German civilian ships received by the ussr for reparations. "Mikhail Svetlov". Motor ship from the movie "The Diamond Arm" Cruise on the motor ship victory 1956 film

In the fall of 1948, on the Soviet motor ship "Pobeda", following a special flight from the United States to Odessa, there was a fire. 42 people were killed, including the Chinese Marshal Feng Yuxiang and his daughter."Accident", - stated the Soviet newspapers

After the end of the Great Patriotic War the USSR merchant fleet included a number of German ships restored at German shipyards. Among them was the liner "Iberia", which received the name "Pobeda" in the Soviet fleet. It was a large motor ship, designed to carry 340 passengers and 4,000 tons of cargo. During the refurbishment, its capacity was increased to 600 passenger seats.
On July 31, 1948, the motor ship Pobeda with 323 passengers and 277 tons of cargo on board left the port of New York.

No SOS signal
On September 1, the radio station of the Black Sea Shipping Company received a report from the ship: "Pobeda" has passed Novorossiysk and by 14 o'clock on September 2 is expected to arrive in Odessa. The ship did not get in touch again. However, at first, this did not alert anyone. Only in the morning of September 2 in Black Sea Shipping Company asked the ships and ports on 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 sent out search aircraft, and at 21 o'clock one of the pilots reported that he had found a burned ship in
70 miles southeast of Yalta; next to him were five boats with people.
On September 5, in the newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda, a scant TASS message appeared on the last page: “At the beginning of 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 the films that caught fire. There are victims. Among the dead are Marshal Feng Yuxiang and his daughter. The motor ship was delivered to Odessa. An investigation is underway. "
The closed investigation continued for several months. As the investigation found out, on September 1, at about 13:00, the liner passed the Novorossiysk port. At this time, the acting ship projection technician, radio technician Kovalenko, decided to prepare a batch of films taken on the voyage for delivery to the cult base, and asked sailor Skripnikov to rewind the films after watching. The films were kept in a small storage room in the central part of the ship. The part was packed in tin boxes, and the part to be rewound lay open on the table. In the same pantry, about 2 thousand gramophone records were kept. At about 15 o'clock, while rewinding on a hand-held machine, the tape sparkled and flashed. The skeins lying next to it 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 storeroom, slammed the door and, screaming for help, rushed down the corridor. The door was knocked out in a hot air in the storeroom, and a tornado of fire that escaped enveloped the carpeted tracks and plywood bulkheads of the cabins. The flame, drawn along the corridor by a powerful jet of air, reached the ladder leading to the lobby of the overlying deck, and from there, along the two vertical shafts of the ladder, reached the upper bridge, igniting everything in its path. In a matter of minutes, fire engulfed the central part of the ship, including the navigator's, helmsman's and radio room, the captain's and navigators' cabins. The fire began to spread through the living quarters to the bow and stern, to boat deck, approached the holds and engine room.
The watch radio operator Vedeneev, caught by the fire, jumped out of the wheelhouse through the window, without having time to transmit either a distress signal or a message that he was forced to leave the watch. The captain ordered an SOS signal on the backup radio, but it had already burned out in the navigator's room. The ship's general fire alarm was announced only a few minutes later by the ship's bell.
In principle, the liner was provided with life-saving equipment (about a dozen large boats, life belts and circles), but the fire-fighting equipment on the ship was clearly insufficient. A pump installed in the engine room with a flow rate of up to 70 m3 / h was able to help only with a local fire, it was beyond his power to extinguish a large fire. The extinguishing was carried out by several independent, randomly formed groups in different parts ship.
On the night of September 3, when the rescuers approached the ship, the main fire had already been extinguished. The motor ship was taken in tow, but then it turned out that it could go on its own. On September 5, Pobeda arrived in Odessa, the rescued passengers arrived on the Vyacheslav Molotov turbo ship.
The fire killed two crew members (the sailor Skripnikov and the barmaid Gunyan, on whom a new outfit flashed - a nylon dress) and 40 passengers, among whom were the Chinese Marshal Feng Yuxiang and his daughter. At the time of the fire, Feng watched a movie with his wife and son, while the daughter was taking a bath in her cabin. When the fire spread throughout the ship, the marshal - an elderly man, overweight, but brave - helped put out the fire and tried to get to his daughter's cabin himself. But, apparently, he inhaled carbon monoxide and smoke, lost consciousness and died. The Marshal's daughter also died, she was found lying in the bath.

