Does everyone remember the global disaster with the Titanic? Certainly…. But why do we remember and know so many details about this shipwreck, and do not know about more terrifying and global disasters that occurred on the waters of the world's oceans? But because films were not made about these troubles, many books were not written, and because some of them are still classified as secret.
Motor ship "Armenia"
Armenia…. This is not only a beautiful and friendly small country, not only a city in sunny Colombia, but also the name of one of the ships built at the Baltic Shipyard in Leningrad in 1928. Together with this ship, the vessels “Abkhazia”, “Adzharia” and “Ukraine” also entered the open sea. All ships were designed to transport passengers, goods and mail on the Crimean-Caucasian line.
With the outbreak of World War II, the countries involved in the confrontation with Germany used all possible resources, including passenger and cargo ships. They were rebuilt into ambulance transport for transporting the wounded. During the war, three ships of the Baltic Shipyard were sunk, but the biggest secret is hidden in the loss motor ship "Armenia".
In 1941, the ship was commanded by an experienced 39-year-old captain Vladimir Yakovlevich Plaushevsky. It was he who received the order from the command of the Black Sea Fleet to save the military hospital and the residents of the city of Sevastopol. To get a complete picture of the ship, it is worth writing about the facts that played an important role in the fate of the ship. The ship could take on board 950 people plus a crew of 96 people, but it took on board 4.5-7 thousand people, which was many times more than its capabilities. Eyewitnesses who were in the port of Sevastopol say that every resident of the city was eager to board the ship; everyone was afraid to stay, since German troops were already nearby. Let us clarify that such an overload threatened the ship with very strong instability on the waves of the Black Sea; it could capsize in even a small storm. The deck and holds of the ship were filled with doctors and city residents. After loading the people, the ship at about 17:00 on November 6, 1941, left the port of Sevastopol and headed towards the Caucasus, to Tuapse.
But along the way the ship had two more stops. At one of them, in the port of Yalta, the ship was supposed to evacuate political workers and several hundred civilians. But on the second one, take on board NKVD officers and unknown wooden boxes. The second stop was not far from the shore of Balaklava, where the ship waited for a boat with cargo and NKVD officers. We had to wait about three hours. What was in such valuable boxes, because of which thousands of people were in danger every second, remained unknown; we can only guess about their contents.
There are several guesses about what was transported in wooden boxes. The first is the documents of the NKVD, which could not be left to the advancing enemy. The second, in favor of which many facts speak, are paintings by famous Russian artists. At a distance of an hour and a half by car from Balaklava, there was Alushta, in which in the summer of the same year there was an exhibition of paintings by outstanding Russian artists such as Bryullov, Kramskoy, Repin, Levitan and many others.
Upon arrival in Yalta, the ship took several hundred more people on board. The motor ship, which arrived at the port at 2:00 on November 7, was ordered to wait for darkness and go to sea only at 19:00. But, taking responsibility, Captain Plaushevsky took the ship out to sea at 8 a.m. on November 7. For such a violation of the order, the entire crew of the ship could have been shot, but this was prevented by a more tragic circumstance.
Motor ship "Armenia" had on its sides the distinctive signs of ambulance transport in the form of red crosses. But the ship was also additionally armed with four 45-mm cannons, which made it possible to consider the ship a military target and attack it accordingly.
On November 7, 1941, at 8:00 am, “Armenia” left the port of Yalta and headed straight to Tuapse, carrying several thousand passengers on board, including an entire military hospital and NKVD officers with an unknown but valuable cargo. And, presumably, at 11:25 a.m., the ship was attacked by a German Heinkel He-111 aircraft. The ship was hit by dropped torpedoes. The sinking of the ship took just a few minutes, from which historians conclude that the damage from the torpedo hit was devastating and the ship was most likely torn apart.
Memorial plaque in memory of "Armenia"
The bottom of the Black Sea even at this moment, with modern technology very little has been surveyed. And the remains of the motor ship "Armenia" have not yet been found. And no one knows what was in these ill-fated boxes, which became one of the reasons for the death of 4.5-7 thousand people, the death of first-class Soviet doctors who could have saved hundreds of soldiers’ lives. The sinking of the motor ship "Armenia" remains one of the most mysterious secrets the beginning of the Second World War.
What is hidden by the expedition, which can shed light on one of the main military tragedies of the Black Sea?
The search for the site of the tragic accident of the motor ship "Armenia" with supposedly seven thousand people on board has been going on for more than 10 years. Why is the next expedition completely classified, what did scuba divers discover in 2005 when they announced the discovery of “Armenia”, and could the organizers of the expeditions, partially financed by the US Navy, pursue more than just scientific goals?
Was the find hidden because of the gold?
The first expedition to search for the motor ship "Armenia" took place back in 2005. Then the Institute of Archeology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine received three coordinate points from various sources, including from the Central Naval Archive in Moscow, and also took as a basis the testimony of eyewitnesses of the tragedy and survivors. But the most important thing on which the search was based was a secret report presented by a certain Crimean organization that had already discovered “Armenia” using the Poisk geological complex.
“A vessel with dimensions similar in characteristics to the dimensions of the vessel “Armenia” has been identified. The results of remote holographic identification prove that in this place at a depth of 520 m there is a torpedoed bow ship "Armenia"... The ambulance ship "Armenia" was identified by the following parameters: the location of the sunken ship with its bow to the southeast (coincidence with the general course of the ship after leaving the port of Yalta); the length of the sunken vessel coincides (about 100 meters), a fragment of the torn off bow (about 10 meters) is located at a distance of about 40 meters from the ship’s hull; fixation of a large number of human remains (bones) throughout the ship along a characteristic resonant information-energy spectrum; recording characteristic resonance spectra from precious metals located in the following places: platinum and diamonds - under the upper deck in the area of the central part of the ship (where special mail and luggage rooms are located); gold and silver - in many rooms of the superstructure where the cabins are located increased comfort", etc.
