White bandits from the boat "Naval"

From a book on the right terror of the Civil War

The Kuchkovo Field Publishing House released the monograph by Anton Chemakin, dedicated to the “anonymous center” - the underground organization of the monarchists, resorting to terror shortly after the victory of the October Revolution. We publish an excerpt from the chapter “Naval’s boat and its passengers”, which tells about the not -pleasant page in the history of white emigration.

Anton Chemakin. "Anonymous Center." Secret monarchical organizations and right -wing terrorism in the White South of Russia (1918–1920). M.: Kuchkovo Field, 2021. Content

At 8 in the morning of January 27 (February 9), 1920, Ivan Cameron, the captain of the English transport vessel "Rio Negro", who transported Russian refugees by the Black Sea from Odessa, who had just been handed over to the Odessa to Constantinople, saw a towing distress. The tugboat was helplessly drifted around the worried sea, and his deck, on which there were about 20 people, was washed in waves from time to time. The British noted the name of the tugboat - “Naval” (Naval - from the French “sea”), as well as the fact that the large steel cable was wound around the screw of the vessel, as a result, it was impossible to use engines. The north wind blew, strong snow squalls flew in, there was a storm on the sea. It was dangerous to lower the boat into the water, so Rio Negro, maneuvering, tried to approach the tugboat. But the weather conditions turned out to be so difficult that the captain of Rio Negro abandoned the idea of ​​approaching a distressing ship, believing that even for the sake of saving 20 people, he could not at risk 1,400 passengers of his ship.

“The moment like this comes for each ship commander when he knows that all responsibility for actions lies on it alone, when he is worried about what to do, knowing very well that he would later feel that he could do something else. The commander, however, must quickly make a decision, and he knows that then many will say: “I would do this and that if I were in your place.” Public opinion should not keep him from fulfilling what he considers his duty, and he is obliged to follow the commands of his mind and conscience, ”this was subsequently described by Captain Cameron, a moral dilemma that stood before him that morning.

Having stood around the tug for up to 9 hours 30 minutes, the captain of Rio Negro decided to continue his journey. He considered that he could not wait for the weather, because on board his ship were patients with typhoid, who had to be delivered as soon as possible to Constantinople. Cameron handed over the location of the tug to other ships on the radio and headed towards the Bosphorus. “Only those who faced such a decision will understand my feelings when we left these unfortunate people behind,” he recalled. - I ended that one of our destroyers would receive a message and could save the passengers of the tugboat when the weather calms down. It is hoped that ultimately the tug and its passengers were saved. ”

Cameron did not know how the fate of the disaster of the ship was. He did not know the fact that on the “Naval” were members of the monarchical terrorist organization, led by either the second lieutenant or lieutenant Vladimir Arzamasov. The English destroyers did not come to the rescue, but the “naval” and his passengers were incredibly lucky - they did not drown, and after the tedious drift on the Black Sea on the night of January 28-29, 1920 (under Art.) They were scooped up by the Turkish coast. Having moved to land, the members of the team and passengers of Naval learned that they were not far from Shile, known for their lighthouse; There were also several villages nearby - Kabakoz, Achkakes, Chairbashi. Constantinople, occupied by the troops of the Entente, the capital of the Ottoman Empire that lived in the last years of its existence, was about 70 km from the landing site.

“Naval”, belonging to the Society of Nikolaev plants and the shipyards, was officially considered a boat (and so we will call it in the future), but in various texts it is sometimes called a steamer, an icebreaker, and a tugboat. On December 20, 1919 (January 2, 1920), he was mobilized for the needs of the Marine Department, when Nikolaev left the withdrawal from the port of the Don transport, the Tserigo destroyer and the miner Elpidifor. “In Odessa, by order of the military authorities, the ship, having taken the ranks of the Volunteer Army on board, was supposed to follow Varna, but due to the strongest storm, he was forced to change the course and follow Zybu. During a four -day navigation, when the ship was in a critical position, the team showed maximum energy. During the storm, many things belonging to the team were used to close coal pits through which the water penetrated the vessel. On the night of January 29 (February 11), the ship was thrown ashore. The team was left without linen, dresses and shoes. Our situation without the most necessary things was difficult, ”wrote the members of the Naval team, who tried to receive a salary from the command of the Black Sea Fleet, as well as canteens and evacuation money and, by the way, achieved their own, despite the discontent of the mobilization part of the Sevastopol port, which did not have any information about the death of the ship and therefore considered all the claims to be unfounded.

