The monument to the battleship Rusalka appeared in Tallinn in 1902. Until recently, the guides ended their story with the words: “In peacetime, the warship and its crew disappeared without a trace in the waters of the Gulf of Finland. For more than a hundred years, this case has remained a mystery "

Riddle "Mermaids" - a film that was never shown in Estonia.

At the end of July 2003, 25 miles south of Helsinki, an Estonian expedition led by explorer Vello Myassa discovered a unique object in Finnish economic waters, the search for which lasted 110 years: the coastal defense battleship of the Russian Imperial Navy Training and Artillery Unit Rusalka. Yes, the same lost ship, the monument to which has become one of the most striking sights of Tallinn! The death of the battleship in September 1893 claimed the lives of the entire crew of 177 people.

When in 1902, on the ninth anniversary of the sinking of the ship, the famous monument to the Mermaid was erected in Revel, a legend was born with it: a hundred years and one year later, a gilded cross, with which an angel overshadows all ships leaving the sea, will show the way to those who lies in the depths of the sea. True, on one condition - if by that time at least one grieving person remains on earth. Perhaps that is why Russian sailors of all generations have developed a tradition: when they find themselves in Revel (Tallinn), they visit the "Mermaid", performing the same ceremony. It was supposed to go around the monument and read all the names of the members of the dead crew - both officers and ordinary sailors.

The monument was erected at the end of July 1902 (then finishing work continued for about a month). Exactly one hundred and one years have passed since the installation of the Tallinn Rusalka. The Vello Myassa expedition had only a couple of days to work, the research ship Mare, owned by the Estonian Maritime Museum, was to return to the port of Tallinn. The square, which was combed by the Estonian specialists, was chosen after a long work in the archives and seemed to be the most likely location for the "Rusalka". Needless to say, after more than a century of searches carried out by various teams and detachments, there was very little chance of finding the missing ship.

However, when a strangely shaped dark image appeared on the sonar screen, a premonition told the crew that the "shadow of the golden cross" indicated the legendary grave. The next day, it was stormy, and the diving had to be postponed. However, the crew could not think of anything else, again and again returning to looking at the sonar images. At a depth of 74 meters stern upward, almost vertically (approximately at the same angle at which the angel holds his cross over the monument), a dead ship towered. The very first dive of Estonian divers Kaido Peremes and Indrek Ostrat confirmed the assumption: this is the "Rusalka".

Diving to the "Rusalka" in the Baltic Sea

“The ship stands almost vertically, like a thirty-meter house, with an unusually deep sharp nose sinking into the clay bottom. We examined the stern, port, starboard. Trying not to get lost in the multitude of trawls that wrapped around the Mermaid, they quietly moved along the battleship and were amazed at how perfectly preserved it was. Under the strong searchlights, the lead screws with a specific shape and curved blades shone brightly. We filmed everything we saw with an underwater camera: a clean and sturdy hull, portholes, skylights, ”say the divers.

Finnish divers at the Rusalka crash site

A few days later Vello Myass handed the collected materials and photographic documents to the Russian embassy in Estonia: “We did not get inside the ship,” he stressed. - The underwater grave remained intact. But the collected information is enough to make a final conclusion. All parameters, the length and width of the ship coincide, as well as the details seen indicate that a mistake is almost impossible. Finnish divers also helped us in identifying the Rusalka, who came to the same conclusion as we did. "Rusalka" managed to cover two-thirds of the way from Revel to Helsingfors when the tragedy struck, the underwater grave is located in the Finnish economic waters. The fate of the find will be decided by the Russian side, this is a warship, and its crew members served in the Imperial Navy (Finland at that time, like Estonia, was part of the Russian Empire). "

The search, which began in the fall of 1893, was completed only by September 2003. Exactly 110 years ... On the third day after the sinking of the "Mermaid", September 10, the supreme naval authorities of Russia became aware of her disappearance, after which the search began. Time was wasted. The first disappointing news came in a very unusual way - from land. The Chief of Police of Helsingfors reported to the Sveaborg port that a boat with the corpse of a sailor had been thrown ashore. Later, the rest of the boats from the Rusalka were found, empty and unused (judging by the fact that the oarlocks were not inserted), they were simply washed away by the wave during the crash. The death of a warship in peacetime plunged Russia into shock, and a wave of indignation swept across the country. The only discovered corpse, the wounded body of the sailor Ivan Prunsky - apparently the watchman who was upstairs at the time of the disaster - did nothing to clarify the cause of the accident.

Battleship "Mermaid" and its captain

A powerful newspaper campaign arose in Moscow and St. Petersburg, it was announced that donations were being collected to the families of the battleship's crew, and demands were made to find traces of the Rusalka. Until October 16, 37 days, fifteen different ships combed the last leg of the disappeared ship's route. The country still hoped that someone had survived. The content of many articles boiled down to the words: "The people must know the truth." As it later turned out, by the highest order, Alexander III had stated the loss of the battleship much earlier, and the crew of the "Rusalka" was deleted from the detachment's lists.

Only a sailor's cap with the inscription "Mermaid" was nailed to a small Finnish island, and a lot of life buoys. But Russia has not forgotten its sailors. At the beginning of the summer of 1894, under pressure from the public, the search was resumed, a commission was created, which considered many of the proposed projects and organized the work. Special groups explored the coast, the Ministry of the Navy gave instructions to begin active operations at sea. Journalists of that time were indignant at the fact that the course of the operation was kept secret, and assumed that the search was being carried out in a slipshod manner. Neither divers nor representatives of the Kronstadt aeronautical detachment, who tried to find the battleship from balloons towed by small ships, found nothing - and they were obliged to remain silent.