The deep-sea submersible "Langust" was lowered to the site of the death, the crew of which confirmed the find. The news immediately spread across all media with loud headlines like “The legendary “Armenia” has been found!” The archaeological season was already closed, but next summer promised to be rich in artifacts, photos and video footage from the ship...
However, the next year the search for “Armenia” resumed in other areas. This was explained as follows: they say, the find was not confirmed, and what the crew of the Lobster saw was a completely different ship, completely uninteresting. By the way, the report taken as a basis was made public after Ukrainian archaeologists examined the supposed site of the death of the “Armenia” from American scientific vessels in 2006-2007.
According to the most daring conspiracy theory, the cargo that was mentioned in the geological survey report, and which, according to legend, was loaded by NKVD officers in Yalta, became the reason for withholding information about the discovery of the ship.
Although, perhaps, all this is nothing more than speculation...
History and tragedy
The passenger and cargo ship "Armenia" was built at the Baltic Shipyard in Leningrad in 1928. Displacement 5770 tons, length 107.7 m, width 15.5 m, side height 7.84 m, crew - 96 people. The ship belonged to the class of double-deckers, six of the same type “Krymchaks”, which worked in the Crimean-Caucasian cruise line in the pre-war period (“Armenia”, “Adjaristan”, “Crimea”, “Abkhazia”, “Ukraine”, “Georgia”). Soon after the start of the war, all six ships were converted into ambulance transport ships and transferred to the medical service of the Black Sea Fleet.
The tragedy of “Armenia” occurred on November 7, 1941 and in terms of the number of victims it is one of the largest in world history. The death toll was, according to various estimates, from 3 thousand to 10 thousand people.
The chronology of the disaster is briefly as follows. At about 17:00 on November 6, 1941, the ship under the sign of the Red Cross left Sevastopol. There were several thousand wounded soldiers and evacuated citizens on board. The ship also loaded the personnel of the main hospital of the Black Sea Fleet and a number of other military and civilian hospitals (23 hospitals in total), as well as the leadership and employees of the Artek pioneer camp, members of their families and part of the party leadership of Crimea. The loading of evacuees was in a hurry; their exact number is unknown. IN last flight“Armenia” was led by captain Vladimir Plaushevsky. The ship was accompanied by two armed boats and two I-153 fighters. At 2:00, November 7, the ship arrived in Yalta, where it took on board several hundred more people (the loading of evacuees was also in a hurry, so their exact number is unknown) and some valuable cargo - it is possible that, in addition to documents, there was gold and valuables from Crimean museums. At 8:00 the ship left the port, and at 11:25 am it was attacked by the German torpedo bomber Heinkel He-111, which belonged to the 1st squadron of air group I/KG28. The plane came in from the shore and dropped two torpedoes from a distance of 600 m. One of them hit the bow of the ship. Four minutes later, "Armenia" sank. Only eight people were saved, who were picked up by a patrol boat.
There is a version that the cause of the disaster was mistakes by the command of the Black Sea Fleet. The overcrowded ship, instead of making the transition to the Caucasian coast in the dark in relative safety, was sent by the command to Yalta, although there were dozens of other ships in Sevastopol that could evacuate this city. As a result, the loading dragged on all night and the captain was forced to set out to sea from Yalta in the morning. But what was Captain Plaushevsky guided by when he put the ship out to sea during daylight hours - in violation of the order of the commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Admiral Philip Oktyabrsky? According to some, he saw no point in staying in the port of Yalta for a day, since the stationary ship was an excellent target (Yalta did not have air defense systems, in addition, at any moment it could be captured by advancing German units, because the Germans had already broken into the neighboring Gurzuf). Others believe that the captain obeyed the NKVD officers on board, who sought to leave Crimea as quickly as possible.
Secrecy and conspiracy theories
A few days ago, a new stage of the search for “Armenia” started. This time under the auspices of the Russian Ministry of Defense. Among the expedition participants are specialists from the Main Directorate of Deep Sea Research of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, and Crimean professionals. Although the mission of the expedition does not focus only on “Armenia”: the search for submarines, ships and aircraft that sank during the First and Second World Wars. The task is carried out by a detachment of ships of the Black Sea Fleet, which includes a fleet vessel KIL-158, designed to lift objects from the bottom. For example, in Kutch it is planned to find submarines from the First World War, in Evpatoria - the A. Serov", in the area of Cape Aya - the destroyer "Impeccable", from Feodosia to Anapa - search for the destroyer "Smyshleny". Search activities are also planned in the areas of capes Khersones, Opuk, Fonar and in the Kerch Strait.
“Found ships and submarines will be declared military graves, the places of their destruction will be marked on all nautical charts, and from now on all ships and vessels of the Russian Navy, passing in this area, will lower their flags and give military honors to the fallen defenders of the Fatherland,” said Deputy Head of the Military Department Dmitry Bulgakov.
But official comments on the progress of the search work have so far been limited to reports that a German torpedo boat S-102 was discovered at the southern entrance to the Kerch Strait (on June 8, 1943, the boat hit a mine), from which a 40-mm Flak 28 anti-aircraft gun was lifted, fragments of the boat hull and propellers. And they also pulled out an Il-2 attack aircraft from the bottom (shot down on November 8, 1943, the plane was flown by Hero of the Soviet Union Yusup Akaev).
