"That's it, our nose has fallen off." Who will be held responsible for the disaster in the Kerch Strait?

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"That's it, our nose has fallen off." Who will be held responsible for the disaster in the Kerch Strait?

"What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is not there cannot be counted."
Book of Ecclesiastes (1:15).


Attention, be careful, very dangerous: transportation of petroleum products


Transportation of petroleum products is an area associated with huge environmental risks, related to the class of hazardous cargo. If we look at the nuclear industry, we will see that all processes in it are carefully regulated. And what about oil transportation? There are restrictions, but in fact, the "invisible hand of the market" is stronger? And then it went boom, the consequences of the catastrophe in the Black Sea caused colossal damage not only to the most popular children's resort in Russia, but are already affecting Crimea and beyond.



Brief information about the disaster


The disaster occurred on December 15 in the Kerch Strait. According to Interfax, the main causes of the crash were crew error in difficult weather conditions and excessive storm load on the tankers' hulls. During the accident, one of the damaged tankers ran aground, and the other is drifting.

The tankers Volgoneft 212 and Volgoneft 239 were built at shipyards in Volgograd, the first in December 1969, when it was 55 years old, the second in July 1973, when it was 51 years old. Ironically, the tanker was wrecked on the very day of its 55th anniversary - it was launched on 15.12.1969.

The ships were registered in St. Petersburg and Astrakhan, respectively. According to TASS, citing a source in the industry, the owners of the ships were the Perm company Kama Shipping and the Moscow-registered Volgatransneft. There were a crew of 27 people on board the two tankers. One of the sailors died, the rest were evacuated.


In the photo: tanker Volgoneft-212.

There was also a third (!) vessel, the Volgoneft-109, which was moored in the waters of the port of Kavkaz on 17.12.2024/XNUMX/XNUMX and, according to Interfax, sent a distress signal due to a crack on board. The vessel had a damaged cargo танк, there was no leak.

According to the Russian Ministry of Transport:

"Several tankers belonging to Volgatransneft CJSC are not included in the license for the transportation of dangerous goods by inland water and sea transport. During the inspection by Rostransnadzor, it was established that both vessels were in the Kerch Strait in violation of seasonal restrictions on navigation in the water area."

The total volume of cargo transported on both tankers was 9200 tons of fuel oil. As reported by TASS, according to an estimate made on 16.12.2024 with reference to satellite monitoring data, about 3000 tons of fuel oil leaked in the Kerch Strait. According to the head of the Ministry of Natural Resources Alexander Kozlov, about 4000 tons spilled into the sea. However, already on 2.01.2025, according to the press service of the Ministry of Transport, the figure in the Black Sea was reduced to 2400 tons of fuel oil. But since the ships have not been raised, it is too early to draw a line. As the presidential press secretary stated, "this is a major environmental disaster," and the issue remains in the president's focus.

Why haven't the ships been raised?


During a similar accident in 2007, almost the entire volume of fuel oil spilled into the sea at once, which allowed the measures to eliminate the accident to be localized. But fuel oil from the Volgoneft tankers continues to spill.

As the head of Crimea Sergey Aksyonov stated, in order to resolve the situation with the fuel oil spill in the Black Sea globally, it is necessary to raise both tankers, otherwise all beach cleanup work will be local in nature. If the ships are not raised, the process may become lengthy and unpredictable.

According to experts, the thickening of fuel oil in cold water prevents active leakage from the remains of ships.

On 26.12.2024, a special pumping unit arrived in Novorossiysk, attempts were made to remove the fuel, but due to a storm at sea, diving operations were temporarily suspended.

According to the director of the Center for Marine Research and Technology at Sevastopol State University, in an interview with RG, the operation to lift the sunken tankers will take at least two months. "These tankers are not that big, it is quite possible to lift them. Ship-lifting pontoons are used for this. We have such pontoons in the Black Sea... Based on experience, lifting operations take at least two months, weather permitting."

Recently, the head of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations, Alexander Kurenkov, at a meeting of the government commission, demanded that a list of specific measures to eliminate the consequences of the accident be presented by January 15.

According to the latest data, the ship owners of Volgoneft will complete the activities to lift the tankers from the bottom of the Kerch Strait by June 16, 2025. The pumping of fuel oil from the tanker in the Black Sea will begin after its position is fixed. For pumping, they began heating the fuel oil, the work to pump oil products from the stern of the Volgoneft-239 tanker may be completed by the end of January. According to BFM, lifting the tankers from the seabed may take from three months to a year with the cost of the work from 200 million rubles to 1 billion rubles.

At the same time, the efforts of local authorities and the Ministry of Emergency Situations, volunteers are simply heroic. At the same time, about 150 participants in cleaning the coast from fuel oil turned to doctors.

The situation shows that, despite the incidents that are occurring, there is no adequate liquidation technical base in the country. A month has already passed since the accident.

Damage assessment


According to experts, the size of the slick in the Black Sea on 23.12.2024 from the strait to Anapa was about 800 sq. km. As stated by the head of the Ministry of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation Alexander Kozlov, the volume of soil contaminated with fuel oil from the Black Sea beaches may amount to 200 thousand tons. According to the Ministry of Emergency Situations (Interfax) on 13.01.2025, rescuers and volunteers collected more than 160 thousand tons of sand with fuel oil from the coast of the resort town of Anapa and the Temryuk district of the Krasnodar Territory.

As reported by Vesti, as of 20.01.2025, about 300 kilometers of coastline in Sevastopol, Crimea and Kuban have been cleared of fuel oil.

After the crash, some of the pollution remained in the water, some settled to the bottom, and the rest was washed up on the coast.
Here is how the media and government agencies assess the damage from the accident:


Gazette:

"While Russian regions were preparing for the New Year holidays, Crimea and Kuban were struggling with a catastrophe. The sandy beaches of Anapa were soaked with fuel oil, there were dead dolphins, shellfish, crabs and birds on the shore, and in Crimea volunteers were rescuing birds that had suffered from oil products."

"Almost 5800 contaminated birds, mostly great grebes, have been found in Anapa and the Temryuk district. However, birds are also being rescued on the Crimean coast, so the final figure for birds is unlikely to appear in the near future."

Kuban-inform:

"According to environmentalists, it takes only 45 minutes for two people to wash one oil-stained bird. It must be sprinkled with starch several times, and then the absorbed oil scraped off. This removes the natural grease from the feathers."

Volunteers managed to save more than 700 birds.

RIAMO:

“About 10 thousand birds, including those listed in the Red Book, may die out due to fuel oil emissions in the Krasnodar region.”
"The resort town of Anapa will cease to be one."
"The fuel oil spilled in the Kerch Strait has reached Novorossiysk."

News:

“A spill of oil products was also recorded in the Saksky district and Yevpatoriya, and specialists were promptly dispatched there.”

14.01.2025, TASS:

"Work to clean the coast of the Azov Sea in the Zaporizhia region from fuel oil from wrecked tankers has been completed."

According to environmentalists, the fuel oil that got into the Black Sea could reach the Turkish coast. And what if we are later presented with international lawsuits?

Expert Edition:

"Due to the change in wind, oil is dispersed over vast territories. The south wind drives pollution in the direction of Yalta, Cape Khersones and further to Yevpatoria; the north wind drives it to Tuapse and further to Sochi, as well as to the central part of the Black Sea."

And it’s simply banal: do our officials and businessmen really not care about their residences?

Experts call what happened an ecological catastrophe and predict that the ecosystem will not be able to recover from it even in 10 years, some say decades.

Scientific Director of the Whale Protection Fund Vladimir Latka:

"The main migration corridor of the Black and Azov Sea ecosystems, the Kerch Strait, is under threat. Twice a year, all 38 species of commercial fish of the Azov and western Black Seas migrate through the strait. The routes of the Black Sea bottlenose dolphins and Azov-Black Sea porpoises, small dolphins reaching 1,5 meters in length, pass through there. The bottlenose dolphin "maternity hospital" in the Taman Bay of the Black Sea may be damaged."