Passenger number one
At the beginning of 1949, a closed trial was held over the perpetrators of the incident. They announced the freelance projectionist Kovalenko, the sailor Skripnikov who helped him, the captain of the ship Pakholok 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 captain of the ship Nikolai Pakholok and the projectionist Kovalenko were sentenced to 15 years in prison, the pomp Pershukov - to ten, the radio operator Vedeneev - to eight. Workers of coastal services, indirectly guilty of the tragedy, received lighter sentences. And the most severe punishment of all was the chief executive officer Alexander Nabokin, who was responsible for fire safety: he was sentenced to 25 years in prison - the then highest measure. In addition, they found contraband in his cabin - cuts of scarce panne velvet hidden in fire extinguishers.
Without rejecting the version of the flash of the film from its friction on the rewind machine, the court concluded that the most probable cause the ignition of the film was the smoking of the sailor Skripnikov in the pantry. But the possibility of sabotage was also considered. Already leaving New York, the captain of the ship received a radiogram from the Black Sea Shipping Company, in which he was instructed to go to Alexandria in order to receive the repatriated Armenians for ferrying to Batumi. On August 22, 2020 repatriates boarded the ship, who were disembarked in Batumi in the last days of August. The investigation suggested that in Alexandria, when landing such a large number of passengers, saboteurs entered the ship and organized a fire. Moreover, in Batumi, on a motor ship, pieces of some substance similar to ore were found in different places. According to eyewitnesses, during a test arson, they burned with a blue flame with a high temperature.
The author of these lines, completing his studies at the Caspian Higher Naval School, in the summer of 1948 did an internship on ships in Odessa and Sevastopol. A few months later, having received the rank of naval midshipman, I was again sent to the Black Sea Fleet. There I ended up in Sevastopol, and I happened to see Pobeda. She stood on the outer roadstead and waited for the free space at the quay wall of the shipyard.
At the plant I had many friends who communicated with the ship's crew. From conversations with them, I managed to find out some details of the emergency. The fire, according to my interlocutors, started after the passage of Yalta. In the middle of the ship, under the captain's bridge, boxes of cargo taken on board caught fire. During the voyage, they were repeatedly rearranged from place to place. Several witnesses subsequently claimed that the boxes with an unknown load burned like sparklers.
Before leaving New York, the wife of one of the Soviet diplomats leaving the United States did not want to return to her homeland, and the Americans took her under their wing. However, her luggage was loaded on the Pobeda and was in the middle of the ship, where the fire started. In addition, before leaving New York, local authorities began to disinfect the vessel. The crew stayed in hotels for two days while the Americans put things in order on the Pobeda, despite the captain's protests. As a result, according to various indications, many items - furniture, carpets, curtains and even the surfaces of decks, bulkheads of cabins and other rooms, impregnated with a "disinfectant" composition - burned especially actively. In the end, all of this was ignored by the investigation.
But the most intriguing circumstance has to do with the Chinese marshal. He went to the USSR on an important mission. It was believed that he could take one of the key posts in the government of the new China.
He was a man with a long biography. Feng Yuxiang began military service during the Xinhai Revolution of 1911-1913 and was soon promoted to command positions. In October 1924, already a general, Feng and his troops captured Beijing, staging a coup, and in 1926 joined the Kuomintang party. In the summer of 1927, he supported the leader of the Kuomintang Chiang Kai-shek, who broke off relations with the Chinese Communist Party. However, during the war with Japan (1937-1945), Feng was a supporter of cooperation with the communists.
In 1948, the defeat of the Kuomintang army by the troops of the Communist People's Liberation Army of China was completed. On the agenda was the creation of a national government. The once all-powerful Feng has already passed the zenith of political glory. But he has just made another political turn, completely going over to the side of the Communist Party.
It is known that Stalin did not trust Mao very much, calling him "radishes": red on the outside and white on the inside. It is also known that, while providing certain military and technical assistance to the Chinese communists, Moscow gave priority to the then legitimate Kuomintang government of Chiang Kai-shek. Perhaps, reflecting on the fate of China, Stalin developed several options with the involvement of "spare" figures. One of them could be Marshal Feng Yuxiang. His return to China was most likely disadvantageous to Mao. Feng's mysterious death on a Soviet ship may have disrupted Stalin's strategic plans. And, which is quite obvious, cleared the way for Mao to the supreme one-man power.

