This article came to our editorial office on August 10. Albina Konovalova sent him from the then unknown village of Vidyaevo. This material is a reflection, a warning, a plea. The author could not have predicted how fatally, prophetically creepy her words would sound: "The ocean is insatiable, and it will take more than one victim..." In a few days, the world will shudder at the news of another tragedy. August 13, 2000 will be a black day for the Russian nuclear submarine fleet. The list of its victims will include 118 more names - crew members of the nuclear submarine Kursk...

The first one is always harder. No trails have been laid out for the first one yet. He falls more often, stumbles on the roads...

At one time, the Soviet Union's first nuclear-powered missile-carrying submarine, the K-19, found itself on the impassable terrain of technological progress. On July 12, 2000, it turned 40 years old. In the history of the development of the nuclear submarine fleet, the missile carrier has had a difficult share.

In the 60s, the country hastily created a base for a new type of weapons for nuclear submarines. The first Soviet nuclear submarines had already ploughed the depths of the world's oceans, but they were still equipped with traditional torpedoes. The technical capabilities of nuclear submarines gave such a convincing advantage that the torpedo armament looked like an ancient axe in the hands of an electronic robot.

In 1955, the tests of an experimental rocket carrier were completed. Its appearance meant a breakthrough in the new millennium, which promised an unprecedented technical rise, beckoning to the glittering Olympus of nuclear power.

The K-19 missile carrier was built quickly, if not hastily. Laid down in 1958, it was launched in 1959, and in 1960 it became part of the Red Banner Northern Fleet.

The first accident with a nuclear reactor occurred at the plant. The compensating grid of the reactor core is jammed. First officer, and now captain of the 1st rank of reserve V. Enin recalls that the factory specialists managed to shift their blame to the submariners. The fleet suffered "planned losses", and therefore it was not difficult to hide the accident...

While testing at sea, another breakdown occurred. When the hull was compressed at a depth, water was detected entering the reactor compartment. The shape of the slab located above the compartment was incorrectly calculated.

As if an invisible hand was pointing to a bad place: "Attention! Trouble will happen in the nuclear reactor!"

We didn't hear it! Don't get it!

And the real accident was not long in coming.

..The K-19 submarine completed all tasks in the Atlantic and went to the Arctic, where it was supposed to pass under the ice and launch missiles at the exit. The boat was equipped with R-21 ballistic missiles with a range of about one and a half thousand kilometers.

The central post was thinking about how to pass through the Danish Strait, which at this time of year was completely covered with ice due to icebergs coming down from the Greenland coast. The boat was located near a volcanic lake.

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Jan Mayen Islands. At this time, an alarm message was received from the control post of the main power plant:

"Central! Emergency protection of the left-side reactor was activated. The pressure in the primary circuit drops dramatically!

The temperature in the reactor grew rapidly - at critical values, the reactor could collapse. And then... explosion, nuclear explosion! And even near the American military base on Jan Mayen!

The ship's mechanics found a technical solution-to remove excess heat by pouring water over the core. Work was required in the reactor itself. Those who served the reactor went to the nuclear inferno. People did not go to the embrasure, not under the enemy tank-just to fulfill their military duty.

When they came out of the reactor room - and the compartment commander, Boris Kornilov, was carried out-everyone knew that they were doomed.

July 4, 1961! Remember this date! The Earth could have ceased to exist if young, strong guys hadn't stepped into atomic hell.

The world won't shake until 25 years later, when the destructive power of the atom gets out of control in Chernobyl. And then, in ' 61, no one even knew the names of those guys. They came back from the atomic hell still alive. They came back to die very soon! And to tell you with your absurd death, what a price our eternal careless hope turns out to be: maybe it will pass!

But we didn't learn anything. Because the country lived "in the rhythm of great construction projects"!

Here it is, a short entry in the logbook: "During the return of the submarine from combat service, a steam power plant accident occurred 70 miles from the island of Jan Mayen. 10 people were killed."

Four others received lethal doses of radiation.

"For the first time, when I went down with a lantern to the central post of an emergency boat," Rear Admiral A. Pushkin later wrote, " from which the personnel was evacuated, I felt terrible. The boat looked like a steel coffin. The light spot of the flashlight picked out pipelines, cable cables, and appliances from the darkness. There were mattresses and bandages on the deck."

It was like the agony of a huge and terminally ill creature. But the boat survived amid the chaos and technological progress.