Not a word about “Armenia”. Although Crimean Telegraph knows from its own sources that the search for the ship is planned in at least two points of the Black Sea. Moreover, information about underwater work abruptly stopped and, as it became known, even journalists working for the Russian Ministry of Defense were denied access to the ships involved in the work. But why? As a Crimean Telegraph source associated with this expedition explained: “Nobody wants to prematurely give even a reason for news. If “Armenia” is found, then yes, it will be a sensation, but for now we need to remain silent. Anyone associated with the expedition is prohibited from disclosing information. Everything is classified."
Along with this, another assumption appeared true goal expeditions. Allegedly, it is connected with clearing the Black Sea of certain tracking sensors or interception of information. The fact is that journalists noticed: the expedition requires very large expenses, and it is unlikely that the military will invest huge amounts of money on simply discovering sunken objects. And I remembered that in 2006, from Cape Khersones to Cape Meganom, an expedition of the American scientist Robert Ballard, who was subsequently accused by the Crimean media of collaborating with US intelligence, worked on the research vessel Endeavor. Allegedly, it is known that this work cost the American side $2.5 million, and in 2007 Ballard involved the oceanographic vessel Pathfinder, owned by the US Naval Sealift Center, in the research, and the costs increased even more. And the secret goal of the Americans was to study the topography of the bottom and coast for military purposes, as well as to install special listening devices and special technical tracking equipment on the underwater cable communication lines of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, which now need to be gotten rid of. So they equipped an expedition from the Ministry of Defense... However, commenting on this assumption, the representative of the Black Sea Fleet sincerely laughed.
Vyacheslav Trukhachev, head of the information support department of the Russian Black Sea Fleet:
“I know about this version. She's so...unexpected. And not serious. To comment on it, it’s best to turn to conspiracy theorists, this is their topic.”
But another version of the true goal of the Americans does not sound so fantastic - this is conducting geological and hydrographic exploration near the Crimean coast under the legend archaeological research. This was required to update the seabed maps, which is, of course, invaluable information for the owners of the oceanographic vessel kindly provided to Ballard.
Igor SHILOV
Maxim RUSINOV
The material was published in the Crimean Telegraph newspaper No. 391 dated August 12, 2016
A symbol of large-scale disasters at sea was the death of the passenger liner Titanic, which in April 1912 claimed the lives of about 1,500 people.
In fact, the Titanic is not even among the top thirty maritime disasters with the largest number of casualties. The most terrible tragedies of this kind occurred during the Second World War, when transports with thousands of people, not only military personnel, but also women, old people and children, sank to the bottom.
On November 7, 1941, the Soviet motor ship Armenia, with several thousand people on board, perished in the Black Sea. The tragedy of “Armenia” to this day remains one of the “blank spots” of the Great Patriotic War, since many questions in this story have not been answered.
In the mid-1920s, when the country had recovered a little from the shock Civil War, the government began to think about the development of civil shipbuilding. In 1927, at the Baltic Shipyard in Leningrad, the construction of the motor ship "Adzharia", the lead ship of the series of the first Soviet passenger airliners. In 1928, at the same Baltic plant, work was completed on five more ships of this project: “Crimea”, “Georgia”, “Abkhazia”, “Ukraine” and “Armenia”.
“Armenia” was a vessel 107.7 meters long, 15.5 meters wide, with a side height of 7.84 meters and a displacement of 5,770 tons. The ship was served by a crew of 96 people. The ship could simultaneously take on board up to 950 passengers.
"Armenia", like other vessels of the project, was intended for transportation between the ports of Crimea and the Caucasus. The ships coped with their task perfectly, having a very decent speed of 14.5 knots for their size.
floating hospital
With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, “Armenia” was “called up” for military service. At the Odessa Shipyard, it was urgently converted into a floating hospital, designed to transport and provide emergency care to 400 wounded.
On August 10, 1941, “Armenia” began to fulfill its new duties. The captain of the ship was Vladimir Plaushevsky, and military doctor 2nd rank Pyotr Dmitrievsky was appointed chief physician of the floating hospital. Until recently, the head doctor was a civilian and worked in one of the hospitals in Odessa.
The situation at the front was depressing. Five days before the Armenia officially became a medical ship, the enemy came close to Odessa. The ship had to evacuate not only the wounded from the besieged city, but also civilian refugees. Then “Armenia” began transporting the wounded from Sevastopol. By the beginning of October the ship had transported to Mainland about 15 thousand people.
By the end of October 1941, a catastrophic situation had developed in Crimea. Manstein's Eleventh Army, sweeping away Soviet defense lines, occupied one city after another. The threat of the fall of Sevastopol within a few days was more than real.
Under these conditions, on November 4, 1941, “Armenia” left the port of Tuapse in the direction of Sevastopol. On board there were reinforcements for the garrison of the main fleet base. "Armenia" reached Sevastopol safely. On November 5, Captain Plaushevsky received an order: to take on board not only the wounded, but also the personnel of all hospitals and medical institutions of the Black Sea Fleet, as well as part of the medical staff of the Primorsky Army.
Thousands of refugees and secret cargo
Considering that at that moment the battles for Sevastopol were just unfolding, the order looked somewhat strange. Who will save the lives of the wounded?
Historians who have studied this issue believe that the commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Admiral Philip Oktyabrsky, considered the fate of the city a foregone conclusion and decided to begin the evacuation.
But on November 7, 1941, Oktyabrsky received a directive from Headquarters, which said: “Do not surrender Sevastopol under any circumstances and defend it with all your might.”
However, before November 7, there were no orders from Moscow, so “Armenia” took on board evacuated doctors and others. Actors of the local theater named after Lunacharsky, management and staff of the Artek pioneer camp and many others climbed on board.
