Black Sea Fleet - Chukotka Fleet
Dedicated to the border guard sailors.
"Hello... are you even alive? Why aren't you answering? What do you mean, in grief? Who died?"
- No, everyone at home is alive and well... Today is the anniversary - 35 years since I was removed from the unit's list and became a pensioner...
- You're a fool, sir! Enjoy your freedom! You've been retired for half your life, heh-heh... Tired of playing the fool, I bet? Imagine: I'd be on duty right now, or on duty in a brigade...
"You're the fool... you keep bringing up your service... What, is that so? I know how you whine sometimes, your wife told me..."
- My wife? I'll give her a hard time for disclosing...
- Don’t be stupid, let’s get together?
- Let's... buzz...
Buzzing....
- Where did you serve in the North? In Gremikha?
- Well, yeah, and I don't think you picked tangerines on the southern coast of Crimea either...
- Darkness! I've been there, where even in summer it's cold in a coat!
- Well, it's not hot in the North either...
"What's so special about your North? You were only two hours away from St. Petersburg by plane, or a day and a half by train—by our standards, that's nothing! I haven't seen any northerners among those applying for residency in Chukotka..."
- You're crazy! Chukotka is full of bears and deer, and there probably aren't even any people! No, I'd rather serve in the North, bang on the train, and off to St. Petersburg. We don't need Chukotka... and you're lying in your stories. Were there really naval units of those... what do you call them... border troops in Chukotka?
- There were, and what a bunch! There was a whole border detachment there, aviation a border squadron, a naval division, and the army also had air regiments and units tank, cloud Defense, the Pacific Fleet's RTR company, and a whole bunch of other units and subunits...
- What the hell... and where and how did you live there? You can't live there, except for the bears... Come on, don't keep me in suspense!
Otherwise you won't get any roach...
- You impudent fellow! The taranka is sacred! Don't encroach on it! ... Now listen...
- No, everyone at home is alive and well... Today is the anniversary - 35 years since I was removed from the unit's list and became a pensioner...
- You're a fool, sir! Enjoy your freedom! You've been retired for half your life, heh-heh... Tired of playing the fool, I bet? Imagine: I'd be on duty right now, or on duty in a brigade...
"You're the fool... you keep bringing up your service... What, is that so? I know how you whine sometimes, your wife told me..."
- My wife? I'll give her a hard time for disclosing...
- Don’t be stupid, let’s get together?
- Let's... buzz...
Buzzing....
- Where did you serve in the North? In Gremikha?
- Well, yeah, and I don't think you picked tangerines on the southern coast of Crimea either...
- Darkness! I've been there, where even in summer it's cold in a coat!
- Well, it's not hot in the North either...
"What's so special about your North? You were only two hours away from St. Petersburg by plane, or a day and a half by train—by our standards, that's nothing! I haven't seen any northerners among those applying for residency in Chukotka..."
- You're crazy! Chukotka is full of bears and deer, and there probably aren't even any people! No, I'd rather serve in the North, bang on the train, and off to St. Petersburg. We don't need Chukotka... and you're lying in your stories. Were there really naval units of those... what do you call them... border troops in Chukotka?
- There were, and what a bunch! There was a whole border detachment there, aviation a border squadron, a naval division, and the army also had air regiments and units tank, cloud Defense, the Pacific Fleet's RTR company, and a whole bunch of other units and subunits...
- What the hell... and where and how did you live there? You can't live there, except for the bears... Come on, don't keep me in suspense!
Otherwise you won't get any roach...
- You impudent fellow! The taranka is sacred! Don't encroach on it! ... Now listen...
Part One. "This isn't here. This is Chukotka, baby..."
The first time I got to know Chukotka was around 1984. Our ships were stationed there for two months at a time, a short period from May to the end of September, sometimes including October, so getting there was a gamble. And we weren't particularly eager, preferring the Magadan region over the two-month assignments. Well, the sea, the hills, the Chukchi on the coast, the scheduled maintenance and inspection (PPI) in Komsomolskaya Bay, a visit to the border detachment, the shooting range, or with the border aviation pilots (a border squadron had been based there since 1947)... Basically, it was routine. True, the Chukotka region was quiet—the enemy wasn't particularly pampering, but otherwise—the sea, killer whales, whales, polar bears... A spectacular sight...
I already told you that the 110th Königsberg Order of the Red Star Border Detachment (abbreviated POGO, military unit 2254), based in the village of Ureliki (Urelyk, as the locals called it), had a group of boats. Not a separate unit, but rather three Project 1496 boats (102-ton displacement, harbor tugs by the manufacturer's classification) and a pair of Project T-4 self-propelled barges, colloquially known as tank carriers.