Part of the battleship crew

In his diaries at the beginning of the twentieth century, one of his contemporaries (a certain S.R. Mintslov) made an interesting entry. In our opinion, it deserves a literal quotation: “February 6. I talked with one of the sailors who took part in the search (and found) the battleship Rusalka, who had died from its own dilapidation several years ago. At that time, there were stories in the city that they did not raise her only because all the higher naval authorities would have to be brought to justice, before that the ship's hull was dilapidated and it was built so fraudulently. The sailor confirmed everything verbatim. For the same reason, "Gangut" also perished in due time. The sailor, this navigator of the merchant fleet, a man deserving unconditional trust, claims that the repairs of these ships, well known to him, were carried out on paper, but in reality they were only repainted on the outside. On the "Gangut" machines were always working, pumping out water that had seeped into all the grooves. In exactly the same state, they say, is all our other coastal defense, like the various "Admirals" and "Don't touch me." The last name is amusing: “Don't touch me, I’m going to fall apart,” - this is how the sailors alter it… ”It’s hard to say which is more here: outright“ revolutionary ”malice or untruth. This is a story from the same category as the assurances of some contemporary Russian "experts" that the armored monitor "Rusalka" was not consecrated when it was launched! Allegedly, the Orthodox clergy did not like the names "Rusalka" and "Enchantress" who were devilish. Lies! One grandmother, it turns out, said, and the Soviet historiography for a good seven decades in every way repeated the ideologically satisfying fairy tale. Yes. The "Mermaid" was old, but one should not exaggerate its dilapidation. An honest and principled officer of the Russian fleet (and that was V.H. Ienish, the last commander of the battleship) simply would not have allowed the "dilapidated" ship to go out on this autumn voyage.

However, let's get back to the search. In 1932, it was unexpectedly announced that the "Rusalka" was found by the Special Purpose Underwater Expedition (EPRON), which was "hunting" for the sunken Soviet submarine "number 9". However, the information was not confirmed by the documents of the expedition, and the crew of "Mare" this summer discovered the battleship about three miles from the place indicated by "Epron". Nevertheless, a lot was said about the find in the thirties. The writer Konstantin Paustovsky, having learned about this, included the story of the "Mermaid" in his famous story "The Black Sea" (according to the content, a diver of the Black Sea Fleet, who participated in the Baltic expedition, tells the author about the search) and put forward his version of what happened. Paustovsky worked on the work in 1935, and therefore made the main emphasis on showing the advantages of the Soviet fleet over the imperial one and, again, to stigmatize the shortcomings of tsarism. “The death of two hundred sailors was inseparable from a mediocre era,” he wrote. - Everything is mixed here - the cowardice and stupidity of the bosses, carelessness and stupid indifference to a living cause and people. The king listened to the report of the minister of the sea. On the report on the death of the "Mermaid", he, sweepingly and without hesitation, wrote in blue pencil: "I grieve for the dead."

The main witness and, at the same time, the accused in the case of the "Rusalka" was the thirty-nine-year-old captain of the second rank Nikolai Mikhailovich Lushkov.
“As we approached the Revelstein lighthouse, the wind and sea agitation intensified with every minute,” testifies the cavtorang. - The signal of return, which was to follow from the battleship "Rusalka", was awaiting, and the observers closely watched all her movements. Of course, it was difficult for the "Tucha" boat to go against the wind and waves, but before the lighthouse, if ordered, I could still try to do it. I passed the Revelstein lighthouse at about 11 hours, and seeing that the battleship "Rusalka" was far behind me, I ordered to reduce the speed, since due to the onset of cloudiness, the signals, if they were made at that time, could not be made out. At 12 o'clock, exactly at noon, it began to rain frequently but lightly. Immediately, darkness fell, which covered the battleship with a veil, and since then no one has seen it again. Left to myself, I thought no more of going back; with the intensified wind (8 points) and the excitement of the boat's car, the "Cloud" could not have raked out, and the boat was in danger of being flooded ... would fly into the abyss. In short, there was such a state of the sea in which not a single commander, even if a part of his team falls into the sea, would even think to save her, so as not to increase the number of those already killed. Feeling completely powerless under such conditions to be something useful for the battleship "Rusalka", I decided to give full speed to the car and paid all my attention solely to the preservation of the boat entrusted to me and one hundred people of the team. "

The prosecution did not agree with Lushkov's arguments, and Rear Admiral Skrydlov, who spoke at the trial, denounced him very harshly. If you carefully read the text of this speech, you can feel yourself in the role of an astute detective, capturing a number of indicative nuances of the admiral's philippics. Obviously trying to ascribe all the sins to the commander of the "Tucha", as the leadership of the fleet wanted, Skrydlov still cannot stifle the gaze of a realist sailor in himself, constantly "lowering" the height of the accusations: if only there was any hope of picking up the perished people from the water. But even if the "Tucha" did not have the opportunity to provide direct assistance, then Captain Lushkov, being present at her death, would have saved the fleet and the whole society from the feeling of uncertainty about the reasons for this terrible incident ... If Captain Lushkov had taken a different course, doubts would have been dispelled , they would give way to a feeling of regret for the victims of the inevitable disaster in the maritime service. Captain Lushkov would explain to us, if not the actual, then at least the possible reason for the death of the "Rusalka" and would indicate the place of her death. "

Starting with a statement that the Rusalka should have been rescued in any circumstances, Skrydlov ends by admitting that Lushkov, if he had stayed in place, would not even have been able to indicate the real reason for the death of the battleship. However, Lushkov was disgraced, the court concluded that he behaved extremely unworthy. Much was also said about the fact that on board the "Tucha" during the passage there was a young wife of a cavtorang, whom he risked taking with him. Allegedly, Lushkov feared most of all for her life, "fleeing" from an armadillo in distress. Nikolai Mikhailovich was dismissed from service - and never returned to it. In 1979, the author of one of the brochures I. Goldman wrote: “Some information ... was obtained from his (Lushkov's) daughter-in-law Vera Sergeevna Lushkova, who lived in Tallinn. The former commander of "Tucha" ... after being fired from the naval service, he first lived in the city of Nakhichevan, and later worked in Rostov-on-Don as the head of the river port. N. Lushkov died in the insane department of the Kronstadt military hospital ... ".

