L. Yakovenko. all the first ships on the Amur. The first steamship on the Amur According to the order of the head of the main department, electrical installation workshops are included in the production workshops of the shipyard as an independent structural unit subordinate to technical

There is a man in Khabarovsk who not only saw paddle steamers on the Amur in his lifetime, but also managed them. Georgy Tomovich Lapodush still does not forget his “Ilyich” - an old two-pipe and two-deck ship, the captain’s bridge of which he entered back in 1958. It was this very same ship that, half a century later, the writer Georgy Lapodush would include in the love-tragic story “Earthly Destiny.” His heroine Mia Vyashchina rode it. The prototype of the character was Khabarovsk resident Liya Kuzmitskaya-Knyazeva. However, that is an artistic narrative. And the captain prefers to talk about his life without embellishment. And he can’t tell everything - after all, he still remains the keeper of international state secrets.

Chinese letter

Ibu ibu de dao moodi,” Lapodush says. - Do you know what this means in Chinese? - he asks us.

We are embarrassed. What kind of half-matters is this writer suddenly planning to surprise us with?!

The Chinese have a saying. In Russian it sounds like this: “Step by step towards the intended goal,” answers Georgy Tomovich. - The first time I heard it was in 1973 at the negotiating table in Heihe (the Manchurian name for Sakhalin) in China, opposite Blagoveshchensk. And my ears turned red. This was at a time when river navigators were turned into diplomats. A total of 28 people took part in the negotiations, 14 from each side. The Soviet composition of the commission also included advisers from the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the KGB. This commission was formed in 1951 and worked under the auspices of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

For thirteen years, from 1973 to 1986, Georgy Lapodush was part of the Soviet delegation of the Mixed Soviet-Chinese Commission on Navigation on Border Rivers.

I have been with the Amur Shipping Company since 1943,” Georgy Lapodush tells us without hiding. - A quarter of a century on board. After graduating from the Blagoveshchensk River School, he worked as a navigator, then as an assistant captain, and in 1958 he became a captain. For eight years - until 1968 - he worked as a captain (he was the first!) on the motor ship Vasily Poyarkov. He was also the head of the shipping inspection. And even after retiring, he held the position of captain-inspector for seven years. Then he switched to onshore work. I started writing.

Man's destiny

As Georgy Lapodush writes in his autobiographical narrative, he was born as the fifth child in a poor peasant family in the Barabinsky steppes of the Novosibirsk region. In early childhood he became blind from the then widespread disease scrofula. Doctors predicted lifelong blindness. Cured by a wandering saddler-shoemaker.

Father - Tom Vasilyevich LOpAdush (as the surname is written on the certificate of rehabilitation) was arrested in 1937, recognized as an “enemy of the people,” although he could not sign his name in Russian and pronounced the school grade “satisfactory” as “satisfactory.” He had been a prisoner of war since the First World War, was of Romanian nationality and did not even have Russian citizenship. Mother - Maria Innokentyevna Lapodush, by her first husband Bobrovskaya, was the daughter of a wealthy peasant - Innokenty Nikitich Grebenshchikov, who had his own mill, but, without sufficient education and any profession, could not support the family.

After my father’s arrest, our neighbor Spirka, taking advantage of the misfortune that had befallen our family, gave a deposit and persuaded my mother to sell him our only asset, our breadwinner, my beloved and devoted friend, the horse Igrenka (my father earned his living as a driver). Soon he managed to break his leg, brought a horse on three legs and demanded that the deposit be returned, recalls Georgy Lapodush. “I will remember for the rest of my life how my mother tore her hair out of repeated grief and despair.

My childhood heart was filled with hatred for this neighbor, and I did not know how to take revenge on him for deceiving my mother and the death of Igrenka. I started doing damage in his garden. And he set a trap: he filled the boards with nails and laid them out on potato tops along the fence. Jumping with both feet onto the nails, experiencing incredible pain, I freed myself from the board and made my way to the house on my knees. Following the trail of blood, Spirka’s wife came to gloat at the moment when my mother placed in front of me a blazing hot semolina porridge, which I threw at my neighbor’s aunt’s face. The burn began to form an eyesore on her, and Spirka vowed to kill me...

Either out of the mother’s fear for her son’s life, or from people’s hostility towards the family of the “enemy of the people,” the Lapodushis left for Transbaikalia, to the gold mines in the city of Baley (Transbaikal Territory).

Soon the Lapodush brothers were sent to the front one after another. George had to quit school and go to work in order to somehow feed himself and his mother, who had become disabled. He got a job in a topographical party, and then, at the end of the season, was transferred to a mine as a sampler.

When they began to call up young people born in the 25th year, Gosha Lapodush, together with his friend Sashka Gilev, scraped their passports, turning six into five, and managed to get red summons, for which they immediately received payment. But at the military registration and enlistment office the fake was exposed. We got a job again, but this time at a gold recovery factory (GRF) - as a mechanic's apprentice.

In 1943, Georgy Lapodush went to enroll in the Blagoveshchensk Mining College, but under more favorable conditions (without exams), lured by naval romance, he entered the water technical school, transformed in 1944 into a paramilitary-type river school, which trained specialists for river transport and reserve officers Navy.

Before the start of classes, I was sent to Khabarovsk, and the personnel department of the Nizhne-Amur Shipping Company appointed me as a sailor on the tugboat Arkhangelsk, commanded by Captain Prodanov,” recalls Georgy Lapodush. - Eight hundred grams of bread, forty grams of cereal and ten grams of fat made up the daily diet. This was not enough for a working person. And when these products ran out during a protracted voyage, people were swollen from hunger, but they worked with all their might for the sake of victory.

The main and most exhausting work on the ship was related to fuel (wood, coal). Bunkering - fuel intake - was emergency (universal) work. Firewood was carried on shoulder straps from the shore to the ship and they filled the bunker and all free places on the deck and in the passages. Coal was loaded in ports by wheelbarrows into bunkers and boxes constructed from gangways in the bow and stern parts of the deck. And they replenished the coal already on the way from the hold of the barge. Coolies weighing 60-80 kg had to be pulled out of the hold along a ladder, brought onto the ship and poured into a bunker or box. The slightest delay provoked the ire of the stokers, who threw coal into the furnace of the steam boilers. The steamship burned forty or more tons of coal per day.

In 1945, during the war with Japan, Lapodush, while in practice as a second mate, carried out assignments from the military command, towing landing craft and barges with military cargo along the Sungari, from the village of Nizhne-Leninskoye to Harbin. In 1947, Georgy Lapodush, having graduated from a river school with a degree in navigator, went again to the Amur. In 1957, he became the captain of the steamship "Kutuzov", and a year later he moved to the steamship "Ilyich".

Man and steamship

The fate of a steamship, like that of a person, can be very interesting,” says Georgy Lapodush, an honorary worker of the river fleet of the RSFSR, an honored riverman of the Amur. - For example, in 1894, parts of three towing steamships manufactured in Belgium from the shipyards of the John Cockeril company were delivered to the Amur, the assembly of which was carried out in Sofiysk (later they received the names: “Ilyich”, “Sergey Lazo”, “Rosa Luxemburg” ). So, the steamship “Ilyich” was built by a Belgian company as a gift to the Amur Shipping Company with the condition that it would bear the name of the company. Before the revolution, it was called “John Cockerill” and was considered the flagship of the passenger fleet on the Amur. Then the comfortable “John Cockeril” became “Ilyich”, and another tug-and-cargo-passenger steamer “Baron Korf” - first “Leon Trotsky”, and then “Comintern”. It was on it that on May 10, 1932 the first volunteers arrived in the village. Perm, to build the city of Youth - Komsomolsk-on-Amur. These are the stories.

Georgy Lapodush became interested in the history of steamships, and then people, already in retirement. In 1999, his first book, “Amur Diplomats: Notes of an Amur Riverman,” was published. It is dedicated to the relationship between the two original neighbors on the Amur - Russia and China - in the most difficult times for the two countries, when a “mutual coldness” in relations led to acute border conflicts, including on the Damansky Islands (March 2–15, 1969) and Goldinsky - in the area of ​​direction sign No. 114 (July 8, 1969).

For this book, the writer was awarded personal gratitude from the governor of the region, Viktor Ishaev. Next, Lapodush presented new books to the audience. First, he wrote a memoir, “In the Name of What,” about river life. There, by the way, he told the little-known story of the friendship of the singer Kola Belda with the Amur captain Vasily Panyushev. Then the books “Dislocation of the Soul”, “Premise” and “Earthly Destiny” were published.

But, as Georgy Lapodush assures, he has not yet written the most important thing.

Konstantin Pronyakin, Irina Kharitonova,

"Khabarovsk Express", No. 47.

On January 1, 1937, Zhukov was relieved of his post as construction manager and director of the shipyard under construction. Comrade Raksha Stanislav Iosifovich was appointed director of the shipyard, who worked in this position until 1940.

With the replacement of management at the shipyard, a number of structural changes and additions are introduced, and management personnel are changed accordingly.

In May, a production department was organized, of which Kasyanov was appointed head, but in August (by order No. 100 of August 22) it was transformed into a planning and production department, Myakishev (later an employee of the planning department of the Ministry) became the head of the department. Kasyanov was appointed head of the technical department. The technical department included: a design bureau, technical regulation and production preparation, a headquarters - a total of 16 people. Vinogradov was in charge of the design bureau. N.I. Nomakonov, acting, was appointed chief mechanic. head of OMTS Kamalyagin N.P., head of the administrative and technical department - Markov. Head of the transport department Golovanov, head of the quality control department Stadnik I.K., chief accountant Golov, legal adviser Bultnikov, chief engineer OKS Polyakov. Head of the assembly and mechanical shop Blumfeld (senior), head of the hull shop Zaitsev, finishing shop Muravyov, rigging young specialist Kutepov K.V. Representative of the customer (from the Navy) Vasily Yakovlevich Khlebnikov (dredders were built for them).

According to the order of the head of the main department, electrical installation workshops are included in the production shops of the shipyard as an independent structural unit subordinate to the technical director of the shipyard. Lebedev was appointed head of this section.

The builders (foremen) of the ships were Kovalev, Bykov, Krylov.

In 1937, the production program and range of ships under construction sharply increased, especially self-propelled wheeled tug steamers.

The production plan included: all passing ships since 1936; 400 hp tugboats No. 9, 11, 79, 80; 200 hp tug steamer No. 74; Commodity and passenger No. 125, carried over from 1936 and additionally No. 128; Dredgers No. 1, 2; 6pcs. – 150 tons. barge; 3 pcs. – 100 tons. barges No. 169, 170, 173; 1 piece – 250 tons of barges No. 59.

Of the vessels listed in the production plan in 1937, the following were delivered to customers: 4 pcs. – 400 strong towing steamers; 6 pcs. – 150 tons of barges; 1 PC. – 100 tons. barge. A total of 11 units were delivered. The rest moved on to the following years. Commodity and passenger No. 125 was commissioned in 1938 and No. 128 in 1941. Dredgers in 1938. Barge 250 tons. No. 59 in 1940. Barges 100 tons. No. 170, 17 No. B 1941

So, over these 2 years, a large number of ships have accumulated in the backlog and will be put into delivery in subsequent years.

During these years, the Stakhanov movement developed widely. There were 191 Stakhanovites and 154 shock workers at the shipyard. Given the sharp increase in the production program and the shortage of workers, many were involved in overtime work. In the month of April 1937 alone, 13,500 hours of overtime were spent. At the same time, there was a high turnover of personnel; during the year, 1,368 people were hired, and 1,615 people were fired.