GERMAN ORIGIN
The vessel was built by order of the German shipping company at the shipyard "Schichau Werft" in Danzig (Polish. Gdansk) in 1928 for operation on the line Europe - Central America- West Indies. The first voyage started on December 29, 1928.
After six months of repairs and refurbishment at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg, the Magdalena left the shipyard as a one-tube motor ship with the new name Iberia (German: Iberia).
After World War II In wartime, Iberia served as a floating base for the German Navy in Kiel. Initially, after the war on June 9, 1945, the British Navy received it. On February 18, 1946, the Iberia, which did not suffer in the hostilities, was transferred by the USSR to the Black Sea for reparations. shipping company... Here the liner received a new name - "Victory".

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

On September 1, the radio station of the Black Sea Shipping Company received a report from the ship: "Pobeda" has passed Novorossiysk and by 14 o'clock on September 2 is expected to arrive in Odessa. The ship did not get in touch again. However, at first, this did not alert anyone. Only in the morning of September 2, the Black Sea Shipping Company asked for ships and ports on the liner's route, 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 sent out search aircraft, and at 21 o'clock one of the pilots reported that he had found a burned-out motor ship 70 miles southeast of Yalta; next to him were five boats with people.

ARMENIANS

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

Eyewitnesses tell about their stay at Pobeda:
The sailors also had a hard time at the docks in ports. “Victory” began to take the Armenians from Marseilles. Then she went to Egypt, to Alexandria. Then to the Lebanese port of Beirut. Then to the Syrian port of Latakia. From there to Greece, to Piraeus. The ship brought his passengers to Batumi, from where railroad they were taken to Yerevan.
Each Armenian family carried a lot of baggage. Many had cars that were rare for the USSR at that time. And all this had to be loaded, placed and secured in case of stormy weather.
Taking passengers with their luggage on board, the sailors knocked off their feet, the senior captain's mate puzzled over where to put the cars, and the passenger mate fought off Armenian mothers who begged them to give their children such a cabin “so as not to rock.”
The repatriates drove into the unknown. Alone with joy from the upcoming meeting with historical homeland Armenia, others are confused. There was a case when the husband of a young Armenian woman, a Frenchman, jumped overboard while passing the Bosphorus and swam to the shore.

FIRE
At this time, the acting ship projection technician, radio technician Kovalenko, decided to prepare a batch of films taken on the voyage for delivery to the cult base, and asked sailor Skripnikov to rewind the films after watching. The films were kept in a small storage room in the central part of the ship. The part was packed in tin boxes, and the part to be rewound lay open on the table. In the same pantry, about 2 thousand gramophone records were kept. At about 15 o'clock, while rewinding on a hand-held machine, the tape sparkled and flashed. From it, the skeins lying next to it caught fire. A few seconds later, the pantry was engulfed in flames, the clothes on the sailor flared up. Skripnikov jumped out of the storeroom, slammed the door and, screaming for help, rushed down the corridor. The door was knocked out in the hot air in the storeroom, and the escaping fiery tornado engulfed the carpeted tracks and plywood bulkheads of the cabins. The flame, pulled along the corridor by a powerful jet of air, reached the ladder leading to the lobby of the overlying deck, and from there, along two vertical ladder shafts, reached the upper bridge, igniting everything in its path. In a matter of minutes, fire engulfed the central part of the ship, including the navigator's, helmsman's and radio room, the captain's and navigators' cabins. 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 by the fire, jumped out of the wheelhouse through the window, without having time to transmit either a distress signal or a message that he was forced to leave the watch. The captain ordered an SOS signal on the backup radio, but it had already burned out in the navigator's 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 ship. On the night of September 3, when the rescuers approached the ship, the main fire had already been extinguished. The motor ship was taken in tow, but then it turned out that it could go on its own. On September 5, Pobeda arrived in Odessa, the rescued passengers arrived on the Vyacheslav Molotov turbo ship.