But if for the members of the team, apparently, this story ended safely, some passengers of the vessel at the Russian representative office in Constantinople questions arose. On February 5 (18), 1920, a group of ranks of the 1st Officer-Forest Regiment of Novorossia filed a complaint, which spoke about the money that was not paid by him, as well as the incident that occurred during their stay at the Naval Katerekol. The temporary regiment commander, Captain Fedorov, reported the following to the chairman of the refugee committee on the island of Priku.

A group of ranks of the regiment, appointed to protect the Odessa port and facilitate the evacuation of military institutions and institutions, received from her commander, Colonel Fisher, an instruction to be evacuated by sea route, but literally for up to a minute she did not know the name of the vessel on which she would leave the city. In addition, before the departure from Odessa, Colonel Fisher received for distributing a salary and for other needs of the regiment of 1,800,000 rubles. January 25 (February 7), 1920, the officials of the regiment learned that Fisher found for himself and eight more places on the Naval boat. Part of the regiment officers at the last minute under the gun and machine -gun fire of the Bolsheviks gathered on the specified boat, while others, led by Fisher himself, joined them on the raid, where they were brought on a different ship. “Naval’s boat - a river icebreaker, not at all adapted for sea swimming - did not have a compass, and all the hatches could not be tightly closed,” Fedorov wrote. These factors affected the evening of January 25 (February 7). “Naval” broke away from the path of the ship that indicated him and went to the open sea, not being able to turn into Varna, where he was supposed to swim. The waves began to fill in the engine room, the pump stopped working. Since that time, almost all the men who were on the ship, including the regiment officers, began to work tirelessly "to pump out water, closing the hatches, strengthening the necessary cargo, etc.". They worked without rest, without shifts, in the water, knee -deep, doused with strong waves of a storm, in an unengraduated, heavy clothing, in washed shoes or even without it. Patients were forced to work on a par with everyone. From the moment of landing on the “Naval” the ranks of the regiment suffered from thirst and hunger: there was no access to the fresh water during the storm, and at the same time no one received a piece of bread, nor meat, or other food.

“Another circumstance was added to these physically grueling conditions, which morally shocked the sick and tired ranks of the regiment: this is the complete lack of administration of senior officials, fragmentation for warring groups and usurpation by several officers of the rights of the commandant, managers and generally all roles that do not require constant physical and dangerous work, this is a group around the lieutenant Arzamasov,” wrote, ”wrote Fedorov. -These officers behaved in relation to the rest of the vile and dishonest: they inhumanly exploited the minority at work, scolded them with the worst Russian abuse, threatened with revolvers, threatened with the tradition of the military-field marine court, and all this was not caused by anything but self-deception and tyrannical impatience. They even resorted to insulting measures of physical coercion to the work of officers exhausted by sea disease. At a time when it was necessary to free the ship from excess cargo, these several unauthorized persons, forgetting about heavy cables and grates, ordered and began to dump the small bags of officers with insignificant property into the sea. Moreover, heavy baskets in the cabins are not involuntarily forgotten. Only the consciousness of the need for tremendous work and complete unity in moments of the highest general danger softened the severity of the resentment experienced by the officers and demandingly pointed out the inappropriateness and untimely prosecution of these persons. ”

At the same time, the Arzamasov group, exploiting all other passengers, had supplies in such quantities that, after the passengers left Naval, the ham, meat and fruits rotted on the ship and near him, but the owners of all this good did not share their products with other officers. While most passengers worked, participants in this group, and not only officers, but also the lower ranks, openly evaded work. Arzamasov and the company were located in cabins, and the rest of the officers in short minutes of rest were to lie in coal pits and on the wet and dirty floor of the stoker.