During these years, a negative campaign of repression under the guise of “enemies of the people” was rampant. In connection with this, not only the shipyard's management employees, but also many workers and foremen were injured, arrested, and imprisoned. Only for 2 years 1936 and 37. About 50 people were arrested from the shipyard under the slogan “enemies of the people.”

In addition to shipbuilding, construction work on capital construction was accelerated. On August 1, 1937, the installation and mechanical shop and industrial water supply for the shipyard were put into operation.

To formalize the acceptance of the shipyard’s constructed structures over the years, a Glavrechprom commission was created. Based on the act of the Glavrechprom commission dated March 12, 1937, the following construction projects were considered commissioned:
1. THERMAL PLANT
2. Diesel power plant
3. Assembly and mechanical workshop
4. Forge shop
5. Timber dryer for lumber
6. Sawmill and steam boiler room
7. Dry timber warehouse (temporarily adapted for a woodworking shop, after a fire in the workshop), after which it was listed as a boat shop
8. Slipway arrangement and slipway structures (except for Nos. 19, 20, 24, 5, 8 and 18)
9. Pumping station
10. Work canteen
11. Bath
12. Outpatient hospital
13. Club (burnt down in 1940)
14. Residential buildings – 12 apartments No. 1 and 2
15. One-story dormitory (barracks type) – 5 pcs.
16. Fur House
17. Cobblestone houses No. 1, 2, 3 (Komsomol members)
18. Fire station
19. District boiler house. village
20. Petrol-oil storage and combustible materials
21. Power and lighting network
22. Railroad tracks at the shipyard
23. Water supply through the shipyard
24. School (former collective farm club)
25. Garage
26. Horse yard with outbuildings
27. Warehouse of finished products
28. Heater for heating workers (temporarily adapted for a carpentry workshop, after a fire in the woodworking shop)
29. Area for unloading timber (warehouse)
30. Hardware warehouse (bolts, rivets.

All these structures were of light, mostly wooden construction, many of a temporary nature, did not have any household amenities, but at this stage they were very necessary for organizing production and ensuring the fulfillment of the big tasks that the shipyard faced in building ships for the Far Eastern region in those difficult years development of the region. Many of these facilities began to be operated before their complete completion of construction, therefore the act listed the volume of work on completions and established deadlines for their completion, which was reflected in the order for the shipyard dated March 7, 1937, No. 33. Although these structures were of light construction, many, and some are capital ones, but this testifies to the enormous work done in the first years of the establishment of the plant for capital construction, in parallel with the construction of ships of various projects, in 1937, very complex self-propelled steam ones. The Amur river fleet began to quickly be replenished with steamships built by the Sretensky Shipyard, especially wheeled tugboats, which sailed along the Amur for many years until they began to be replaced by motor tugboats and self-propelled guns, also mostly built by the Sretensky Shipyard, as the most economical and cost-effective.

The 1937 delivery program was not completed, despite the fact that a significant leap was made in the number and technical equipment of the ships built. Some of these ships were delivered in 1938. Great difficulties and delays in delivery deadlines were associated with installation and adjustment work of the main power plants. On almost all ships, the alignment of the paddle wheel shafts was overhauled; due to the imperfect technology of their installation and the low qualifications of the installers, during sea trials the bearings heated up, jammed and were overhauled several times. There were a lot of troubles when adjusting the spool boxes of steam engines. The commission gave many comments on the construction and building, several hundred each. Especially regarding dents in the hull and leaks in decks and superstructures. The decks of the superstructures were wooden, covered with ravenduct on putty and there were a lot of leaks, especially in the places where the bolts passed and in the nodes.

Despite the fact that the shipyard was still in the initial construction stage, the shipbuilding program was growing rapidly. There were a lot of troubles, disruptions of work, due to the lack of qualified personnel, this in turn was caused by frequent replacements of senior employees of workshops and departments (this was unlikely to justify itself).

So the management team in 1938: Technical Director - M.O. Aleksandrov, Head of the Technical Department - A.N. Gladkovsky, Head of Planning and Production. Department - Myakishev, Head of the HR Department - Kostolomov S.F., Head of the Chief Mechanic Department - Loparev, Chief Plant Dispatcher - Fisun, Head of the Hull Shop - Sementsov I.F., Head of the Assembly and Mechanical Shop - Stadnik I.K., Head woodworking shop - Vasiliev, Head of the rigging shop - Kutepov K.V., Head of the 1st construction site - Shipota, Head of the 2nd construction site - Blagoderov, Head of the financial department - Solodov, Chairman of the factory committee - Vazhin, Secretary of the Komsomol - Kosarev, Head of the electrical installation site of the ERM - Eremeev. In terms of production, taking into account the transferring ships of previous years:
1. Factory dredgers No. 1, 2, 3, 4 250m3
2. Towing steamers 400 hp. No. 139, 140, 218, 215
3. Towing steamers 200 hp. No. 74, 75
4. Commodity and passenger 400 hp. No. 125, 125
5. Reefer vessel No. 44
6. Garbage scows – 6 pcs. No. 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61
7. Barge 400 hp –12 pcs
8. Barge 150 tons. – 6 pcs

In addition, technical documentation began to arrive for the construction of special-purpose vessels under the code names letter “A” and letter “G” (for transporting and disembarking special equipment). The plan provided for the start of construction of the building. "A" for Nos. 87, 88, 89.

Head dredger No. 1 was put into operation only at the beginning of October (instead of the plan for commissioning in 1937)). In 1938, a total of 24 units were delivered, taking into account rolling orders. Including: tug steamers 400 hp. – 3 pieces, No. 139,140, ​​218; tug steamers 200 hp – 2 pieces No. 74 and 75; dredger – 4 pcs. Nos. 1,2, 3, 4; 1 cargo and passenger ship No. 125; There are only 14 barges, including 2 garbage scows.

Due to the lack of firm instructions for determining technical readiness, frequent re-reports were allowed to promote the technical readiness of ships. Therefore, in October 1938, a special instruction was issued, developed by the head of the planning and production department, Myakishev, on registering the percentage of technical readiness of ships under construction. To determine the technical readiness for each vessel, an expert commission was created consisting of: the ship's foreman 0 the chairman of the commission, the quality control foreman for the given workshop and the production foreman of the workshop. The percentage was calculated by visually checking the areas and the readiness of the nodes. The percentage of readiness was determined by majority voting. Shop interest rates are transferred to P.P.O., where they are formalized with an act of technical readiness and the percentage of progress in readiness for a given month signed by the head of the PDO, the chief dispatcher and the chief accountant.

Simultaneously with the construction of ships, the construction of industrial facilities, especially housing, is being intensively carried out. By Order No. 4 of 04/21/38, the shipyard introduced a system for issuing passports for all residential buildings (nature of the building, number of apartments, rooms, cubic capacity, year of construction, etc.).

There continues to be a high turnover of personnel at the shipyard; 1,515 people were hired during the year, and 1,452 people were fired. The number of workers and employees was 1627 people, Stakhanovites 292 people, shock workers 192 people. Residents in the village Kokui about 7 thousand people.

To resolve issues of improving cultural and everyday issues, in 1938 the construction of a restaurant and hotel (1st floor restaurant, 2nd floor hotel) was started, where a factory club was later organized during the Great Patriotic War, which was subsequently used for many years, as a club and public organizations. The construction of this building (restaurant, hotel) was completed by the end of 1940, along with the boiler room. village (near the central factory square).

In 1939, major organizational changes took place in the life of the shipyard. On April 20, 2939, the Sretenskaya Shipyard was transferred from the jurisdiction of Glavrechprom to the People's Commissariat of the Shipbuilding Industry in the 3rd Main Directorate. Based on the order of Glavrechprom No. 165, an independent department was organized on January 1, 1939. Tityushkin was appointed head of the organization of labor and wages, OtiZ. By order of the shipyard dated January 7, No. 6, from January 10, 1939, an independent department was organized at the shipyard - housing and communal services, separating it from the administrative maintenance department with direct subordination to the director of the shipyard, with subdivisions of housing, communal services and repair and construction subordinate to him.

Tishchenko was appointed head; by order of January 14, No. 8, departments and services of the shipyard were assigned to the managers of the shipyard.
I. The following departments were assigned to the director of the shipyard:
1. Special Department
2. Secret part
3. Business management (Voronkova-Solovieva)
5. P.P.O. (Myakishev)
6. Accounting (Yakimenko)
7. OtiZ (Tityushkin)
8. HR department
9. ZhKO (Tishchenko)
10. OKS
II. Behind the technical director
1. Technical department consisting of: design bureau, technological bureau, normative and material group, heating unit and laboratory, department head - Alexandrov
2. Technical control department
3. Chief mechanic department
4. Technical Information Bureau
5. Bureau of Superintendents (ship builders)
6. Dispatch department
7. BREEZE
8. Safety Bureau
9. Hull shop
10. Installation and mechanical
11. Woodworking shop with timber drying
12. Rigging shop
13. Electrical installation area
III. For the commercial director (from 31.08. t. Tsarev)
1. Supply department
2. Transport department consisting of: motor transport, horse-drawn transport, water transport, railway transport, loading bureau section, chief Belozerov
3. Finance department
4. Legal advisor
5. Sawmill
IV. Chief engineer OKS
1. Capital construction department
2. 1 construction site
3. 2 construction site
4. 3 construction site
V. Shipyard Security Assistant
1. P.P.O.
2. Fire protection
3. Armed guards

From January 15, the electrical installation workshop was transferred from ERM to the management of the shipyard. Belov was appointed head, Art. Master Novikov. On May 20, an independent department of ship equipment was organized and was removed from the OMTS. And about. Trepkin was appointed chief, and Fisun became the chief in September. Trepkin was appointed to the newly organized department No. 9 (department 6 was liquidated) on the basis of the order of the State Administration of the NKSP dated 07/08/39 No. 28l and the order for the shipyard dated 07/28/39

From November 1, by order No. 315, bureau services for technical preparation of production of the BCCI were introduced to the main workshops. The following were appointed as the heads of these bureaus: 1. Engineer for the hull shop - Tereshchenko V.S. 2. On installation and mechanical – Tereshchenko A.A. (cousins) 3. In the woodworking shop - Peddler

In December, by order No. 368 dated December 13, 1939, to monitor the execution of orders and instructions, the position of inspector of control and verification of execution was introduced with direct subordination to the director of the shipyard. Based on the instructions of the head of the 3rd Main Directorate of the NKSP comrade. Zadorozhny (order for the plant, mailbox 22 dated November 23, 1939) The plant introduces a number system for the names of workshops.
1. Hull shop – shop No. 1
2. Assembly and mechanical – workshop No. 2
3. Woodworking (completion shop) – shop No. 5
4. Rigging shop – shop No. 6
5. Chief mechanic’s department – ​​workshop No. 7

Based on the instructions of the NKSP, on October 20, 1939, the Sretenskaya Shipyard was transformed into a plant. The plant index number 22 was assigned. Based on the instructions of the NKSP, from June the telegraph index Sretensk “Anchor” was installed at the Sretensk Shipyard, and from December – Sretensk “Sopka” (order No. 366 dated 2.12.39). Glukhov was appointed inspector of the Union Central Committee.