There were no exact lists of those who boarded the Armenia. Captain Plaushevsky received another order: after loading in Sevastopol, go to Yalta, where to take refugees and local party activists on board. After leaving Sevastopol, an additional order came: to go to Balaklava and pick up a special cargo. The boxes were brought on board accompanied by NKVD officers. Perhaps it was gold or valuables from Crimean museums.
“The brave climbed onto the ship using the shrouds”
Here crowds of refugees were waiting for the ship. This is what Vera Chistova, who was 9 years old in 1941, recalled about this: “Dad bought tickets, and my grandmother and I had to leave Yalta on the ship “Armenia.” On the night of November 6, the pier was full of people. First they loaded the wounded, then they let in the civilians. No one checked the tickets, and a stampede began on the ramp. The brave ones climbed onto the ship using the shrouds. In the bustle, suitcases and things were thrown off the board. By dawn the loading was completed. But we never got to “Armenia”. Hundreds of people remained on the pier. My grandmother and I went to my father’s workshop on the embankment. I fell asleep there."
At that moment, those remaining on board the “Armenia” seemed lucky. In fact, everything was exactly the opposite.
How many people were on “Armenia” by that time? According to the most conservative estimates, about 3,000 people. The upper limit is 10,000 people. Most likely, the truth is somewhere in the middle, and there were between 5,500 and 7,000 people on board. And this despite the fact that even in its “passenger” version the ship was designed for only 950 people.
In fact, “Armenia” could have successfully evacuated a similar number of people if it had departed from Yalta in the dark. But the loading was completed around 7 am.
Going to sea during the day without virtually any cover was tantamount to suicide. Admiral Oktyabrsky later wrote that the captain of the Armenia received a strict order to remain in the port until the evening, but violated it.
But Captain Plaushevsky, in fact, had no choice. The port of Yalta, unlike Sevastopol, did not have a powerful air defense system, which means that ships here became an excellent target for aviation. In addition, German motorized units were already approaching the city and occupied it in just a few hours.
The ship sank in 4 minutes
Before talking about what happened next, it should be noted that historians still have not decided whether “Armenia” can be considered a legitimate military target.
According to the laws of war, a medical ship bearing the appropriate identification marks is not one of them. Some argue that “Armenia” was marked with a red cross, which means that the attack on the ship was another crime of the Nazis. Others object: “Armenia” violated its status by having four 45-mm anti-aircraft guns on board. Still others are completely sure that the ship, which was engaged not only in transporting the wounded and refugees, but also military cargo, did not have the signs of a medical ship.
As cover, “Armenia” was accompanied by two patrol boats, and two Soviet I-153 fighters were in the sky.
The circumstances of the fatal attack on the ship are also contradictory. For a long time it was believed that “Armenia” was the victim of an attack by several dozen bombers. One of the surviving passengers, Yalta resident Anastasia Popova, spoke about this: “Having gone out to sea, the ship was attacked by enemy aircraft. All hell broke loose. Bomb explosions, panic, people screaming - everything was mixed up in an indescribable nightmare. People rushed around the deck, not knowing where to hide from the fire. I jumped into the sea and swam to the shore, losing consciousness. I don’t even remember how I ended up on the shore.”
However, today the version that there was only one plane seems more reliable: the German torpedo bomber He-111, which belonged to the first squadron of air group I/KG28. This was not a targeted attack on “Armenia”: the torpedo bomber was looking for any of the Soviet transport ships on the Crimea-Caucasus line.
Entering from the shore, the Non-111 dropped two torpedoes. One passed by, and the second hit the bow of the ship at 11:25 a.m.
"Armenia" sank in just four minutes. Only eight people on board were saved. The bottom of the Black Sea became the grave for thousands.
Could not find
The mysteries of “Armenia” do not end there. 75 years after the tragedy, the exact location of the sinking of the ship has not been discovered.
The official report on the death of the “Armenia” reads: “At 11:25 a.m. (November 7, 1941), the TR “Armenia,” guarding two patrol boats from Yalta to Tuapse with the wounded and passengers, was attacked by an enemy torpedo plane. One of the two dropped torpedoes hit the bow of the ship and at 11:29 am it sank at w = 44 deg. 15 min. 5 sec., d = 34 deg. 17 min. Eight people were saved, about 5,000 people died."
The supposed site of the ship's sinking has been studied several times. In 2006, Robert Ballard, who found the Titanic at the bottom of the Atlantic, joined the search. In Ukraine it was reported that “Armenia” was about to be found, but this did not happen. No traces of the lost ship were found.
There is an assumption that the real place of death of “Armenia” is not where indicated in the documents. According to this version, Captain Plaushevsky sent the ship not to Tuapse, but to Sevastopol, under the protection of the air defense of the fleet base, but along the way he was attacked by a torpedo bomber.
This, however, is only an assumption, like much else in the history of the death of “Armenia”.
It will be possible to reveal all the secrets only when the ship’s final refuge is found.
THE BIGGEST MARINE TRAGEDY OF THE SECOND WORLD: JAVAD STAYED WITH THEM
When you look at old documents and photographs from the war period of 1941-1945, you always want to know more about the people with whom they are associated. You start looking for relevant information - and the glorious and tragic pages of our history literally come to life before your eyes.
The young man in the photo is Muratkhanov Javad Feyzulla oglu.
He was born in 1914. in Salyan. The Muratkhanov family was famous in this city - Javad's grandfather was a local bailiff. Soon the family moved to Baku and Javad grew up in Icheri Sheher, on the famous Malaya Fortress street. He was fascinated by medicine and after school he graduated from the Faculty of Pharmacy of the Azerbaijan State Medical Institute. Then he worked in one of the Baku pharmacies on Bailovo. I just didn’t have time to start a family. The war came and Javad left to defend his homeland. The family knew that Javad, as a military paramedic-pharmacist, was in the ranks of the 8th separate medical battalion of the Black Sea Fleet. His letter home has also been preserved, where the young man asks not to worry about him and not to send him money.
