25 Years of Awards Looking for Heroes

The story of the death of the submarine "K-219" - one of the most high-profile disasters of the Russian fleet - is still not closed

On October 6, 1986, the K-219, a strategic missile submarine, sank off the coast of the United States. On October 3, an accident occurred on a nuclear submarine. At a depth of 45 meters, an explosion occurred in the missile shaft, the cover was torn off, the nuclear head and part of the rocket flew out, and part remained in the boat shaft, the hull was depressurized and poisonous vapors broke into the nuclear submarine ...

On October 6, 1986, in the Sargasso Sea, off the coast of the United States, the K-219, a strategic missile submarine, sank. On October 3, a missile system crashed on a nuclear submarine (NPS). At a depth of 45 meters, an explosion occurred in missile silo No. 6, the lid of the silo was torn off, the nuclear head and part of the rocket flew out, and part remained in the boat’s silo, the hull was depressurized and poisonous vapors of rocket fuel components broke into the nuclear submarine. The boat first fell to a depth of 150 meters, and then they blew the main ballast, surfaced ...

After surfacing, the second side of the main power plant (GEM) was put into operation, and orange poisonous smoke poured out of what used to be missile silo No. 6.

For three days the crew fought for the ship. Immediately after the explosion, the commander of the warhead-2, captain of the 3rd rank, Alexander Petrachkov, sailors, Nikolai Smaglyuk and Igor Kharchenko, died. And the special hold Sergey Preminin died, drowning out the reactor manually - when setting the compensating grid on the limit switches. He completed the work, but he could no longer get out of the reactor compartment - due to the increase in pressure, the high temperature jammed the hatch, and he suffocated, boiled alive. In two brief TASS reports on the accident on the K-219, nothing was reported about the death of people.

The ships of the merchant fleet (Ministry of the Navy - MMF of the USSR) were the first to arrive at the scene of the accident. Soviet sailors overtook the tugboat Poukhetan flying the US naval flag. The ships stood in a circle, obscuring the emergency submarine.

Then the commander of the American tug, giving an interview, will say that he had an order to take an emergency Soviet submarine in tow.

How and where he intended to tow her - he kept silent about this.

Soon the American nuclear submarine "Augusta" appeared, and in the sky above the Soviet ships and the emergency submarine, the American reconnaissance aircraft "Orion" patrolled. Appearing in direct line of sight, he dropped dozens of buoys, which made it difficult to help the boat, and when he entered the combat course, he depicted an attack on a surface target. Each such appearance of the Orion kept the sailors in suspense - a real attack or a false one?

But then Soviet fighters flew in from Cuba, and a couple of Tu-95s from the territory of the Soviet Union, and this little-known rescue operation began.

Fearing that the submarine would be seized by the Americans, the Navy sent the Kirov nuclear-powered missile cruiser, the Ochakov large anti-submarine ship (BOD), a research vessel under the Soviet naval flag, and even a diesel-powered submarine to the point of tragedy. The approach of another BOD "Red Caucasus" was expected.

At first, no one knew what was really happening with the boat, so when the sailors of the merchant fleet received ciphers with an order to go to the point where the Soviet nuclear submarine was in distress, the first question was: “Won’t it shy away nuclear?” - and no one could answer this question.

But everyone went without the slightest delay. Vessels: "Fedor Bredikhin" (Riga), "Bakaritsa" (Arkhangelsk), "Galileo Galilei" (Novorossiysk) and the ships of the Baltic Shipping Company - "Krasnogvardeisk" and "Anatoly Vasiliev" - approached and stood around the boat.

The first to approach the boat was the Fyodor Bredikhin refrigerator. It was not possible to establish radio contact with the boat - she did not answer. In the evening of the same day, Krasnogvardeysk and Bakaritsa approached. The captain of "Krasnogvardeysk" Yevgeny Danilkin called and called the boat on the VHF channel. At first they tried to call Akatsiya by special communications, but the boat was silent, and therefore everyone breathed a sigh of relief when finally they heard the calm voice of the K-219 commander Britanov on VHF, who said that there was no radioactivity on the boat, but there were victims. He also warned that the smoke coming from the rocket shaft is very toxic.

The ship "Krasnogvardeysk" was the first to launch a lifeboat. A plume of orange smoke stretched over the submarine. When the sailors came closer and saw the missile silo mutilated by the explosion - silence was established in the boat - no one expected such damage.