Thus, throughout the whole of 39, services were reorganized, management personnel were replaced, the assembly shipyard was transformed, shipyard no. 22, and with the transition to the jurisdiction of the NKSP, urgent measures were being taken to replenish the shipyard with engineering and technical personnel at the expense of young specialists and graduates of educational institutions. In 1939, a large group of graduates from various educational institutions arrived at the plant. Engineers arrived from Gorky: Shaposhnikov Evgeniy Nikolaevich, Zabegalov Boris Nikolaevich, Rumyantsev G.S., from Vladivostok DVPI: Gudim I.S., Tereshchenko V.A., Tereshchenko A.A., Zaiko I.R., Lukashov, builders Karlova ZD, Karnaukh, Popov, Gorshkov. From the Vladivostok Shipbuilding College: Yaroshevsky, Tyuntin, Basharov, Konenko, Artyukh, Meshcheryakov, Laid, from the Stalingrad Shipbuilding College: Istyufeev BN, Mamaev, Podoshkin, Mikhailov. This was the second large batch of young specialists sent to the Sretensky Shipyard after 1935. Many of them became heads of various services not only at the plant, but on a national scale. So Shaposhnikov EH Deputy Minister of the Shipbuilding Industry. Gudim IS was the deputy head of the Main Directorate of the Ministry, Zabegalov was the chief engineer of the Gorky Krasnoye Sormovo plant and many others occupied leadership positions both at the plant and outside it. Subsequently, as planned, young specialists and graduates of various educational institutions in the country began to arrive at the plant every year. Many, after working the required three years, left for different regions; a small percentage of those who arrived in the direction of assignment remained for a longer period and for permanent residence.

With the transfer of the shipyard to the jurisdiction of the NKSP, the shipbuilding program was significantly expanded in terms of product range and volume. Taking into account transferring vessels in terms of production:
1. Towing steamers 400 hp. – 6 pcs. No. 215, 216, 179, 180, 181, 182
2. Floating motherships 400 hp. -2 pcs. Nos. 201 and 202
3. Commodity-passenger 400 hp. No. 126, 128, 127
4. Towing steamers 200 hp. - 4 things. No. 26,29,28,30
6. Refrigerator No. 44
7. Garbage scows 20m3 – 5 pcs. No. 58,59,60,61,62
8. Oil tanker 100 tons. barge SB-64 – 4 pcs.
9. Sea barges 350 tons. - 10 pieces. Nos. 312 to 321
10. Sea barges 250 tons. – 7 pcs. No. 149 to 155
11. Lit "A" 87,88,89.

Naturally, the shipyard was not able to cover such a number of ships, and many ships, like lit. “A” and other orders had virtually no progress in technical readiness, they were only listed in the plan and were built for several years. Such planning from above was erroneous and clogged the plant, there were large losses of parts, confusion, the plant was in a fever, heads of services and responsible managers, ship builders, shop managers, and foremen were often changed. Based on the results of the year, the management of the plant, the director of the plant Raksha I.S., was also replaced. I.M. Sidorenko was appointed instead, and then the chief engineer was replaced.
1. Chief builder and builder 10 pcs. sea ​​barges 312-321 Shaposhnikov E.N.
2. Toshchaev - builder of 400 hp tugboats
3. Kosarev – builder 200 hp. tugboats
4. Vazhenin – builder of garbage scows and barges
5. Chuvashova – builder of floating workshops and a refrigerator
6. Blumfeld – builder of cargo and passenger ships
7. Mikhailov – builder 47 pcs. 250 tons. barge
8. Laid AP – builder 4 pcs. 100 tons of oil barges.

As a result, only 8 units were delivered, including: 4 oil barges and 4 dry cargo barges - builder Shaposhnikov, the rest of the vessels went into delivery in subsequent years, the shipyard worked to capacity.

Shaposhnikov E.N. simultaneously served as the chief builder. After delivery of 100 tons of oil tankers. barge SB-64 Laid was assigned to him as an assistant at transferring objects No. 316-321. In those years, builders (superintendents) were entrusted with great responsibility, both for the technical promotion of readiness, organization of work and delivery, as well as resolving emerging technical issues, coordinating, if necessary, with surveillance services.

In addition, the builders provided each workshop with a nomenclature plan for labor intensity for each vessel, and at the end of the month they accepted reports from the workshops and submitted reports to the P.P.O. The builders had a certain percentage of reserve labor intensity for each vessel. When they submitted requests for additional work or unaccounted work was carried out, he had the right to accept reports from the shops at the expense of his reserve (this reserve was significant). The workshops freely carried out this work according to requests and were interested in receiving additional hours in the report.

After the shipyard transferred to the NKSP system, a bonus system was introduced for the delivery of objects on time and ahead of schedule. Thus, the order for the plant dated October 4, No. 278, stated: “... in connection with the completion of work at the SB-64 facilities, the best conscientious Stakhanovites and shock workers who put their efforts and efforts into completing the construction of these facilities are awarded.

70 people were awarded from 100 to 200 rubles (including the foreman - Laid - 200 rubles). This was the first prize at this enterprise for a young specialist in the first year of arrival. Also, for high production indicators, the plant's employees were rewarded through the People's Commissariat of the Shipbuilding Industry. In particular, by order of the head of the 3rd Main Directorate dated September 7, 1939 for No. 30, a team of ship assemblers, Sergeev’s team, was awarded a bonus for high production indicators. The order stated: “... fulfilling a special task for assembling objects, the team of ship assemblers of the Sretensky Shipyard, led by foreman Comrade Sergeev, achieved exceptionally great success - they reduced the assembly time by 2 times. Noting the examples of Stakhanov’s methods of work, I express my gratitude to the entire team, I order: “The director of the plant, Comrade Raksha, shall reward the team members with monetary rewards in the following amounts:
1. Comrade Sergeev’s team – 500 rubles, members of the assembly team
Borzenko – 300 rubles Borzenko – 300 rubles
Bashukova S – 300 rubles Aleeva – 300 rubles
Ushakova N – 300 rub. Shadzevich A – 300 rub.
Mashukova V – 300 rub. Groshenko L – 300 rub.
Malkisheva O –300 rubles Vazhenin G – 300 rubles...

During these years, the Stakhanov movement was in full swing and at the plant many workers achieved exceptionally high production indicators (unfortunately, lists of them have not been preserved). In March 1939, Comrade G.I. Gulyaev became the chief engineer, Aleksandrov was appointed head of the technical department. The transfer report describes in detail the technical equipment of the shipyard at the time of transfer and the number of workers. So, at this time it was listed:
Power plant power 525 kW - required power 1200 kW, including: locomobile 500 hp with a 325 kW generator, Russian diesel 150 hp with a 75 kW generator, 200 hp with a 125 kW generator, Shukhov boiler 185 m2, compressor: Borets 19.5 m3, Fiat 6.5 m3, Zh.Z. 1.5 m3, a 40 m3 water pump tower with a height of 20 meters for pumping there were 4 pumps, 16 units of metal processing machines, 15 units of woodworking machines, Workers: 255 people in the hull shop, 119 people in the assembly and mechanical shop, 140 people in the outfitting shop , in the rigging room there are 27 people, in the electric room. assembly 38 people (head of the workshop Bely), In 1939, the first experimental 4-story, 24 apartment building on permafrost was put into operation on the street. 2 Embankment, 1.

There was no experience in building multi-storey buildings on permafrost at that time. In the initial period, central heating was provided from the boiler room of the sawmill, which was located in the area of ​​​​the modern block warehouse. On the night of November 17, 1939, due to a boiler failure at the sawmill, the heating system of the new 24 sq. m. was completely frozen. Houses. Urgently, temporary metal stoves with chimneys vented through windows were installed in all apartments. It was an unpleasant sight when pipes were sticking out from many windows on the floors and smoke was smoking, it was also dangerous in terms of fire safety, but there was no other way out, appropriate fire safety measures were taken and there was no “emergency”. Urgent measures were taken to speed up the launch of the boiler house of the 24 apartment building, and on December 1, 1939 this boiler house was put into operation. Subsequently, this boiler house was reconstructed and expanded several times, providing heating for the entire 2 microdistricts of the village.

During these years, the workers' canteen was located in a frame-fill room. attached to a small peasant house, in the area where there is a public garden and a monument to those killed during the Second World War of 1941-1945, near the Avangard cinema. There was a stove for heating in the hall, but it was difficult to create heat, so in winter they dined without undressing, in outerwear. After the canteen was moved to a new building (later the factory club), the former canteen was adapted into a narrow-screen cinema, but in winter it was difficult to sit through a show in boots because of the cold. Nearby, in a small peasant house where the modern Avangard cinema is located, for many years there was a village pharmacy, also with stove heating.

For cultural recreation during these years, a very beautiful flower garden was organized between the first Komsomol houses. There were beautiful alleys, strewn with sand, where there were many benches to rest; not only young people, but the elderly part of the population walked along the alleys in the evenings. In the middle of the park there was a beautiful fountain, among which there was a large statue of a swan that was releasing water. The square was well lit with electric lamps, and an amateur flower grower, Taskaev, was taking care of the flowers. None of the visitors had the right to pluck at least one flower without his permission; he strictly monitored this. The park opened on Saturday and Sunday evenings, and he spent the entire time walking along the alleys and keeping order. He was a great lover of flowers and grew many varieties of beautiful flowers and designed flower beds. After his departure (he was elderly), the park fell into disrepair and was then finally liquidated (and is unlikely to ever be restored).

On Sundays, many went to the city of Sretensk; in the evenings and on Sundays the restaurant was open (a blind musician played the button accordion for many years). There was a wonderful dumpling shop near the river station, where you could always get various portions of delicious Siberian dumplings. Opposite the building of the district executive committee, and then the district committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, there was a beautiful park with good alleys, all illuminated, in the center there was a dance floor, in the evenings a brass band played and there were dances. Factory youth went there to dance, and at night walked back to Kokuy. Much later, a dance floor was organized in Kokuy to the accordion; a brass band at the plant was organized only in 1941.

The year 1940 begins again with the replacement of the plant management on January 10, 1940. Ivan Mikhailovich Sidorenko, who graduated from industrial engineering, became the director of the plant. Academy (in those years this was the name of the educational institution that trained management personnel for industrial enterprises) and was sent by the director of the Sretensky Shipbuilding Plant. During the year, a number of structural and organizational changes were carried out in various services of the plant and a number of management employees were replaced. On February 15, 1940, by order No. 35, a tool department was organized at the plant with the organization of a central tool warehouse. Polevikov was appointed head. But, in connection with the order of the NKSP (dated September 21, No. 356) on simplifying the structural and managerial apparatus of the plant management, the order for the plant dated September 25. No. 344 was again returned to the mechanical shop, and the warehouse was merged into the OMTS warehouse, by the same order:
1. planning and economic department with planning and production; BN Melnikov (later an employee of the State Committee for Labor and Wages) was appointed head.
2. department of technologists with design, Krawchik appointed head
3. OMTS and OSO, contractual and claims group in a single commercial department, Kamalyagin NP was appointed head
4. the hiring and dismissal department with the personnel training department, SF Kostolomov was appointed head of the personnel department
5. from one department of the chief mechanic, create the department of the chief mechanic as part of the repair-mechanical and repair-construction department. Chief Ilyin
6. department of the chief power engineer, consisting of: energy management, electrical repair shop, telephone exchange and radio center, Nakonechnykh AF appointed head
7. The head of the design bureau was Tokhmacheva, the chief accountant was V.A. Abramov. In August, G.B. Ivanov was appointed head of the housing and communal services. Head of OtiZ Zelenin. Head of AHO Novikov.