“Weighing all the circumstances, one can understand how limited the choice of weather for the departure of the Rusalka and Tucha was for me, when the Firstborn and the Kremlin were still hanging around my neck with their old boilers, with which, with their weak machines, I had to pump at sea for at least 25-30 hours, ”said Rear Admiral Burachek, who was later reprimanded.

The commission concluded that the ship had died in the storm, but expert opinions were largely divided. The shipbuilders were inclined to believe that everything happened because of the stoppage of the machine - the "Rusalka" could be turned sideways to the wind and turned over: the hull tilted on one side and scooped up a large mass of water with a low side, which then through the open hatches, as well as the gaps of the towers and smoke shells hit the living deck. At the same time, at the hearing, an act of a recent inspection of the ship was read out, which stated that "the drainage means on the battleship are in good order and more than sufficient to remove the water that was collected from leaks through the armor bolts, etc."

Rear Admiral Skrydlov believed that due to rudder damage, the Rusalka lost control, and assumed that the battleship ran into an underwater rock and received a hole. However, in order for the flat-bottomed Rusalka with its shallow draft to hit the stone, it had to be very noticeable - and, nevertheless, for some reason, overlooked in daylight. A number of assumptions by other members of the commission were based on the fact that the ship died as a result of a boiler explosion or an explosion in an artillery cellar. But documents were presented that, just before the voyage, Captain Ienish demanded to perform a number of additional work on the mechanisms, at the same time new boilers were installed on the ship.

Neither version was entirely satisfactory, and there were some mysterious circumstances. The hatch story, for example, is still a mystery. Judging by the fact that the "Rusalka" could not catch up with the "Cloud", she walked with closed hatches. This is also evidenced by the fact that the bodies of the crew members (except for the body of the watchman) were not found - as well as objects from the interior of the battleship. But Konstantin Paustovsky, for example, writes: "Due to the usual negligence in the tsarist fleet, the" Rusalka "forgot on the shore the wooden covers with which the entrance and skylights are battened down during a storm." By the way, further, contradicting himself, the famous writer explains: “The waves intensified, they began to spill over the bridge. Water has entered the pipes. There was not enough air in the sealed battleship, which was filling with water. The thrust has fallen ... ".

The commission named a combination of circumstances as the reason for the death of the battleship: an insufficiently correct assessment of weather conditions before going to sea; the late departure of the "Rusalka" from the port and, thirdly, the indecision of the cavtorang Ienish, who could turn back, seeing the signs of an impending storm. Thus, in the order approved by the emperor, the deceased Jenish became practically the main culprit of the tragedy. It is curious that none of those who knew the captain of the battleship mentions his "indecision", on the contrary, much is said about the fact that Viktor Khristianovich was an executive, firm and very skillful man in his business.

The find made by Vello Meass could put the final end to a confusing and extremely difficult investigation. An additional study of the ship's hull will probably help establish the reason for the tragedy and why none of the crew escaped. “We are guaranteed to have found the battleship. It is so unique that it cannot be confused with any other vessel, ”said Vello Myass, captain of the Estonian research vessel Mare. - The ship entered the clay soil almost vertically. It is in good condition, the hull has not broken, only one gun turret fell off when submerged in water ... "


Based on materials

"Who will find the Mermaid after all?" - thought the young sailor Vello Myass, stopping at the monument. And he dreamed that this "someone" would be he. Vello approached his goal slowly but surely: he worked as a captain for forty years, of which the last 20 - on a research vessel of the Estonian Maritime Museum. Over the years, an underwater archaeologist has discovered dozens of "lost" ships at the bottom of the Gulf of Finland. The main find was undoubtedly the "Rusalka".

... The battleship of the coast guard "Rusalka" left Revel (the name of Tallinn in the Russian Empire. - Ed.) On September 7, 1893 to make the transition to Helsingfors (Helsinki), and from there - to the base in Kronstadt. In Helsingfors, however, he did not appear. The search was undertaken by 15 warships, which for more than a month trawled (explored the bottom with the help of a cable) the bay. With the onset of frost and storm season, the search operation was suspended. Society was seething: the battleship disappeared in peacetime! Relatives and friends of the sailors were burdened by the unknown - the bodies of the dead (more than 170 people) also could not be found. The next year, an attempt was made to find traces of the "Mermaid" again. The ships sailed the bay for several months, the divers went under water more than a hundred times. Hundreds of letters came to the newspapers with ideas on how to find the ship. They used a balloon, trying to see the depths of the sea from the air. To no avail ... In Tallinn, funds were raised for the relatives of the missing sailors. The artist Aivazovsky painted a picture, the money from the sale of which went to the aid fund. Seven years after the tragedy, a fundraiser was announced for the monument. The erection of the monument took place with a huge crowd of citizens. They returned to the theme of "Mermaids" again in Soviet times. In 1932, the Special Purpose Underwater Expedition (EPRON) arrived in the Gulf of Finland. They were looking for a sunken Soviet submarine. They found it, took it upstairs. At the same time, the EPRON team announced that they had allegedly stumbled upon the Rusalka during the operation.