By the way, almost every online resource is shamelessly untrue about the border troops, both in general and in particular. Wikipedia, Mzareulov's website, and many others alike. These "sources" write nonsense about the 110th Border Guard Detachment being based in Anadyr. Utter nonsense... The detachment's headquarters was in the village of Ureliki (geographically correct at the time—Urelyk, that's how it was labeled on nautical charts and sailing directions). The border detachment's commandant's office was in Anadyr. The village of Ureliki was liquidated in 2000, and the border detachment was transferred to Anadyr in 2004, having served the Motherland since 1941...
Moscow - Providence Bay. Just 6460 km away...
And so, in light of the strengthening of the force and assets in the Northeast, the top border command in Moscow decided to deploy an entire division of first-rank border patrol boats within this group, comprising the 110th Border Guard Detachment, with operational subordination to the Naval Department of the Kamchatka Border District (later renamed the North-Eastern Border District, SVPO). All of this was a step toward the subsequent deployment of a separate brigade in Komsomolskaya Bay in Chukotka, but…
These decisions take years to prepare, sometimes ten to fifteen years, and they carry enormous inertia. And by 1990, not just much, but almost everything had changed in the country. Including the very attitude toward the Armed Forces, border security, the value of sovereignty as such, and even toward military personnel... By that time, we had already seen and heard from classmates about the withdrawal of troops from East Germany into the open air, we had seen the destruction and annihilation. rocket and the nuclear shield, the disregard for soldiers and officers of the new (as it turned out, the last) Soviet elite, and the incitement of the people against the army by liberals driven mad by permissiveness.
But imagining the country's leadership would destroy border security—such brutality never occurred to us, and those who did were stomped on with the counter-question: are Moscow's people really complete idiots and mentally ill?! The reality turned out to be even more merciless: both. And they were even competing with each other, to put it mildly...
So, in June 1990, an order from the head of the KGB's Naval Directorate for the Defense Troops slowly reached us, ordering an entire division of boats to deploy to the 110th Pogo Group. Three Project 1496 boats and one T-4 self-propelled barge were ordered from Sovetskaya Gavan for this purpose. A headquarters was formed and the staffing levels were approved: division commander – captain/captain two (this rank was promised but never delivered), chief of staff – captain, political officer – captain, flagship mechanic – captain, and flagship communications officer – captain—captain—that's a captain for everyone! Or four…
Why aren't such high-ranking positions in a separate division? It's simple—how many fools would want to bask in the blazing sun of Chukotka for two weeks a year? Indeed, this joyful prospect was offset by a high rank.
What do you mean, two weeks? You're nuts, this is Chukotka – winter lasts 10 months, and the rest – hmm, what did you think? Summer? You're funny, sir… The correct answer is autumn! There are only two months a year without snow – July and August, but even that isn't always the case, and the ice in the bay completely melts in June… So, we consider the "scorching sun" issue closed…
I too had the good fortune to be acquainted with these modest heroes of voluntary suicide...
Where do we begin, ships or people? Okay, following the old Soviet tradition, let's start with... ships. People have always been an appendage to technology. Callous and cynical? Perhaps, but it's a fact – no one really thought about people; the period of "warm Brezhnev attitudes" ended with the arrival of the country's very selfish and chatty leader. We were still laughing out loud at jokes about Leonid Ilyich, unaware of what the people who came after him would turn the country into, and the Brezhnev stagnation would seem like a golden age... The new leader drowned both ideas and people in a verbal husk, and not just people – he flushed an entire country down the toilet...
There was a lot of talk, but not a bit of action: in full accordance with the "new thinking," funding and supply levels for units and formations were falling, the state of the materiel was deteriorating due to a shortage of spare parts and consumables, a reduction in funds for ship repairs, everyone was madly moving towards cost accounting, spare parts, oil, fuel, pipes, and everything else that could be traded, sold, or sold on the side began to disappear somewhere... By inertia, something was still being built, sometimes even surprisingly successfully, but the very sense of the meaning of sacred service was evaporating along with the logistical support...
PSKA Project 1496 – these boats were used in Chukotka in the 1980s and 1990s.[/ Center]
I need to say a few words about geography, otherwise you won't understand... If you imagine our country as a human organism, then Moscow is the heart of our Motherland, Leningrad is its mind, honor and conscience (or all that's left...), Primorye is its bladder, and Chukotka is the back, that is, the rear part of the country... And the urban-type settlement of Provideniya is the central part of the fillet...
Our wits said that the hole in this sirloin was precisely the village of Ureliki, located on the other side of Komsomolskaya Bay. It was here that all the military units of the USSR Ministry of Defense and the KGB border troops were stationed, although the common people more often referred to it as "in Providence," since no one in their right mind had the geographic knowledge to reach a village measuring 20x20... Well, I guessed wrong again—not kilometers, but minutes of walking distance.