By Order No. 100 of May 31, 1940, in accordance with the resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR of April 29, 1940 No. 621-202, the Sretenskaya Shipyard was included in the list of special-regime enterprises of our industry with the special name “plant No. 369” being assigned to it.

By the same decree, starting from May 1, 1940, preferential working conditions were introduced at the plant: “For continuous work at the plant, all employees without exception, once a year, in addition to the main types of salary, are paid a simultaneous remuneration in the following amount:
1. For service of 3 and 4 years – 2 weeks’ salary
2. For service of 5,6,7,8 and 9 years - monthly salary
3. For service of 10 years and above - 2 monthly earnings

By order of June 20, 1940 No. 113, the mechanical and forging sections were separated from workshop 2 as an independent planned accounting unit into an independent workshop. Shop 10 was assigned to him and Simanov was appointed chief. Fisun was appointed head of assembly shop No. 2.

In August 1940, an EMT workshop of the Far Eastern Department was organized at the plant, IA Sobolev was appointed head of the workshop (order No. 188 of 08.23.40). Production volumes continue to grow. Due to the fact that the number of moving vessels increases per year, the range of types of vessels in the production program, in addition to internal problems, has a very detrimental effect on production, under-delivery of components by suppliers of dismountable vessels, and loss of parts. Incoming ship hull parts from many different projects, when disassembled, occupy a large area; accounting and packaging of all equipment and products is required. For this purpose, a special team was maintained, about 16 people of loaders, who carried sheets and other structures by hand on their shoulders, laying them out among projects and areas on the territory of the plant. During assembly, a lot of defective parts were found out, all this complicated the work. In 1940, it was planned to deliver 30 units of various types of vessels into the delivery program, taking into account those that were not delivered in 1939. Many ships, such as cargo-passenger ships, refrigerator ships and some tugboats, mother ships, were built for several years - they were listed in production, the shipyard could not cope with the task, so the range was constantly growing.

It was planned to deliver:
1. Towing steamers 400 hp. – 6 pcs. No. 215, 216, 217 – AURP 179, 180, 181 – KAF
2. Towing steamers 200 hp. - 3 pcs. No. 26,27,30 including 2 pieces for border troops
3. Commodity and passenger 400 hp. Nos. 126 and 127
4. Sea barges 350 tons. – 6 pcs. No. 316,317,318,319.320.321
5. Garbage scows 250 m3 – 7 pieces No. 149,150151,153,154,155
6. Dry cargo barge 400 tons – 1 pc. No. 8
From below 20 units were delivered, including:
1. Commodity and passenger ship 400 hp No. 126
2. Towing steamer 400 hp No. 215 "Furmanov"
3. Towing steamer 400 hp. No. 216 "Leningrad"
4. Towing steamer 200 hp. No. 26 "Saratov"
5. Towing steamer 200 hp. No. 30 "Donbass"
7. Towing steamer 200 hp No. 27
8. Towing steamer 400 hp. No. 179 –KAFU
9. Towing steamer 400 hp No. 180 – KAFU
10. Marine 350 tons. barges – 6 pcs. No. 316,317,318,319,320,321
11. Barge 400 tons No. 8
12. Garbage scows 250m3 – 5 pcs. No. 58,59,60,61,62

10 pieces. ships of the 1940 delivery plan moved to 1941. In addition, the production plan included advancing the percentage of technical readiness of a number of ships that had been in production since previous years, and a new nomenclature was additionally planned, including the floating workshop manager. 233 delivery in 1941, oil tankers Nos. 234, 235, refrigerated vessels Nos. 93 and 94, dry cargo 100-ton barges Nos. 170,171 and 172. In addition, the plan provided for speeding up production preparation and launching a completely new type of vessel, a very complex design for code names for the letters "A", "G", "M", "T". Letters "A" and "G" 4 pcs. for Nos. 80,87,88,89 and 140-143. Letter "M" – 5 PCS. FOR Nos. 156-160. Letters "A" and "G" (air defense) had solid elongated superstructures with protective armor plates for transporting equipment and people, for which special lowering gangways were equipped. They were equipped with defensive weapons (2M3 machine guns and rapid-fire cannons).

These ships took part in the war against the Japanese during the landings. Letter "M" sea barges were equipped to transport mines.

The supervision of construction and acceptance of work at the plant was supervised by a permanent representative from the customers, headed by GUK VIF Art. military representative Revazov, from the State Unitary Enterprise VO - Tumakov, from the drug leader Art. engineer Goncharov. Order No. 104 dated June 1, 1940, from June 1, made it the responsibility of ship superintendents to enter construction logs for each ship, which reflected all the main points of the construction and delivery of ships. The plant could not cope with the implementation of the plan, there were not enough workers, at the beginning of the year, in the hull shop there were: ship assembly (enlarged teams) - 10, riveting teams - 45, drilling teams - (2 people each) - 17, chasers - 25, hewers – 10, electric welders – 27, unskilled workers 1 brigade – 15.

Due to the failure of the plan and the difficult situation, individual leaders were frequently replaced (this was hardly justified).

Engineer Gruzd arrived at the plant, and at the beginning a manager was appointed. production, and then appointed chief engineer of the plant, and Gulyaev was released. In August, the plan was fulfilled by 73% for the shaft and for the goods. cont. 53%, overtime worked 5924 n\h

The 1940 plan was fulfilled: for gross output by 76.2%, for commercial output by 83.6%, for commercial output by 67.7%, overexpenditure of the wage fund was 208 tr, output per worker - 77, 4%, staff turnover 70.7% of the average staff. The reason for the high staff turnover was not only due to a lack of housing, but also a poor food supply. There was a card system, bread was given out in 1 kg increments. per worker and 300 gr. per family member. Poor food in the canteen - monotony of dishes (for the second course there were noodles with water, oatmeal or semolina porridge, there was little fat). (From a memo from the plant director). There were no living conditions in the workshops; the work was carried out on the street, in open areas. In 1940, 250 m3 of wood, or 15 thousand rubles, was spent on heating the stoves installed on ships alone.

Along with the shipbuilding program, capital construction work continued, both industrial and residential. There were big shortages of building materials, especially bricks. In the month of December (order No. 359 of December 3, 1940). In order to intensify the construction of residential facilities. village and workshops of the plant for the production of their own bricks, in accordance with the decision of higher authorities, the “fire building” artel with the brick factory were transferred to plant 369. The director of the brick plant took over the management of the plant, the situation with the supply of bricks to builders was decided positively.

After the British Admiralty conducted comparative tests of the same type of steamships “Rattler” and “Alecto” with screw and wheel propulsion in 1843, wheeled ships began to quickly disappear. Still would! After all, in front of everyone, the propeller-driven “Rattler” dragged the desperately flopping “Alecto” astern forward at a speed of more than two knots.

In addition, the sailors remembered another significant drawback of the onboard paddle wheels - when rolling, they alternately came out of the water, which negatively affected the maneuverability and controllability of the ship.

In general, by the beginning of the twentieth century, wheelwrights began to die out, like dinosaurs in the prehistoric era. However, wasn’t it too early to send them to rest? This was the question asked by Alexander Pavlov, an engineer at the Lena River Shipping Company from Yakutsk. And I began to recall cases when engineers again turned to technical ideas that were considered long forgotten.

In particular, propellers have their own disadvantages. For example, he loves depth - his hub must be buried at least two-thirds of the diameter. Otherwise, air will be sucked from the surface to the blades, which will inevitably lead to a decrease in the efficiency of the propulsion unit. But deepening the propeller is impossible without increasing the vessel's draft, and in this case, shallow rivers become inaccessible to river transport.

In addition, as soon as a screw-driven vessel enters shallow water, a so-called subsidence occurs - the screws seem to expel water from under the hull and the ship immediately settles to the stern. Noticing that the bow of the ship begins to rise, the captain immediately reduces the engine speed so that the propellers and rudder do not hit the ground. But, having lost speed, the ship becomes difficult to control. And ships equipped with water-jet propulsion face the same danger.

So rivermen and shipbuilders had to remember about paddle wheels, to which D. Bernoulli’s law does not apply.

So in the mid-80s of the twentieth century, employees of the Novosibirsk branch of the Central Technical and Design Bureau of the Ministry of River Fleet of the RSFSR again turned to wheelwrights.

They recalled that at the beginning of the 19th century several catamaran steamships were built, the paddle wheels of which were located between the hulls. True, in those days, the trusses connecting the hulls broke down in the slightest serious sea, which is why “steam catamarans” never became widespread. Modern materials make it possible to eliminate this drawback, and at the same time replace the conventional paddle wheel with a more efficient rotary propulsion device.

It is precisely such shallow-draft, powerful vessels for various purposes that are now needed by Siberian river boatmen, and primarily by employees of the Lena Shipping Company. “Up to 80% of the cargo imported to Yakutia is transported these days along this great Siberian river, which crosses almost the entire country from south to north,” Pavlov testifies. “At the same time, from the port of Osetrovo, located in the upper reaches, to Yakutsk in the middle reaches of the Lena, ships have to navigate a narrow, winding fairway. Take into account the strong currents, shallow waters, and frequent fogs, and it will become clear under what conditions Lena rivermen have to work.”

That is why the largest Zhatai plant in Yakutia began building wheeled tugboats again. The initiator of their creation was the chief engineer of the Lena Shipping Company I. A. Dmitriev. And in 1977, the experimental motor ship “Mechanik Korzennikov” entered service.

At first, even experienced river boatmen came out onto the bridges to look at the unusual vessel. It soon became clear that the wheeler has high traction, without fear of “subsidence”, walks in shallow water, having only 5-10 cm of water under the bottom, and easily maneuvers (especially when the wheels are running against each other).

Having made sure that the ship was successful, the Zhatai shipbuilders produced four more wheelwrights, after which they made a number of changes to the original project. In particular, the main engines were mounted on shock absorbers to reduce vibration levels. To improve maneuverability in shallow water, the area of ​​the rudders was increased, the location of the cabins on the second tier of the superstructure was changed, moving them away from the exhaust shafts, and the hull was lengthened by 2.4 m. They even included a sauna!

The first motor ship built according to the modified design, BTK-605, raised the pennant in 1981. It was a tug with a mid-mounted engine room and a two-tier superstructure. To transmit torque to the propeller wheels, gearboxes are used, connected to the propeller shaft by an articulated cam clutch. The vessel is powered by two 50 kW diesel generators. Moreover, the automation system allows watchmen to control the operation of mechanisms directly from the wheelhouse.

With a steam engine across the Atlantic

Carried away by the fate of the wheelwrights, you and I ran a little ahead, ahead of the leisurely pace of history. Now let's go back to the beginning of the 18th century and see how the history of steamships developed further.

As already mentioned, historians still argue to this day when and where the first steamships appeared. And only one fact has not yet been questioned by anyone. Namely, that in 1707 in Kassel, the inventor Denis Popein built a boat with paddle wheels located on the sides. And although it was not yet a steamship, since there was no steam engine at all and the paddle wheels had to be rotated manually, for some reason many researchers call this date the progenitor of all steamships.

Savannah - the first steamship to cross the Atlantic

By 1812, when Napoleon, who did not understand Fulton’s invention, set out on a campaign against Moscow, the smoke of already a dozen and a half steam ships was wafting on American rivers. Moreover, the first steam ships on the same Mississippi had a rather strange appearance due to high stabilizer beams - vertical supports for cables, pulling together the bow and stern parts of a long ship for strength. The ingenious invention, which was used by the ancient Egyptians, celebrated its rebirth!