The journey through the Black Sea was extremely difficult. The driving machine of the ship stopped, and it was not possible to fix it; Flapsed the steering wheel; The water -pounding machine repeatedly stopped for a long time, and finally on January 27 (February 9), it broke completely; The lowered floating anchor was destroyed. The pitching was so great that the officers working on the deck literally bathed in the water. Twice foreign vessels were called up to the rescue, the second of them tried to take the boat towed, but the cables broke, and then “Naval” entered the field of minefields.

In the end, in the evening of January 28 (February 10), the ship was thrown ashore of Asia Minor. Passengers of Naval moved to land, passing steps 20 to the waist in water. There was one person with a victim of the storm, but “many were on the verge of death”; Several people were caught among the waves.

After landing on the shore, the rank of regiment was abandoned by his commander Fisher, who retired from them, without even indicating the method of communication and without appointing the deputy. Having found the colonel, the regiment officers asked him to indicate when the salary was issued. In their presence, a report close to Fisher, the captain Somov made a report, according to which the bag of money died at sea. Fedorov noted that this report was false, since one of the regiment officers, Lieutenant Kalinovsky, personally participated in the transfer of money from Naval ashore. In the following days, Colonel Fisher "was all the time and was not able to give any explanations and instructions."

The local Turkish population was very warmly reacted to the Russians, the victims of shipwreck. Two days after the landing, stubborn rumors spread among the Turks, unknown to whom the disseminated, that "Colonel Fisher belongs to the senior members of the family of former Emperor Nicholas II." Fedorov testified that in his presence, as well as Captain Dyachuk and Lieutenant Burimov, Fisher said that "he is now a third party in Turkey."

The military personnel crashed the victims of the Turks for hospitality, but could not get any explanations from Fisher about money, except for foggy promises. February 1 (14) Fisher, not giving any orders, left for Shile, taking money with him. The ranks of the regiment considered it to the departure and lost the right of command, and therefore asked Fedorov to temporarily accept the leadership, and then on February 2 (15) they sat on the English ship, which lingered with Shile. The British also sent a boat for Fisher, Arzamasov and their people, but they, however, did not come to the ship, categorically refusing to use the services of English sailors. On February 3 (16), the officials of the regiment were brought to the suburbs of Constantinople Tuzl, from where they moved to the island of Provkipo on the Greek steamer. Here they wrote a complaint about Colonel Fisher, Arzamasov and improvised.

Perhaps this complaint would have remained unnoticed, but it soon became clear that there are claims to the lieutenant Arzamasov and his people not only for military personnel of the 1st Officer-Volunteer Regiment.

* * *

On February 1 (14), 1920, in Constantinople, the Odessa banker Alfred Osipovich Hais, who was on the Rio Pardo steamer, filed an application addressed to the Commander -in -Chief of the All -Union. He said that on January 23 (February 5), when the position of Odessa became threatening and the evacuation took on a hasty character, on the advice of the English vice-consul, decided to move through the Ovidiopol to Romania together with members of the Connuator Society, in which he himself consisted. Being the head of the banker house "O. HAS ”, he, of course, was worried about the salvation of values ​​and money. Together with him, a wife and an elderly father, chairman of the Odessa Committee of Trade and Manufactory, went on the road.

All the members of the horse-breeding Society departing from Odessa had to gather in the apartment of Colonel Feona at the 3rd station of the Bolsheontan tram. Having arrived at the indicated place, Hais and his relatives were surrounded by a group of “volunteers” officers who ordered them to enter the Feona’s apartment. After checking the documents, they were declared arrested - just like about 100 other Odessa "bourgeois" who arrived at the apartment earlier. He managed the verification of documents, and then ordered the arrest, Lieutenant Arzamasov, also known by the surname Elenich. Then all the detainees were sent to the Sergiev Artillery School, where they were interrogated by the prosecutor of the judgment of the headquarters of the Odessa garrison Mikhail Alexandrovich Chekhovsky, especially interested in values ​​and foreign money. After that, Hais was ordered in a rough form to give everything that was valuable. He obeyed and gave 7 109 “Romanov” rubles, 1,311 pounds, 10,665 French francs, 647 Turkish lires, 4403 Italian liras, 700 Swiss francs, 20 005 Romanian lei, 150 Greek drahms, 50 francs and 40 Schillings silver, a piece of paper, which contained approximately 50 Turkish lires, 50 French francs. And the other trifle in foreign money, as well as a box in which there were 2 gold hours, 3 gold bracelets with precious stones, 4 pairs of gold cufflinks with stones, 1 men's gold chain with platinum, 2 gold medallions, 1 diamond brooch, 1 diamond ring and more.