On the K-19 - a ship with an amazing fate - everything was the first. A similar accident occurred on K-8 the day before, but there, fortunately, there were no casualties. Therefore, the first serious accident of a nuclear installation that resulted in human casualties is considered to be the K-19 tragedy. After that, all existing and projected reactors of this type began to install standard emergency water spillage systems, autonomous emergency cooling systems.

Meanwhile, the country was confidently among the first strategically strong nuclear powers. A necessary condition for successful combat patrol of submarines - stealth-required missile weapons capable of hitting targets from an underwater position.

In 1963, the K-19 was equipped with the D-4 missile system, which provided an underwater launch. It was a happy time for the ship - from 1963 to 1972. The crew of the submarine perfectly completed the tasks of three combat services. Years of permanent exemplary watches, successful service. Every now and then entries flash in the logbook: "1st place", "awarded...", "entered...".

As in human destiny, the long-awaited period of stardom has arrived in the life of the ship. However, the rain of awards and commendations did not wash away the black spot of bad luck. As if the monstrous experimenter had chosen K-19 as his test subject!

On February 24, 1972, 28 people died on the submarine during a fire.

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Two more - during the rescue of the ship.

Then the sailors composed a song with such disturbing lines:

Autonomy is over, the way to the base, home.

The boat is gently rocked by the depths.

Compartment nine sleeps, sleeps, still alive,

Only the watch's eye doesn't close.

From the stuffy compartments of secrecy, she broke out and, like an epic, carried the truth to the people.

The ninth is an ordinary living area with solid bulkheads. It is also called the survivability compartment, the shelter compartment. From here, submariners can reach the surface of the sea when submarines are flooded at shallow depths.

As a mockery of fate, you perceive this purpose of his. In those fateful moments, when death was rushing between bulkheads, when people fell and no one else got up, then no one remembered its survivability.

The fire started in the hold from a faulty electrical appliance. The all-consuming flames grew rapidly due to a burst compressed air pipeline. The fire was coming steadily at the submariners. Some escaped by running to the next, eighth compartment.

The commander of the ship V. Kulibaba ordered the eighth to take people from the ninth. The fire broke in with the rescued. It was still possible to leave, but they stayed - the electricians of the eighth compartment! To abandon his post was to doom the ship: if he lost his way, he would sink like a stone to the bottom.

Perform your military duty! What do these holy words mean for submariners? When a warrior picks up a submachine gun, he knows that he is also protecting himself. When a submariner closes the hatch behind him and is left alone with a fire, with water, with an atom or with any other disaster, he knows: for the sake of the lives of others, he condemns himself to death!

The seventh, turbine compartment was also filled with carbon monoxide. The turbinists were losing consciousness, but they held on until the last moment.

The fifth compartment is diesel. When the boat had already surfaced, diesel operators tried to start backup diesel generators. Failed. They will be carried out of the compartment unconscious.

The second compartment, as well as the first, torpedo, was less affected by the fire than the others. But all the compartments were gassed. Therefore, all the survivors were transferred to the fence of the conning tower, where they performed artificial respiration and provided first aid. They lay in this vast iron clearing, and the springy wind slowly brought them back to life. They saw the stormy winter sky through the openings of the extendable devices and dreamed of earth.

In the tenth, terminal torpedo compartment on that fateful morning of ' 72, 12 people were buried alive. They were cut off from even the small world of the submarine. Without food, without water, without light, without heat and with only a small influx of compressor technical air. They were taken out of their grim captivity only on the 23rd day - after the ship was towed to the base.

30 submariners were killed. But the boat survived. Then there were the years 1973, 74 and 75, when the crew performed all combat services perfectly.

For 15 years of sailing, the K-19 made more than 20 launches of ballistic missiles and more than fifty torpedo shots from the board. This is not better, but it is not worse than all other nuclear submarines. But its super task-to be the first submarine fulfilled honestly!

After that fire, submarines began to implement a system of volumetric chemical extinguishing, which can be used in extreme conditions. The system regularly serves the sailors to this day.

In 1976, the K-19 changed its original purpose and began to prepare for new tests. The ship was towed to the factory, where they carried out an average repair, replaced the reactor core, cut out rocket launchers and upgraded. Now the former submarine missile carrier had to improve the communication of submarines. For about 15 years, the large communications submarine KS-19 tested various communication systems. Many of them were later installed on boats under construction. But in 1990, the ship, like most other submarines that came under the pressure of a massive reduction in submarine forces, was excluded from the Navy.