Mass grave

“Having started our search, we first visited the address indicated on the map

EPRON, - says Vello. “But they found nothing. Then I calculated, according to the available information, the speed in specific weather conditions, outlined a rectangle for searches. They began to work as a sonar. And 40 km from the coast, exactly halfway from Tallinn to Helsinki, they found what they were looking for. " When the divers descended to the bottom, an unusual picture appeared to their eyes. The ship was standing upright. Moreover, its position and shape resembled ... a monument erected to the "Mermaid" in Tallinn. “It was as if an unknown connection existed between the ship and the monument,” Vello says. - During a storm, the heavy battleship made a sharp U-turn, capsized and began to go under the water with its nose. At this time, the steam engines continued to work, and the ship, which had taken an upright position, rammed the bottom at full speed. "

Why at one time the searches were not crowned with success?

- At the end of the XIX century. divers could descend to a maximum depth of 50 m, but we found a ship at a depth of 74 m. In addition, the bottom of the Gulf of Finland is dotted with high granite rocks in places. Actually "Rusalka" stands vertically at the bottom between the rocks. This complicated the search.

The weather conditions are to blame for the death of the ship - a violent storm. There is also a personal factor. Why did the admiral give the order for the ship to go out to sea in such weather? Why did the battleship commander, already realizing that a storm was approaching, did not return to Revel, but continued on his way to Helsingfors? The Rusalka's design does not imply sailing in difficult weather conditions on the high seas. The freeboard is only 75 cm (!). A ship with such a design had no chance of surviving on the high seas in a 9-point storm. Moreover, the hatches on the deck were open. For some reason, the covers from them remained on the shore. Everything is woven into one knot.

So the end was put in the history of the search for the "Mermaid". However, there are still many other Russian and Soviet ships at the bottom of the bay: “Over the past few years, our group has discovered 45 sunken ships. All of them died at the same time - August 28-29, 1941. Then, perhaps, the most terrible tragedy took place in the waters of the Gulf of Finland, - says Vello. - German troops were on the outskirts of Tallinn. It was clear that the city would have to be surrendered. Then many Soviet ships (military, commercial, civil), anchored in the Tallinn port, weighed anchor and in four caravans headed to the ports of Kronstadt and Leningrad. During the passage, dozens of ships were blown up by mines and were simultaneously attacked by German aircraft from the air. In those days, almost 15 thousand (!) Soviet citizens went to the bottom in the Gulf of Finland ”.

Photo and scheme of the wreck from the archives of the Tallinn Maritime Museum

© Nikonov A.A.

The Mermaid has been found!

A.A. Nikonov,

Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences
Institute of Physics of the Earth named after O.Yu. Schmidt RAS
Moscow

In No. 4 of the magazine for 2004, an article by VO Chikin was published entitled “The Mystery of the Disappearance of the Mermaid”. The article recalls the tragic event in the Baltic Sea, when 111 years ago, in peacetime, one of the Russian warships, the battleship Rusalka, unexpectedly disappeared with the entire crew. And his fate is allegedly still unknown. However, the "Mermaid" has been found. In 2003, on September 12, 1893, in the supplement to the newspaper "Kronstadt Bulletin" the following was reported:

“On September 10, the main naval headquarters received a report from the commander of the Sveaborg port that various ship accessories had been nailed to the islands of Sandhamnu, Kemare and others near Helsingfors.<…>coast guard battleship« Mermaid» ... An immediate expulsion order was issued for a search« Mermaids» from Kronstadt cruiser« Cruiser» <…>The search continues. On the« Mermaid» there were 12 officers shown in the attached list and 166 lower ranks. "

What happened to the battle battleship, in essence, remained unknown.

In Soviet times, the "Rusalka" was practically not remembered. Unless the sightseers, when inspecting the Rusalka monument on the shores of the Tallinn Bay, were mentioned about the death of 178 Russian sailors along with the ship. But few people knew what was behind the inscription carved on the granite blocks. “To the Heroes of the Martyrs - Remembering Russia”.

In the 30s of the XX century. in the USSR in a special collection EPRON (expedition of underwater work of special purpose), the editorial board commented on the article “The death of the“ Mermaid ”and its search”:

“The circumstances of the death are hidden from wide circles of that time[time of death - A.N. ],and the reasons for the death have not been solved. Only now, after the discovery, the situation and the reasons for the death are largely explained and can be published. "

This was echoed by the author of the article himself:

"The royal vice for the press did not give the last opportunity to widely cover the sea disasters that took place." .

The implication was that in a free proletarian state, the circumstances and reasons would be widely publicized. Sly! At that moment, there was already a complete ban on the publication of any information about disasters, even non-military ones *.

* You can judge how true this statement of the author of the article is by looking through the table of contents of the "Morskoy Sbornik" magazine for the 20s and 30s of the twentieth century - V.V.

What actually turned out then in the case of "Mermaid"? And what could the general public learn from the "tsarist" press on the fresh tracks? Much.

Russia began building the armored fleet in the 1860s. The "Rusalka" itself was launched from the St. Petersburg shipyard in 1866. The technical and military characteristics of the ship are known. Length 63 m, displacement about 2 thousand tons, speed - up to 9 knots, deepening - 3.2 m, freeboard - 0.76 m. The ship had two vehicles and, accordingly, two lead screws. This is important to note, since in the reputable publications of recent years there is a statement that the ship had only one propeller.

Soon, in 1869, the battleship landed on the rocks in the Finnish skerries and received a strong leak. He was transferred to the coastal defense detachment, since the "Monitor" type design was unsuitable for sailing in stormy weather.