At the stern, submariners looked out of the hatch, and the commander of the boat asked that the injured sailors be transferred to him on board.

But the commander of the Britans had not yet given the order to leave the boat - the struggle for survivability continued. A doctor from Krasnogvardeysk, Dmitry Gavrilov, asked to be taken on board the boat to help the victims. In response, he heard: "We need isolating breathing apparatus, swim for them!"

The sailors gave the submariners all the devices that they had available, but they were not useful - there were other types of devices in the navy, and the submariners simply did not know how to use them.

Soon poisonous fumes from rocket fuel spread throughout almost the entire boat, and the K-219 commander decided to evacuate the crew.

The captains of the ships Bakaritsa, Fedor Bredikhin and Krasnogvardeysk launched lifeboats. They were loaded with people so that the top of the side was almost flush with the water.

Mikhail Vladimirovich Vyakhirev, the first assistant to the captain of the Red Guard, recalls: “First, the submariners crawled out of the aft compartment. They were half-naked, almost pirates, only without knives in their teeth; all disheveled, eyes crazy, but some glimpses of joy appeared on their faces when they saw our ship and other ships that came to the rescue. Of course, the joy was especially noticeable when they stepped onto the deck of the Krasnogvardeysk - here they completely calmed down.

94 people were delivered to Krasnogvardeysk, Bakaritsa took off six sailors who were most affected by the gas - they themselves could not move. The ship's doctor Igor Kochergin was moved, tied to a stretcher - while helping his guys, he inhaled nitric acid vapors more than anyone else. He was almost unconscious. He was quickly taken to the infirmary, and the Krasnogvardeysk doctor took care of him. He had pulmonary edema, but he was saved.

Even in a terrible state, suffocating, Igor Kochergin kept talking and telling the doctor from Krasnogvardeysk what to do first of all in order to save the poisoned people. His recommendations helped a lot - time passed by minutes. There were a lot of poisoned submariners. Everyone saved them as best they could - all of a sudden they became orderlies. At that time, civilian sailors became not only orderlies, they were nurses - everyone tried to do something, to help - they gave their sleeping places to the crew of the submarine.

Britanov with the emergency party was still on the boat. Since the boat was de-energized, the K-219 commander maintained contact with the command through Krasnogvardeysk radio operators. Captain Yevgeny Danilkin, first assistant Mikhail Vyakhirev, and the head of the radio station, Alexander Rybakov, worked unbendingly: the ciphers were an avalanche - the situation was controlled not only by the military, but also by the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee.

And the Americans did not sleep. Reconnaissance aircraft constantly loitered over a group of Soviet ships, they saw the Augusta periscope in the water, scouring around and interfering with rescue work, and the Poukheten rescue tug kept spinning nearby, telegraphing:

“... There are powerful pumps, strong searchlights and boats on board. I have a mandate to help you!” - to which ours answered: “We do not need your help. You interfere with our actions, we demand to leave the area of ​​our operation!”

On the night of October 4, 1986, the latest ro-ro (ship for the transport of goods on a wheelbase) BMP "Anatoly Vasilyev" approached.

By this time, it had already become clear to everyone that the boat would have to be towed. Moscow entrusted the command of rescue operations to captain-mentor Lev Budylkin. Lev Yakovlevich proposed a plan for towing the submarine with the forces and means of the approaching tanker "Galileo Galilei", "Krasnogvardeysk" and "Anatoly Vasiliev". "Bakaritsa" and "Fyodor Bredikhin" were released to continue flights.

The ship "Krasnogvardeysk" was appointed as a tugboat. They began to prepare.

When ocean towing has its own characteristics: most of the towing cable must be in the water. Therefore, its length should be sufficient for this - in this case, 500-600 meters. We decided to "tie" the two tow lines, weighting them in the middle with a bow from the links of the anchor chain. The cables were taken from the "Galileo Galilei" and "Anatoly Vasiliev" (it should be clarified that the usual ship's towing cable is a steel rope with a diameter of 48 mm and a length of 280 m).