A State Duma deputy from Krasnodar Krai called for limiting fishing in the Black and Azov Seas, since fuel oil from tankers could end up in fish, which could end up on Russians' tables. Apparently, the same applies to mussels and other seafood.
According to scientists, writes "KP", the real consequences of the oil spill will become apparent closer to summer, when the fuel oil, which is at the bottom or in the water column, begins to rise to the surface and, under the influence of the sun, begins to partially dissolve in it.

According to preliminary estimates by experts of the project "The Earth Concerns Everyone", the total damage may reach 33 billion rubles. But the amount is rapidly increasing. As reported by the TV channel "Russia" with reference to the Azov-Black Sea territorial administration of the Federal Agency for Fishery, "The possible damage from the disaster will amount to about 304 billion rubles».

What is the formula for calculating damage? It is the sum of annual losses by industry: tourism, local trade, transportation, fishing and seafood, damage to nature, costs of eliminating the consequences of the accident, plus reputational losses, possible international claims - a total for a period of about 10 years or more. So what is the real figure - 30 or 300 billion, or maybe even more?

Can you ask someone who has nothing? Who will pay for this damage? Who will force oil exporters to invest in transportation and shipbuilding? But we, the taxpayers, will pay for the catastrophe. And officials and businessmen will move away from the Black Sea in the summer.

Route and logistics


The Volgoneft-212 carried out its last voyage on behalf of the Samara shipping company Staksel, which, not Kama Shipping, was the cargo carrier. The tanker Volgoneft-239 belongs to the company Volgatransneft, which itself acts as a carrier.

The general logistics are as follows: at anchorages near Kerch, small Volgoneft river-sea tankers deliver oil or fuel oil, and at the port they are reloaded into large sea tankers heading to the Mediterranean Sea.

As the investigators established, the vessel was last checked for suitability for transporting dangerous goods in July 2024, and the tanker left on its last voyage on November 10, 2024. Volgoneft-212 was heading from Saratov to the port of Kavkaz, and as a result of a storm, it broke into two parts. Volgoneft-239, also with a cargo of fuel oil, left the port of Azov for the port of Kavkaz on November 16, and as a result of a storm in the Kerch Strait, its bow was torn off.

History of incidents with Volgoneft tankers: the current accident was already the third!


"Volgoneft-212" was built at the Volgograd Shipyard, the tanker was part of the largest series of oil tankers in the USSR.

The maximum service life of such vessels is 40 years, but they undergo inspection every five years. At the same time, the Investigative Committee conducts searches in companies that inspect wrecked tankers.

It was well known that the risk of operating Volgoneft tankers in a storm was very high. The Volgoneft series vessels are of the river-sea class. They are single-hulled; designed for operation on rivers and large reservoirs. According to the River Register, their safe operation is ensured at a wave height of no more than 2 meters. Already in Soviet times, tankers began to go out to the open sea, although the risks of such operation were obvious. During the current accident, the wave height, according to various estimates, was 4-5 m.

The first major incident with tankers of this type occurred on 29.12.1999 with the tanker Volgoneft-248, which broke apart from a powerful wave and sank during a storm in the Sea of ​​Marmara off the coast of Turkey, with about 800 tons of fuel oil spilling into the sea. The stern part remained afloat, while the bow part sank.

The second, more serious call was on November 11, 2007, in the same Kerch Strait, when four ships sank during a storm, six ran aground, and two tankers were damaged. From two to three thousand tons of fuel oil spilled into the sea from the Volgoneft-139 tanker. 45 tons of fuel and lubricants spilled from other ships, as well as more than six and a half thousand tons of granulated sulfur.

The damage to the environment caused by the sinking of several ships in the Kerch Strait in November 2007 was then estimated at 20 billion rubles.

At the same time, the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation stated that the damage caused would be compensated by the ship owners who allowed the accidents to happen. However, according to the owner of the sunken ships, the cause of the 2007 disaster was the untimely notification of the ships by the coastal services about the approaching storm.

Alexey Grigoriev, an expert from the Social and Ecological Union, describes the accidents of November 11, 2007 as follows:

"...the port ["Kavkaz"] has very little capacity and is not capable of handling the sharply increased flow of cargo from the Don and Volga basins towards the Black Sea. A roadstead anchorage in the open sea was organized for their transshipment from river vessels to sea vessels. It is relatively protected from winds and storms from the north, west and east, but is completely open to storm waves coming from the south. Before the storm on November 11, more than 50 vessels had accumulated at this roadstead. River navigation was ending, and companies were rushing to take advantage of the cheap water transport system for the removal of cargo.

The creation and long-term operation of this extremely dangerous system of cargo export with the complete inaction of state control and regulatory structures became the second prerequisite for the catastrophe of November 11, 2007... Unfortunately, Russian oil companies, which, in conditions of information secrecy and inaction of government bodies, use such extremely dangerous transport schemes, do not demonstrate social responsibility."

The current case is the third! Deja vu? And here again, three of the 81 Volgoneft-type tankers got into emergency situations in the Black Sea in mid-December 2024. Will we expect more accidents?

So why didn't you unload it?


According to the TG channel Baza, there was a long delay in unloading the tanker for unknown reasons:

"The crew planned to unload the cargo by November 25, in order to have time to leave the Kerch Strait for the Sea of ​​Azov (documents for staying in the port were valid until November 30). However, the unloading was stalled: either the weather interfered, or other ships were unloading. From the first days of December, the crew was worried about the cargo and asked almost daily when the oil products would be unloaded. On December 10, one of the boilers on the Volgoneft-212 broke down. Captain Leonid Volegov asked for an early unloading, because one boiler could not heat the entire cargo. "The cargo temperature dropped by 3 degrees in 14 hours. I am afraid that at this rate we will not be able to unload it at all," the management of the transport company wrote to the customer's representatives. In the meantime, Volegov prepared a report asking for an early unloading. The last time Captain Volegov asked to unload the tanker was on December XNUMX, the day before the disaster. They didn’t have time to unload the fuel oil—a storm began in the Kerch Strait…”.

As evidence, the channel cites data from the correspondence between the port and the captain. The results are known - the largest ecological disaster in the Black Sea. The fact of the delay is also confirmed by the Insurance Agency News, indicating that the exact cause is determined by the investigation. And if this is true, then this is the second most important cause of the accident.

According to Kuban-inform, which also confirmed the fact of the delay:

"The fact is that oil products are now being supplied to Southern Europe through "gray" schemes, and this business exists only due to intermediaries. Apparently, OOO Staksel was waiting for the buyer's transport, into which it was going to transfer the fuel oil."

One of the reasons mentioned above is port congestion.
In response to the West's embargo on oil supplies and its transportation at a price ceiling, so that buyers could avoid secondary sanctions, fuel and energy products are sold through intermediaries. But if this is a matter of national importance, what prevents them from putting normal ships there, not junk, right?

10.01.2025/180/XNUMX The United States adopted a large-scale package of sanctions against the Russian fuel and energy complex, against two large oil companies, more than XNUMX vessels, dozens of oil traders and oilfield service providers.

Not only old ones, but also rebuilt ones


As the ship's captain anonymously stated in an interview with Bloknot-Novorossiysk:

"I am familiar with the Volgoneft tankers... They are outdated both "morally" and "physically". There is such a thing as "metal fatigue", when metal loses its properties over time."

He then talks about the conversion of these vessels to the river-sea standard:

"As far as I know, these ships have had their middle hold cut out and the tail section joined to the stern. They are like a construction set. I could be wrong, of course, but my guess is that the modernized ship broke apart along the weld line, unable to withstand the onslaught of the elements."

"According to the information I have, a wave of up to 5 meters was recorded in the Kerch Strait at the time of the disaster. This is a serious storm for large vessels, not to mention the Volgoneft tankers, which belong to the "river-sea" class. They are not designed for such weather conditions... The vessel was most likely torn from its anchor. While it is "bow" to the wave, it can still withstand the load. When the vessel is torn from its anchor, it becomes broadside to the wave, and then it is very difficult to withstand the onslaught of the elements even for modern vessels, not to mention those that are 50-60 years old. The tanker could not withstand it and burst at the seam."