A regular letter mentioning all the people close to his heart.
And in January 1942 Through the Voroshilovsky District Military Commissariat of Baku, Javad's father received a “funeral certificate” for his son, signed by the military commissar of the medical and sanitary department of the Black Sea Fleet - “In the fight against German fascism, he died at sea on November 7, 1941.”
And that’s all - nothing was known about any circumstances surrounding the death of military paramedic Muratkhanov. These documents were kindly provided to us by Javad Muratkhanova’s niece, Gulnara-khanum Radzhabova, the daughter of Javad’s sister Lumi-khanum Muratkhanova-Amrakhova. This is the same sister Lumi that Javad recalls in his letter.
Thanks to information from the Memorial electronic database, we were able to find out where, how and under what circumstances Javad’s life ended that day.
He died in a sea disaster equal to the disaster of five (!) Titanics, when on November 7, 1941. The ambulance transport "Armenia", on board which was military paramedic Muratkhanov, was sunk as a result of a torpedo attack by German aircraft at the exit from Yalta.
Registration card of Javad Muratkhanov, stored in TsAMO USSR
This was a little-known and perhaps the most tragic episode of that war at sea. Transport "Armenia" evacuated the wounded and refugees from Yalta when German troops were already approaching the city and was attacked by a fascist torpedo bomber abeam Gurzuf in the area of Mount Ayu-Dag. As a result of a direct hit by a torpedo, the ship broke and sank. Almost all 7,000 people on board were killed.
"Armenia" on the slipway of a shipyard.
Official information about the death of “Armenia” is very scarce. More interesting information gives a “Final report on the combat activities of the Black Sea Fleet in the Second World War of 1941 - 1945.” The third volume of this closed document of the operational department of the Black Sea Fleet headquarters reports that “on November 7, 1941, on the ambulance transport “Armenia” the following were completely lost: “Sevastopol Naval Hospital” with 700 beds, the naval hospital of the Black Sea Fleet and its property, the 5th medical sanitary detachment, base hospital, and so on... the number of dead was about 7,000 people, 8 people were saved. After the death of “Armenia”, the Black Sea Fleet was left without medical support, and it was necessary to create the main hospital of the Black Sea Fleet No. 40, basic hospitals, calling in doctors from the reserve. Loading the entire staff of several medical and sanitary institutions onto one medical transport was a grave mistake."
The commander of the ship was Lieutenant Commander V.Ya. Plaushevsky. The ship's standard evacuation capacity was 400 people; there was one operating room and 4 dressing rooms with 11 tables. The ship's medical staff: 9 doctors, 29 nurses and 75 orderlies.
Among the members of the medical staff, in addition to Javad Muratkhanov, there were several more of our fellow countrymen:
Akhundov D.A. 3rd rank military doctor - surgeon;
Mamedova A.Kh. - pharmacist
Akhundova Sharifa - dentist
In total, before its death, the Armenia managed to make 15 evacuation flights (mostly from Odessa and Sevastopol) and delivered more than 15,000 people to the Caucasus (an average of 1,000 people per flight).
The ship was not so large (with a displacement of 6,700 tons), and was designed to transport 980 people. But that day, people literally packed into “Armenia” like sardines in a barrel. Eyewitnesses recall that the passengers stood on the deck, huddled closely together. savash-az.
Perhaps military paramedic Javad Muratkhanov could have been saved, but as a medic, a soldier and just a man, he chose not to abandon the wounded. He probably also thought - what will I tell our guys from Malaya Krepostnaya?...
Chapel in Yalta dedicated to those who died on the ship
The death of the transport "Armenia" on November 7, 1941 is one of the most tragic cases of death. passenger ships.
Does everyone remember the global disaster with the Titanic? Certainly…. But why do we remember and know so many details about this shipwreck, and do not know about more terrifying and global disasters that occurred on the waters of the world's oceans? But because films were not made about these troubles, many books were not written, and because some of them are still classified as secret.
Motor ship "Armenia"
Armenia…. This is not only a beautiful and friendly small country, not only a city in sunny Colombia, but also the name of one of the ships built at the Baltic Shipyard in Leningrad in 1928. Together with this ship, the vessels “Abkhazia”, “Adzharia” and “Ukraine” also entered the open sea. All ships were designed to transport passengers, goods and mail on the Crimean-Caucasian line.
With the outbreak of World War II, the countries involved in the confrontation with Germany used all possible resources, including passenger and cargo ships. They were rebuilt into ambulance transport for transporting the wounded. During the war, three ships of the Baltic Shipyard were sunk, but the biggest secret is hidden in the loss motor ship "Armenia".
In 1941, the ship was commanded by an experienced 39-year-old captain Vladimir Yakovlevich Plaushevsky. It was he who received the order from the command of the Black Sea Fleet to save the military hospital and the residents of the city of Sevastopol. To get a complete picture of the ship, it is worth writing about the facts that played an important role in the fate of the ship. The ship could take on board 950 people plus a crew of 96 people, but it took on board 4.5-7 thousand people, which was many times more than its capabilities. Eyewitnesses who were in the port of Sevastopol say that every resident of the city was eager to board the ship; everyone was afraid to stay, since German troops were already nearby. Let us clarify that such an overload threatened the ship with very strong instability on the waves of the Black Sea; it could capsize in even a small storm. The deck and holds of the ship were filled with doctors and city residents. After loading the people, the ship at about 17:00 on November 6, 1941, left the port of Sevastopol and headed towards the Caucasus, to Tuapse.