Now you know what I mean when I talk about Providence. And you know, I've learned the hard way that it's the holy truth... Don't shake your head and say it's even more fun in Pevek or Gremikha; that won't work. Otherwise, we'll be looking at other body parts, and I don't think you'll like that...
What is Chukotka? It's a separate planet, roughly a bit further than Mars, and just as accessible…
An outsider would never understand this... On the map it's only 6460 km from Moscow to Providence, but in real life everything is different.
If it's the north, that means heating, because heat is life! Trivial? Well, try another way! If there are people, that means there's running water. Or more precisely, pipes. So, in Providence, the pipes were rotting and corroding through at a terrifying, physically visible rate. Either because of the magnetism induced in the pipes by the ionization of the polar cap and the resulting rapid electrocorrosion, or because of the quality of the water with elevated levels of everything on the periodic table, the pipes corroded through in exactly two years. Nothing saved them: no galvanized steel, no stainless steel (ridiculous...), no fancy ones, no electrical or other protection methods. And for people in Chukotka, for example, no water in winter means pure and brief death. No big deal.
Command was constantly replacing pipelines; they wouldn't leave it to chance. Pipe consumption was astronomical, but the only way to avoid it was to replace it with plastic. However, they didn't undertake such technologies, apparently hampered by a lack of qualified personnel and the materials/pipes themselves. Chukotka, thank God, had no shortage of electric and gas welders... And just think about it: in winter, when the frost hits and the pipes freeze for 200 meters, how are you going to warm up the plastic with gas torches? What else could you do? So the steel pipes held the line... and won!
Tell me, what was the most scarce thing in Chukotka? Fruit, you say? Now you're talking about food again... Alcohol? You can drink it yourself... Are you keeping quiet? And rightly so, because no one would ever think of such a thing, no matter how hard you try!
I'll tell you: the biggest shortage in Providence was a brass shell casing from a 100mm tank shell! You couldn't put cigarette butts in it... A casing from a "hundred" became a super-duper filter for purifying water in an apartment! Worse than the Petrik filter from the period of mismanaged money-making by crooks in the 2000s... That's exactly what I'm talking about—nothing special... The water in the pipes is always rusty, often just black, sometimes a very brownish-yellow, sometimes a dirty brown, with huge chunks of rust, sand, and who knows what else... You can keep the faucet running for half an hour until the pipes flush out, but sometimes even that doesn't help much.
And then Her Majesty Russian Ingenuity appears. You take a "hundred" cartridge case, unscrew the primer, cut a one-inch thread for installation on a pipe or bathroom faucet, and then fashion a cap on top with a welded fitting for the shower threads, with a crimping fastener that presses the cap onto the cartridge case through a homemade rubber gasket. Incidentally, it's quite a trick—where do you get good rubber? And one that won't tear out under pressure. This delicate (in terms of importance and value!) work was done by the guys from the detachment boiler room, and the best specialist, in my opinion, was a warrant officer from the squadron.
From this 100mm tank gun shell, the lucky ones got a water filter.
And this is where the absolute, calibrated madhouse begins... This only comes to mind after a very, very large amount of alcohol has been absorbed through the normal physiological process, since a normal person would never imagine this, and it would never even occur to him!
You think a 100-caliber shell casing is the height of inspiration? Not at all! How can you hold our people in such low esteem... So, to complete the happiness, all that was left was to... wheedle some nylon tights out of my wife. Did he appreciate the moment? What a moment! And she screams, "You villain, you're taking my last money. I'll only be able to buy them on the mainland for a year, you monster!"
Well, you're not going to be moved by this grief, so you (now slowly, letter by letter) solemnly stuff sawdust from the sawmill into these tights! And good sawdust, of course, is also in terrible shortage! And to safely drink water filtered by this "sorbent," the sawdust needs to be clean and from good wood! Which means you also need connections at the sawmill. And let me remind you that trees don't grow at all in Chukotka. Got it?
And so you, so happy, tie up your tights with sawdust, stuff this whistled or begged-for happiness from your beloved wife into the sleeve, close the lid, crimp it, tighten the fastener, screw the sleeve onto the fitting of the mixer instead of the shower and screw the hose with the shower onto the fitting of the lid!
That's it, now you're happy! And your wife even starts thanking you, because clean water is finally flowing from the tap, not just straight from the well, and she's happily taking her first shower, and the especially delicate ones – even a bath… True, the filter's lifespan is a month, two, or three at most, then it all starts again. And again – where to get tights? And sawdust? And you're stealing your wife's timeless nylon treasure while she's at the store – maybe she'll forget? Or think they were never there?
Well, it's better not to talk about the torment, how water gushes out of every crack in this filter under good pressure, how you heroically struggle for an hour or two with leaks and other suddenly discovered circumstances, all this, because then you'll have to give him valerian...