The same information is available in the REN TV publication:

"They were designed as river tankers with limited access to the sea. And that was only in calm weather. In the 1990s, such vessels were massively converted into the "river-sea" class, essentially shortening the vessel and fastening it with a seam that probably could not withstand the elements."

The Telegram channel Mash writes the same:

"At first, the ship was a regular tanker, but in the 1990s it was shortened to river-sea standards... They did everything in a hurry, something like this: they cut out the center, threw it away, and then welded the stern and bow, forming a huge seam in the middle. Today, this seam "came apart" after a powerful wave hit."

Who will pay the bills?


Aksenov believes that regional authorities hope to recover damages from ship-owning companies. 24.12.2024/XNUMX/XNUMX The head of the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources, Alexander Kozlov, announced that the owners of the tankers that sank in the Kerch Strait will take responsibility for their recovery and disposal.

Meanwhile, according to the SPARK system, in 2023 the company's revenue amounted to 89,8 million rubles, and the loss was 61,34 million rubles. Kama Shipping LLC, founded in Perm in 2016, earned 228 million rubles over the same period, but suffered a loss of 14 million rubles.

Can we count something that does not exist? Can a company whose capabilities do not correspond to the scale and risks of particularly dangerous activities transport oil in violation of transportation regulations, on ships that are more than 50 years old?

Why risk nature?


According to portnews, the average age of technical fleet, operating on the inland waterways of Russia, is about 45 years old. We, like Tsarist Russia, have no money, although we are bathed in raw material income.

There are currently 81 river-sea tankers of the Volgoneft type in Russia. All of them are under the supervision of the Russian Classification Society. The oldest of these vessels was built back in 1962 (62 years ago - a museum exhibit), of which 55 are in operation, and the newest - in 1982 (42 years). That is, their average age is 48 years!!!

According to Vera Kashina, Associate Professor of the Department of Design and Shipbuilding Technology at the Volga State University of Water Transport (VSUWT):

"The current state of the technical fleet of the Russian inland waterways is characterized by very significant wear and tear. At the same time, the greatest problems have been identified in the condition of the hull, electrical equipment, special systems and devices, as well as ship mechanisms."

But the main thing for capitalists is profit, isn't it? Once in the 90s we were taught that Russian entrepreneurs would shower us with investments, but when this didn't happen, they stood with their hand outstretched, asking for them from the West.

Why is the fleet not being renewed, why are there no investments? And responsibility and state thinking? Basically, small carriers and ship owners of old ships do not make investments, squeezing everything out of old ships. Perhaps, if in our country it was possible to take a loan at 5% for 10-15 years, the problem would somehow be solved. But our Bank of Russia was created for this purpose, so that this never happens. The accident in the Black Sea is one of the harbingers of the collapse of the raw materials market model, similar to the one in 1986 when the beginning of the decline of the USSR was the accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.

Large carriers simply feel sorry for the money, and in the absence of pressure from the state and strict adherence to regulations on the technical condition and age of ships, they simply eat up the capital inherited from the USSR. There are no investments: the state is saving up a piggy bank, private owners are taking the money out.

Now let's recall the experience of South Korea, which in a relatively short period of time became a world leader in shipbuilding. This happened only on the orders of the author of the "economic miracle", dictator Park Chung Hee.


Pictured: A shipyard in South Korea

Russia still has excellent engineers, a literate workforce and, most importantly, a sea of ​​its own metal.

But after the collapse of the USSR, many industries were ruined and completely destroyed.


In the photo: the very same plant in Volgograd where Volgoneft was assembled.

As the head of the marketing department of the shipyard testifies:

"In the Russian Federation, the fleet was practically not built. Companies preferred to operate the ships they had or buy them abroad. Because in Norway, for example, there are restrictions on the age of a ship, after which they sell it and buy a new one."


Are we not striving to realize our potential? Russia is a leader in the nuclear industry, and ships are clearly easier. Is it chaos in our minds? No - it is a deliberate slowdown of our development by the raw materials elite.

As the captain of the tourist ship "Arabella" notes:

"In fact, it is impossible to build a ship without state support... The payback period is up to 50 years."

As the professor, head of the department of ship design and technical operation (SPbGMTU) said in an interview with Kommersant-Kuban, tankers of the Volgoneft type continue to operate in Russian waters despite exceeding their estimated service life. This means that if everything is left as is, new disasters may be repeated. The solution may be a gradual replacement of the outdated fleet with state support for shipbuilding programs.

The Kerch Strait as an environmental hazard zone


Let us quote the work of Ivanovskaya and Markelova in the journal “Young Scientist”:

“Every day, about one hundred ships are at anchor in the Kerch Strait, and about two to three thousand pass through it per month. As a result of ship operation, garbage, bilge and waste water are generated, the removal of which from the ship does not always occur in accordance with the requirements for the protection of the marine environment... According to various expert estimates, about 500 tons of oil annually enter the coastal zone of the Kerch Strait and the adjacent areas of the Azov and Black Seas: of which about 38% during ship loading and accidental spills; 22% due to oil discharges from ships; 17% with river water; 11% with industrial waste water; 6% from the atmosphere; 5% with storm water from populated areas; 1% as a result of natural release from the subsoil.”

They are echoed by Alexander Korshenko, PhD in Biology, Head of the Laboratory for Monitoring Marine Pollution at the State Oceanographic Institute:

“The Kerch Strait is the most polluted place in our seas, because there are constant leaks of oil products at anchorages near Kerch, south of Tuzla, and they are pumped: small Volgoneft river-sea tankers deliver oil or fuel oil here, and then reload them into large sea tankers heading to the Mediterranean.”

Measures and conclusions


According to Mitko A.V., President of the Arctic Public Academy of Sciences, Associate Professor at the D.I. Mendeleyev All-Russian Research Institute of Metrology, St. Petersburg State University:

"In recent years, attempts have been made to decommission Volgoneft tankers. In 2015, new requirements of the MARPOL-73/78 Convention came into force, which a significant number of vessels of this type did not meet. In 2018, further restrictions of the MARPOL Convention began to be applied. As a result, ship owners were forced to either decommission these tankers or carry out expensive refits of the hulls.

From 1.01.2028, Russian legislation introduced a ban on the operation of single-hull oil tankers. The exception was vessels operating in the Lena water basin.

Now the experts interviewed assume that the operation of Volgoneft-type vessels will soon be completely banned, which will take out of service an oil tanker fleet with a total deadweight of about 300 thousand tons.”

The possible measures are obvious:
1) Remove the oldest ships from service and inspect the rest.
2) Urgently launch a program to create new courts with state support and development of the industry.
3) Consolidate the industry by introducing requirements for the size of carrier assets and eliminating all small companies.
4) Create a specialized state transport company.
5) Create an environmental insurance fund at the expense of large oil producing companies.
6) Introduce strict weather and seasonal restrictions on the unloading of tankers in the port, ensure planning of the order and schedule of arrival and unloading taking into account the port’s capabilities and weather forecasts.
7) Increase the capacity of the Kavkaz port or create new ones.

Finale


The system is to blame for the accident, Russian raw material capitalism, which is the main cause of the demographic crisis and the stagnation in development, and now the largest ecological disaster on the Black Sea. In the spring and summer, people will go to the Black Sea and see the results of the incident. This is a sign of a failure of the system, including the private model of the transport fleet.

The year 2025, as it is considered by the Eastern calendar, is the same as 1905, 1917, 1929, 1941, 1953, 1965, 1977, 1989, 2001, 2013. This is a year that began with an unprecedentedly abnormally warm winter, a year of a possible new big turning point, which can occur due to the convergence of many factors at one point, including the agreement on the NWO with Trump. The pressing problems will be solved by a new, renewed country.
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  1. +21
    23 January 2025 05: 31
    Who will be held responsible for the disaster in the Kerch Strait?

    Come on, the Kerch Gulf. Who will be held responsible for the September 2022 disaster? Who will be held responsible for the Kursk disaster of August 2024? Who? The question will remain unanswered
    1. +26
      23 January 2025 07: 47
      And who will be responsible for the disaster of September 2022?