Then the commander was captain of the 1st rank O. Adamov. This man put a lot of effort on the altar of perpetuating the memory of "Hiroshima" (this is what N. Cherkashin called the K-19 boat in his book "Hiroshima rises at noon"). He proposed not to cut up the boat, but to create a museum. Special museum in memory of the victims of the Submarine Fleet: present and future. After all, the ocean is insatiable, and it will take more than one life.

The ship really occupies a very special place in terms of the number of human casualties. I'll just list them.

1959-when pasting the tenth compartment, a fire broke out. Two workers were killed.

1960-an electrician was crushed by the lid of a rocket silo. In the same year, a young engineer died after falling into a slot between the compartments. Two people.

1961-an accident in the reactor compartment killed 10 people.

1972-30 people were killed in a fire.

1982 - another submariner was electrocuted.

Maybe O. Adamov is right - there is no such museum anywhere in the world!

The current commander, Captain 2nd rank A. Goryunov, is also a supporter of this idea.

- You don't need much money to create such a museum. Carry out cosmetic repairs, unload the reactor core on a planned basis, release one compartment for visual materials from equipment, and leave the rest as it is. That's all, " he says.

When you approach the squadron, you can see the silhouette of this restless ship from afar. It is notable for its high, roomy wheelhouse. The boat is still alive. Sadly, she lowered her long, rusty tail into the water. It is as if the fault has pinned it to the sea floor - because of the long parking without docking, its sediment increases every year.

I feel sorry for the boat that was so hastily accused of bad luck. Or even the curse hanging over her side. Is it so? After all, if you take a closer look at those accidents, it becomes clear that the people who created or maintained the ship were to blame.

In the first case, the cause of the accident was the imperfect maintenance of the nuclear reactor, as well as the consequences of the factory rush.

In the second case, the technical

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the problem was superimposed on the poor training of the second crew, who missed the first precious minutes to extinguish the fire. There was a leak of combustible materials that got on the hot device. The cause of the leak could be both physical wear of the metal and carelessness committed by the welder.

But is this the time to rummage through the lockers of oblivion, looking for unlikely explanations?

It's time to remind you that the boat, dubbed "Hiroshima", deserves a better fate. That she is the first missile carrier to have unqualified awards and merits. She's 40! Boats created later have already been sawn. And it's worth it! Why?

Perhaps he has a premonition of his fate? And it is destined to become the first monument to the victims of the development of the nuclear fleet? And a monument to the heroes of the Submarine Fleet!

pos. Vidyaevo

P.S. During the tragedy of the Kursk nuclear submarine, thousands of people wanted to lay flowers in memory of its lost crew at the foot of the monument to submariners ' heroes. But it turned out that there is no such monument yet.

DISASTERS OF SOVIET AND RUSSIAN SUBMARINES

1. July 4, 1961 Near the coast of England, an accident on the first Soviet submarine with ballistic missiles. 10 people were killed.

2. 1966 Near the Hawaiian Islands, a K-129 missile submarine with 97 crew members was killed.

3. September 8, 1967 Near the North Pole, a fire broke out on the K-3 Leninsky Komsomol submarine. 39 crew members were killed.

4. April 11-12, 1970 A fire broke out on the Northern Fleet's K-8 submarine in the Bay of Biscay. 52 people were killed.

5. February 24, 1972 On the K-19 nuclear submarine of the Northern Fleet, 30 people were killed in a fire.

6. June 14, 1973 The K-5 6 submarine collided with the Akademik Berg research vessel. 27 submariners were killed.

7. August 1978 Due to problems in the nuclear reactor submarine with cruise missiles sank off the coast of Scotland.

8. August 1980 There was a fire on a Soviet submarine. 9 people were killed.

9. October 21, 1981 When returning to Vladivostok, the C-178 submarine was rammed by a refrigerated vessel.

10. June 24, 1983 A submarine carrying K-429 cruise missiles sank off the coast of Kamchatka. 16 people were killed.

11. On June 18, 1984, a fire on the K-131 submarine killed 13 crew members.

12. 1985. In the village of Shkotovo-22, a thermal explosion occurred on the submarine. 10 people were killed.

13. Spring of 1986 In the Atlantic Ocean, a rocket submarine sank as a result of a fire. 3 people were killed.

14. October 3, 1986 In Bermuda, a fire on a submarine with ballistic missiles killed 3 people.

15. April 7, 1989 Near Medvezhy Island, the Komsomolets submarine sank as a result of a fire. Of the 69 crew members, 27 people were rescued.

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