After the death of the battleship, 15 ships were sent to search for it, but it was not possible to find the "Rusalka", even the place of the accident. Of the 178 crew members, only the body of a sailor was found, squeezed under the deck of a boat, nailed by waves to one of the islands. Searches were carried out at the bottom of the Gulf of Finland for a month, until frosts and storms began. There was no result. The same happened in the summer of the following year, 1894, despite the efforts of the crews of several ships with trawls (surveyed 30 square miles), a search group from a balloon (150 miles) and a team of divers (156 launches). Divers at that time could not work at a depth of more than 50 m, and from a balloon, visibility in the water did not exceed 3-6 m. In the end, they were inclined to believe that “It is extremely difficult to find this battleship at sea, just as it is difficult to find a needle in a large room or the head of a pin lost somewhere on the road. It is unthinkable to find the "mermaid" if supernatural happiness does not come to the rescue. "

Naturally, upon the sinking of the ship, the investigative commission immediately began to work with the entire crew. Her work continued for several months. Then “The Sovereign Emperor on the day of December 13 He deigned to command<…>to carry out a court in the present case ”.

The report of the commission and the trial with a total volume of 120 pages with a detailed publication of surveys, examinations, consideration of materials and conclusions became public by the middle of 1894. officials.

The ship's ability to sail and real driving performance were confirmed by the conclusion of the naval engineers of Kronstadt at the beginning of navigation in 1893. The equipment was in good order. The upper deck was leaking heavily, but not dangerous. The ship was serviceable for another 9-17 years. Only one detail came to light: the storm deck hatch covers were left in Kronstadt. "Mermaid" regularly served in the summer of 1893 in Revel (Tallinn), conducted routine shooting exercises and in the fall was supposed to go to the place of winter deployment near Vyborg.

The Commission of Inquiry completely ruled out the version of the explosion on the ship and admitted that the tragedy had occurred. "From external causes."

How did the society of that time react to the death of the sailors? For several months, materials about “Rusalka” and its victims did not leave the pages of newspapers. An obituary with information about the victims has been published. An initiative has been put forward to prepare a brochure with portraits of officers and lower ranks in order to send the proceeds to their families.

The government ordered that widows and children be given a full pension for the first category of the wounded. The monthly pension for the widows of officers was set at 500 rubles, for sailors - 60 rubles, for orphans at 150 and 40 rubles. respectively. Voluntary donations (considerable!) Went separately under the supervision of a special committee.

On October 4, 1893, a solemn memorial service was served in Revel. In November, the editorial board of the St. Petersburg newspaper Novoye Vremya raised the issue of continuing the search, with the newspaper's funds employees searched over 400 miles of the coastline from steamers and more than 200 miles on foot, interviewed about 100 coastal residents. An additional 30 wreckage and items from the ship were found. The official search continued throughout the next summer. There was no result. And that was the end of it.

On the ninth anniversary of the death, a monument was unveiled in Revel. With a guard of honor, in the presence of the governor, the highest ranks of the fleet, the public of the city. The monument is still revered by Tallinn residents.

The idea of ​​looking for the "Rusalka" originated in independent Estonia. One man's experience, enthusiasm and tenacity were crucial. Being a captain by profession and a marine archaeologist by vocation, a seeker by nature and experience of the last quarter of a century, Vello Myass, an employee of the Maritime Museum in Tallinn, became interested in the Mermaid. (The author of this publication has been personally acquainted with Vello Myass since 2001 and therefore has first-hand information about the find.)

Neither the country's government, nor the Tallinn Maritime Museum, modest in terms of financial capabilities, were able to provide the expedition. But the museum owned a research vessel, and that was decisive. The preparation went on for several years. It was necessary to study the materials, obtain the consent of the Finnish authorities, and ensure the possibility of carrying out diving operations. It was not possible to buy modern instruments and equipment for navigation and underwater searches; a lot had to be made with improvised means.

The question of where to look was not at first raised. On its first “mermaid” voyage, the research vessel “Mare” sailed in June 2003 to the point designated in EPRON publications as the place of the sinking (finding) of the “Rusalka”. It is immediately south of the border of the rectangle surveyed in 1893-1894. The search yielded no results, and the ship returned to port. It was necessary to act differently. Presenting himself as the commander of the "Rusalka", as an experienced navigator, Myass plotted the ship's course on the map and, having calculated the speed under specific weather conditions from the available information, outlined a rectangle for searches much further south of the previous one.

We set off on a new voyage in the second half of July. On the 22nd, 65 minutes after the start of the side-scan sonar, the device found the hull at the bottom. The depth was 74 m. The find was 3 miles south of the one indicated in the EPRON materials. Divers began diving. Only an external examination was carried out. The main thing was to make sure that the ship was exactly the "Mermaid". The researchers did not consider it possible to get inside, so as not to disturb the ashes of the sailors in the underwater mass grave. But the external survey turned out to be a very difficult task: the hull of the ship was entangled with a fishing trawl caught and wrapped around it.

The survey, of course, was accompanied by video filming under the light of a powerful (homemade!) Emitter. The first thing divers stumbled upon were the ship's bronze propellers. By type - exactly the same as were on the "Mermaid". On the characteristic details of the hull, known in advance, doubts were removed: it was the "Rusalka" that was found. On July 25, 2003, the first report about the find appeared in the Estonian press. In August, there were several TV reports with documentary videos on Estonian and Russian television, interviews with the discoverer, and there were also newspaper publications.

In what form was the ship discovered and what new can be said about the cause of the ship's death?

Firstly, and most importantly, the vessel did not lie on the bottom, as indicated in the publications of EPRON employees, but its hull was sticking out from the bottom in a close to vertical position, stern upwards. It entered the silt with its nose so that only half of the hull protruded above the bottom. This monument on the common grave of 177 sailors is twice as high as the monument that was erected in 1902 on the embankment of Tallinn.