      No one will answer, except for the scapegoats, as usual - after all, we are a country of victorious usurious-feudal capitalism, essentially a semi-colony of the West. Has anyone answered for the collapse of medicine and education, for the pension reform and the Covid adventure, for the incessant replacement of the indigenous population with migrants. In a democratic country, the leadership that allowed this would have been re-elected long ago and would have gone to prison for this, in essence, genocide. In general, comrades and gentlemen, draw your own conclusions.
      1. +2
        23 January 2025 10: 43
        In a democratic country, the leadership that allowed this to happen would have been re-elected long ago and would have gone to prison for what is essentially genocide.


        Well, that’s not why we rewrote the constitution and cleared the political field, so that we could re-elect the government.
    2. +21
      23 January 2025 09: 13
      That's right. Our government is responsible for little. Since 1992, we Russians cannot really understand what is happening to us and where we are going. Why did we survive in the 90s? Why is almost everything imported, although Rosatom is the world leader in one of the most high-tech industries, why are we constantly promised breakthroughs and relief from poverty, but the Government's agenda of 2001 differs little from the agenda of 2025? Why are we dying out, although the government wants to help us?
      We see what we see, but our hearts and minds understand the opposite. When the top officials say from the podium what we want to see and hear, it is difficult to understand.
      1. P
        +2
        23 January 2025 22: 43
        It's not difficult. Class theory has long since laid everything out on the shelves.
  2. +12
    23 January 2025 05: 55
    Both ships were in the Kerch Strait in violation "there are seasonal restrictions on swimming in the water area."
    So we need to find out who sent them and who gave permission for these horse washers to go out during the autumn-winter navigation period.
    1. -2
      23 January 2025 13: 16
      Quote from Uncle Lee
      So we need to find out who sent them and who gave permission.

      While the search for the person who gave permission is ongoing, you can read about the new permissions and see how the commentators rejoice:

      https://topwar.ru/256656-putin-podpisal-ukaz-o-vyhode-rf-iz-soglashenija-o-mnogostoronnej-jaderno-jekologicheskoj-programme.html
    2. +3
      25 January 2025 15: 26
      I highly doubt that this junk is fit for the summer period. I think sailors will confirm that something that floats (does not go) at such an age can only be called a ship by a stretch. And what other metal fatigue, there is no metal there, they rotted long ago. And they also carry petroleum products. I have no words to describe this except for swear words!
  3. +21
    23 January 2025 05: 56
    Comprehensive information on the current reality in this area is that "the average age of the technical fleet operating on the inland waterways of Russia is about 45 years."
    That is, in 33 years of “effective” capitalism, zero, nothing, nothing was built.
    As for the question - "who will answer for the catastrophe", then to answer it we must first of all say, who actually owns this fuel oil? Who is the owner and the "ultimate beneficiary"? However, this is a great secret. And the author does not reveal it to us. Next we must find out who are those wonderful people who gave the order to use unsuitable ships and organized the work in such a way that these ships were not unloaded for almost a month.
    1. +4
      23 January 2025 08: 23
      Quote: Belisarius
      Who is the owner and the "ultimate beneficiary"

      And where are the insurance companies?
      1. +1
        25 January 2025 15: 28
        Do you think there will be an idiot who will insure this junk?
    2. +5
      23 January 2025 11: 22
      Quote: Belisarius
      That is, in 33 years of “effective” capitalism, zero, nothing, nothing was built.

      Exactly. There's just something going on in the oil industry. Everything else is a sham.
      Just look at the situation with elevators in the country.
      The Council of the Eurasian Economic Commission has extended the service life of Russian elevators until 2030, subject to replacement by February 15, 2025. About 570 thousand elevators have been installed in apartment buildings in Russia

      More details in PG: https://www.pnp.ru/economics/srok-sluzhby-ustarevshikh-liftov-prodlili-na-pyat-let.html
      The question is - how soon will people start dying? How will old people go out on the street?
      We essentially don’t have our own production.
    3. +1
      25 January 2025 17: 48
      What does 33 years of capitalism in the Russian Federation have to do with this?
      These owners of oil and gas refineries and steamships could also order new ships from shipyards abroad.
      And they decided to exploit the Soviet legacy they had received for free to the extreme.
  4. +18
    23 January 2025 06: 10
    The system is to blame for the accident, Russian raw material capitalism, which is the main cause of the demographic crisis and the stagnation in development, and now also the largest ecological disaster in the Black Sea.

    Who created such a system in 25 years (a quarter of a century)? Who is "at the top" of this system and runs it?
    In March 24, it was possible, in a completely legal manner, to at least try to change something.
    But our people, simple little people, are happy with everything. They voted for this - the import of migrants, the destruction of the remains of industry - the same shipbuilding, for environmental disasters.
    Ourselves, all by ourselves... And now there's no point in blaming the mirror...
    1. +10
      23 January 2025 08: 59
      Experts "optimistically" claim that the season in Anapa and the surrounding area can be missed, and perhaps a significant part of the Crimean coast will be under attack! Most do not even think about the scale of the DISASTER!
      1. +10
        23 January 2025 10: 14
        Experts "optimistically" claim that the season in Anapa and the surrounding area can be missed, and perhaps a significant part of the Crimean coast will be under attack! Most do not even think about the scale of the DISASTER!

        Season? wink Personally, I am introducing a moratorium for 5 years, as recommended by the same experts. Although the last 10 years I have only gone there. Damn, idiots, they have ruined the last normal place angry
        1. 0
          23 January 2025 12: 10
          they will go the same way, you will see there will be a ton of people there
        2. +1
          23 January 2025 23: 01
          "...the last 10...")))
      2. +14
        23 January 2025 10: 34
        Oh come on, closer to summer they will tell you that only a couple of buckets of fuel oil spilled there and in general fuel oil is not that harmful and even a little useful.
        1. +6
          23 January 2025 10: 38
          Useful, especially when taken internally! And, of course, it helps with wrinkles and cellulite. The Ministry of Health will justify and confirm everything.
        2. +1
          23 January 2025 23: 40
          Quote: Oldrover
          Oh come on, closer to summer they will tell you that only a couple of buckets of fuel oil spilled there and in general fuel oil is not that harmful and even a little useful.

          Well, to be honest, fuel oil is organic.
          Which, to varying degrees and speeds, decomposes both by itself and with the help of nature.
          Few people know, but for example, after massive oil spills on earth, “first everything dies,” and after a couple of years, everything begins to “grow at tenfold speed.”
          And the warmer it is, the faster.
          The laws of physics that the rate of a chemical reaction doubles with a 10 degree increase in temperature = this is a fact.
          I have seen many oil spill sites - after 2-3 years, even in the conditions of Surgut, it is already living nature.
          This is simply reality against the stupidest crying of Yaroslavna from pseudo-ecologists who do not understand what oil is.
          Fuel oil M100 has spilled. Heating oil.
          Density 0.9 - 1 of the density of water.
          From temperature.
          Accordingly, it does not float like oil or gasoline, but moves in the density of water.
          until it warms up.
          Then it will surface.
          Let's remember the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
          Environmentalists and the brainless talked about the dead sea and dead coast for hundreds of years.
          2 years!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
          2 years - and everything cleared itself!
          Although there were hundreds and millions of thousands of tons of leakage.
          Incomparable with these river basins.

          So don't multiply beyond measure.
          1. man
            0
            24 January 2025 04: 50
            Quote: SovAr238A
            Quote: Oldrover
            Oh come on, closer to summer they will tell you that only a couple of buckets of fuel oil spilled there and in general fuel oil is not that harmful and even a little useful.

            Well, to be honest, fuel oil is organic.
            Which, to varying degrees and speeds, decomposes both by itself and with the help of nature.
            Few people know, but for example, after massive oil spills on earth, “first everything dies,” and after a couple of years, everything begins to “grow at tenfold speed.”
            And the warmer it is, the faster.
            The laws of physics that the rate of a chemical reaction doubles with a 10 degree increase in temperature = this is a fact.
            I have seen many oil spill sites - after 2-3 years, even in the conditions of Surgut, it is already living nature.
            This is simply reality against the stupidest crying of Yaroslavna from pseudo-ecologists who do not understand what oil is.
            Fuel oil M100 has spilled. Heating oil.
            Density 0.9 - 1 of the density of water.
            From temperature.
            Accordingly, it does not float like oil or gasoline, but moves in the density of water.
            until it warms up.
            Then it will surface.
            Let's remember the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
            Environmentalists and the brainless talked about the dead sea and dead coast for hundreds of years.
            2 years!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
            2 years - and everything cleared itself!
            Although there were hundreds and millions of thousands of tons of leakage.
            Incomparable with these river basins.