In Europe, the first steam ship appeared only in 1816 on the Rhine. It was, oddly enough, the English boat Defense. And on October 27 of the same 1816, the Princess Charlotte, the first German river steamship, began making regular trips between Berlin and Potsdam.

However, old sailors began to take the steam engine seriously only after the steamship successfully crossed the Atlantic. It was the three-masted frigate Savannah, which in 1818 covered the distance from New York to Liverpool. However, it traveled with the help of a steam engine and two paddle wheels on the sides for only 85 hours, and did most of the 27.5-day voyage under sail.

Only twenty years later, in 1838, the steamship Sirius crossed the Atlantic in 18 days and 10 hours solely using a steam engine. And after it - a day later - the Great Western steamship, the largest steamship of that time, arrived in New York along the same route.

Steam boat (video)

Suggested reading:

Svobodnensky steamers - river minesweepers KAF

According to archival data (added, corrected) by V.G. Parshina

As is known, a number of Svobodnaya tugboats were temporarily mobilized into the KAF (Red Banner Amur Flotilla) before 1945, during the Great Patriotic War and the Soviet-Japanese War, and here they were converted into river minesweepers (RTSh).
Among such Svobodnensky (in the 1940-1970s) steamships were: “Kharkov”, “Chkalov”, “Zhuravlev” and “Chernenko”.
One Svobodnensky steamship was converted into a gunboat: “KL-32” - “Grodekovo”.

Below is brief information about these steamships - river minesweepers.
Brief general information:
Type "Leningrad". Displacement 293 tons. Dimensions 48.5 x 13.4 (wheel casings) x 1.5 m. Boiler-machine power plant, 300 hp. Speed ​​16.7/7.5 knots, range 950 miles. Armament: 1 x 45 mm, 2 x 4 x 7.62 mm machine guns, 50 mines of type "P" or 10 mines mod. 1908, lightweight Schultz and boat trawls. Crew 47 people.

RTSH-3 - steamship "KHARKOV"
(until September 25, 1940 and from November 6, 1943 “Kharkov”)
River wheeled tugboat.
Built in 1932 - 1934. ("Lenin's Forge", Kyiv).
Called up on March 5, 1935, converted into a minesweeper and included in the Amur Flotilla. Passed the cap. renovation in 1940
Disarmed on November 6, 1943 and converted into a tugboat.

RTSH-52 - steamship "CHKALOV"
(until 07/13/1941 and from 10/22/1945 "Chkalov")

RTSH-56 - steamer "ZHURAVLEV"
(until 08/15/1920 "Al. Bubnov", until 09/15/1922 "Pavel Zhuravlev", until 05/04/1923 "A. Bubnov", until 07/25/1929 "Pavel Zhuravlev", until December 1929 TZ-1, until 05/05/1932 "Pavel Zhuravlev", until 07/13/1941 and from 10/24/1945 "Zhuravlev")
Built in 1902
On August 15, 1920, she was included in the Amur Flotilla as an armed steamship. 09/15/1922 disarmed and transferred to Blagoveshchensk Rupvod. Called up on July 25, 1929, armed and included in the Far Eastern Flotilla as a minesweeper. In October - November 1929, he took part in hostilities (conflict on the Chinese Eastern Railway), after which he was disarmed and returned to the NKPS. In the period from 05/05/1932 to 05/24/1934. was part of the Amur flotilla. Mobilized on July 13, 1941, converted into a minesweeper and included in the Amur Flotilla. Participated in the Manchurian offensive in August 1945.

RTSH-57 – steamship “CHERNENKO”
(until 05/04/1923 "To Kovalevsky", until 07/25/1929 "G. Chernenko", until December 1929 TZ-2, until 07/13/1941 and from 10/24/1945 "G. Chernenko" ")
River wheeled tugboat.
Built in 1907
Called up on July 25, 1929, armed and included in the Far Eastern Flotilla as a minesweeper. In October - November 1929, he took part in hostilities (conflict on the Chinese Eastern Railway), after which he was disarmed and returned to the NKPS. In the period from 05/05/1932 to 05/24/1934. was part of the Amur flotilla. Mobilized on July 13, 1941, converted into a minesweeper and included in the Amur Flotilla. Participated in the Manchurian offensive in August 1945.
Disarmed on October 24, 1945 and converted into a tugboat.

Gunboat

KL- No. 32 – steamer “GRODEKOVO”
(until 07/28/1941 and from 10/13/1945 "Grodekovo", from 02/10/1944 "KL-32")
Laid down in 1936 ("Krasnoe Sormovo", Gorky), launched in June 1937, erection. commissioned in the fall of 1937
Mobilized on 07/22/1941 and on 07/28/1941 became part of the Amur Flotilla. Participated in the Manchurian offensive operation 9.08 - 1.09.1945.
10/13/1945 disarmed and returned to the river shipping company.
Decommissioned on December 23, 1968 and scrapped.