The second, most important and unexpected discovery - the position of the hull is such that the direction of travel should be taken not towards Helsinki, but towards Tallinn. Third, there was no round gun turret in the stern, and the deck hatches were open.

And further. The rudder blade was turned so that it indicated a right turn maneuver at the time of death.

All this makes it possible to clarify the circumstances of the death of the ship.

In the afternoon of September 7, when the wind began to intensify and water entered the ship through the upper deck, the captain of the ship did not turn back to Revel, although it was closer to him than to the Finnish skerries, but continued to follow the set course. The progress was slowed down, the ship was prowling, the waves rolled over the deck. This went on for an hour or two. The commander with the officer of the watch most likely remained in the wheelhouse on the upper deck. Finally, the situation became so threatening that Captain V.H. Jenish decided to turn back. The entire crew was on the lower deck, apparently, except for a few people (the corpse of one of them, accidentally squeezed into the boat, and thrown ashore), but they were not preparing for rescue on boats. This means that the wave allowed, in the commander's opinion, to make a maneuver. The maneuver, apparently, went well, but immediately after that the ship was covered by a particularly strong wave or a train of waves, a large mass of water instantly fell through the open hatches (the covers from them remained in the warehouse in Kronstadt!) Into the bow of the ship, which instantly sank. It was the end. No one had time to figure out and do anything, especially inside the ship. By inertia, he dived into the depths, hit the bottom with his nose, penetrated like a torpedo into the silt and threw himself astern ...

The Mermaid is at the bottom. Nose down, half bogged down in the mud. Like a monument. The ship was found by Estonians in Finnish-controlled waters. It belongs to Russia. The Estonians did not consider it possible to get inside the vessel they discovered and touch anything there. Captain Myass is convinced that the ashes of the dead sailors should not be disturbed. The Finns will not do this either.

The Tallinn Maritime Museum immediately officially notified the Russian embassy of the find and, at the latter's request, handed over all the materials received, including underwater photography. Naturally, all this came to the disposal of the country's naval department. Until now, they have not received a response in Estonia.

It would seem that all of the above is of no direct professional interest for the readers of Priroda. In fact, it is not so.

The element, of course, played its role in the death of the "Mermaid". After all, there was a storm. But if captain Jenish decided on a turning maneuver, already approaching the Finnish coast, it means that the height of the waves was not critical for the ship. Something extraordinary was about to happen. What? It was impossible to answer this question for 110 years. In the 111th year, you can try.

In April 2004, in the "Reports of the Academy of Sciences," an article was published by a team of oceanographers-hydrophysicists, considering the cases of anomalously high waves at sea. It turns out that there are such, although rarely. “Killer waves” appear suddenly, exceed the height of the average wave by several times, have a single character and take only a few seconds in time. These are phenomena of the soliton type. The mechanism of their occurrence has not yet been fully determined. Isn't this the “mystery of the disappearance of the Mermaid”?

Literature

1. L.V. Larionov// EPRON. L., 1934.

2. Chiker N.P. Special purpose service. Chronicle of heroic deeds. M., 1975.

3. Nikonov A.A., Myass V.// Miracles and Adventures. 2004. No. 1. S.34-37.

4. A.A. Nikonov/ Moscow news. 2003. No. 37. P.22.

6. Divinsky B.V., Levin B.F., Lopatukhin L.I. and etc./ DAN. 2004. Vol. 395. No. 5. S.690-695.

7. Hopkin M. Nature. 2004. V.430. P.492.

The story of the death of the Russian coastal defense battleship "Rusalka" I have known since childhood from my father's stories and old photographs of our family. One of them, I remember, hung on the wall for a long time in our house. From an oval frame, arms crossed over his chest, a naval general with a Vladimir cross on a tie was staring directly at me. This was my grandfather Pavel Ivanovich Rykov. At the time when this sad story with the "Rusalka" happened, my grandfather was a senior assistant to the commander of the Revel port and director of the lighthouses and sailing directions of the Baltic Sea. So he had a lot to do with the event I'm going to tell you about.

September 7, 1893. Revel port. The warships, having finished the examination firing, dispersed to their bases. This usually happened from year to year. The usual passage to Kronstadt of two Russian ships that had fired off: the battleship "Rusalka" and the gunboat "Tucha" promised to be unremarkable.

But the scheduled departure of the ships at 7.30 was delayed for an unusually long time. Couples were still not ready at Tucha. And on the "Mermaid" the commander, captain of the 2nd rank Ienish, arrived almost an hour late. Captain Jenish was known in the navy as an executive officer, some even considered him pedantic. That is why his lateness embarrassed everyone a lot.

Climbing on deck, the captain immediately went to the navigator's room. He did not leave there even when the flagship Pervenets passed by, did not honor the admiral's flag, although the officers and crew were lined up on the upper deck. The senior officer, Captain 2nd Rank Protopopov, was in charge of everything.

The captain's strange behavior was noticed. But it was not alarming: the commander has often been gloomy lately, complaining of severe headaches. This was recalled after the disaster ... So on the eve of sailing, referring to ill health, he did not come to the detachment commander for an order. The instruction and all orders for the transition were given to Jenish by the commander of the "Tucha" Captain 2nd Rank Lushkov at his apartment. Lushkov was also embarrassed by the unhealthy look of the captain. But Ienish categorically rejected the proposal to appoint a senior officer as a temporary commander. I decided to command myself.

The ships were instructed: given the instability of the weather at this autumn time, to shorten the way by the open sea, to go first to Helsingfors. And from there by skerries to Biorke and further to Kronstadt. Only fifty miles by sea. They were ordered to go together, that is, without losing sight of each other. The commander of the "Rusalka" was appointed senior of the detachment.