From the memoirs of the captain of the Anatoly Vasiliev Konstantin Shchigolev: “... He brought his colossus to the Krasnogvardeysk as close as possible - less than half a cable (cables - 185.2 meters. - Approx. ed. ). They began to feed the conductor with a line-thrower - all three line-throwers, even the imported Finnish one, did not work. They began to throw out a conductor from Krasnogvardeysk - their third assistant managed to get him to us, and they pulled the cable for him. For the rope on the "Galileo Galilei" I had to "go" on a boat, but in the end, both towing lines ended up on the "Krasnogvardeysk". The only thing left to do was to connect these cables and fix them on the submarine and on the Krasnogvardeysk.

On the "Krasnogvardeysk" the crew had a hard time. There was no towing hook on the ship, and it was necessary to fasten the towing rope for something strong that would not fall off during towing. They came up with the idea of ​​building an additional device - Braga. To do this, they raised the left anchor, disconnected it and pulled out the anchor chain - where one link weighs 20 kg, and the length of the entire anchor chain is about 150 m. with it the coaming [1] of the fifth hold and a towing cable was attached there.

It remained only to drag the other end to the submarine, but even here everything was not thankful to God.

A boat from the Anatoly Vasiliev under the command of the first mate Yuri Ivanov came out to the boat, but it was not easy to pull out a special towing eye [2] from the regular storage on the bow - the wind increased, the wave went up to three meters. They tried to “tear” this eye, picking up speed sharply, but the cable was cut off, which immediately wound around the propeller, the engine stalled, and the boat was carried to the middle of the boat - just where the orange smoke swirled. The chief officer gave the command to lower the oars into the water, and the sailors, who had not held the oars in their hands for ten years, rowed like crazy, but still managed to get out of the smoke zone with great difficulty, and the crew of the boat managed to sniff the toxic gas.

Finally, the boat was ready for towing, but the matter had to be postponed. From the USSR, from the mainland, aviation came to the aid of the sailors: the planes delivered and dropped in containers everything that the commander of the Britans requested. The pilots worked brilliantly - the cargo fell exactly where it was needed, but everything was the same as always - insulating devices were delivered, but they forgot oxygen cylinders, they sent intercoms, and the batteries got wet after dropping the containers. There is no benefit, the sailors only lost time fishing containers out of the water.

The movement began on October 5 at 18.20. We were moving at a speed of no more than two knots, but the boat kept pulling to the side. In addition, she began to slowly but surely go into the water with a trim on her nose. Here the Americans stepped up. "Augusta" interfered as best she could - she climbed everywhere: under the bottoms of ships and under the towing rope. Dangerous maneuvers began. "Anatoly Vasilyev" and "Galileo Galilei" covered the line of the towing cable, not allowing the Americans to maneuver freely in this zone, but the periscope of the "Augusta" appeared in the most unexpected and dangerous places for towing purposes.

And on October 6 at 6.25 a break in the towing line was recorded at Krasnogvardeysk. Because of what this happened, no one knows, but there are suggestions that the Augusta could not have happened, although subsequently the American side strongly denied any hostile actions.

After the break of the towing cable, the life of the K-219 went by minutes.

At 0945, the boat commander reported that the boat was dangerously submerged in the water. The emergency party in the amount of nine people left the submarine on a life raft, from where they were taken by a boat from the Anatoly Vasiliev.

Only the British commander remained on the boat. They negotiated with him because he refused to leave the ship. The negotiations were long. In the end it was agreed that he would land and that the lifeboat should be lowered.

Britanov later recalled that he understood quite clearly then: if he now “leaves” with the boat, then the “hero” may not be given posthumously, but they certainly will not be judged.

It was agreed that he would fire one red and two green flares before leaving the boat. However, he warned that there could be explosions [3] . The boat was waiting nearby.

At 10.55 over the Atlantic, simultaneously with signal rockets soaring into the sky, the most selective obscenity of the K-219 senior assistant Sergey Vladimirov, who was waiting in the boat, was heard over the VHF: “Everything is ... those! Now explode! Repetition was not required: picking up maximum speed, Krasnogvardeysk and Galileo Galilei moved in a northerly direction. On the American tug, by the way, they also heard and correctly understood the Russian command and carried it out with great speed, although later, without waiting for the explosions, they returned back.

At 11.01 at coordinates 31o28'2" N 54o39'8" W (Sargasso Sea, neutral waters), the boat sank at a depth of 5500 m.

At 11.15, First Officer Ivanov took the commander of the K-219, who was on a double life raft, on board the boat and brought him to the Krasnogvardeysk - they brought him, he boarded, and the entire crew of the boat had already lined up on the deck - to meet their commander.