            So don't multiply beyond measure.

            God grant that you are right!
            Somehow it happened that I only learned about the scale of the disaster now and was horrified...
      3. +1
        23 January 2025 12: 09
        People will continue to travel as they have been
      4. +4
        23 January 2025 19: 30
        Locals say that local (tautology) "big shots" of the road construction business offered to immediately (!) transport sand and fuel oil to asphalt plants with their own efforts, this is essentially a semi-finished product. But the bureaucrats were stubborn about the approvals, and they spat ... just like that, as always.
    2. +12
      23 January 2025 11: 25
      Quote: Vladimir-TTT
      In March 24, it was possible, in a completely legal manner, to at least try to change something.

      Unfortunately not.
      Putin's system is designed to elect Putin (or, in the worst case, his successor, if Grandpa suddenly dies). It is impossible to elect anyone else, even in theory.
      1. +3
        26 January 2025 09: 14
        Unfortunately, yes. So, the elections. On our ship, out of 12 crew members, 10 voted for Putin. And even the one who hid from mobilization.
        so do it yourself, all by yourself.
    3. P
      +2
      23 January 2025 22: 45
      You forgot the decade. The system was created and is exploited by ordinary class enemies. Such issues are not decided by voting, read the classics.
    4. 0
      25 January 2025 00: 05
      Quote: Vladimir-TTT
      They voted for this - the importation of migrants, the destruction of the remnants of industry - the same shipbuilding, for environmental disasters.
      By yourself, all by yourself ...

      Was there an alternative? recourse
  5. +18
    23 January 2025 06: 40
    In order to take old ships out of service, we need new ones, but there is no money. I don’t know about shipbuilding in other regions, but ship repair along the Azov-Black Sea coast is practically finished, many factories have been ordered to live long, there are not many left, in our Temryuk, out of three, only one repairs military ships, border boats.
    1. +13
      23 January 2025 06: 53
      Quote: parusnik
      In order to take old ships out of service, new ones are needed, but there is no money.

      And what about "getting off our knees"? Putin regularly tells us how everything is going well everywhere, the economy is developing, the budget is overflowing with money, everything is going according to plan and there is no reason to be upset?
      1. +13
        23 January 2025 07: 28
        Quote: Vladimir-TTT
        Quote: parusnik
        In order to take old ships out of service, new ones are needed, but there is no money.

        And what about "getting off our knees"? Putin regularly tells us how everything is going well everywhere, the economy is developing, the budget is overflowing with money, everything is going according to plan and there is no reason to be upset?

        He’s doing well and receiving beautiful reports, but we live in real Russia.
        1. +5
          23 January 2025 09: 36
          In order to take old ships out of service, new ones are needed, but there is no money.

          How come there is no money? What nonsense? Oil companies often receive super profits from oil exports, but there is no money. No, because these profits often float abroad. If the river supervision had banned the operation of ships, then we would already have new tankers, both at the expense of profits and at the expense of credit.
          1. +5
            23 January 2025 16: 02
            If the river control had prohibited
            The River Register did not prohibit... The River and Sea Register is like a traffic police inspector on the roads... The one who is a werewolf, in uniform
          2. P
            +3
            23 January 2025 22: 47
            abroad or inside the country, it doesn't matter. The principle is the same: privatization of profits, nationalization of costs. The class enemy is gobbling up the profits, and you and I are the ones who will be swimming in oil porridge
    2. +11
      23 January 2025 09: 16
      There is a sea of ​​money in the raw materials industry. But Gaidar didn't just say: "Who needs your machine tools?! If they are needed, we will buy everything abroad!" And so the SVO, sanctions and machine tools, it turns out, are needed. But as Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev admitted the obvious: "We would never have taken up this import substitution, if the cards had not fallen in this way, when everything is good, the economy is swelling from oil money, then no one wants to do import substitution. It is much easier to conclude a contract with foreign suppliers." The logic is certainly mind-blowing. And only now something has begun to change, but not everything and not completely.
      1. +3
        23 January 2025 10: 39
        But Gaidar didn't just say: "Who needs your machines?! If we need them, we'll buy everything abroad!"


        Not defending Gaidar, but this cliche is typical and in most cases purely manipulative. Gaidar was in the government for a very short time, specifically about this phrase there is no evidence that he said it and if he said it, in what context.

        But Putin, who has been at the helm of the country for more than 20 years, said

        At an extended meeting of the Board of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin spoke out against total import substitution and considers it necessary only in strategically important sectors of the economy.
        “I don’t think that import substitution is an end in itself,” Putin said.

        According to the Prime Minister, it is also unacceptable to talk about goods being produced in Russia that are no worse than those produced abroad.

        "This is already a vicious approach to solving the problem of innovative development. Which means no worse. We should do it cheaper and better. Or not do it at all. Maybe it would be easier to buy?" the prime minister noted.
    3. +2
      25 January 2025 17: 57
      Oil field owners don't have money for ships?
      I do not believe.
      Maybe we need to export less capital abroad.
      Don't rape the Soviet legacy that was given to you for free (these old worn-out and rusty ships). But invest in transport.
  6. +9
    23 January 2025 06: 51
    The system is indeed to blame, although people and names are also present. I remember a few years ago there was a disaster with a burst oil tank, the noise lasted for three months, and then everything went quiet, they ran around a bit, collected, and again in anticipation of new disasters, no one developed new environmental safety standards, technological ones either, they did not start building new tanks either. It's like in one famous cartoon series, when a watch fell from the wall of a hotel on the main character's wife's foot during her vacation. The staff said: She is also a victim of this watch, they adjusted the nail, and hung it up again.....
    1. +8
      23 January 2025 07: 46
      I remember a few years ago there was a disaster with a burst oil tank, the noise lasted for three months, and then everything became quiet, they ran around a bit, collected, and again, in anticipation of new disasters, no one developed new environmental safety standards, technological ones too, they didn’t start building new tanks either.

      I advised the lawyer who defended the head of the TPP workshop Starostin, there were already errors in the project, the project of the Kyiv design institute from the Soviet era. They found the scapegoats, and those who were supposed to monitor, i.e. representatives of the supervisory organizations, were not touched. The error in the project was that the tank was placed on a ring grillage on piles, and it should have been placed on a gravel pad as usual on permafrost, the foundation floated, the ring weld of the bottom with the shell cracked and a leak occurred, and the embankment had not been updated for a long time, there was no height, which was visible to the naked eye, how the supervisory authorities allowed the operation is unknown.
      1. +4
        23 January 2025 08: 26
        Quote: Konnick
        It is unknown how the supervisory authorities permitted the operation.

        As always. wassat
      2. +3
        23 January 2025 14: 53
        There were already errors in the project

        Over 30 years, it was possible to build and demolish, build and demolish the reservoir several times. All equipment paid for itself hundreds of times, it is necessary to allocate from the profit for updating the equipment, and not only on the yachts themselves.
        1. Egg
          +2
          23 January 2025 22: 15
          Quote: nickname7
          we need to allocate money from our profits to upgrade equipment, and not just on our yachts.

          how can you! tomorrow others will come to power, the policy will change and they will take everything, and they will be left without a yacht... they won't even have anything to sail away on laughing
  7. +12
    23 January 2025 06: 59
    Shipbuilding in Russia, just like aircraft manufacturing and machine tool manufacturing, is in a major crisis (read - *ope).
    The system is to blame for the accident, Russian raw material capitalism, which is the main reason for the crisis and the stagnation in development
    . Without state support, revision of credit policy in two or three years the system will collapse. And imported planes will start falling under sanctions without spare parts, and ships built in the USSR will sink.
    1. +13
      23 January 2025 08: 52
      Rusnano, the state supported and provided loans... The result, Chubais, is already an Israeli citizen... How much did he take there?
    2. +1
      23 January 2025 15: 02
      Without government support and a revision of credit policy, the system will collapse in two or three years.

