BDK-65 Saratov
ex-BDK-10 Voronezh Komsomolets (factory No. 291)
Project 1171 mod. I
Ships, like people, each have their own destiny. Born for glory, warships suffer most painfully not from their wounds, but from the betrayal of people, from oblivion. The fate of the large landing ship "Voronezh Komsomolets" is a confirmation of this. On December 5, 1965, Deputy Commander of the twice Red Banner Baltic Fleet, Vice Admiral V.V. Mikhailin, announced the birth of the "Voronezh Komsomolets" - the first ship of this class in the Soviet Navy. The creation of the head BDK was awarded the State Prize, the winner of which was the chief designer I. Kuzmin and his colleagues.
Built at the Kaliningrad Shipyard with funds earned by Voronezh youth on subbotniks [compulsory unpaid labor], the Voronezh Komsomolets large landing ship was the first domestic ship capable of solving combat missions in the ocean zone. He could come close to the unequipped coast and land up to 50 units of military equipment and a battalion of marines ashore.
Fourteen ships of the Voronezh Komsomolets type were built for all four fleets of the Navy. The government of the country and the leadership of the Ministry of Defense showed great interest in the novelty of strategic weapons. In 1966, Marshal of the Soviet Union A. Grechko, Commander-in-Chief of the Navy Admiral of the Fleet S. Gorshkov, Commander of the Baltic Fleet Admiral A. Orel visited the Voronezh Komsomolets.
In the same year, the patronage of the Voronezh region over its "Komsomol paratrooper" was born. Then the ship met the first delegation of its Voronezh bosses - Colonel A.I. Kuznetsov, workers of the regional committees of the CPSU and Komsomol Y. Ereminskiy and E. Akhshov. Since then, the Voronezh Region has annually provided humanitarian and material assistance to its sponsored ship, and the ship's crew has been replenished with 8-10 Voronezh recruits with each call.
One of the combat units of the ship was also commanded by a naval officer from Liskin Yuri Lisovsky, who later became one of the pioneers of the Ikoretsk shipyard. For many generations of Voronezh residents, service on the Voronezh Komsomolets became a good school of combat training, and the ship's motto: "Resolutely and boldly!", Inscribed on its pennant, became their everyday life motto. And the very fact of the patronage of the Voronezh region - the cradle of the Russian fleet - over a warship with a native word in its name, as it were, confirmed the inviolability of the ties and traditions that originated at the Petrovsky shipyards. Communications of the land of Voronezh and the Black Sea Fleet.
Courageously and honestly served "Voronezh Komsomolets" to his homeland. From 1967 to 1980, the ship went to the Mediterranean and the Atlantic seventeen times to solve combat missions. His name became famous in Port Said during the Arab-Israeli conflict: the ship provided international assistance to the armed forces of Egypt and Syria in repelling the Israelis. In 1993, at the request of the Georgian government, Voronezhsky Komsomolets carried out a mission of mercy, evacuating more than 15,000 civilians from the outbreak of civil war in Abkhazia. And everywhere with the ship was the banner of the Voronezh Komsomol members, presented to him by the Comintern Committee of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League.
For twenty-five years, the Voronezh Komsomolets bore its name with honor. The years of perestroika hung like a black shadow over its decks: the country in a fussy haste (and mostly unilaterally) reduced strategic weapons and sent its best ships "under the knife". By mid-2004, out of fourteen Voronezh Komsomolets-class large landing craft, only four remained in the Russian Navy. Some were cut into scrap metal and melted into "needles". Others, like the Ilya Azarov large landing ship, "gave" the Ukrainian Navy, where it was renamed "Rivno" and raised a "yellow-black" flag on the flagpole. BDK "Krasnaya Presnya" sank in the North Sea while being towed to India for scrapping.
From the sides of the surviving paratroopers, the Komsomol names were shyly ripped off alive and the tail numbers were hastily put down - this is how the new Russia denied its former power for the sake of the political situation. The Voronezh Komsomolets did not escape humiliation either. In 1991, he was put into conservation and humbly awaited his fate in the port of Odessa. Two and a half years of parking at the pier of a foreign port humiliated the ship below the waterline: the crew was reduced to a minimum, replacing the entire staff - officers and midshipmen. The ship property was simply plundered by the "hulks of independent Ukraine", and not a single case of embezzlement submitted to the prosecutor's office of Ukraine was accepted for proceedings.
But the worst thing for the crew of the Voronezh Komsomolets was the betrayal of the Voronezh residents themselves, who “forgot” about their sponsor. The last visit of the Voronezh residents to the ship took place on the eve of the Navy Day. The Black Sea people remember him with special warmth. “Fellow countrymen brought then, in addition to humanitarian aid, video equipment and other property,” Y. Lisovsky recalls. – They were accompanied by a folklore ensemble and the parents of sailors from Voronezh. It was a real holiday." And already in 1996 ... "
In vain before the Day of the Fleet, the sailors, standing on the upper deck, peered hopefully at the road to the pier. Buses with guests, trucks and vans with Kuban, Kursk, Belgorod, Rostov numbers drove up to other ships. Voronezh was not among them. And the sailors were waiting. “Already someone who, and the Voronezh residents will definitely come,” the Chernomorians cheered each other on. In vain... On the eve of the celebration of the 300th anniversary of the Navy, its cradle - Voronezh - drowned conscience in the pre-holiday fuss.
And in vain the crew sent to Voronezh the deputy commander of the ship, captain of the third rank, Grigory Kravchuk, with the hope of restoring the interrupted patronage - the officials of the regional administration were silent. And the Voronezh Komsomolets, ashamed of its rusty sides that had not been painted for six years, was still in no hurry to rip off the letters of its proud name from them. But he was forced to do this, hastily putting tail number 150 in place of the former name. So in the year of its 33rd anniversary, the warship remained nameless, like a prisoner of someone's conscience, with a serial number instead of a name on its chest. And for a long time, through the fresh ball paint, the letters of its former name appeared on the sides. As a silent reproach to all Voronezh residents.
In those gloomy days, on the BDK abandoned by everyone, Lieutenant Commander Yu. Lisovsky wrote to the Voronezh "Young Communard": “Our ship now has no name, and in official reports it is referred to as BDK-65. At one time, Voronezh residents served on it, but today ... It's a shame to realize that the "tops" have abandoned us. We are actually dying. And it's scary that today's leaders give us this opportunity to die. Quietly, silently, without shouting. And we don't give up. We go out to sea and prove that it is too early to write off us, and let our ships go on needles.
BDK with tail number 150 survived all the deaths out of spite. But he remained nameless until a Saratov delegation headed by Governor Ayatskov visited one of the exercises with his participation. At those exercises, the former "Voronezh Komsomolets" both shot accurately and landed troops with desperate dashing. "Who are your bosses?" asked the impressed Ayatskov of the paratrooper's crew. And he himself answered his bashful silence: "Saratov residents are now your bosses." So the former "Voronezh Komsomolets" acquired a new name - "Saratov".
And the Liskinsky district, as if apologizing for the entire region, at the turn of the 90s, took under its patronage the same BDK, which was in distress from oblivion, which had not lost its name - "Orsk".
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