Then they received the command: “Urgently leave! Otherwise, the ship's hull may be damaged!" - and in fact, after some time in the engine room, for example, they heard as if they hit the hull with a huge sledgehammer, and then a burst followed - up to ten blows - this was a submarine torn at a depth.

The crew of the "K-219" went on board the "Anatoly Vasiliev" - 115 sailors, led by commander Britanov. When transferring Commander Britanov from ship to ship with a package of secret documents, the American tug made an attempt to approach. Noticing the maneuver, the captain of Krasnogvardeysk went on the air, and warning the tugboat: “My ship is uncontrollable!”, sent the cargo ship directly to the Poukheten. They realized that our people were not joking, and moved away.

"Anatoly Vasiliev" headed to Cuba, where he was supposed to deliver the crew of "K-219". "Krasnogvardeysk" for another week guarded the place of the death of the boat - all of a sudden something pops up - and then went to Leningrad.

The life of the submarine ended, but the crew continued their service - they kept a journal, compiled various documentation, nursed the poisoned ones - they were now handled by the Anatoly Vasilyev doctor Gennady Novikov, and he did all this together with the nuclear submarine doctor Igor Kochergin, who had barely recovered from pulmonary edema - his help impossible to underestimate.

And how many of these damned reports and explanations were written!

For this alone, kilograms of paper were spent.

And all this was encrypted, encrypted, encrypted.

Cryptographers worked under armed guards in a specially designated room. The submariners kept everything that needed to be kept, including secret papers. The heroic behavior of the submariners amazed the sailors of the merchant fleet. And the sailors, in turn, amazed the military: the sailors shared clothes and shoes with the submariners, and the crew members of the Anatoly Vasiliev crowded into their cabins.

It was a real maritime brotherhood, when one for all and all for one, when no one is left in the waves, when no one has the right to pass by and not provide assistance to those in distress.

In Havana, Anatoly Vasiliev was met by the Minister of Defense of Cuba, Raul Castro, who gave the K-219 crew the opportunity to rest for several days in one of the Cuban sanatoriums, dressed in a brand new Cuban uniform. Crowds of jubilant Cubans stood along the streets along which the buses moved. The submariners were brought to a military sanatorium, where they were provided with all the conditions for rehabilitation and recreation. Then the K-219 crew was taken to Moscow by a special flight.

But in the homeland of submariners, a completely different reception awaited.

At the "very top" they decided who to consider the crew of the submarine - heroes or criminals. A criminal case was opened, and without waiting for its results, the Communist Party hastened to expel the K-219 submariners from its ranks - just in case.

Commander Britanov was put on trial. It always happens this way: if you stay alive, you go to the dock. In 1987, under the new Minister of Defense, the case was closed and the charges against the crew were dropped.

Then the command of the Northern Fleet tried to award the K-219 crew with government awards, but the Ministry of Defense put an end to the award lists - they themselves were guilty of the death of the boat.

Special holds sailor Sergei Preminin - the one who managed to manually shut down the reactor of the power plant and for whom the reactor compartment became an eternal grave at the bottom of the ocean - was awarded the title of Hero of Russia posthumously, but only under pressure from a number of public organizations, comrades in arms. Without wide publicity, it was awarded to him only in 1997. At first, in 1987, having stinted, he was posthumously awarded the Order of the Red Star. From the crew, only two more people were later awarded - the head of the chemical service and the KGB officer.

Civil sailors also did not become heroes: they were met in the Leningrad port, as usual. Only the customs officers showed a special "warmth" of feelings and stubbornly searched for something, apparently, nuclear warheads. Not finding anything, they limited themselves to the seizure of photographs and caps, which the submariners left as a keepsake for the sailors.

The crews were ordered not to tell even relatives and friends about the accident on a nuclear submarine and the concentration of the naval forces of the two opposing sides at the point of the tragedy. That is why, in the order of the head of the Baltic Shipping Company, the sailors of the Krasnogvardeysk bulk carrier and the Anatoly Vasilyev ro-ro ship rescued a certain “crew” of some “object”. For "showed courage" instead of government awards, all crew members were thanked, those who especially distinguished themselves were given a bonus - according to a two-week official salary

(from 50 to 75 rubles) and certificates of honor for each team.