      Under the principle of "privatization of profits, nationalization of losses", state support will be transferred to offshores, without getting into the real sector. As long as we have a dictatorship of compradors who lobbied for laws within the framework of "privatization of profits, nationalization of losses", there will be no benefit from state support.
      It is necessary to subordinate the oligarchy to state interests, introduce progressive taxation, as well as introduce reduced taxes on the company if accelerated replacement of equipment purchased in the Russian Federation is carried out and, on the contrary, increased taxes to 95% if oil traders do not invest in their own company. By the way, such incentive measures exist in the states.
      1. P
        +1
        23 January 2025 22: 52
        First paragraph - I agree. Second paragraph - an obvious mistake. "Need" - who needs? What political subject can set and realize such a goal? None, except the working class. And under the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, all this is dreams and nonsense.
  8. +12
    23 January 2025 07: 26
    Russia still has excellent engineers, a literate workforce and, most importantly, a sea of ​​its own metal.

    Alas, the achievements of a highly developed civilization are coming to an end. On the example of new construction at shipyards. When I was sailing along the Sevastopol Bay in 2019, I noticed the new body of the PK-400 "Sevastopol" crane standing near the shipyard and was horrified. I am happy for the revival of the plant, but I was upset by the quality of the welded joints, both simple butt joints in sheets and butt joints during large-scale assembly. The pontoon body, due to its size, has strong welding stresses, but I did not see any technological methods to reduce stresses. Namely:

    - no removal of reinforcement of welded seams at intersection points;

    - cross-shaped intersection of butt seams (during large-scale assembly);

    - lack of thermal straightening on the skin in the areas where the ribs are located;

    - excessive reinforcement of seams, exceeding standards.

    I hope that this pontoon won't fall apart in a storm, but...with such quality and violations we won't sail far...
    1. +5
      23 January 2025 11: 30
      Quote: Konnick
      but was disappointed with the quality of the welded joints

      So who's cooking? Masturbeks and other Abdullokhs from sunny Tojikiston. Yesterday they were flaying goats in their village, and today they are valuable specialists, necessary for the Russian economy due to the personnel shortage.
      1. +2
        23 January 2025 11: 57
        So who's cooking it? Masturbeks and other Abdullokhs from sunny Tojikiston.

        My Abdullohi brewed as it should be. It depends on the qualifications of the management personnel, the director there is a random person from the nomenclature, accordingly the engineering and technical staff is so... by the way.... The top managers changed, they sent directors from St. Petersburg, but there were still no specialists. In my opinion, the plant is no longer operating.
    2. Egg
      +2
      23 January 2025 22: 24
      Quote: Konnick
      but I didn't see any technological methods to reduce stress

      Are you kidding? Who pays attention to such "little things"?
      Unfortunately, this is the situation in all areas, both production and construction... metal structures come from the factory to the construction site that are ready to be immediately handed over to scrap metal, but it is impossible, we bought what was cheaper, so we clean it, paint it and build from this junk...
      Tenders were introduced as, in principle, a good thing, the idea was to evaluate not only the price, but also the capabilities and qualifications of the contractors' personnel, but it all came down to the fact that whoever offers the cheapest gets the contract... that's the whole tender. And no one cares what the quality will be.
    3. man
      +3
      24 January 2025 05: 05
      I noticed the new body of the PK-400 "Sevastopol" crane, standing near the shipyard, and was horrified. I am happy for the revival of the plant, but was upset by the quality of the welded joints, both simple butt joints in sheets and butt joints during large-scale assembly. The pontoon body, due to its size, has strong welding stresses, but I did not see any technological methods to reduce the stresses. Namely:

      - no removal of reinforcement of welded seams at intersection points;

      - cross-shaped intersection of butt seams (during large-scale assembly);

      - lack of thermal straightening on the skin in the areas where the ribs are located;

      - excessive reinforcement of seams, exceeding standards.

      I hope that this pontoon won't fall apart in a storm, but...with such quality and violations we won't sail far...

      What a pontoon, our whole country has turned into such a pontoon... sad
  9. +6
    23 January 2025 07: 29
    Who will be held responsible for the disaster in the Kerch Strait?

    When a country's leadership has a management style of "snot-nosing" and "sucking", then there can be no talk of any responsibility.
  10. +19
    23 January 2025 07: 29
    The new, renewed country will solve the pressing problems.

    The article is excellent, the conclusion, as always...
    Since 1991 we have been living in a new, renewed country.
    Since 2000, we have been governed by the best, most talented and, as Kiselev tells us on TV, the most brilliant president of our galaxy!
    Oh, what about the galaxies, the universe surrounding us!
    And now a question to the author: Where will the "new, renewed country" come from with our brilliant guarantor and his outstanding accomplices? You yourself described the state of affairs in Russia.
    1. +9
      23 January 2025 08: 10
      The article is excellent, the conclusion, as always...

      I support: thanks to the author.
    2. +11
      23 January 2025 08: 45
      Where will the "new, renewed country" come from?
      The main thing here is to say rex, pax, fex, bury five gold coins in a garbage dump, salt them and pour water from a puddle. And... by morning, a new, renewed country will appear.
  11. +9
    23 January 2025 08: 42
    The new, renewed country will solve the pressing problems.
    Open the "secret of the golden key" and who will renew it? In February 1917, the monarchy was overthrown, and in 2025 it will return? Unless that's true. That's why the monarchists have become more active, they probably already received villages with serfs, they are just hiding it Yes
  12. The comment was deleted.
  13. +10
    23 January 2025 08: 57
    In general, river vessels are inspected annually by the River Register of Russia, then every five years from the date of construction, and unscheduled after accidents, repairs and alterations. Then each vessel has documentation on the safety management system (SMS). Where everything is written down for this type and class of vessels.
    There is also a Ship Inspection on the rivers, it is like a river traffic police. It can check the crew and documentation both at anchor and on the move, both for the ship and for personal documents for the right to operate the vessel.
    As a former navigator-mechanic, ship repairman, shipbuilder, I will say that these ships should not go to sea at all, due to their technical condition and sail on rivers. In Europe, tankers with one bottom or older than 25 years are generally prohibited from entering ports. When such tankers pass by countries, they watch them with concern.
    The fact that such ships as "Volganeft" and such an age are sailing is pure corruption. The Register, the Ship Inspection, the port captain turn a blind eye for a certain bribe, definitely.
    In general, the oil fleet is profitable, it pays for itself not in 50 years, but in a few years. Passenger, tourist longer, due to seasonality, especially on northern rivers.
    To avoid such disasters, you don’t need to invent anything, you just need to follow the current rules, they are quite strict, and violating them can result in criminal prosecution.
    If we write off this junk there will be no catastrophe, and shipyards will immediately start working, private owners will line up to work for them, and money will be found, I repeat, the oil fleet is very profitable. soldier
    1. +9
      23 January 2025 09: 27
      The fact that ships like Volganeft and at such an age are sailing is pure corruption.

      This is clear. And the supervisors should sit in prison together with the ship owners.
  14. +6
    23 January 2025 09: 01
    There is one reason and everyone knows it.
  15. +4
    23 January 2025 09: 11
    The author correctly said that the problem is in the system. USC misses all deadlines for the construction of new ships, it is simply not capable of doing it. Including the defense industry. The cost of a ship is growing like yeast even before it leaves the slipway. All the developments in the school of shipbuilding are either shelved or simply outdated. The shipyards have disappeared, the equipment has been cut up. But we are trying to actively develop the NSR and all the resources are going there.
  16. +5
    23 January 2025 09: 15
    Every accident has a first name, last name and position!
    1. +5
      23 January 2025 09: 37
      Alas, the captains have been appointed responsible, read scapegoats.
  17. +13
    23 January 2025 09: 18
    The Soviet legacy's margin of safety has long since expired. A new one has not been built. No matter what they say on TV, the Russian Federation has basically remained a "gas station". Even despite some successes.
    There is no “renewed country”, there will not be one, and there cannot be one with the current system.
  18. +3
    23 January 2025 09: 23
    According to the director of the Center for Marine Research and Technology at Sevastopol State University, in an interview with RG, the operation to lift the sunken tankers will take at least two months. "These tankers are not that big, it is quite possible to lift them. Ship-lifting pontoons are used for this. We have such pontoons in the Black Sea... Based on experience, lifting operations take at least two months, weather permitting."