But along the way the ship had two more stops. At one of them, in the port of Yalta, the ship was supposed to evacuate political workers and several hundred civilians. But on the second one, take on board NKVD officers and unknown wooden boxes. The second stop was not far from the shore of Balaklava, where the ship waited for a boat with cargo and NKVD officers. We had to wait about three hours. What was in such valuable boxes, because of which thousands of people were in danger every second, remained unknown; we can only guess about their contents.
There are several guesses about what was transported in wooden boxes. The first is the documents of the NKVD, which could not be left to the advancing enemy. The second, in favor of which many facts speak, are paintings by famous Russian artists. At a distance of an hour and a half by car from Balaklava, there was Alushta, in which in the summer of the same year there was an exhibition of paintings by outstanding Russian artists such as Bryullov, Kramskoy, Repin, Levitan and many others.
Upon arrival in Yalta, the ship took several hundred more people on board. The motor ship, which arrived at the port at 2:00 on November 7, was ordered to wait for darkness and go to sea only at 19:00. But, taking responsibility, Captain Plaushevsky took the ship out to sea at 8 a.m. on November 7. For such a violation of the order, the entire crew of the ship could have been shot, but this was prevented by a more tragic circumstance.
Motor ship "Armenia" had on its sides the distinctive signs of ambulance transport in the form of red crosses. But the ship was also additionally armed with four 45-mm cannons, which made it possible to consider the ship a military target and attack it accordingly.
On November 7, 1941, at 8:00 am, “Armenia” left the port of Yalta and headed straight to Tuapse, carrying several thousand passengers on board, including an entire military hospital and NKVD officers with an unknown but valuable cargo. And, presumably, at 11:25 a.m., the ship was attacked by a German Heinkel He-111 aircraft. The ship was hit by dropped torpedoes. The sinking of the ship took just a few minutes, from which historians conclude that the damage from the torpedo hit was devastating and the ship was most likely torn apart.
Memorial plaque in memory of "Armenia"
The bottom of the Black Sea, even at the moment, with modern technologies, has been very little surveyed. And the remains of the motor ship "Armenia" have not yet been found. And no one knows what was in these ill-fated boxes, which became one of the reasons for the death of 4.5-7 thousand people, the death of first-class Soviet doctors who could have saved hundreds of soldiers’ lives. The death of the motor ship "Armenia" remained one of the most mysterious mysteries of the beginning of the Second World War.
"Armenia" was designed by marine engineers of the Leningrad Central Bureau of Maritime Shipbuilding under the leadership of chief designer J. Koperzhinsky, launched in November 1928 and entered the top six passenger ships of the Black Sea, consisting of "Abkhazia", "Adjara", "Ukraine" , “Armenia”, “Crimea” and “Georgia”.
Although almost all of these ships were built in Leningrad, at the Baltic Shipyard (only the last two were built in Kiel in Germany), the political leadership of the country decided in the names of the ships to express the unbreakable friendship of the young Soviet republics, which was inscribed on the high sides of these beauties, which Odessa residents dubbed them in their own way, calling them “trotters” for their speed.
As for the "Armenia", it had a cruising range of 4600 miles, could carry 518 passengers in class cabins, 125 "seated" and 317 deck passengers, as well as up to 1000 tons of cargo, while developing a maximum speed of 14.5 knots (about 27 km/h). All these ships began to serve the “express line” Odessa - Batumi - Odessa, regularly transporting thousands of passengers until 1941...
They were drowned firstWith the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the fate of the Black Sea “trotters” changed dramatically. The "Armenia" was urgently converted into a medical transport ship: the 1st and 2nd class restaurants were turned into operating rooms and dressing rooms, the smoking lounge was turned into a pharmacy, and additional hanging beds were installed in the cabins.
39-year-old Vladimir Yakovlevich Plaushevsky was appointed captain of "Armenia", and Nikolai Fadeevich Znayunenko was appointed chief mate. The ship's crew consisted of 96 people, plus 9 doctors, 29 nurses and 75 orderlies. The head physician of the Odessa railway hospital, whom many in the city knew well, Pyotr Andreevich Dmitrievsky, was appointed head of the medical staff with the rank of military doctor 2nd rank...
The laconic, self-possessed, always smart captain of “Armenia” Plaushevsky quickly gained authority, and all his orders and commands were carried out immediately.
Huge crosses, clearly visible from the air, were painted on the sides and deck with bright red paint. A large white flag, also with the image of the International Red Cross, was raised on the mainmast. Looking at him, Plaushevsky quietly said to the senior mate:
I do not think that the Wehrmacht will strictly comply with the provisions of the Hague and Geneva Conventions. The Germans have traditionally not been particularly merciful in wars...
His words turned out to be prophetic. From the first days of the war, Goering's aircraft carried out raids on hospital ships in the Black Sea. In July 1941, the ambulance transports “Kotovsky” and “Anton Chekhov” were damaged, and the “Adzharistan” (“Adzharia”), attacked by dive bombers, completely engulfed in flames, ran aground near Dofinovka in full view of Odessa. In August, the same fate befell the Kuban ship.
Pressed by the enemy, the Red Army suffered heavy losses in heavy battles. There were a lot of wounded... Day and night, in any bad weather, the medical staff worked until exhaustion on board the Armenia. Operations, operations and endless dressings. There were wounded everywhere. There were especially many seriously wounded. Loud groans were heard on all decks, and people were tormented by thirst. Many women cared for the wounded.
Captain Plaushevsky slept in fits and starts, without leaving the captain's bridge for many hours. He managed to make fifteen incredibly difficult and dangerous voyages with wounded defenders of Odessa and transport about 16 thousand people, whom the crew members placed in their cabins with the tacit consent of the captain, his assistants and the boatswain himself. Thanks to them, many refugees, who at that time were called “evacuees”, were saved...
