Ships are like people: everyone has their own destiny. Different stars point the way for everyone. And, in my opinion, the clarity of their "wake trail" does not always depend only on the skill of shipbuilders, the professional training of crews, because there is something else in the fate of ships and providence, predestination. Consider the fate of the K-19 nuclear submarine, the North Sea Hiroshima. That's really over whose wheelhouse hung an evil fate. And, unfortunately, this is not the only example in the history of domestic sub-swimming.

But today I want to tell you about the fate of a unique nuclear-powered ship, an underwater ship, you can even say, the chosen one from above. Too many extraordinary tasks fell to the share of this submarine of the Northern Fleet. And in every golden line inscribed by the nuclear-powered ship in the history of the Navy, not only the glory and valor of the polar submarine, but also the prestige of the Russian State, the fortress and sanctity of the Orthodox spirit were reflected, like a sunbeam in the lenses of the commander's periscope. Therefore, the submarine found a worthy distinction - it bears the name of the Holy Prince Daniel of Moscow.

Mooring to the earth's axis

...A lone seal stared in surprise at the sagebrush filling with noise in the middle of endless ice fields from behind the hummocks. His surprise turned to discontent when the back of an unknown giant began to crawl out of the abyss with a squeal and spray. The nuclear-powered ship floated up noisily, with the high-pressure air whistling shrilly as it drove cold water from the main ballast tanks. Zhivotina did not expect guests and therefore decided to retire...

On the signal bridge of the nuclear-powered ship, behind the hemisphere of its glass visor, three people: senior on board Vice Admiral Anatoly Shevchenko, commander of the submarine division Rear Admiral Mikhail Kuznetsov and commander of the nuclear submarine Captain 1st Rank Sergey Kuzmin. Here it is, the North Pole!

A light frost stung the submariners ' faces. In the guardhouse, the crew took turns smoking cigarettes and talking, looking at the snow-white world with interest...

Going the beaten path is always easier. If the discoverers of the ice trails directly ahead of them had only the unknown, then the rich experience of the pioneers of Arctic hiking got to help the second. Experience compiled into volumes of guides, recommendations, and instructions with one single goal: to ensure that those who follow the first, safe navigation in the ice. But this did not make the task facing the crew of Captain 1st Rank Sergey Kuzmin any easier.

The break in the ice navigation of domestic submarines negatively affected the combat continuity of generations of submariners of the Northern Fleet. At that time, the crews of the submarine division of Rear Admiral Mikhail Kuznetsov practically did not have any experienced "subglacials"left. Without practice, the theory, figuratively speaking, becomes stale: geographical coordinates turn into sets of soulless numbers, become simply elements of planar geometry. This, according to Mikhail Yuryevich, led to the fact that our Arctic stitches-paths were inexorably covered with a coating of oblivion, and in the icy expanses of the North Pole, foreign atomarines were becoming more active and confident. Therefore, Russian submariners had to re-cut the "window" to the Arctic. And it was decided to start with an action that was (in addition to the tasks of combat service) It is also purely political in nature: in honor of the 300th anniversary of the Russian Navy, to float at the North Pole and plant the Russian state and St. Andrew's naval flags over it.

When the command of the nuclear-powered division was faced with the question of who would go under the ice, the decision, according to Rear Admiral Kuznetsov, came right away: the crew of Captain 1st rank Sergey Kuzmin. The team is organized and has successfully passed more than one autonomous training session. The experience and skill of his officers and midshipmen can only be envied by others. Of the thirty sailors, twenty are contract soldiers. And one more plus: compared to other nuclear submarines of this project, it is most suitable for operations in the Arctic basin.

At the control exit into the sea under the ice, the crew and the nuclear-powered ship of Captain 1 rank Kuzmin once again confirmed that the command did not make a mistake in the choice...

Surfacing, according to submariners, is always the strongest strain on the crew's mental strength. Surfacing in the ice - the tension increases twice or three times. To float up in the sagebrush is to clench your nerves into a fist, "go" into your sight and hearing, waiting for hours with bated breath for the archimedial floating nuclear-powered ship to finally break out of the underworld of the Arctic depths.