    I don't understand anything! For several days TV showed a tanker stuck in the shore. So it didn't sink? And they started embanking it only a month later!!! A month!!! What were the leaders of Krasnodar Krai and various Emergencies Ministry officials thinking and doing?
    1. +3
      23 January 2025 17: 05
      What a stupid question you have, they counted money, what for what and how much, without estimates, how can you understand how much a pound of fuel oil costs!???
    2. +3
      28 January 2025 22: 27
      For several days, TV showed a tanker stuck in the shore. So it didn't sink? And the embankment was started only a month later!!! A month!!! What were the leaders of Krasnodar Krai and various Emergencies Ministry officials thinking and doing?

      Well, I suppose there won't be any big problems with the one that's sitting on the shallows. The fuel oil will be pumped out, the hull will be cut up, taken away and handed over for scrap metal. But there will be problems with the second tanker and the pieces that are lying on the bottom soil. Someone decided to raise them using pontoons. The right decision, if they find the pontoons. After all, the ones that were inherited have long been handed over for scrap metal, and somehow it didn't happen to build new ones. And it will be hard to find blow-out hoses. In general, it's some kind of horror. I watched on TV how a diver collects fuel oil from the bottom soil with a garden shovel into a bag and I almost wanted to cry. Well, there were pneumatic soil pumps, there were canvas containers specifically for these purposes. Alas, there were....
  19. +12
    23 January 2025 10: 00
    All this time we were building shopping malls, business centers and housing in large cities. And so we were eating up the legacy of the USSR. Where are the new ships, planes, cars? What are our weapons without the Soviet legacy? We are inferior in space, we are not prepared for the war of 2022. And where will we end up? With nothing?
  20. +6
    23 January 2025 10: 22
    In the photo: tanker "Volgoneft-212". The deformation of the hull is visible!!!
    1. +3
      23 January 2025 11: 36
      And there's rust, right?
  21. +4
    23 January 2025 10: 29
    Ship owners must bear not only financial but also criminal liability!
    With confiscation of property to compensate for the damage caused by their activities!
  22. +12
    23 January 2025 10: 46
    Who will be held responsible for the disaster in the Kerch Strait?

    Switchmen, like the ship's captain.
    Who will pay the bills?

    Obviously. We. Citizens of the country. Taxpayers.
    Why risk nature?

    Business doesn't give a damn about her. Absolutely not.
    The system is to blame for the accident...
    This is a sign of a system failure.

    Yes, the system is to blame. But the problem is that it is not a failure. The system is not failing any more, it is going haywire. State governance has been lost. The decision-making system has been lost, i.e. no one makes them, and even if someone does, these decisions are not implemented. Let's even recall the notorious texts of the messages of the radiant leader of the Russian nation to his minions - "please do it, please" and so on.
    Orders are not given like that. They teach you how to give orders at the KMB before you take the oath at the military academy, but the old man either forgot or unlearned it and doesn't want to bother his friends and comrades with such nonsense anymore.
    Well, brains don't work at 70+ the same way they did at 40, with all due respect, it's time for grandpa to retire. He doesn't want to be bothered with all sorts of problems, he really likes to declare non-working days during a pandemic, increase all sorts of benefits, make 10K child payments, assign grandmothers to repair pipes on a direct line. And not all this stuff that's happening now.
    In the era of digitalization, almost instantaneous transmission of information, the Internet, communications, etc., he simply cannot keep up with anything. Receiving reports in red folders once a week, and then handing them out to governors with instructions is absurd in our time. What was acceptable in the times of L.I. Brezhnev, today simply does not work. All this could be funny if the country did not begin to crumble.
    Wild corruption, protectionism, dominance of organized crime diasporas, insolent heads of individual regions, loss of public administration, severe economic crisis, war.
    The worst thing is that Grandpa and his comrades have clung to power, you can't tear them away, even with flesh. Another 12 years are guaranteed, and most likely longer. Therefore, the insanity of those in power and the degradation of governance will increase.
  23. +4
    23 January 2025 11: 41
    While Russian the regions were preparing for the New Year holidays, in Crimea and Kuban fought the disaster.

    the same can be written about SVO...
    While some are partying and drinking, eating beyond measure - others are dying...
    1. +1
      23 January 2025 12: 21
      I completely agree with you. The New Year holidays should have been cancelled. And all the pubs should have been closed...
    2. +1
      25 January 2025 18: 23
      Quote: Dedok
      While some are partying and drinking, eating beyond measure - others are dying.

      It has always been like this. Even during WWI and WWII.
  24. +6
    23 January 2025 14: 02
    Gentlemen, comrades, masters!
    You wanted capitalism - but I have it!
    This is capitalism: exploiting coffins until they fall apart, and hiring cheap carriages to save even more.
    I know first-hand: the crews there (especially the command staff) are either drunks who were kicked out from everywhere, or sailors who bought their navigator diplomas, or people who don’t speak English.
    I was interested in one Mediterranean port: a captain on SUCH a tanker - 2300 dollars a month, on a similar Cypriot one - 12000, and on Germans/Norges - from 18 thousand and up.
    All our PUTNY graduates of maritime schools work on foreign ships (fortunately, there are plenty of crewing companies in each of our ports).
    True, there is our big company in Moscow with a big fleet (I forgot the name, but the emblem on the ships' funnels is the Russian flag), they pay VERY well there. But the selection there is wow!
    So, a coffin with an illiterate, drinking crew is something.
    Well, and questions to the inspectors of the Russian Register of Shipping: "How the f...k did you manage to extend the documents for such assholes?"
    1. +1
      23 January 2025 17: 24
      The answer is simple and short, in capitalism they also eat (guzzle) until they feel like hunting...
  25. +2
    23 January 2025 19: 12
    Let's return to the eternal, for Russia, Herzen-Chernyshev question... Part of the answer to this question lies on the surface: without changing the socio-economic system, in Russia, the number of "Herzen-Chernyshev" questions will only multiply and create tension in society... Perhaps. that's all....
    1. Egg
      0
      23 January 2025 22: 36
      Quote from nordscout
      without changing the socio-economic system in Russia,