The money was selected from other detainees, but then many of them were returned to many of them, and they themselves were exempted. Haisa Chekhovsky stated that the amount of currency found under him suggests that Alfred Osipovich is a speculator, and therefore he cannot free him. Then, the assistant to Chekhovsky, the voluntary Shanfranovich, who said that the situation was really serious, but he would try to facilitate the fate of the detainee approached Hais.

Hais, under the escort, was sent to the judicial part of the headquarters of the Odessa garrison on the Poltava Victory Street (Kanatnaya), No. 31. At about 8 o’clock in the evening, Chekhovsky and Shafranovich appeared there. The latter told Khais that he could free him even now, but on condition that he was content with a return of 300 English pounds and signed the paper that he received everything that was seized. Otherwise, Haisa threatened a multi -day arrest. Considering that he needed to urgently leave due to approaching the city of the Bolsheviks, Khais had to agree to the proposal, but he still decided to bargain. During negotiations and bargaining, Shafranovich went to Chekhovsky’s office twice, obviously, consult with him. Then Chekhovsky left, and Shafranovich returned to Hais and said that he agreed to limit himself to half the money selected from the banker. Shanfranovich asked to wait about an hour, explaining that he would go for the money of Khais to the premises of the English club. An hour later, Shafranovich returned by car, accompanied by two officers. Entering the room where the HAIS was kept, he gave him a receipt for the signature, and he was in a hurry that the detainee did not even have time to read it. Having received a signature, Shafranovich handed over the package, but did not make it possible to check his contents, stating that in case of slowing down, both were facing an execution. Then he told Khais that he was free, and asked to leave rather, and not allowing the opportunity to count the returned money.

Returning home, Hais found out that his wife had petitioned for him in front of the English consul, and one of his acquaintances - to General Shilling. As a result, an order was given to immediately release all the arrested and the return of the selected values ​​to them. After checking the package transferred to Shanfranovich, Hais discovered in it 2,500 “Romanov” rubles, 510 English pounds, 4,500 French francs, 1,650 Italian lires, 350 Turkish lires, 300 Swiss francs. Он сделал вывод, что «Чеховский, совместно с помощником его Шафрановичем и другими офицерами, имена которых мне не все известны, использовавши свое служебное положение, незаконно лишили меня свободы и под угрозой дальнейшего задержания, связанного, в приближении большевиков, с опасностью для моей жизни, ограбили меня...».

Таким образом, по итогу встречи с добровольцами Хаис лишился 4 609 «романовских» рублей, 801 английского фунта, 6 165 французских франков, 2 753 итальянских лир, 297 турецких лир, 400 швейцарских франков, всех имевшихся румынских леев и греческих драхм, а также всего содержимого бумажника и шкатулки.

22 февраля (6 марта) 1920 г. Хаис дал дополнительные показания, уточнив, что при проверке документов и задержании его и других членов Общества коннозаводчиков в квартире полковника Феоны участвовало 50–60 человек офицеров и нижних чинов. Поручик В. И. Арзамасов и Д. Н. Соболев-Липеровский, находившиеся среди них, были теперь, по его сведениям, в Константинополе. Дней пять или шесть назад, то есть в середине февраля, к нему в ресторане «Токатлиан» подошел Соболев-Липеровский и сказал, что он слышал, будто бы Хаис хочет предпринять некоторые шаги. Он попросил пока что ничего не делать, а подождать 10–12 дней, объяснив, что сам интересуется раскрытием другого дела и что ему известно, где находится вся эта банда. Соболев-Липеровский уверял Хаиса, что ему вскоре удастся всех их задержать. Хаис обещал пока что ничего не предпринимать из боязни мести со стороны тех лиц, которые шантажировали его и других. Очевидно, Соболев-Липеровский был сообщником Арзамасова, который пытался замять или как минимум затянуть дело. Но, как видим, Хаис все же пересилил страх и дал показания против бандитов.