One of the North Sea poets wrote:: "Both in war and in years of peace, commanders turn gray early." Well, that's the service. Making its way to the pole, the nuclear-powered ship Sergey Kuzmin surfaced fourteen times: nine ascents in sagebrush (different in area and configuration), five - in the floodwaters.

Senior midshipman Vitaly Alekseev was in that campaign foreman of the radiometric team. In the central post (CP), he was constantly at arm's length from the captain of the 1st rank Sergey Kuzmin.

"During my twelve years of service in the submarine," Vitaly Anatolyevich told me, " I had to go with many commanders. But I have never met such a professional as Sergey Viktorovich. It wasn't scary with him..."

Who knows, maybe this is the highest assessment of the military skill of the commander? So, without fawning, but with a firm conviction: "I'm not afraid with the commander." After all, this is so important: it means that submariners will not hesitate to go with Kuzmin into battle...

"We'll find..." The word was repeated to himself like a spell by the chief of the radiometric team, senior midshipman Vitaly Alekseev, who was sitting on duty at the upper hemisphere television viewing system. Before his eyes, on the monitor screen, the underside of the ice field floated in a kind of solemn silence: sharp teeth, caverns, bulges, bolts - huge protrusions that hung over the nuclear-powered ship. Echo meters showed a multi-meter pack overhead. The recorders drew an underwater "relief" of ice on the tape. Suddenly Alexeyev noticed: the lead of the recorder, sliding down, with two strokes drew a spiked bolt twenty meters long. "Wow, the sword of Damocles," thought Vitaly Anatolyevich involuntarily. The boat was moving at a safe depth for this region of high latitudes, but all the same, the blind roof with the ominous grin of ice stalactites pressed its weight on the souls of all who made their dangerous journey under it.

It became a little easier when they found wormwood and with the cherished thought "Now we will surface!" they began to study it. Navigators Captain-Lieutenant Pavel Lavrov and Senior Lieutenant Andrey Klimenko calculated the direction of ice drift, the speed of water flow, radiometrists visually made sure that there is no ice in the ice hole, and much more. Finally, the long-awaited command of captain 1st rank Sergey Kuzmin was heard: "Stand at your stations, ready for ascent!"

And now the combat electromechanical unit of Captain 2 rank Viktor Zagrebin begins to slowly, carefully, at a speed of half a meter per minute, raise the seven-thousand-ton hundred-meter submarine to the surface of clear water...

On a very warm July evening, at 18.00 Moscow time, the nuclear-powered ship surfaced five miles from the geographical North Pole. Closer, as the ice survey instruments showed, there was no ice hole. Bright sun, transparent blue sky, calm met the pole brave severomorets. And shaggy clouds, snowstorms, impassable hummocks, polar bears? All that is familiar to submariners from films and books from early childhood? Around the nuclear-powered ship, as far as the eye could see, there was only water and endless virgin snow...

The command to build was given. The ranks of submariners froze on the superstructure of the submarine. A long-awaited and exciting moment.

Under the solemn chords of the National Anthem, the Russian tricolor and St. Andrew's banner flew up along the halyards. It seemed that in another moment, and they would fly into the sky like swift-winged birds, soar high above the planet, so that the whole world could see: the Russians are back at the pole!..

They returned home victorious. Under the ice (made a "small circumnavigation"of the world: that is, they made two circles around the earth's axis. It was surprising to hear the reports of the commander of the warhead - 1, Lieutenant Commander Pavel Lavrov, in the CP: "We are passing the longitude of Las Vegas... Passing longitude..."

"Trophies" from the pole were brought to the home base: water from the sagebrush, as well as certificates of visiting the North Pole, awarded to each crew member. And memories of anxious watches, long ascents, drifting ice...

