he participated in the capture of Kazan, for which he was awarded the Red Banner of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. The ship, together with the captain, sank during the battle in 1918 on the Kama River.

How the ship, found by Volgograd divers, died, historians have to find out. However, it is already clear that the ship took part in hostilities during the Civil War. Divers are sure that he was either shot or blown up by a mine. In favor latest version says that one of his wheels is crumpled by the explosion.

Our "Vanya" fell apart into several parts, a steam engine was installed on the front, which rotated two wheels on the starboard and port sides. Arches have been preserved above the wheels, paint is still visible on them, the name of the ship should be written here, but everything is overgrown with shells, it is impossible to read it, - states Tsypkin.

So far only appearance it can be assumed that this is a river steam tug. Similar ones were built at the Saratov shipyard, and during the war such machines were converted into combat ones, installing cannons and machine guns on them.

According to the cartridge cases found here, it can be assumed that the guns of Kone, Hotchkiss, as well as Maxim machine guns were installed on the ship. It is possible that their remains will be found, but this will take time.

"Vanina" tourists

Divers hope to find out the exact name and fate of Vanya in the coming days. But it is unlikely that it will be possible to raise the ship ashore. After all, few people want to fork out for two or three million rubles - in such an amount, according to the most conservative estimates, the operation would cost.

In addition, it can be simply deadly. It cannot be ruled out that live shells have been preserved on the ship, which can detonate.

In the meantime, the future of "Vanya" is seen as illusory, exactly the same as those hundred years that it lay in the muddy Volga water.

However, there is still hope to see the ship live: divers promise to arrange extreme underwater excursions here.

This tragedy, which took place 34 years ago on the Volga near Ulyanovsk, claimed the lives of over 170 people. Evil fate seemed to pursue the ship "Alexander Suvorov" - a quarter of a century after that terrible incident, the ship again crashed.

How and why it all happened

The four-deck "Alexander Suvorov", the largest at that time river passenger ship Secular Union, on the day of the crash was only two years old, the ship commissioned by the Volga-Don river shipping company made in Czechoslovakia. On that fateful June day in 1983, the Suvorov was making a tourist route from Rostov-on-Don to Moscow.

At ten o'clock in the evening on June 5, the ship almost top speed rammed the span of the Ulyanovsk bridge, which was not intended for navigation, seriously damaging the structure of the most superfluous engineering structure. The ship was moving at a speed of 25 km / h (for such a vessel, it is almost the maximum). As a result of the collision, the cabin, the cinema hall were completely demolished, and the chimneys were cut off. Despite the stalled engines, "Suvorov" after the accident "on the machine" overcame about 300 meters.

The text of the negotiations between the navigator of the "Alexander Suvorov" Yevgeny Mitenkov and Ulyanovsk river port says that Mitenkov showed criminal negligence (by the way, the navigator paid for it with his life): the dimensions of the ship clearly did not correspond to the span through which the ship was going. Obvious and no less criminal carelessness was also demonstrated by the ship's helmsman. In addition, by the time of the crash, it was already dark, and there were no corresponding signal lights on the bridge. The lineman's booth, which stood on the fatal span, was apparently taken in the dark for a signal board, which in such cases shows that the ship can pass under the bridge in this place.

The terrible consequences of the crash

The collision occurred at the moment when a freight train consisting of 53 wagons was moving along the bridge. After the impact, 11 of them derailed. The train was carrying timber, coal, grain. From the overturned wagons, all this flew onto the ship. A fuel tank stuck in the farms almost collapsed onto the Suvorov.

Together with the crew, service personnel, their relatives and friends, passengers on the "Alexander Suvorov" were over 400 people. Of these, more than 170 died (a different number of victims is still called). Was warm summer evening, many vacationers watched movies or had fun on the dance floor on the upper deck. Both the cinema hall and the dance floor were demolished during the crash. Eyewitnesses recall that along the ladders leading to upper deck, streams of blood flowed, and the spectacle that opened when looking at the place of the tragedy was indescribable because of the monstrosity of the picture that was opening - a continuous bloody mess of moving human bodies.