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

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

CHINESE MARSHAL

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

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

COURT
At the beginning of 1949, a closed trial was held over the perpetrators of the incident. They recognized the freelance projectionist Kovalenko, the sailor Skripnikov who helped him, the captain of the motor ship Pakholok 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 captain of the ship Nikolai Pakholok and the projectionist Kovalenko were sentenced to 15 years in prison, the pomp Pershukov - to ten, the radio operator Vedeneev - to eight. Workers of coastal services, indirectly guilty of the tragedy, received lighter sentences. And the most severe punishment of all was the chief executive officer Alexander Nabokin, who was responsible for fire safety: he was sentenced to 25 years in prison - the then highest measure.

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

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

Page 6 of 7

Four German liners, which the USSR also got for reparations from Nazi Germany, became a remarkable replenishment of the Black Sea Passenger Shipping Company. The first to arrive on the Black Sea liner "Victory", who already on April 15, 1947 left Odessa on his first flight on 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". Commissioning of the liner took place on December 14, 1928, and on December 29 "Magdalena" set off on its maiden voyage from Hamburg to the West Indies. The vessel was painted in traditional Narag colors - black hull and white superstructures. For the sake of solidity, the liner had two smokers, but during a major overhaul in Hamburg, they were replaced with one wide pipe. The total (gross) tonnage of the vessel was 9779 gross tonnage, The hull length reached 148.1 m, width - 18.5 m, draft - 10.5 m. Two eight-cylinder diesel engines from the Schihau company had a total power of 6800 hp. and provided a full speed of 15 knots, working on two four-blade propellers. Overhaul and refurbishment lasted from May 28, 1934 to February 1935, and the ship was named "Iberia" after being out of repair. The motor ship could take on board 123 passengers of the 1st class, 102 - of the 2nd class, 106 - of the 3rd class. The ship's crew was 177 people.

During the Second World War, the liner spent in Gotenhafen (Kiel), was used by the Kriegsmarine as a base ship for German submarines. The USSR liner was handed over for reparations on February 18, 1946 and crossed to the Black Sea under its own power. The motor ship received a new name - "Victory". In September 1948, after leaving Batumi, a fire broke out on the ship with numerous casualties, and the Chinese Marshal Feng Yu Xiang and his family were also 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. The demoted and visa-deprived sailors called the Crimean-Kalym line. And ordinary passengers simply adored the trip from Odessa to Batumi and back. For some small money, they plunged into another world - travel and adventures, southern nights and love affairs. Even if you were completely broke, you could buy a deck ticket, one night on a sun lounger on the deck, if you didn't have enough charm to settle down better, and you're already in Yalta, or one more night - and you're in Sochi ... On "Pobeda" there was the most beautiful, among the passenger ships, two-tiered restaurant decorated with mahogany.

And also "Victory" starred in a feature film. Together with the motor ship "Russia" she starred in the comedy of Leonid Gaidai - "The Diamond Arm" how passenger ship"Mikhail Svetlov", heading for a cruise on the route Leningrad - Odessa - Leningrad, with a stopover in Istanbul. It is on the deck of "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.

The motor ship "Russia" was considered the flagship of the passenger fleet of the Black Sea Shipping Company. All Odessa residents of the older generation remember the famous liner... The diesel-electric ship was built in Hamburg (Germany). The vessel was launched on January 15, 1938 and it received the name "Patria". The 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 via the Panama Canal to west coast South America. With the outbreak of World War II, "Patria" moved to Stettin, where it remained until 1942 as a floating barracks. Then the ship was transferred to a dock in the port of Flensburg, where it continued to be used as a floating base for the Navy. After Hitler's death, in early May 1945, the German imperial government headed by Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz was located on the liner. Then the British liked the liner, was repaired at the Belfast shipyard and was used for military transport under the name "Empire Welland". In February 1946, the liner was handed over to the Soviet Union for reparations, and in the same year under the new name "Russia" it made a flight from Liverpool to New York.