But the main thing that the submariners returned home with was the acquired experience of operations in the Arctic basin. As if to confirm this, the acoustics on the way back "hooked" a foreign nuclear submarine and for a long time kept in steady contact with it. Only at the command "Set aside" was the" work " with the boat stopped. All together: the difficult trip to the pole, the ascent to the" top " of the Earth, the raising of flags, and the dignified return to base-it was a triumph for Russian submariners, the excellent crew of the nuclear submarine Captain 1st rank Sergey Kuzmin, now Hero of the Russian Federation, deputy commander of the Northern Fleet Submarine Division.

Autonomous driving in the 21st century

The most amazing discoveries happen, as a rule, where, it would seem, everything was discovered and studied a long time ago. It is known that shipping in the Russian sector of the Arctic was not born yesterday. Every summer, powerful nuclear-powered icebreakers navigate caravans of ships through the endless white fields of the cold northern seas. Cargo is delivered by sea to the Arctic coast of the country, Kamchatka and other regions of the Far East.

Russian scientists, designers and shipbuilders have proposed a qualitatively new transport system. Its main feature is that it will be underwater, or rather - under the ice. Perhaps before the end of this century, Russian Columbians will be the first to lay the shortest route from Europe to China and Japan in the depths of the Arctic Ocean.

According to the agreement signed, on the one hand, by the St. Petersburg Marine Engineering Design Bureau, the Sevmashpredpriyatie production Association, the joint-stock company responsible for northern delivery, and the Northern Fleet, on the other hand, the latter was to equip a multi-purpose nuclear submarine for delivering national economic cargo to the Yamal Peninsula.

The choice fell on the nuclear-powered ship "Daniil Moskovsky". The then commander of the submarine, Captain 1st rank Peter Litvin, did not care much about the laurels of the pioneer in those days. The crew was intensively preparing for ice combat service. With five autonomes under his belt, the commander was going to the sixth one more than carefully: he had to go to the little-studied shallow-water area of the Kara Sea, where our nuclear-powered ships had not entered in the entire post-war history of the Soviet and Russian submarines.

The first in a series of those who shared with the captain of the pre-autonomous hardships, it is necessary to name the commander of the warhead-5 submarine "Daniil Moskovsky" Captain 2nd rank Evgeny Yumatov. Evgeny Nikolaevich Litvin joined the crew as a mechanic, having an ice autonomous boat under the command of Hero of the Russian Federation Captain 1st Rank Sergey Kuzmin, and on his chest - the Order of Courage. So he was known as a specialist in the connection, which does not take up experience.

In ice navigation, it is extremely important that submariners immediately report to the commander about any changes in the situation in the compartment and overboard, in the nature of the work of equipment. On a nuclear-powered ship, an unjustified risk in actions or someone's rotozeystvo, delay in reporting can cost the crew very much. The commander of the boat and the commander of the warhead-5 should be aware of every "abnormal" sound in the compartments," extraneous " smell.

In autonomous mode, Yumatov went around the ship several times a day. And surfacing at the North Pole... Some of them lasted for five or six hours.

And here the commander and the mechanic worked like mountain climbers - in one bundle. The fate of the crew who went on the Daniil Moskovsky ice voyage depended on the correctness of their decisions and actions...

At the first stage of combat service, the nuclear submarine of Captain 1st rank Pyotr Litvin conducted a search operation and worked out many other tasks. The cargo that needs to be delivered to the Yamal Peninsula was not on board at that time. They followed him back to the base.

On the implementation of the "trans-Arctic project", the submarine left in the evening, having loaded five tons of sugar and flour into the first compartment (next to the torpedoes). Heading for the North Pole. At the calculated point, they went to the working depth. Rear Admiral Mikhail Kuznetsov, the senior commander of the submarine division on board, set general and personal tasks for the crew and each combat unit, and after that the order to assign the next military ranks was read out, and Mikhail Yuryevich handed new shoulder straps to ten officers and midshipmen of the Daniil Moskovsky.

In general, the submariners went to the autonomous boat in high spirits, having fun. In a few days, we "ran" to the edge of the ice. And so it went: diving, then surfacing, diving, surfacing - for two, three, five hours. Then again search for the ice hole on the route, ascent, dive... And forward - under the multi-meter ice to the goal.