Of the modern modes of transport, WATER (sea and river) is one of the most ancient and, to this day, the least expensive.
In the history of the formation of the Russian state as a whole, and the vast region of the Far East in particular, it is impossible to overestimate the exceptional importance of waterways, the development of which is directly related to the formation of a single centralized Russian state and the development of its economy. At one time, the settlement of river systems, spaces adjacent to rivers and lakes, movement along them as the main means of communication, served as the basis for the very settlement of the Slavic tribes that formed the Old Russian people.
...
In Russia's exploration of the Far East, which began in the 17th century with the expeditions of Vasily Poyarkov, Erofey Khabarov, Alexei Tolbuzin and other explorers, the Amur River was of utmost importance, the main one until 1916-1917. (when the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway along the Amur was completed and the largest bridge “Name of Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich” was introduced near Khabarovsk) is almost the only transport communication connecting all the cities, Cossack and peasant settlements of the Amur region, annexed to the Russian Empire along Aigunsky (16.5. 1858), Tianjin (13.6.1858), Beijing (15.4. and 4.11.1860) and subsequent St. Petersburg (12.2.1881) treaties with the Chinese Empire, thanks to the efforts, first of all, of the Governor-General of Eastern Siberia in 1847-61. N.N. Muravyov (who received the honorary title “Count Muravyov-Amursky” on August 26, 1858 for his successful actions in securing the region), as well as admirals G.I. Nevelsky and P.V. Kazakevich, diplomats E.V. Putyatin, Count P.N. Ignatiev and other figures of that time.
...
The Amur River (from the local name E-mur), one of the largest rivers of our Motherland and the only one in Siberia and the Far East, carrying its waters not from south to north, but from west to east, reaches from Ust-Strelka, the place of its formal the reference point where the Shilka and Argun rivers merge is 2824 km, and from the source of the Argun in the Chinese Hailar region - 4440 km; is considered stably navigable from the mouth (96 km below the city of Nikolaevsk-on-Amur) and to the city of Sretensk on the Shilka River at a distance of up to 3052 km (although in some years shallow-draft steamships - see Chapter II - rose even higher, along tributary of the Shilka - the Nerche River directly to the city of Nerchinsk, and one steam boat in 1863 - see Chapter VII - even reached Chita). The Amur River itself is divided by some authors into three sections, each of which has its own natural geographical features, periods of freezing/breaking up, etc.: the upper reach, from Ust-Strelka to the city of Blagoveshchensk - 898 km, the middle one, from it to the city of Khabarovsk, 987 km (both sections are border with China) and the lower one, to Nikolaevsk-on-Amur, its bar (rift) and the confluence with the Tatar Strait - 933 km. The most important tributaries of the Amur from the left (Russian) bank are the Zeya River (with the tributaries Selemdzha, Bryanta, Gilyuy, Tom, Urkan, etc., which gave names to many Amur steamships), Bureya, Urmi, Amgun and many smaller ones, such as Bira and Bijan; from the right bank - the Selenga River (China, and at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries - in the joint shipping use of China and Russia, and then mainly by Russian steamships) and the Ussuri River with the tributary of the Sungacha (border with China), with the tributaries of the Bikin, Khor, etc. It seems more correct to divide the Amur into the Upper Amur, from Ust-Strelka, past Blagoveshchensk and to the confluence of the deep Sungari River, almost opposite the village of Mikhailo-Semenovskaya (now Leninskoye), 1655 km, and into the Lower Amur, from it and to the Tatar Strait, 1169 km, which, in fact, was the place of delimitation of the “areas of responsibility” of the WARP and NARP shipping companies, established on December 21, 1936.
The total area of ​​the Amur basin is 1855 thousand km 2 (more than the area of ​​the largest continental states of Europe - France, Spain, Germany and Italy, combined, 1714 thousand km 2), while approximately 2/3 of the area of ​​the Amur basin falls on the territory Russia. ...
The rapid settlement by Russians of a hitherto sparsely populated region, inhabited not so much by the Chinese as by Golds, Tungus and other local peoples, which began in 1854-55. from the famous "rafting" of Cossacks and settlers down the Amur (see Chapter I), its constant connection with European Russia was carried out from two directions: from the west by land, through Transbaikalia, Chita and Sretensk, where horse-drawn roads led, and the Trans-Siberian Railway was carried out in 1899 (and further down the Amur by steamships and barges), and from the east, through the ports of Nikolaevsk (founded in 1858, since the end of the 19th century informally called Nikolaevsk-on-Amur, and officially since 1926 .) and Vladivostok, established in 1860 as a center for the development of the Eastern (by the name of that time) ocean, which since 1872 has become the main military and commercial Russian port on it, as well as initially Okhotsk, connected by a highway with Yakutsk and through it with Irkutsk , - the first base of the Russian fleet in the Pacific Ocean.
Since the middle of the 19th century, all kinds of goods, products, tools and building materials, as well as settlers and troops necessary to consolidate the region, arrived in these ports by sea and in ever-increasing quantities, first on “state-owned” steamship transport ships of the Baltic Fleet and the Kamchatka Flotilla, and after 1878 - on the ships of the newly established semi-state Voluntary Fleet, on private ships ROPiT, RVAZOP and other joint-stock companies; in addition, a certain part of the goods was brought to the same ports, especially in the initial period of duty-free import, from neighboring countries, mainly from the USA and China, less - from Japan, as well as from Germany, England and other European countries. All these goods were then transported during the six-month summer navigation up the Amur River (already against the current) and down the Ussuri River on steamships and barges, and in the winter, in conditions of impassable taiga, close to the coastline, again along the Amur River and its tributaries, now along winter sled roads laid on ice up to 1.5 m thick (which, as it turned out later, could also withstand railway cars rolled by horse-drawn vehicles on temporary rails and extended sleepers).
The construction of the Russian so-called on the territory of Manchuria was also of great importance for the development of the Amur region. The Chinese Eastern Railway (CER), begun in 1897, completed in 1903 and connected with the previously isolated Ussuriysk Railway, carried initially from Vladivostok to the Iman station and pier, and then in 1899 brought to Khabarovsk, connecting the Trans-Siberian Railway through China with Vladivostok, and the significant water transportation associated with this major construction along the Ussuri, Amur and Sungari of materials for it (rails, sleepers, bridge structures, then steam locomotives and cars); At the same time, the city of Harbin, founded by the Russians in 1898 at the intersection of the projected railway and the Sungari River, acquired special significance, from where Chinese goods had long been transported in the opposite direction by Russian steamships downstream to the Amur, starting with single voyages in 1864. (see Chapter VIII), which became regular since 1896. At the same time, the construction of the CER itself was carried out in 1897-1900, 1902-1903. from three directions: from the west from Transbaikalia, from the already operating Manchuria railway station, from the east, from the Pogranichnaya railway station near Vladivostok, and “from the center” of the route and further in both directions towards the two end sections from the city of Harbin, in which all cargo and construction materials arrived exclusively by water, on ships and barges of a large, specially organized flotilla of the CER, as well as on dozens of private ships chartered by the road construction department, along the route: port of departure, Pacific Ocean, port of Vladivostok, then along the Ussuriysk railway to the Iman pier (now Dalnerechensk), then only along the river system - along the river. Sungache and Ussuri to the Amur, along it to the station of Mikhailo-Semenovskaya and further along the Sungari river to Harbin. ...
The shipping company on the Amur arose in 1854 and initially all Amur steamships were military transport and “state-owned”, belonging to the Military (“Land”), Maritime, Telegraph (Ministry of Internal Affairs) and other departments, although all of them, along with the steamships of the Russian-American Company , who entered the Lower Amur, actively participated in the economic development of the region and stimulated the development of its economy. The first commercial steamship appeared in the basin in 1859 (see Chapter II), and in 1860 it made a long voyage from Nikolaevsk[-on-Amur] to the upper reaches, reaching the Shilka river to the village of Sretensky and even higher - to the city Nerchinsk. It was followed by the ships of the Amur Company and private individuals (at first - foreigners, but who accepted Russian citizenship, and all the ships sailed under the Russian commercial flag); in 1871, the Amur Shipping Company Partnership (TAP), subsidized by the state, was established, and in 1872, it opened its operations with obligations to transport government and private mail, troops and the regional administration with the corresponding cargo (for a fee, but at reduced rates ); Since 1894, an even larger government-subsidized shipping company, the Amur Shipping and Trade Society (AOPiT), began operating with its board in St. Petersburg. In parallel, the private unsubsidized fleet of local merchants and industrialists was rapidly developing, commercial shipping companies and societies were established (especially after the opening of gold mines in the mid-1860s, when enterprises such as the Upper Amur, Zeysko-Selemdzhinsk and later Amgun gold mining companies were formed, the partnerships of Eltsov and Levashov, Alfons and Lydia Shanyavsky and many others, who transported mine workers on their ships in the spring and picked them up in the late autumn), the purely private fleet of indigenous Amur shipowners grew rapidly; entire dynasties of “steamship operators” arose, which at the beginning of the 20th century, in contrast to the successful AOPiT and TAP, which was collapsing after the end of subsidies, united into syndicates and trusts with the names “Bystrokhod”, “Bystrolet”, “Amur-Shilkinsky Express”, “Sungari Express” etc., which in 1916 culminated in the organization of the largest association on an all-Amur scale - "Partnership - Amur Fleet" (TAF), which dictated its monopolistic high tariffs, for which part of the Amur commercial ships included in TAF were even laid up, with issuance to shipowners from the board of their respective compensations.
A shipping fee for shipowners on the Amur (to create a system of river “furnishings”, that is, buoys, milestones, bank markings, as well as to begin clearing fairways) was established in 1886; Since 1894, the shipping inspection of the Ministry of Railways began to operate (initially - under the flotilla of the Ministry of Railways on the construction of the Trans-Baikal Railway), transformed in 1898 into a separate Directorate of Waterways of the Amur Basin (UVP AmB) under the Ministry of Railways, which quickly established a large flotilla of inspection, situation, firemen and other service ships and boats, as well as 5 dredgers with tugs, dredging scows, barges and fire guards with them. UVP AmB from 1898 to 1910 successively headed by L.M. Valuev, general/m. A.A.Berezovsky, book. M.M. Dolgorukov, from 1911 - engineer. P.P. Chubinsky, in 1918 - N.G. Berezin, in 1919 - N.P. Krynin, who did a lot to develop navigation on the Amur and improve its conditions, through deepening and marking fairways, developing and maintaining water and coastal conditions, vessel registration, etc.
Own shipbuilding on the Amur developed slowly, especially in the 19th century. The metal hulls of Amur ships (iron, then steel) until the beginning of the 20th century were imported (from Germany, England, the USA, Holland; later, en masse, from Belgium; in smaller quantities - from shipyards in the European part of Russia and from Tyumen) ; they gathered mainly in Nikolaevsk[-on-Amur] and in the village of Iman (foreign), occasionally - in Sofia, Mago, Mariinsk and Khabarovsk, separately - in the area of ​​​​Sretensk, Nerchinsk and Kokuy (Russian, delivered through Siberia); after the introduction of the Chinese Eastern Railway, some Russian steamships also began to assemble in Harbin and then float down the Sungari; all mechanisms for steamships (steam engines, boilers, paddle wheels and other equipment, including electrical) - until the end of the 19th century. were imported, mostly from abroad. The wooden hulls of steamships and barges, which respectively accounted for about 2/3 and 4/5 of the entire private Amur fleet, were built on site, mainly in Sretensk, Blagoveshchensk, Khabarovsk, the villages of Astrakhanovka, Surazhevka, etc. Since the beginning of the 20th century, in addition to wooden, Local metal hull shipbuilding began to develop, as well as the production of mechanisms, primarily steam boilers, then steam engines: the factories of S. Shadrin and I. Chepurin with A. Afanasyev appeared in Blagoveshchensk (and there were repair shops of UVP AmB in " Ministerial Zaton", in addition to repairs, also built small ships), R. Chelgren near Khabarovsk, D. Kuznets in the village of Kokuy on Shilka, as well as branches of shipbuilding plants from the European part of Russia - Tyumen, Votkinsk, then Sormovsky, which not only assembled steamships from blank sections produced by their factories, but also carried out the primary construction of ships made of sheet steel and rolled products, delivered via the Trans-Siberian railway; The assembly of 10 gunboats and 8 four-tower “monitors” of the AKF, carried out in 1907 and 1909-10, was of great importance for the development of local industry. branches of the Sormovo and St. Petersburg Baltic factories in Kokuy, with their completion and armament in Khabarovsk. The superstructures of all the ships were wooden, built on site, but often - for luxury passenger ships - with the use of imported expensive types of wood, "overseas" finishing fabrics and leather, brass and then rare chrome-plated parts, etc. in the interiors.
In terms of naval architecture on the Amur in the 19th century, single-deck steamships predominated, both towing (all) and passenger (most), although among them there were also single double-decks, starting with the first commercial steamship (see Chapter II) and such, according to local on the scale of that time, giants like the “losers” of TAP of the 1880s, the slow-moving “Ermak” and “Vestnik”. Since its appearance in 1908, then in 1912-13. high-speed and comfortable double-deck steamships "Sormovo", "Votkinsky", "Lux", "Kanavino" and others. Not only began the mass construction of ships of this type, but also the reconstruction by shipowners of old single-deck steamships into double-deck ones to increase their passenger capacity. (As far as we know, there were no three-deck steamships on the Amur not only in the pre-revolutionary, but also in the pre-war periods; they appeared already in the “motor ship” era, in the 1970s).
Based on the type of propulsion that determined the appearance of the vessel, the vast majority of towing steamers were “two-wheeled” (with side paddle wheels) and wide bulwarks (the main deck overhanging the water), so that their greatest width along the deck was almost twice the width along the waterline; There were few screw tugs with a deeper draft and they were used only on the Lower Amur, where greater depths allowed their use. Passenger (cargo-passenger) steamships were both “two-wheeled” and “single-wheeled,” that is, with a rear paddle wheel; among the latter, for a long time, the archival type (dating back to the first steamship of R. Fulton) was maintained, when the steam engine was located at the stern, and the steam boiler with a chimney was at the very bow of the ship, on the deck; Such a general arrangement of mechanisms had the advantage that it more evenly distributed heavy loads on the ship’s hull, making it possible to reduce its height, but also several significant disadvantages: an increase in the length of the steam line stretched from the boiler to the engine through the entire steamer (and, accordingly, loss of power, as well as an increase in fuel consumption), crowding and overheating of the “transit” rooms in the summer (although the steam pipeline, of course, was lined), and most importantly, the deterioration of the view from the wheelhouse, which was forced to be located... behind a tall one and “spewing out” clouds of smoke, soot and sparks bow chimney. To increase the longitudinal strength of the hull without increasing the draft, many “one-wheeled” steamships had a system of external trusses superimposed on the superstructure, with diagonal metal strings; they, like the “two-wheelers,” had drifts, but of a smaller size, and sometimes, like them, the “rear-wheelers” even engaged in driving barges, but not leading them behind them on towing ropes, but tightly mooring them to their sides, which did not receive mass distribution, as it sharply reduced the speed and worsened the maneuvering qualities (already low) of the rear-wheel steamers themselves.
The number of chimneys on all Amur ships did not exceed two per ship (not like in the Russian navy, where there were several dozen three-tube ships, 8 four-tube cruisers and battleships, and three dozen destroyers, and the record holder for the “chimney capacity”, the cruiser "Askold" even had five tall chimneys, nicknamed "pasta" by the sailors); Most of the chimneys on the two-pipe steamships of the Amur were located in the center plane, one behind the other, although there were a few steamships of the “American” system, with two pipes located across the hull. The number of pipes, as a rule, corresponded to the number of steam boilers and their furnaces; there were only a few cases of “transfers” of chimneys and combining several of them into a common chimney (universal on large warships) on the Amur: for example, the large towing steamer UVP AmB “Khabarovsk”, the future - see below - “Rabochiy (2nd )" (which had four steam boilers) and the private passenger "Vasily Alekseev", the future "Harbin" (three boilers) in their "silhouette formula", taking into account the number of pipes and masts, masked the number of boilers, hiding their boiler "secrets" by internal transfer of chimneys and externally revealing, respectively, only two and one chimneys. (In addition to the “main” chimneys, many passenger ships also had a “small” chimney from the firebox of the stove in the galley, but this contrasted so clearly with the large “running” chimneys that it may not be taken into account in the description of their number on the ship).
Unfortunately, the censuses of river vessels did not record either the number of steamship chimneys or the number of decks (sometimes, see above, which increased over time during reconstruction), so, without having reliable photographs with a discernible side inscription (which still need to be “linked”) "to ships with numerous identical names), it is no longer possible to restore such characteristics.
Until the end of the 19th century, Amur steamships were heated with cheap “local” fuel, that is, they ran... on freshly cut wood. Moreover, in the 1850-1860s, there was a wild practice, from a modern point of view, when every evening a regular steamship would stop near the shore (steamships did not sail at night then, due to the lack of searchlights on them, and on the water and on the shore - the shipping “situation ") and its crew - and sometimes some of the male passengers - landed on land on ship's boats, cutting down nearby trees, immediately sawing them into logs of a certain length and transporting them to their ship, where they were then split into logs and burned in boiler fireboxes stokers. Since the 1870s, an improvement arose, a kind of folk craft: cutting down nearby forests and preparing logs of strictly defined lengths for steamships, according to the “measure” (including in winter, for future use, bringing logs of wood on sleighs) were not sailors and stokers from steamships, and local Cossacks and peasants (as well as aborigines), they also built near their huge woodpiles, if not piers, then temporary bridges, to which steamships began to moor as “bunker bases”, and the duties of the crew now included only reloading the fuel prepared in advance , for which, previously completely free, now steamship captains had to pay for each cubic fathom; at the same time, they paid not only with money, but also with some goods that they specially took with them on the flight (such as fire supplies for hunting rifles, soap, matches and kerosene for lighting, and scarce products such as salt, sugar, tea and, of course , alcohol - let’s not idealize anything; however, it was mainly “foreigners” who were drunk with alcohol: Cossacks and peasants from the “Old Believers” tried to abstain from it).
By the way, among steamship stokers from the beginning of the 20th century. the Chinese and Koreans began to predominate - strong, hardy and, what is especially important for cramped and low stokers, short, and they were paid less; They tried not to recruit Russian big men a fathom tall into stokers; they assigned them to deck sailors, then transferring the literate and intelligent ones to helmsmen; local teenagers were recruited as “maslenschiki” (assistant mechanics), the most intelligent of whom then grew into steamship mechanics (then called machinists); from the end of the 19th century On the Amur river schools also appeared for helmsmen (future practical captains) and steamship drivers, and later for motorists of the first ships with internal combustion engines.
With such a barbaric initial method of providing ships with fuel - massive cutting down of forests along the Amur itself and other navigable rivers - for the steamship owners themselves, it had two clear advantages: a sharp reduction in bunkering time and partial preliminary drying of the firewood itself, covered in woodpiles with spruce branches, and for the development of the Amur edges is also the fact that along the rivers, in place of the impassable taiga, which previously approached the water closely, the first permanent roads began to appear, and places were also cleared for laying telegraph lines made of copper-plated wire on wooden poles, which (see Chapters VII and VIII) were built and then serviced “from the water” by four (then six, Chapter X) steamships and steam boats of the Telegraph Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs specially purchased for these purposes. To transfer telegraph lines across numerous transverse tributaries of the Amur, openwork wooden towers were built, sometimes unique (for example, when crossing the Amgun River, the height of a 15-story building). At the same time, the lines themselves had to be systematically restored, since ordinary poles for them often fell, from the erosion of the shore or from strong winds, as well as from repeated cases of taiga bears climbing on them, attracted by the “buzzing” of the wires, which they probably mistaken for the hum of a swarm of bees; At first, there were also cases of poles being cut down by Old Believers settlers who were dissatisfied with the “demonic” innovations, which were stopped by the arrests of the perpetrators and soon stopped.
From the beginning of the 20th century, Amur steamships began to be converted to heating with hard coal, mainly from the Suchanskoye deposit, for which the grates of the steamship fireboxes had to be redone, but this quickly paid off by increasing the calorific value of coal compared to firewood, reducing the fire hazard and pollution of steamships, since the amount of soot and sparks sharply decreased , emitted from chimneys; The number of fires also decreased, because earlier, when heating with wood, they tried to dry it by keeping it directly in the fireboxes and even directly leaning it against the lining of the boilers. To create real bunkering stations, located along the entire Amur, they began to use coal barges, transporting them along the river by tugboats and anchoring them in convenient places.
The steam boilers themselves on the Amur were used of the fire tube type with a pressure initially from 2-3, then up to 10 atmospheres; references to water-tube boilers, which are more productive, but also more capricious, dangerous to operate and requiring highly qualified stokers, date back to the 20th century and are not very reliable; As far as is known, there were no boiler water desalination plants or “warm boxes” that allowed condensing steam and supplying residual hot water to the boilers on the Amur (including the gunboats of the AVF Maritime Department built in 1907).
The steam engines of the Amur steamships were initially single-cylinder, low-pressure, including “balancer”, “oscillating” and numerous other various systems, then - medium pressure; Already in the 1870s, machines of the “compound” (double-acting) system appeared and became widespread, in which the piston was pushed by steam, closed by “spool valves,” alternately on both sides, working either “pushing” or “pulling” crankshaft cranks; in the last quarter of the 19th century, steam engines with triple expansion of steam appeared en masse, with cylinders of high, medium and low pressure, respectively increasing in diameter, and also (in small quantities, only in a few powerful towing steamships of AOPiTa) with steam engines even with quadruple expansion (we do not know what the 2nd and 3rd cylinders of such machines were called, we suggest - “medium” and “semi-medium” expansion; of course, as a joke).
All Amur steamships had a steam engine, almost without exception. one, but - for two-wheelers - with a release clutch for the left and right paddle wheels, in order to improve the maneuverability of the vessel (they, as a rule, did not have reverse gear); two In the pre-revolutionary period, independent steam engines were available only on later twin-screw steamships on the Lower Amur. There are known cases when, if your wheel is damaged, mover the steamer got to the nearest pier “on one wheel”; A curious case is also described when, after a night stay near the shore, a small steamer could not at first “spin” its paddle wheels, because a bear climbed inside one of them in the shallow water and fell asleep, and then (severely dented) hobbled off into the taiga.
The steamship paddle wheels themselves initially had flat and rigidly fixed platters (paddles), and from the 1870s more and more - with sickle-shaped and, most importantly, rotary platters of Morgan's complex mechanical system (entering the water and exiting it vertically), which reduced unproductive splashing and sharply increasing the traction characteristics of the wheel. The system was expensive to manufacture and “capricious” to operate, but quickly caught on, as it paid off by increasing the speed of the steamship, reducing fuel consumption, a noticeable decrease in noise when the plates “spanked” on the water, and for tugboats - by a real increase in the number of barges trailed behind them and rafts, especially against the current.
At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries. the first ships with internal combustion engines (gasoline, naphtha, kerosene, and also those powered by crude oil) appeared on the Amur; initially these were only service and passenger motor boats, then - sailing-motor schooners, especially numerous on the Lower Amur, fishing in the estuary; by 1917, in the Amur basin there were already over a hundred motor boats of various departmental systems, “state-owned” and private (see here, in the table below).
The first ship on the Amur, built immediately as a motor ship, according to A.S. Pavlov [Pavlov, 1992, p. 61], was the single-screw towing motor boat "Ermak" (according to our data, the 3rd with this name in the basin, "Ermak "/3/), with an iron body, equipped with a 24 hp kerosene engine. the Otto Deutsch company from Cologne; according to our research, it was far from the first of the Amur motor boats and appeared in our basin around 1908-1909, belonging to Efimov and Arkadyev, and according to three further censuses of ships of 1911-1917, it was listed as belonging to A.K. Arkhipov, but it was purchased second-hand, since not only the engine, but also its body were built (in 1901) not on the Amur, but in Germany, in the same Cologne; however, it can be considered as the first Amur tug and cargo ship, larger than dozens of simply service and traveling motor boats of that time (with the exception of powerful armored boats of the "Pika" type of the AVF, 1910, domestic, built by the St. Petersburg Putilov plant), ch. .size "Ermaka" /3/ were 10.8 x 2.3/2.1 x 1.1 m; it survived the Civil War (according to indirect evidence, it was scuttled and then raised), and in the 1920s with the same name it was located at the Nikolaevsk-on-Amur seaport.
In 1913, the first “real” cargo and passenger motor ship, intended for regular voyages, appeared in the waters of the Amur, assembled in Harbin from the shipowner A. Kashirin from the old hull of 1881 and the new internal combustion engine of the Kolomna plant (Golutvin station, now within the boundaries of the modern "big" Kolomna, Moscow region), called "Borodino" (2nd on the Amur with this name). The same fleet historian A.S. Pavlov (Pavlov, 1992, p. 61) claims that earlier this first scheduled passenger ship on the Amur was called “Molodets”, and before that - “Askold”; Without refuting it, we point out that these names of its building are not primary, and the building itself was built for the Amur by a German factory back in 1861. One way or another, it is certain that the m/v "Borodino" burned out (without casualties) on June 13, 1913 due to a fire of its own internal combustion engine and, according to the same author, was dismantled in 1920; according to our sources (see Chapter VII, which contains - with sources - the whole history and version of the first name of this extraordinary ship), it was restored by 1923 again as a steamship, with an ordinary steam engine and sold to Chinese shipowners, from whom it received the name "Kwan-chan" was further mentioned with him in 1929, then owned by the Qiqihar Bank. So the first experience of own motor ship construction on the Amur turned out to be unsuccessful: too often the introduction of new technology was accompanied by accidents.
All the more difficult, with accidents and even casualties, as well as losses of steamships, was the development on the Amur of a seemingly not so difficult and for Russia as a whole not new, already mastered technology, such as oil heating of steam boilers, since oil is in The Far East had its own, Sakhalin. (On the Volga by 1917, thanks to the efforts of engineer V.G. Shukhov, known not only as the author of the first Moscow Television Tower, but also as the inventor of nozzles for injecting liquid fuel into boiler furnaces, the vast majority of steamships had already switched to heating with Baku oil). But the introduction of oil heating of boilers on the Amur in the pre-revolutionary period was delayed, and in Soviet times it was accompanied by many accidents that occurred with a small steamer, which then bore the sixth name in its “biography” - “Lenzatonets” (see attached Chapter IX), and with the most powerful of the Amur steamships, the tug "Rabochiy" (2nd) [formerly "Karl Marx" (2), "Burlak" (3), and initially - "Khabarovsk" (2) MPS], and with another, less powerful , ordinary tugboat "Moskva" (4) [formerly "Zinoviev", "Moskva" (2)", "General Linevich", "Nikolaevsk" (5), originally - "Vladimir Atlasov" TAPA], a constant "loser" who pleased subsequently had an even bigger accident, although not related to the boilers: on the night of 3/4/9/1932, going up the Amur from the village of Perm (now the city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur), 140 km from Khabarovsk, he collided with the towing steamer AGRP "Ivan Butin" [formerly "Stefan Levitsky", originally "Mikhail" (1)], as a result of which the latter sank irrevocably at great depths and with casualties (7 people from its crew died), and the BSF "Moscow" itself ( 4) received significant damage, but remained afloat, obviously for new major incidents (all about it in detail and with sources, see APPENDIX 3).
But the most serious accident, directly related to the conversion of a previously “coal” steamship for oil heating and the inept handling of young stokers (now listed as “boiler operators”) with its modernized boilers, was the death of a steam boiler explosion on the night of 12/13/11/1931 while towing. cargo-passenger ship "Trud" [formerly "Mikhail Mirrer", originally - "Nizhny Novgorod"], the victims of which were 15 people from its crew of 37 people. (hurrying for the winter and forcing the boilers, he, by coincidence, was already traveling without passengers - see Chapter I). So the introduction of oil heating of steamships on the Amur in the 1920s - early 1930s. occurred with great difficulties and was associated with many accidents and tragic incidents.