      Well, we've reached an agreement with the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation laughing
      1. 0
        23 January 2025 23: 05
        Telur, don't confuse "soft" with "warm"...
    2. +1
      24 January 2025 00: 37
      So, the socio-economic system in Russia changed in 1991 - did it become easier for you?
      Socialism was replaced by capitalism - and again the liberals are not happy.
      Let's try feudalism now?
      Serfdom, the crunch (?) of a French roll, the right of the first night, balls.....
      And the newest tankers will sail across the expanses...
      ....The Bolshoi Theatre?
      1. -1
        24 January 2025 10: 28
        Seamaster, perhaps you didn't study history well and you have "difficulties" with analyzing what is happening... It happens....
        1. +1
          24 January 2025 12: 47
          A typical liberal technique: not to object to the opponent on the essence of the topic (because there is nothing to object to), but to respond in the style of “Yourself!”
          1. 0
            24 January 2025 16: 38
            Seamaster, do you consider yourself an opponent???? Don't make me laugh.... Try to at least read something about liberalism and its "techniques", and leave the "media cliches" alone...
            1. +1
              25 January 2025 16: 31
              An opponent is "a person who objects to someone, disagrees with someone, defending his views and beliefs; an opponent in a dispute."
              And for you liberals, does the word "opponent" have a different meaning?
              Or does the very word "opponent" make you laugh?
              Does simply showing your finger also make you laugh?
              Then you, sir, need to go to the hospital...
  26. -2
    23 January 2025 23: 17
    I have one question! Who gave the order to put these ruins into the sea, who allowed it? And one more question, where was the dispatcher during the train accident with victims? But he could have prevented it! And by the way, who is he?
    1. +1
      24 January 2025 00: 41
      What does the dispatcher have to do with it?
      The decision to go to sea is made by the captain in accordance with the plan-task received from the ship or cargo owner.
      And, by the way, the captain didn’t go out to sea, but if he had left the anchorage, he would have saved the ship and the birds on the shore.
  27. +1
    24 January 2025 06: 22
    Who will be held responsible for the disaster in the Kerch Strait?
    Nobody!.
    1. +1
      24 January 2025 10: 31
      Taimen, probably taxpayers...
  28. +1
    24 January 2025 13: 20
    As one chosen one of God says: "Take this with understanding."
  29. +4
    24 January 2025 15: 43
    The further you go, the more you understand the full damage of the current state of Russia. I wonder if nuclear weapons are in the same condition as these tankers? Of course, money was allocated and not small amounts, but where did it go or what was it for? No one thought that it might be needed and no one would check. Judging by the fact that no one is afraid of red markers, maybe there is an ambush there too! IMHO.
  30. +2
    24 January 2025 16: 38
    First of all, the captains of Volgonevtei are to blame for not taking appropriate measures for safe anchorage and storm conditions of the vessels entrusted to them, which, upon receiving a storm warning for strengthening southern winds, were obliged to take the vessels up to the Azov Sea. Second. Why did the dispatch services of the KEK (Kerch-Yenikalsky Canal), namely Kerch-TFC and Kavkaz-TFC, not organize the timely passage of vessels to the roadstead anchorages in the Azov Sea, which are closed from southern winds, although this is normal for them, in November 2007 they demanded an advance payment for passage through the strait from a vessel in severe storm conditions. At the end of 2007, the IMO (International Maritime Organization) even transmitted a circular warning to the World Fleet, instructing ship captains and ship owners to avoid passing through the Kerch Strait in the autumn-winter navigation season as much as possible.
  31. +1
    25 January 2025 08: 38
    A simple rule should have been introduced: unload tankers first. You can endlessly fantasize about new ships and shipyards - I've been to shipyards, they are 1-2 generations behind the Korean ones. They need to be radically re-equipped and implement drawing-less technologies. This is a lot of BIG money, time, and young engineers who draw in 3D. None of this exists.
    1. +3
      25 January 2025 09: 02
      implement drawing-less technologies. This is a big-BIG money, time, and young engineers who draw in 3D. None of this exists

      I am an old engineer with 40 years of experience and I "draw" in 3D. And I don't know where in factories they don't work without CAD - computer-aided design systems, this is how it sounds in Russian and some people who are far from design and engineering think that this is automation, but I call it differently, design with the HELP of a computer. 3D helps the designer, makes life easier, so to speak, but it also distracts from the creative process, becoming an intermediary between thought and hands. There can be no non-drawing technologies in serious production. Money must be paid in production so that smart and savvy people go there. At one time, Khrushchev belittled the engineer to a worker and we were almost left without the best engineering and technical workers, slackers and lazybones climbed into engineering ... And now the factories are run by chatterboxes and sycophants, without knowledge of production
      1. +2
        25 January 2025 19: 36
        Such productions should be managed by engineers who are well versed in the necessary machines. Then it will be possible to receive products directly from the machines, which will select a 3D model directly from the computer. And then one banker came to the Admiralty shipyards, puffed out his already fat cheeks, and was indignant - why are these hundred-year-old German Siemens machines still standing? Yes, they have been standing for a hundred years, and will work for another two hundred, unlike the Chinese nonsense.
      2. +2
        25 January 2025 19: 45
        I was at the modern Emperium shipyard - modern production, bought laser cutting. But on the other hand, in loans for 100 years. And at the Admiralty shipyards - there is no progress there. Now they want to demolish them and build entertainment - like they are profitable, than to build military ships with a profitability of 1%.
  32. +1
    25 January 2025 16: 48
    This is greed. We need to shake the owners of the ships. A captain in his right mind would not go into a sea storm on this modification of a barge. The second old name for river-sea ships is river-sorrow.
    1. 0
      26 January 2025 09: 36
      It depends on the captain...there are some who are truly out of their minds. Those will go ahead.
  33. 0
    25 January 2025 18: 18
    "The new, renewed country will solve the pressing problems"
    What needs to be updated in it?
  34. +1
    27 January 2025 08: 48
    Until now, even the name of the owner of the fuel oil has not been named. It seems that someone very close to the body. And those close to the body, like the body itself, do not give answers and do not bear responsibility. Not a royal matter.
  35. +1
    27 January 2025 19: 37
    Who will pay the bills?

    What a strange question! The insurance company should pay. I don't understand how such a rusty trough could be used. All over the world, these problems are left to the mercy of insurance companies, which bear FULL MATERIAL LIABILITY for damage caused by insured property. In order not to be turned inside out, insurance companies very strictly control the technical condition of ships and the qualifications of navigators. Moreover, without being tied hand and foot by the sluggish state machine, they do this effectively and at the same time conveniently for ship owners.
    Insurance mechanisms are generally extremely effective when used wisely.
  36. +1
    27 January 2025 19: 40
    Quote: anclevalico
    Until now, even the name of the owner of the fuel oil has not been named. It seems that someone very close to the body. And those close to the body, like the body itself, do not give answers and do not bear responsibility. Not a royal matter.

    What does the cargo owner have to do with it? The problems of the carrier and the one who allowed the use of old troughs. If you order a pizza, and the delivery guy runs over someone on the way, would you be ready to sit down with him on the road?
    What kind of childish habit is this of blaming everything on higher spheres!
  37. +1
    27 January 2025 21: 31
    Note to the author. All Volgonefts have double sides and a double bottom. No one shortened the lost Volgonefts. The specified Volgonefts had classes from construction that allowed them to go to sea. The main reason is operation in conditions exceeding the permitted ones. If the Volgonefts had gone into the strait, most likely nothing would have happened.
  38. +1
    28 January 2025 20: 52
    bottom line, turn off the lights, wrap yourself in sheets and crawl to the cemetery. Nature, with the help of man, will dispose of this disaster. Remember Japan, Fukushima, the accident at the nuclear power plant is comparable to Chernobyl, the radiation is terrible, the plant is still in emergency mode. Japan, without thinking of anything better, is dumping radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean. And what a lot of noise you hear. Half of the state burned down and our Orsk is washing away the cities, this is just a child's picture. No need to sow panic in the Russian spirit. They will figure out who needs to be punished, the beaches will be cleaned, the ship will be raised.
  39. +1
    29 January 2025 09: 14
    Tankers of this project were built as a "river sea" but their seaworthiness was limited even for new ships. Permission to go to sea now when the ships are 55 years old is a crime, the metal is tired and will not withstand the waves! They should have been scrapped when they were 40 years old. Now the problem with Russian shipbuilding is the lack of shipyards, qualified shipbuilders, and marine diesel engines. The Soviet legacy has been severely damaged, shipbuilding capacity is 10 times lower than Soviet capacity. In Astrakhan there were; the Kirov shipyard, a plant that serially built Raketa hydrofoil ships, the Stalin plant, and another plant that was not far from the city in the area, now only one plant is working little by little! It built floating drilling rigs for Lukoil. The people who worked there have died, the vocational school system has been destroyed - there is no one to teach even from father to son.
    The problem with tankers must be solved at the expense of mining companies, let them build for themselves!
  40. 0
    29 January 2025 16: 06
    I'm writing a comment a bit late, but still... Now imagine, a good pack of ukroBEKs will hunt (or already are) for our troughs? Where can we get so many volunteers? It's a pity about Baikal and Karelia, now our "Tagilyyyys" will go there with their aunts, litter, it's terrible...
  41. -1
    29 January 2025 19: 14
    Who will be held responsible for the disaster in the Kerch Strait?

    The Western aggressors will ultimately answer according to the law of justice.... For the main reason for this catastrophe is the illegal Western sanctions, as a result of which these tankers were where they should not have been, with what they should not have been with... The contents of the tankers would have been sold and shipped to buyers much earlier, if not for the hostile, illegal sanctions...