Does Russia need a base on the "island of bliss"?
Arguments about Moscow’s plans to acquire naval bases outside the country have been replenished with one more - today we are allegedly showing interest not only in the Syrian port of Tartus, but also in the Yemen island of Socotra. In Russia, about Socotra has only recently been discovered as an ecotourism pilgrimage site. But in Soviet times, the island was well known primarily to our military (and the author of these lines among them). The name of the island is often flashed in the Western press, when there was a fuss about the "Soviet military presence" in the region of the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa.
Many people today – both abroad and here – are sure that there was an important Soviet base here! Just as there was a Soviet base in Berbera, on the northern coast of Somalia. Having abandoned Berbera in 1977, the USSR lost the large port it had equipped – a place for the entry and mooring of warships, an important communications hub (it was successfully transferred to the outskirts of Aden, in what was then South Yemen), a tracking station, a storage facility for tactical missiles, as well as a large fuel storage facility and living quarters for one and a half thousand people.
However, the Soviet warships even before the break in 1977 of our relations with Somalia preferred not to go to the Berber port, but to anchor northeast of the coast of the Yemeni island of Socotra in the same Gulf of Aden. At the same time on Socotra there was not only a port, but even berths. There were no storages and onshore facilities, there were no Soviet airfields or communication centers and nothing else at all. And yet, in February 1976, American intelligence noted: “Although Soviet warships, submarines and airplanes may stop at Berbera, we don’t see them there in large numbers. Soviet ships are mostly anchored near Socotra Island at the entrance to the Gulf of Aden , and, apparently, this practice will continue. " This, indeed, continued even after the relations between Somalia and the USSR were broken off in November 1977, and the Soviet base in Berbera ceased to exist.
It is believed that the name of the island of Socotra comes from the phrase "island of bliss" in the ancient Indian language Sanskrit. In the history of Socotra, if you believe medieval Arabic sources, there was only one successful attempt to arrange a “base” on the island: Alexander the Great moved some of the inhabitants here from the Greek city of Stagir, destroyed by his father. The great Aristotle advised his pupil to organize the preparation of the world's best aloe in Socotra. The Arabs believed that the descendants of those ancient Greeks accepted Christianity when Apostle Thomas visited Socotra in 52 AD. According to legend, he was shipwrecked off the coast of the island on the way to India and preached to the locals. As a result, the island for a long time, apparently until the end of the XVI - beginning of the XVII century, was the southernmost outpost of Christianity. Then the entire population converted to Islam.
Under the pretext of protecting Christians from the Moors, Socotra was captured by the Portuguese in 1507. But four years later they abandoned the island, where there was not a single deep-sea harbor, not a single city. And nothing that could be turned into gold. The British appeared at Socotra at the very beginning of the XVII century in connection with the creation of the East India Company. Judging by the surviving logbooks, their ships were in the bays of Haulaf and Dilishia, where the ships of the Eighth Soviet Pacific Pacific Operational Squadron would then be on the roadstead fleet.
The profession of Arabic military translator provided the author the opportunity to repeatedly visit and work on Socotra in 1976-1980. Then the large landing ships of the Soviet squadron helped the leadership of South Yemen to deliver to the island, cut off from all the benefits of civilization, national economic cargo. In December 1977, a South Yemen mechanized brigade was deployed in full to Socotra. Its transportation (I also happened to participate in it) was carried out by the Soviet large landing ship.
Was delivered to Socotra and company tanks T-34 from the brigade: even at that time old tanks were supposed to be installed in trenches on the coast in important directions. So today's tourists are mistaken in accepting military vehicles that suddenly appeared on the coast and participated in the Great Patriotic War and were delivered to the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen in the early 1970s for the traces of the “Soviet military base” being here.
In subsequent years, the situation around Socotra has not changed. True, an attempt was made to build a maneuverable base for the Yemen fleet in Howlaf Bay, but it did not advance further than the project and hydrological surveys: if construction began, machinery, equipment, building materials and almost all the staff would have to be transported from the Soviet Union. And build with your own money too.
In May, the unique Soviet-South Yemeni joint exercises (the unification of South and North Yemen took place in May 1980) were held on Socotra in May with the landing of amphibious assault forces on the northern coast. According to legend, the naval landing from the ships was supposed to "liberate" the island from the "enemy" that had captured it. The Yemeni garrison of Socotra (including two Soviet specialists and an interpreter) and the local militia, on the contrary, were to defend the coast of the island from the "enemy landing".
I happened to observe the landing of our troops from the shore, from the command point of the defenders. The picture was impressive, the tactics of the actions of the ships and the landing waves afloat were impeccable. And what is surprising: the whole horizon was simply filled with nothing whence came from tankers and merchant ships of foreign countries, as if according to the tickets purchased in advance!
Socotra and lucky, and no luck at the same time. This completely unique fragment of the ancient continent of Gondwana has preserved for humanity more than 800 thousands of relic plants, about two hundred species of birds. More than 700 fish species, three hundred species of crabs, lobster and shrimp inhabit the coastal waters. In coastal waters there are more than two and a half hundred reef-forming corals. In July 2008, the UNESCO World Heritage Committee entered the Socotra Archipelago (Socotra Island and all the Yemeni Islands adjacent to it, two of which are also inhabited) on the UNESCO World Heritage List. This further enhances the attention of the Yemeni leadership to preserving the ecology of the archipelago and maintaining the now recognized and important status of prestige, which is designed to provide substantial foreign aid.
Another thing is that Yemen, as before, is interested in strengthening its sovereignty over the remote archipelago. Especially now, when the activity of sea pirates from neighboring Somalia, torn by civil war, so sharply increased near Socotra. To combat them, warships of the USA, France, Great Britain, Spain, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, and even India and Malaysia are already concentrated in the Gulf of Aden. At the end of October, the Russian “Fearless” patrol ship, replenishing water and food in the Yemeni port of Aden, also went to the coast of Somalia to ensure the safety of Russian shipping.
In this situation, the traditional anchorage near Socotra, memorable since Soviet times, can be useful for Russian ships. On the one hand, it would scare the sea terrorists, behind which may be al-Qaeda, and on the other, the demonstration of the Russian flag would balance a powerful western presence in these waters. But the “Soviet military base” - neither naval nor air force or missile, whatever they may say, was on the island of Socotra. Yes, and could not be.
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