At 8.30 everything was finally ready. And at the signal from the flagship, the small caravan withdrew from the Revel raid in a three-point south wind. The first to take off the anchor was "Cloud". "Mermaid", which had the advantage of speed, expected to quickly catch up with the gunboat and, by agreement, the second was removed. And the wind was getting stronger. By nine o'clock, great excitement had already begun. The battleship, digging deeper and deeper into the wave, could not catch up with the boat. He fell more and more behind. The distance between the ships increased. The hurricane, meanwhile, reached nine points. By 12 o'clock, along the aisle of the Revelstein lighthouse, the "Rusalka" disappeared from the sight of the "Clouds" in the sudden darkness.

Here the captain of "Clouds" Lushkov would have to wait a little. Wait. After all, the battleship had just disappeared. Could appear again. Maybe even dare to turn around? Should I go to meet my comrades? It was clear that it was not easy for them. Huge waves crash into the stern of the battleship, hissing, rolling along the upper deck, washing away everything in their path. Roaring streams rush in through the gaps around the towers, through rope haws and hatches, threatening to flood the furnaces ... All communications of the upper deck with the living quarters, apparently, are battened down, except for two hatches on the bridge. In the lower decks, despite the ventilation, there is no air. Stuffiness. Darkness. There is no draft in the furnaces. The pumps do not have time to pump out all the incoming water ... In such conditions, the battleship makes no more than six knots.

All this could have been assumed, Captain Lushkov should have known. It was on this occasion that a written order was given to go "connected".

But ... the commander of the Tucha did not slow down the boat. I did not wait for the signal or navigation lights of the "Rusalka" to flash again in the darkness. He continued sailing at full speed. And on the same day, September 7, at 15 o'clock, I arrived safely in Helsingfors. One.

Here Lushkov would immediately sound the alarm, report that earlier than a third of the way, during a storm, the ships parted, lost sight of each other.

No. Even in his telegram to Revel about his arrival in Helsingfors, he did not say a word about the "Mermaid" ... Lushkov did not appear with a report, as prescribed by the naval regulations, to the commander of the Sveaborg port.

After waiting for the battleship for more than a day, early in the morning of the 9th, "Tucha" left for Biorke. One.

The first alarming news about the Rusalka arrived at the Sveaborg port late on September 9th. The Chief of Police of Helsingfors reported that a boat was thrown onto one of the islands of Cremare, apparently from a warship, with the corpse of a sailor. Then the sailor was identified by his tattoo. Soon, reports began to arrive from various places that the sea was throwing broken boats and other items belonging to the Rusalka onto the coastal islands.

They immediately began the search. They were attended by boats and steamers, cruisers and schooners, transports and longboats. There are 15 vessels in total. Even the yacht of the Imperial Yacht Club "Roxana" offered its services. Searches, in accordance with the direction and strength of the winds, as well as with the course that the "Rusalka" was going, were conducted continuously for more than a month. And only on October 16, due to the onset of frost and fresh winds, were they interrupted. The next spring, 1894, the shores were explored, trawls and measurements were made, divers examined banks and shoals. We tried to inspect the sea from a balloon. They even used the so-called McAvoy apparatus, the prototype of the current metal detector. But, apart from the wreckage and four boats, including the first one with the corpse of a sailor, nothing was found.

This sailor, as it turned out, by the name of Prunsky, was on the "Rusalka" on schedule at the rescue line. An autopsy on September 11 showed that death had occurred about three days ago. 4-5 hours after eating. And it came not from water, but from severe bruises on the head, neck and chest. And, apparently, already in an unconscious state, the sailor choked, squeezed in, literally driven under the boat's stern bank. What was it? A confluence of tragic accidents? An ordinary fight? Or, perhaps, retribution for cowardice?

Then there was a thorough investigation. There was a trial. The commission of inquiry unquestionably established that neither the explosion of the boilers, nor the damage to the hull could have been the cause of the death of the "Rusalka". This was evidenced at least by the fact that all the objects discovered belonged only to the upper deck. By the nature of the damage, it was clear that they were broken and washed away by the waves.

The only reason for the death of the battleship, according to the commission, is the loss of control. Most likely - because of flooded fireboxes, because of a strong deck leak.

The commission found that the battleship, which was in a helpless state, was increasingly flooded with water. The pumps didn't help. It was impossible to remain on the upper deck without the clear risk of being washed overboard or killed by debris. All the people were below. The absence of corpses was explained by the same. The unfortunates had only one hope - before sinking, the ship would drift to some shore. Attempts to rescue consisted only in the fact that, foreseeing the loss of control, the commander ordered to chop off the boat lashings and lay the lifting hoists in place. This explained the fact that the boats could be washed ashore. Even the commander and other officers on the bridge, the commission concluded, should have taken refuge in the living deck.

No! - Prosecutor Rear Admiral Skrydlov resolutely rebelled at the trial against this conclusion of the commission. - As a Russian man and as a Russian admiral I cannot even admit such a thought. Is it possible to assume that the commander, seeing his powerlessness to resist the destructive action of the waves, ordered the lower ranks to go down? Then he gave the same order to the chief of watch? And after them he went down the steep ladder himself? To the team? To those people who saw in him their only savior ?! No. I imagine it this way: realizing how useless the risk of people in this situation, the commander ordered them to go down. But I am firmly convinced that he had previously ordered that he and the officer of the watch be firmly tied to something on the upper deck. And in this position he died. By agreeing with this, gentlemen judges, you will drop the grave accusation from those killed on the Rusalka.

As for the place where the battleship was killed, the commission concluded that the Rusalka had died at about 4 pm on September 7, somewhat southwest of the Eransgrund lighthouse.

It is noteworthy that it is here, almost forty years later, that the EPRON (Special Purpose Underwater Expedition) divers will find the battleship. It still lies there upwards with screws at a depth of 90 meters.