* * *The pilot and writer Saint-Exupery, who died during the war, said: “War is something that can take so much meat from a person’s face that he will forever be deprived of the opportunity to smile at people.”
Yes, there is a lot of mystery in the circumstances of the death of “Armenia”. In addition to searching the archives, we also had to interview witnesses to that terrible tragedy, of whom, alas, there are very few left!
The book “Chronicle of the Great Patriotic War...” says that the “Armenia”, as well as the “Kuban” and the training ship “Dnepr”, made their voyages from Odessa accompanied by the destroyer “Besposhchadny”, which undoubtedly saved these ships from the daring attacks of the German aviation.
The offensive of Manstein’s 2nd Army on the Crimea was rapid, to which the command of the Black Sea Fleet, including Vice Admiral F.S. Oktyabrsky were not ready. All fleet exercises before the war boiled down to the “destruction” of large amphibious assault forces and military campaigns of ships of the Black Sea Fleet. It never occurred to anyone that Sevastopol would have to be defended from the land side...
* * *In October and November 1941, confusion reigned everywhere. Everything that was needed and not needed was hastily evacuated from Sevastopol. The hospitals equipped in the adits and the city itself were filled with wounded, but someone gave the order to urgently evacuate all medical staff. They tried to evacuate even the well-equipped and fortified fleet command post. Only the energetic intervention of the newly arrived Deputy for Ground Defense, Major General I.E. Petrov put an end to the terrible confusion. The legendary 30th battery of Georgy Alexander began to operate successfully, piercing both sides of German tanks with huge shells and smashing motorized infantry with shrapnel. Fierce battles broke out on the approaches to Sevastopol...
Tragedy on landThanks to the documents found and eyewitness testimony, it was possible to reconstruct many of the events preceding the “Armenia”’s exit to the sea from Sevastopol Bay on November 6, 1941.
The ship was stationed in the inner roadstead and hastily took on board numerous wounded and evacuated citizens. The situation was extremely nervous. An enemy air raid could begin at any moment. The bulk of the fleet's warships, on Oktyabrsky's orders, went to sea, including the cruiser Molotov, which had the only shipborne radar station in the fleet, Redut-K.
In addition to the "Armenia", another former "trotter" - the motor ship "Bialystok" - was loading in Quarantine Bay, and equipment and people were loaded onto the transport "Crimea" at the Morzavod pier. Loading continued continuously day and night.
Noteworthy is the great variety of various orders given in the most categorical and intimidating form, in which, in case of non-compliance, there was a promise of severe punishment “up to and including execution”. There were especially many such orders after the state of siege was introduced in Sevastopol on October 29. Both the residents of Sevastopol and the German command knew well that there were no Red Army units on the approaches to the city. Therefore, Manstein gave the order to the 54th Army Corps and a motorized brigade to capture Sevastopol on the move. This did not happen only because the commander of the Primorsky Army, Major General I.E. Petrov (historians would later call him “the second Georgy Zhukov”) managed to make a difficult transition through the mountains, reach Sevastopol, organize a strong defense and save the city. The massive display of heroism by the defenders of this “southern Kronstadt” was also important...
But then, on the eve of death, being on board the “Armenia” and receiving reports from assistants on the progress of loading, Captain Plaushevsky looked at the sky with alarm. He was given orders to leave Sevastopol on November 6 at 19:00 and proceed to Tuapse. Only a small sea hunter with tail number"041" under the command of Senior Lieutenant P.A. Kulashova.
Colonel of the medical service M. Shapunov testifies:
“On November 5, an order followed for all naval medical organizations to fold and evacuate. What prompted this strict order? After all, the defense of Sevastopol has just begun (and will last 250 days)...".
Colonel of the medical service A.I., a participant in the defense of Sevastopol, testifies. Vlasov:
“On November 5, the head of the Main Base department received orders... to close hospitals and infirmaries. About 300 wounded were loaded onto the "Armenia", medical and economic personnel of the Sevastopol Naval Hospital (the largest in the fleet), led by its chief physician, military doctor 1st rank S.M. Kagan. The heads of departments (with medical staff), X-ray technicians were also located here... The 2nd naval and Nikolaev base hospitals, sanitary warehouse No. 280, sanitary-epidemiological laboratory, 5th medical-sanitary detachment, hospital from the Yalta sanatorium were also located here. Some of the medical personnel of the Primorsky and 51st armies, as well as evacuated residents of Sevastopol, were accepted onto the ship...”
Captain Plaushevsky knew that in the absence of security, only a dark night could ensure secrecy of navigation and would not allow enemy aircraft to attack the Armenia. Imagine his surprise and annoyance when he was given an order from the Military Council of the Fleet to leave Sevastopol not in the evening twilight, but two hours earlier, that is, at 17:00, during daylight hours!
Such an order promised death, and some historians were inclined to believe that it came from the depths of the Abwehr of Admiral Canaris, from his special services involved in “misinformation.”
Colonel I.M. testifies Velichenko, a former covert communications specialist under the commander of the Black Sea Fleet:
“On that day, through unsatisfactory wire communications from Yalta, they reported to Rear Admiral N.M. Kulakov that a large group of leading workers and party activists had gathered in the city, who had nothing to evacuate... the choice fell on “Armenia”, and it went to its death...” However, “Armenia” managed to slip into Yalta.
But here's the mystery. "Armenia", leaving Sevastopol at 17 o'clock, moored in Yalta only 9 hours later (?!), that is, about 2 o'clock in the morning. It turns out that on the way there was a new order to make a stop at Balaklava and pick up NKVD workers, the wounded and medical personnel there, because the Germans continued to advance.