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

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 class. The number of the crew and service personnel reached 240-260 people.

Diesel-electric ship "Russia" was very popular among vacationers and often took on board up to 200 - 250 (and, if necessary, up to 500) additional "deck" passengers, who spent the night in sun loungers on promenade decks without their own cabins. Such passengers handed things over to the lockers.

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

Construction history

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

Two-shaft power plant of two 8-cylinder diesel engines "Sulzer" brand 8SM68 with a capacity of 3,500 liters each. With. each at 105 rpm allowed the ship to develop a speed of about 15.5 knots, working on two 4-blade 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 planned report from the ship that they had passed Novorossiysk, and by two o'clock on September 2, it was supposed to arrive in Odessa. After that, radio communication with the vessel was terminated.

In the morning, September 2, the Black Sea Shipping Company began to take measures to clarify 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 burned-out motor ship "Pobeda" 70 miles southeast of Yalta, near it were five boats with people. Help was sent to the damaged vessel from Feodosia, Sevastopol, and other places. From Odessa, cadets and teachers of the Odessa Higher Maritime School were sent to help.

Investigation

According to the investigation, on September 1, 1948, at about 13:00 the liner passed the Novorossiysk port. At this time, the acting ship projection technician, radio technician Kovalenko, decided to prepare a batch of films taken on the voyage for delivery to the cult base, and asked sailor Skripnikov to rewind the films after watching. The films were kept in a small storage room in the central part of the ship. The part was packed in tin boxes, and the part to be rewound lay open on the table. In the same pantry, about 2 thousand gramophone records were kept. At about 15 o'clock, while rewinding on a hand-held machine, the film sparkled and flashed. From it, the skeins lying next to it caught fire. A few seconds later, the pantry was engulfed in flames, the clothes on the sailor flared up. Skripnikov jumped out of the storeroom, slammed the door and, screaming for help, rushed down the corridor. The door was knocked out in the hot air in the storeroom, and the escaping fiery tornado engulfed the carpeted tracks and plywood bulkheads of the cabins. The flame, pulled along the corridor by a powerful jet of air, reached the ladder leading to the lobby of the overlying deck, and from there, along two vertical ladder shafts, reached the upper bridge, igniting everything in its path. In a matter of minutes, fire engulfed the central part of the ship, including the navigator's, helmsman's and radio room, the captain's and navigators' cabins. 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 by the fire, jumped out of the wheelhouse through the window, without having time to transmit either a distress signal or a message that he was forced to leave the watch. The captain ordered an SOS signal on the backup radio, but it had already burned out in the navigator's 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 ship. On the night of September 3, when the rescuers approached the ship, the main fire had already been extinguished. The motor ship was taken in tow, but then it turned out that it could go on its own. On September 5, Pobeda arrived in Odessa, the rescued passengers arrived on the Vyacheslav Molotov turbo ship.

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

The fire on the motor 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 the decree 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 immigrants to Armenia was prohibited.

Consequences

At the beginning of 1949, a closed trial was held over the perpetrators of the incident. They recognized the freelance projectionist Kovalenko, the sailor Skripnikov who helped him, the captain of the motor ship Pakholok 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 captain of the ship Nikolai Pakholok and the projectionist Kovalenko were sentenced to 15 years in prison, the pomp Pershukov - to ten, the radio operator Vedeneev - to eight. Workers of coastal services, indirectly guilty of the tragedy, received lighter sentences. And the most severely punished by the chief executive officer Alexander Nabokin, who was responsible for fire safety: he was sentenced to 25 years in prison - the highest measure then existing.

Further destiny

Pobeda continued to work as part of the Black Sea Shipping Company on domestic and foreign routes. In the mid-1950s, she was ranked among the best ships of the shipping company.

Which ship actually starred in one of the most beloved comedies by Leonid Gaidai

"Victory"

In fact, it was the motor ship "Pobeda", which was used for passenger transportation on the line Odessa - New York - Odessa. And it belonged to the Black Sea Shipping Company.