But the main goal of both the commission and the court was the desire to establish whether the commander of the Tucha had reason to believe that the Rusalka was in distress? Didn't Lushkov violate the holy law of the maritime brotherhood?

Yes, captain Jenish, as a senior, did not give a signal to "Tucha" to slow down. But the order - to march together - both captains knew. And this means constantly being ready to help each other. It is possible that, fearing for the Tucha, Ienish did not give such a signal so as not to hamper the Tucha's maneuvers. And so he helped a friend to overcome the storm. And what about Lushkov?

When he ordered the vehicles to slow down from 130 to 100 revolutions, and when the boat began to scour the boat, receiving several strong blows to the stern, Lushkov was frightened. He decided not to wait for the Mermaid, but to take all measures to save only his ship.

And the order? And the comrades? And the voice of conscience? Lushkov tried to drown out this voice by arguing that the Tucha is half the size of the Rusalka and with all its machines, eight cannons, a full load, despite its 23,000 poods, it could easily fit on the deck of the Mermaid without prejudice to her buoyancy. That in the pitch darkness the boat is powerless to help the battleship even in the event of a disaster. And in general - why did the authorities send such a baby to escort such a giant! At the same time, Lushkov tried in every possible way to forget that the small "Tucha" had brought this giant "Rusalka" in tow from Kronstadt to Revel just in the spring when the car was damaged on it; that "Tucha" could take on board the entire crew of the "Rusalka" - all of its 12 officers and 165 "lower ranks".

Such reasoning, - said Rear Admiral Skrydlov, - in wartime, can lead to the fact that the ship's commander will not give aid to a comrade who is defeated by a stronger enemy, just because he is weaker.

Did the strange behavior of the Mermaid's captain before the departure play any role? This investigation did not establish ...

By the decision of the Special Presence of the Naval Court of the Kronstadt Port for “illegal inaction of the authorities”, 2nd rank captain Nikolai Mikhailovich Lushkov, 39 years old, was “removed from office with the loss of rights acquired by the service”, and without the right to apply again for three years for service. The rank, orders and other insignia were preserved for him.

In 1902, in Reval, that is Tallinn, in the Kadriorg seaside park, a monument to the Mermaid was unveiled. My grandfather never had to see him. The stone is inscribed: "The Russians do not forget their heroic martyrs."

The battleship "Rusalka" is an armored ship of the coastal defense of the Russian Imperial Navy, which sank on September 6, 1893 off the coast of Finland.
History: Launched on August 31, 1867.

In the fleet since 1868.
The death of the "Mermaid": At 0830 hours on September 6, 1893, the battleship "Rusalka" under the command of Captain 2nd Rank V. Ienish left the harbor of Reval, having an order to follow to Helsingfors together with the gunboat "Tucha".

On the way, due to a nine-point storm and fog, the ships lost each other. At 15:00 on September 6, 1893, only the "Tucha" arrived at its destination with a significant delay.
The first information about the "Rusalka" was received in the Sveaborg port late in the evening on September 9 from the Helsingfors police chief, who reported the discovery of a boat with a sailor's corpse on one of the Cremare islands, and several broken boats and wooden debris on Sandhamn Island, as well as other items with battleship "Mermaid".

The search for the ship and the crew, in which 15 ships participated, lasted 37 days (until October 16, 1893) and were suspended due to the onset of frost and winter storms. None of the officers and sailors was rescued, and the place of the battleship's death was not found.
In June - August 1894, attempts were made to search for the sunken battleship "Rusalka" using air balloons towed by a self-propelled vessel with observers, but they did not give a positive result, and on August 15, 1894 the search was officially terminated.

On September 7, 1902, on the ninth anniversary of the sinking of the ship, in Reval, architect Amandus Adamson erected a monument to the "Mermaid" - a monument in the form of a bronze angel standing on a granite pedestal with the inscription: "Russians do not forget their heroes of martyrs."

The place of death of the battleship "Rusalka" was discovered by Estonian researchers in 2003. Estonian documentary filmmakers have shot the film "The Mystery of the Mermaid".

The writer KG Paustovsky, who communicated with the divers who participated in the search for the sunken monitor, on the pages of the book "The Black Sea" (the story "Peas in the hold"), put forward his version of the disaster. Fragments from the book by K. G. Paustovsky "Black Sea"

“In autumn, short storms often pass over the Gulf of Finland. They start at noon and rage until the evening. The Mermaid had to leave at dawn in order to slip into Helsingfors before noon. But the admiral ordered to leave at nine o'clock in the morning, and the battleship did not dare to disobey.

Due to the usual negligence in the tsarist navy, the Rusalka forgot on the shore the wooden covers, which are used to batten down the entrance and skylights during a storm. "..." At ten o'clock in the morning, a storm broke with a force of nine points. The mermaid began to flood. "

“When the storm started, the whole team hid inside the battleship. Huge waves beat at the stern of the ship and flew over the low deck, breaking superstructures. They poured into open hatches and openings. There was no need to think about going out on deck - it all disappeared under the raging waves.

Remaining on the upper bridge, the commander and the helm were firmly tied to the handrails with ropes. The waves were getting stronger. They began to dash across the bridge. Water got into the pipes.
There was not enough air in the sealed battleship, which was filling with water. The draft in the pipes fell, and the car began to give up. This led to the fact that the waves overtook the ship and destroyed everything that was on the deck. The battleship was taking more and more water. Finally, water flooded the firebox, and the car stopped.
Then the "Mermaid" turned sideways to the wave, overturned, and the battleship went to the bottom. Not a single person came out because the people were either tied to the handrails or corked up in the steel box of the battleship. "