* * *
The increase in the number of Amur commercial self-propelled vessels on the Amur (without the “official” fleet of the MV, VV, UVP AmB and other departments of the Ministry of Railways, the Telegraph and Resettlement departments of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, etc.) according to A.S. Pavlov [Pavlov, 1992, pp. 60-61] in the pre-revolutionary period is characterized by the following indicators: in 1880 - 27 steamships, in 1895 - 56, in 1914 - 390 steamships, i.e. steam and motor ships together. According to our updated, but still preliminary data, which also takes into account all “state-owned” vessels, the number of “personally” identified self-propelled “pre-revolutionary” vessels on the Amur (which can then only be adjusted upward) was somewhat large and is presented below in tabular form, Where:
k1 - the number of "state-owned" steamships of all departments
k2 - the same, steam boats
k3 - the same, motor boats and (from the beginning of the twentieth century) passenger motor ships
k4 - Total, number of “state-owned” steam ships of all departments
ch1 - number of commercial ships (A/O and private)
ch2 - the same, steam boats
ch3 - the same, motor boats and (from the beginning of the twentieth century) passenger motor ships
ch4 - Total, number of commercial steam ships of all owners
с1 - TOTAL, the sum of "state-owned" and commercial ships
с2 - TOTAL, the sum of steam boats --"-- and --"--
c3 - TOTAL, sum of motor boats and passenger ships (--"--)
с4 - TOTAL, the total amount of “state-owned” and commercial steam ships

At the end of the year	k1 k2 k3 k4	ch1 ch2 ch3 ch4	c1 s2 c3 c4	Note	1871 1872 1880 1889 1895 1900 1907 1911 1914 1917					4)
1854-1917, total sailed at different times				5)

Notes:
1) The reduction in the number of steamships and p/c with a radical change in the structure between “state-owned” and private shipowners is explained by the fact that since the navigation of 1872, 3 steamships VV and MV and 1 p/k MV were sent to Vladivostok, and 9 steamships MV and 2 The telegraph departments, remaining on the Amur, were transferred to the new commercial TAP.
2) Including those sold to Chinese shipowners, but included in Russian censuses - 6 ships.
3) The same in the years - 19 p/x.
4) Dismantled due to dilapidation, after accidents; burned, sank irrevocably or raised but not resurrected; converted into barges; transported to other basins, incl. in World War I they were sent by rail to the European theater of operations, etc.
5) In addition, 7 steam non-self-propelled ships: 5 dredgers ("Am.-1" - "Am.-5"), and 2 passenger barges with p/machines for electric lighting
For more detailed information, starting from 1854, including the division of “state” steamships by main departments, and commercial ones by main shipping companies and types of owners, see Tables 1 and 2 (Chapter XI and Conclusion].