And soon about the combat service of "Daniel of Moscow" (an unprecedented case in general!) the whole country, the whole world, found out. When the boat surfaced in the Kara Sea at exactly the appointed time, two hours later a helicopter hovered over the control room of the nuclear-powered ship, on board of which were the ORT film crew and the deputy commander of the submarine division for educational work, Captain 1 rank Ivan Nidziev. On the same evening, the television broadcast a stunning message to the Russians:

The trans-Arctic experiment on the underwater delivery of national economic cargo to the shores of the Far North, which caused doubts among many experts, was crowned with success. And the crew of the Northern Fleet's nuclear submarine Daniil Moskovsky, under the command of Captain Pyotr Ivanovich Litvin of the 1st rank, completed the task.

The arrival of the Russian nuclear-powered ship at the port of Kharasavey (Yamal Peninsula) was met with special delight by local residents, of course. By the way, the last submarines that the old-timers of Harasaway saw in their lives were... German ones. During the Great Patriotic War.

During the time that the "Daniil Moskovsky" was on the roadstead of the port of Harasaway, many guests visited it on board. The nuclear-powered ship was visited by the vice-president of the gas production company Nikolay Palats, the designer, project manager from the Rubin Central Design Bureau Mikhail Degtyarev, a relative of the famous gunsmith, who, by the way, composed the song "Yamal Submarine" in Kharasavey: "Submariners will do what transport ships cannot do, I'll tell you!" And cosmonauts Hero of the Soviet Union, Major General of Aviation Andriyan Nikolaev and Colonel Nikolai Burdaev, making a tour of the submarine, compared submariners with astronauts, and the ocean-with the vast and boundless space...

The days of the Daniil Moskovsky submarine's stay off the coast of Yamal quickly flew by. The time came when the nuclear-powered ship again plunged into the depths of the Arctic Ocean and went on a search operation. The combat service continued...

Specialists from various research institutes and design bureaus will still analyze the results of the experiment and make calculations for making decisions on the further development of the trans-Arctic project, the foundation for the implementation of which was created by the Northern Fleet nuclear-powered ship. For submariners, the past combat service has probably become nothing more than an ordinary stressful and complex ice autonomous training.

Submariners performed eleven ascents and dives in sagebrush and floodwaters at the North Pole. We have accumulated experience in ice navigation in hydrographically poorly studied and iceberg-prone areas, as well as in the shallow waters of the southern part of the Kara Sea. Captain of the 1st rank Pyotr Litvin personally developed and tested practical recommendations for the commanders of other submarines when sailing and conducting combat operations in the Arctic latitudes. In principle-the everyday work of North Sea submariners. Although, by and large, it is more accurate to believe that this was not an ordinary swimming "under the ice". It was an autonomous "Daniil Moskovsky" in the XXI century...

His Holiness Patriarch Alexy L of Moscow and All Russia gave his blessing to the naming of the nuclear-powered ship after the Blessed Prince Daniel of Moscow back in 1996. Admiral Felix Gromov, Commander - in - Chief of the Russian Navy at that time, received his letter in St. Petersburg at the celebration of the 300th anniversary of the Russian Navy. In the autumn of the same year, the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy signed the order. However, the ceremony of "baptism" had to wait: the boat was under repair. It does not belong to the category of new alls and was introduced into the fleet in the early nineties. And since the scientific and technical idea in the field of underwater shipbuilding is moving very quickly, the nuclear-powered ship is now under the command of Captain 1 rank Vladimir Volkov (by the way, the former senior assistant commander in the crew of the Hero of Russia Sergey Kuzmin), of course, it is difficult to compare with submarines of the third and fourth generations. However, behind the stern of the Daniil Moskovsky, which still performs its tasks in the Navy's combat team, there are so many thousands of nautical miles, so many unique merits, that it is clear that the choice fell on this boat was not accidental at all. A lucky star once lit up above her, granted by the grace of God.

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