Many passengers jumped overboard after the crash. The personnel of the Ulyanovsk hospitals were urgently alerted, and the help of doctors saved many lives of the Suvorovites.

The navigator died, the captain's heart could not stand it

The navigator of the "Alexander Suvorov" Yevgeny Mitenkov, who was in the wheelhouse, died. Captain Vladimir Kleymenov was given 10 years in prison. On June 5, he had to go on duty at 24 o'clock, and therefore the captain was in his cabin at the time of the crash. Of the term measured by the court, Kleymenov served a little more than half, he was released early due to hypertension. 7 years after that terrible night The captain's heart failed.

Since little was known about the disaster in Soviet times, there were rumors that the Western intelligence services planned the collision of the Suvorov with the bridge, allegedly the pictures of the ship after the accident, which later got into the foreign media, were taken from the satellite. But there is no real confirmation of these conjectures, they are easily refuted by a careful study of the documents published to date - the photos were taken for an investigative experiment by Soviet law enforcement agencies.

Skid to the gateway

The ship has been restored and is still on the move. Nine years ago, another accident happened to him - "Alexander Suvorov" with almost 300 passengers on board in the Moscow Canal hit the lock on board. The ship's control system failed, the movement of the ship stalled. This time there were no casualties.

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For more than thirty years, I have not forgotten this tragedy. Most of the site's visitors are young people "under 30" who may not be aware of that tragic event. But even "over 30", even "over 40" he is hardly remembered because of his young age.

A few years before the incident, in order to earn extra money in addition to the main work in the design bureau, I completed the courses of guides. Having received "crusts", I began to work on weekends with tourists arriving in our Volga city on motor ships. It is now that tourism along the Volga has significantly decreased, at that time ships arrived one after another, often mooring one to another due to the fact that there was no free mooring. Tourists went to the embankment, sometimes bypassing 2-3 motor ships. There are many groups, few guides.

Before that memorable event, I went on maternity leave, was free from my main job, my health allowed me to actively engage in excursion activities.

Now about the sad thing… one of the scheduled days, I was conducting an excursion with a group of tourists from the same voyage of the ship "Alexander Suvorov" when it was heading up the Volga. Nothing special, just a normal tour.

And suddenly, a few days later - a stunning news about the tragedy that occurred in Ulyanovsk ... That day I was going to another meeting with tourists from another ship. I was psychologically crushed by the news of this tragedy, plus - the heat was over 30 degrees. I can’t erase the faces of those tourists from my memory, whom I recently introduced to the sights of our city ... I would like to think that it was with “my” tourists that the trouble did not happen, although this was little consolation.

The trolleybus waited longer than usual, it was impossible to linger with the next group of tourists, so I had to run a little in my "interesting" position. I see an "ownerless" group of tourists crowded at the pier, I rush to them, and ... (I still remember with horror!) I loudly ask: "Is this the ship Alexander Suvorov? Are you tourists from Alexander Suvorov?" People silently shy away from me, but I still don’t understand why, I repeat my question. Finally, one woman, grabbing my hand, enlightened me ... I caught my breath, put myself in order, I went up to the waiting group, introducing myself to them. The group refuses to go on a tour with me, requires another guide. My apologies, explanations, etc. did not help. I think some kind of horror seized people from one look of a disheveled, pot-bellied, out of breath, supposedly insane woman who was looking for tourists from just wrecked motor ship under the Ulyanovsk bridge.

I could not insist, I went to the tour operators inside the rech. station and asked for another group to replace me, and those frightened tourists were taken by another girl who was waiting for a group from a ship that had not yet arrived.

At first, all these memories tormented me for a long time (both about the tragedy and about my sudden "insanity" that frightened the tourists, who were already under the impression of what had happened ...

The birth of my son and the troubles associated with it forced me to stop my tour. activity, over time, I remembered the tragedy and my terrible embarrassment less and less, then I began to completely forget ...

I don’t know why I wrote about this today, after reading an article about that tragic event. I remember everything as if it had happened yesterday.