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

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

On February 8, 1934, off the island of Curacao, the ship ran aground, from which it was removed only on August 25. After six months of repairs and refurbishment at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg, the Magdalena left the shipyard as a one-tube motor ship with the new name Iberia (German: Iberia).

In wartime, "Iberia" served as a floating base for the German Navy in Kiel. Initially, after the war on June 9, 1945, the British Navy received it. On February 18, 1946, the Iberia, which was not damaged in the hostilities, was transferred to the Black Sea Shipping Company by the USSR for reparations. Here the liner received a new name - "Victory".

The vessel was put on the line Odessa - New York - Odessa, the crew was headed by the sea captain Nikolai Adamovich Pakholok - an experienced sailor, a native of Skadovsk, the engine crew - senior mechanic A. Zvorono.

On July 31, 1948, the motor ship "Pobeda" with 323 passengers and 277 tons of cargo on board left the port of New York for Odessa. Among the passengers were mainly employees of the ministries of foreign affairs and foreign trade with families, as well as several representatives of other departments, as well as the family of the Chinese Marshal Feng Yuxiang, who was en route to China through the Soviet Union.

On the way to Gibraltar, an order was received: to go to Alexandria and take on board about 2,000 more Armenian repatriates from Egypt returning to Armenia. An additional 1,500 tons of cargo was also loaded. Thus, all passenger capacity standards were exceeded. Nevertheless, all the repatriates were safely delivered at the end of August to the port of destination - Batumi.

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 planned report from the ship that they had passed Novorossiysk, and by two o'clock on September 2, it was supposed to arrive in Odessa. After that, radio communication with the vessel was terminated.

In the morning, September 2, the Black Sea Shipping Company began to take measures to clarify 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 burned-out motor ship "Pobeda" 70 miles southeast of Yalta, near it were five boats with people. Help was sent to the damaged vessel from Feodosia, Sevastopol, and other places. From Odessa, cadets and teachers of the Odessa Higher Maritime School were sent to help.

According to the investigation, on September 1, 1948, at about 13:00 the liner passed the Novorossiysk port. At this time, the acting ship projection technician, radio technician Kovalenko, decided to prepare a batch of films taken on the voyage for delivery to the cult base, and asked sailor Skripnikov to rewind the films after watching. The films were kept in a small storage room in the central part of the ship. The part was packed in tin boxes, and the part to be rewound lay open on the table. In the same pantry, about 2 thousand gramophone records were kept. At about 15 o'clock, while rewinding on a hand-held machine, the film sparkled and flashed. From it, the skeins lying next to it caught fire. A few seconds later, the pantry was engulfed in flames, the clothes on the sailor flared up. Skripnikov jumped out of the storeroom, slammed the door and, screaming for help, rushed down the corridor. The door was knocked out in the hot air in the storeroom, and the escaping fiery tornado engulfed the carpeted tracks and plywood bulkheads of the cabins. The flame, pulled along the corridor by a powerful jet of air, reached the ladder leading to the lobby of the overlying deck, and from there, along two vertical ladder shafts, reached the upper bridge, igniting everything in its path. In a matter of minutes, fire engulfed the central part of the ship, including the navigator's, helmsman's and radio room, the captain's and navigators' cabins. 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 by the fire, jumped out of the wheelhouse through the window, without having time to transmit either a distress signal or a message that he was forced to leave the watch. The captain ordered an SOS signal on the backup radio, but it had already burned out in the navigator's 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 ship. On the night of September 3, when the rescuers approached the ship, the main fire had already been extinguished. The motor ship was taken in tow, but then it turned out that it could go on its own. On September 5, Pobeda arrived in Odessa, the rescued passengers arrived on the Vyacheslav Molotov turbo ship.

The fire killed two crew members - barmaid G. Gunyan and sailor V. Skripnikov and 40 passengers, including 19 women and 15 children, among them were the Chinese Marshal Feng Yuxiang with his daughter and the widow of the writer A.N. Afinogenova Evgenia Bernardovna (Jenny Schwartz) ...

The fire on the motor 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 the decree 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 immigrants to Armenia was prohibited.