In fact, the situation was not so threatening, and people could have been picked up by other ships. Captain Plaushevsky understood perfectly well that such precious night time was being reduced inexorably, and nevertheless could not ignore the new “killer” order!
The sea was stormy and there were ragged low clouds in the sky. "Armenia", having moored, immediately began loading people, of whom a great many had gathered at the pier.
There is confusion in Yalta itself. There are no police. Massandra wines were released through pipes into the sea. Someone is robbing shops and warehouses. All the streets and alleys facing the embankment are blocked by parapets made from bags of pebbles and sand, which is not at all in harmony with the evergreen palm trees...
Captain Plaushevsky was informed that “Partaktiv”, NKVD workers and eleven more hospitals with wounded were awaiting loading in Yalta.
Volunteer E.S. testifies. Nikulin:
“Since the evening, we still didn’t know anything about the motor ship “Armenia”. At night, at about two o'clock, they woke us up and led us almost in formation down the middle of the street to the port. There was a huge ship in the port.
The entire pier and pier are filled with people. We joined this crowd. Boarding the ship was slow; In two hours we moved from the pier to the pier. The crush is incredible! Loading lasted from about two o'clock until seven in the morning (that is, all the precious night time. - S.S.). NKVD soldiers with rifles stood across the pier and only women and children were allowed through. Sometimes men broke through the cordon. The weather was stormy and it rained often. The full moon peeked through the gaps in the black, quickly rushing clouds. Waves rolled over the pier. A fuel depot in the city began to burn, and huge black clouds of smoke were blown toward the city by the wind. Dawn was coming..."
Tragedy at seaFrom the notes of Admiral F.S. Oktyabrsky: “When I learned that the transport “Armenia” was going to leave Yalta during the day, I myself personally conveyed the order to the commander in no case to leave Yalta until 19.00, that is, until dark. We did not have the means to provide good transport cover from the air and sea.
The communication worked reliably, the commander received the order and, despite this, left Yalta. At 11.00 she was attacked by torpedo planes and sunk. After the torpedo hit, “Armenia” was afloat for four minutes.”
The lack of documents destroyed in 1949 and later casts a shadow on Admiral F.S. Oktyabrsky, because any historian can suspect that the admiral is looking for an excuse retroactively, years after the terrible tragedy. However, it must be admitted that he, as the commander of the fleet, knew the operational situation in the theater, knew where the "Armenia" was located, knew the time when she left the pier crowded with people, he also knew that with the dominance of German aviation in the air "Armenia", deprived of security, is an ideal target for torpedo bombers and dive bombers. Therefore, it is very likely that he actually conveyed the order, and even a very strict one, “to wait for the night,” to Captain Plaushevsky, but some ominous event occurred on the “Armenia” that forced the captain to violate Oktyabrsky’s order. This is another mystery of the ship's death...
Let's explore the events and go back. It is reliably known that the initial order to Captain Plaushevsky was clearly formulated: to pick up the wounded and medical personnel and proceed from Sevastopol to Tuapse at night.
Then came an urgent order, which arose under the powerful pressure of the NKVD (as testified by Colonel I.M. Velichenko and N.S. Malinovskaya, a former employee of the Yalta department of the NKVD, a deputy of the City Council): to go to Yalta to save the party activists and the wounded. The departure time of the ship from Sevastopol has been changed to two hours.
The third order, transmitted to Captain Plaushevsky, forced him, without entering Balaklava Bay, to also pick up representatives of local authorities and the wounded. People were loaded from fishing longboats and boats (testimony of the same N.S. Malinovskaya).
The fourth order, transmitted to the captain of the “Armenia” early in the morning by F.S. October 7, ordered to leave Yalta no earlier than 19 hours, turned out to be strangely violated, and the captain set sail without security to meet his death.
* * *Let us turn to the testimony of the boat from the sea hunter MO-04 M.M. Yakovleva.
“On November 7, at about 10 o’clock in the morning, in the area of Cape Sarych, a German reconnaissance aircraft flew over us, and after a short time over the water, at low level, almost touching the crests of the waves (the weather was stormy, and we were thoroughly chattered), they entered our area two enemy torpedo bombers. One of them began to make a turn for a torpedo attack, and the second went towards Yalta. We could not open fire, since the boat's roll reached 45 degrees. The torpedo bomber dropped two torpedoes, but missed, and they exploded in the coastal rocks of Cape Aya. We were amazed by the power of the explosion - we had never seen a more powerful one before, and almost everyone said at once that if the second torpedo bomber hits Armenia, then it will be in trouble... And so it happened.”
* * *After the torpedoing, "Armenia" was afloat for four minutes. Only a few people survived, including Sergeant Major Bocharov and serviceman I.A. Burmistrov. The commander of the sea hunter, Senior Lieutenant P.A., also saw the death of the ship. Kulashov.
An attempt to find other witnesses to the tragedy through inquiries and correspondence with Odessa was also unsuccessful. Ukraine shamelessly illustrates all letters, and they arrive with traces of opening and a dirty stamp: “The letter arrived with traces of glue on the envelope.”
Through German veterans, they tried to find the crew of the torpedo bomber that attacked the Armenia in order to clarify the details and coordinates of the death of the ship, since German archives are famous for the high safety of documents. The answer came unexpectedly: “The Luftwaffe archive was taken to the USSR.”
The name of captain Vladimir Yakovlevich Plaushevsky is engraved on the tablets of the Walk of Fame in Odessa, near the tomb of the Unknown Sailor, as are the names of the captains of other “trotters” who found eternal rest at the bottom of the Black Sea. Eternal glory to them!