The strategic importance of the Amur as the most important military transport (although not large-scale) communication of the Russian Empire in the Far East was determined immediately after the formation of the Amur region, which was initially part of the East Siberian General Government (in 1884 it was separated into an independent one, with its center in Khabarovsk) and the Amur Military District (PrVO). This significance was especially evident in 1900-1901, when massive transportation (and in 1901-1903 - return evacuation) of Russian troops was carried out along the Amur River during the anti-colonial "Boxer" uprising in China, for which purpose they mobilized and even over a hundred steamships of the semi-state "Partnership of the Amur Shipping Company" and private shipowners were temporarily requisitioned, and an entire military flotilla was organized - "General Sakharov's Squadron", intended for the relief of the Russian population of Harbin, surrounded by rebels and Chinese troops (the composition of the "Squadron", established by us in many ways scattered documents, see APPENDIX 6); at the same time, there were no clashes with Chinese ships at that time, due to the absence of any in the military theater (local battles with armed Chinese sailing junks, as well as Chinese shelling of Russian ships in the Blagoveshchensk area - see Chapter VIII and APPENDIX 7 - and our retaliatory landings from steamships on the Amur in the Sakhalyan-Aigun area and on the Sungari in several settlements took place).
During the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. on the Amur, many commercial steamers were also chartered, mobilized and partially armed by the Military and Maritime Departments, but on a smaller scale than four years earlier (about 50), and some of them were transferred to the disposal of the ROKK (as tugboats of numerous hospital ships barges) and border guard OKPS; There were no battles with the Japanese directly on the Amur, but they took place on Chinese territory, where the entire Russian Liaocheng flotilla perished, incl. three small steamships of the CER company and several private ones; but, strictly speaking, the Liao-He River does not belong to the Amur basin.
During the fierce Civil War of 1918-1922. in the Amur basin (including on Shilka and far from it, on the Ussuri River), several “red” and “white” flotillas of commercial ships armed (most often with machine guns and rifles, occasionally with field guns) were organized, as well as individual gunboats, “monitors” and armored boats that remained combat-ready from the AAF, which by that time had been partially disarmed during World War I (with the sending of guns and mechanisms to the European theater of operations), partially self-scuttled by the crews due to the threat of capture by Japanese invaders, partially all captured by the Japanese; but it is characteristic that there were actually no battles BETWEEN ships or armed civilian vessels in the Amur basin, but there were numerous cases of “fleet action against the shore” (and reverse), in the form of shelling of steamships with field guns from land, shelling of army and Cossack units from “ red" ships, as well as cases of partisan attacks on "white" ships from the shore, with the destruction and burning of the latter (see APPENDICES 1, 3, 16).
Such REAL military operations of flotillas against flotillas, ships (and auxiliary vessels) against similar enemy forces took place on the Amur twice (without touching here on the clashes in the area of ​​​​Damansky Island and other islands bordering the PRC in the post-war period), namely:
- in November-December 1929, during the so-called. “Conflict on the Chinese Eastern Railway”, when in response to the provocative arrests of Soviet employees of the Chinese Eastern Railway and members of their families, to the shelling by the “White Chinese” of our passenger and cargo ships on the Amur, ships of the Amur Military Flotilla (then still DVVF) and several mobilized civilian steamships of the AGRP, which defeated the Sungari flotilla of the "Great Empire of Manchukuo" (see APPENDIX 8), which consisted of both specially built gunboats ("cruisers") and armed steamships (mainly from former Russian "licensed" tugboats of the pre-revolutionary society of the CER), and also six Chinese steamships were interned, four of which were also of Russian origin, hijacked to China in 1918-22;
- in August 1945, during the Manchurian offensive operation of three fronts of the Red Army, with the participation of the Amur Red Banner Flotilla and a large number of mobilized civilian vessels WARP, NARP and AmBUP (see Chapter IX, list note 7), which ended - in relation to the river fleet - the surrender and subsequent capture in the Harbin area of ​​the now Japanese Sungari flotilla, which consisted of 4 new Japanese gunboats, 17 combat boats, and more than 50 mobilized civilian ships, over a hundred barges and other non-self-propelled vessels , which belonged to the puppet pro-Japanese "empire" of Manchukuo, but - from civilian ships - mostly of Russian pre-revolutionary origin, stolen by Amur shipowners to China in 1918-1922, including the steamships of the former JSC CER that survived in 1929 ( see Chapter VI, APPENDIX 10 and APPENDIX 17, clause 7.3.28). ...

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And here we come close to what can be called “The Riddle from N.M. Przhevalsky”, and first we will consider its formulation in full, at least that part of it that concerns the history of the early stage of shipping on the Amur (in the life of N.M. Przhevalsky generally has many mysteries, which we will not mention, since they do not relate to our topic).
The famous Russian traveler, Colonel of the General Staff of the Russian Military Department, who served in the military topographical department (that is, a professional intelligence officer in the field of economic-statistical and natural-geographical description of countries adjacent to Russia), N.M. Przhevalsky, after his trip to Dalniy Vostok in 1867-69, published a book in 1870 describing the “legal” part of his trip entitled “Travel in the Ussuri Territory”, where, in particular, he briefly but concentratedly indicated the quantitative state of the shipping company on the Amur during this period, not citing, however, the exact year of his reports(but he himself, according to the materials of the same book, began sailing in the Amur basin on June 9, 1867, boarding a steamship he did not indicate on Shilka in Sretensk).
And, thereby leaving a “mystery” for future historians, he set a TASK, the exact statement of which we will quote in full below: “In general, all water communications along the Amur are carried out by 12 state-owned and 5 private steamships; in addition, there are 4 more steamships here Telegraph and 3 Engineering Departments, so that there are a total of 24 steam ships,... including 2 state-owned steamships on the Ussuri River and Lake Khanka" [Przhevalsky N.M. Travel in the Uss. region. 1867-1869. - St. Petersburg, 1870, pp. 5-6; the same (reprint): M., 1937, pp. 12-13].
And this is practically all about the shipping company on the Amur. Przhevalsky, having published his information in the form of a brief quantitative “formula” (12+5+4+3 = 24 ships), did not indicate a single ship by name, nor the exact year of his report, nor the source of information.
Subsequently, this “summary” by N.M. Przhevalsky, arbitrarily linking it in time to 1867 (or approximately to the end of the 1860s), was referred to by almost all those historical authors who described the state of navigation on the Amur in the initial period, who completely “formula” - 12+5+4+3=24, for example, the first were Alyabyev in 1872 [Alyabyev, p.6] and F.F. Shperk in his work of 1885 [Shperk, 1885, p.484]; then, with various options for summation - either semi-generally (12 + 5 + 7), or generalized (19 “official”, 5 private), or “totalitarian” (“total - 24”) - many other authors of the pre-revolutionary period - prof. . V.E. Timov [Timonov, 1897, p. 204], engineer R. O. Yurgenson [Yurgenson, 1897, p. 82], V. I. Kovalevsky and P. P. Semenov, authors of the collection “Siberia and the Great Siberian Railway" [Siberia and.., 1893, p. 268; 1896, p.244], A.I.Dmitriev-Mamonov [Guide to.../Dmitriev-Mamonov, 1900, p.446], A.Lubentsov [Lubentsov//Priam.ved. (Hab.), 1901, No. 395 (July 22)] and many others, including a compilation, but still cited by A.V. Dattan [Dattan, 1897, p. 17] with the formula (12+7+5), as well as from the Soviet period - B. Shcherban [Shcherban, 1954], F.F. Kovalev [Kovalev, 1973] and others, mostly not historians, but “retired watermen”, veterans of the Amur River Shipping Company.
But none of these authors made an attempt to establish, in one way or another, exactly which steamships N.M. had in mind. Przhevalsky did not try to solve his “riddle”, decipher his “formula” and, having checked it, also establish its relatively exact date. There are two possible ways to solve this problem: it is possible that somewhere in Przhevalsky’s papers, in his diaries and working drafts of the book, this information was preserved, but we did not search for his archive, trying to follow the second, deductive-paleontological path - in To restore all components of Przhevalsky’s quantitative summary based on the primary sources of that period, independently of him. That is, try to compile YOUR list of Amur steamships from the beginning of steam navigation on it until the time of the author’s journey in 1867, with all the changes in time, and also extending it a little further, until the milestone year on the Amur in 1872, when dramatic changes took place in the Amur basin , associated with the liquidation of the river part of the Siberian Flotilla of the Maritime Department and the formation of the private, but subsidized by the state, "Partnership of Express Shipping Company on the Rivers of the Amur Basin", abbreviated as "Partnership of the Amur Shipping Company" with the constant abbreviation "TAP", "Highly established" on September 15, 1871 by the Emperor Alexander II [PSZ, 1871, vol. XLVI, - St. Petersburg, 1874, No. 49971] and began its operations with the navigation of 1872, and TAP included many early Amur steamships, listed “unnamed” in N.M.’s report. Przhevalsky.
With this “deductive” approach, many unexpected points arose: firstly, by the approximate date of his report (1867), many of the first “state-owned” steamships had already retired (mostly, they were dismantled or turned into barges); secondly, some ships were initially private, and only then were transferred “to the treasury”, and some were taken away from the basin, so their number (both in general and by type of owner) varied from year to year, which, as it turned out, forces us to clarify the date (year) of Przhevalsky’s summary, considering his very “formula” (12+5+4+3) immutable; thirdly, the same “formula” clearly excludes all steam boats (some of which were no smaller in size than the small steamers included in it); so in total, in the minimum period under consideration - up to 1867 inclusive (not touching in this case 1872) - not 24, but over 30 steam ships were launched into the waters of the Amur, the history of each of which must be considered equally. ...
Among the first steamships implied in the quantitative summary of N.M. Przhevalsky, there was also a small tug-passenger steamer, better known under its second name - “Cossack Ussuriysky”, with a long further service life, but which practically remained unknown under many of its subsequent ones (“white " and Soviet) names, since it is almost not mentioned with them in publications about shipping on the Amur after 1917. ... or, on the contrary, considering the YEAR of the report immutable, propose your own “formula”, with the same total number of ships themselves - 24, but with a slightly different distribution among departments (see Chapter XI).