Later, the management of the shipping company turned to the Ministry of the Navy to award the sailors with departmental and government awards. But no one received any awards.

Twenty-five years have passed since then.

Recently, the Baltic Territorial Organization of the Russian Union of Sailors and the Council of Veterans of the Baltic Shipping Company sent an appeal to President Medvedev with a request to award the most distinguished sailors in October 1986 of the former Baltic Shipping Company (BMP).

A list of submariners was attached to this appeal to the list for awarding Baltic sailors. Indeed, from October 3 to 6, 1986, the Baltic sailors and submariners, risking their lives, acted together and their merits to the Fatherland are inseparable.

However, the Applicants were informed by telephone from the Department of Awards of the President of the Russian Federation that the Maritime Trade Union and the Council of Veterans do not have the authority to nominate anyone for awards, and the Baltic Shipping Company has sunk into oblivion along with the state.

Then requests from individuals were sent to the administration of the President of the Russian Federation. The applicants received written replies, according to which the crew of the K-219 was unconditionally to blame for the tragedy and was not worthy of government awards.

But it is probably impossible to make only the K-219 crew guilty of the tragedy. Everyone knows that this nuclear submarine had problems with missile weapons before, and exactly the same accident happened to it earlier in mine No. 15. And before the tragedy, K-219 went on a trip urgently, in a hurry: half of the crew consisted of people seconded at the last moment, and not only the crew, but also the leadership of the Navy were to blame for the death of the boat.

In relation to the rescuers, the sailors of the Baltic Shipping Company, mockery comes through in the letters.

In a letter dated 06/05/2012, the Office of the President of the Russian Federation invites applicants to study a set of articles from the Constitution of the Russian Federation in terms of the Federal structure of the Russian Federation, subjects of jurisdiction of the Russian Federation and, more specifically, Article 71 c) “regulation and protection of the rights and freedoms of man and citizen; citizenship in the Russian Federation; regulation and protection of the rights of national minorities”.

And the response of the Ministry of Defense was completely surprising.

What kind of awards can we talk about if the answer from the Main Directorate of Personnel of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation says in black and white: “The High Command of the Navy with information about the actions (distinctions) of the crews of the ships of the Baltic Shipping Company Krasnogvardeysk and Anatoly Vasiliev in rescuing nuclear submarine sailors” K-219 "does not have"!

The answer of the High Command of the Navy (dated 05/03/2012) is also discouraging, which informs that in 1999 the Northern Fleet's application for the award of 54 crew members of the K-219 was rejected "due to the lack of complete and documented information on the fact of her death" . It turns out that "K-219" is still missing as "Flying Dutchman"?

The Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation, as the successor to the Ministry of the Navy of the USSR, reports that it is not against the award and has made an inquiry to the Ministry of Defense on the merits of the issue raised, but recommends contacting one of the St. Petersburg archives in search of the missing documents of the Baltic Shipping Company. And at the same time, everyone knows that the archives of the Ministry of the Navy burned down, and the Baltic Shipping Company no longer exists.

But the people who once signed the lists for awards are still alive: the captain of the ro-ro ship "Anatoly Vasiliev" Konstantin Shchigolev, his first assistant Zaburdaev and the first assistant to the captain of the bulk carrier "Krasnogvardeysk" Mikhail Vyakhirev.

But the captain of "Krasnogvardeysk" Evgeny Danilkin recently died.

But there is an order from the head of the Baltic Shipping Company, confirming that the crews of these ships "showed courage during the rescue operation."

And a list of sailors in it.

Here it is, that list.

Motor ship "Anatoly Vasiliev":

Shchigolev K.V. — captain

Ivanov Yu.N. - chief mate

Nabatov A.Yu. - second mate

Gakkel A.A. - fourth mate

Blinov K.E. - Chief engineer

Motor ship "Krasnogvardeysk":

Vyakhirev M.V. - first mate

Guz V.P. - second mate

Gavrilov D.S. - ship's doctor

Rybakov A.V. - head of the radio station

Zakharov D.Yu. - second radio operator

Petukhov A.A. - and about. boatswain

Roshchin Yu.S. - electrician

Zamigulov R.Sh. - third mate

Glukharev A.L. — electrician

It turns out that their feat has a statute of limitations? Or is it not even a feat at all?

And the deck leaving from under the feet, people suffocating in smoke, torn to pieces, boiled alive - all this is not heroism ...