But regardless of the presence of "Artillery "Filter of Increased Power," some particularly enlightened individuals managed to obtain a 122mm shell casing from a neighboring regiment through extensive connections. And that's even more difficult than flying a military transport plane to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky and back for a weekend without permission from command... This was already the caliber of the Supreme Command Headquarters Reserve...
Okay, the first problem is solved—you have clean (who checked?) water coming out of your tap at home. Hooray! But... Anyway, after a year or two of that water, my teeth started falling out like sand from a dune... Well, what did you think? I got dentures from the sheer joy of eating lollipops? That's how it is...
So, my friend, we've solved only one of Chukotka's global problems—bringing the water back to a visually normal state. We still have about five more problems of equal magnitude to solve, so galactic wars are like child's play compared to the challenges of our time...
Now about food... Yeah, where would we be without it? Fruit in Providence—though not completely absent, it's rare. Apples and oranges were also available, and dried fruit was included in the rations. And that was it, the fruit topic was over until the next navigation season.
Fruit juices in 3-liter jars are a staple of the Soviet Union during Perestroika, and not just in Chukotka. But in 1991, in Chukotka, they sold… Well, you won't guess again… Don't be mad, I never would have guessed either… So, they sold wine in 3-liter glass jars! Either it was fruit-flavored wine or something else—I can't remember, since only someone with 100% immortality could drink it. I once tried it on a dare, thought it was just some kind of cyanide, and was really about to die, but I got away with it… These 3-liter jars of wine were incredibly popular among the local tundra population.
There was this: I was returning from Provideniya to Ureliki to the border detachment and accidentally missed the service bus. It was winter, a blizzard was raging, so fiercely that you couldn't see anything for 20-30 meters. It was freezing cold, no, not really—bitter cold... Well, you know the difference... I was standing at the bus stop in a ship's leather raglan coat, shivering, waiting for the Provideniya-Ureliki bus. Next to the bus stop was a store selling all sorts of things, including canned wine. I went in to warm up. Just don't think it's a regular store—housed in a building, with advertising and all the other perks. It's the Chukchi version—a small, paneled, "shed-like" structure, powered by a nearby pole, a sales counter, and a display case. There were five or seven people in the store, mostly Chukchi, buying wine and other things. A couple of tundra guys, already quite drunk, stubbornly demand a couple more cans. Three-liter ones. Fine, I'll watch this with interest.
There was another scene... The Chukchi were forbidden from selling strong liquor, to prevent the small ethnic group from becoming overindulgent. So they quickly set up business – they'd pick up a Russian and drag him to the store for a small cut... Well, they'd pay with whatever they could, mostly in kind. What did you immediately think? You're a bad person for bringing that up right away. So, a young Chukchi woman stands there and asks her Russian friend, "Listen, buy me a bottle!" He replies, "Leave me alone!" And this happens about five times... Then he loses his patience and calls her a monkey, the scoundrel. And the girl screams at the whole store, "Yeah, when it comes to 'that thing,' it's Lenochka, and when it comes to a bottle, it's a monkey!" The crowd practically collapsed in the store...
Okay, let's get back to our tipsy tundra guys. One of them was really drunk… He came out of the store and lay down in the snow near the bus stop. A couple of Russians and I got nervous, and we started fussing. We had to pick this guy up, find a place to stay—he'd freeze! The tundra guys looked at us indifferently and said, "Listen, don't disturb him… He'll get some sleep and then go home" (and it's about 10 kilometers as the crow flies). We screamed, "He'll die! He'll freeze!" And the saleswoman is already telling us, "Leave them alone, they won't even recognize it as frost. He'll sleep in the snow for a couple of hours and he'll be as fit as a fiddle." I've never been so shocked—winter, Chukotka (and not even the southern part! And it's not even the North Caucasus!), a blizzard, a guy sleeping in the snow at a bus stop, and no one's making a big deal out of it. So what? It's only -15 degrees, how cold is that? I myself felt like I was "running on the cold"...
So... The bus arrived, port workers, teachers, and shop assistants boarded, the interior was packed, pitch black, and a couple of Tundras had squeezed in. At the bus stop, two heavily intoxicated Tundras were already sleeping. We were heading to Ureliki. The bus was heated reliably, and after about five minutes, a terrible smell began to permeate the interior... The stench became unbearable after about ten minutes. Where did this joy come from? I looked around, and a woman calmly said to me from the seat next to me: "Don't pay any attention, it's just the Chukchi smell, the smell has thawed out."
Apparently, she wasn't pleased with the size of my bulging eyes, and to avoid an accident and the possible return of the bus to Providence, she gave me a crash course on the origins of this phenomenon. Chukchi people wear their parkas with the fur on the inside; they aren't supposed to wash them, and there's no place to do so. Reindeer fur has hollow hairs on the inside, creating an additional layer of air. It provides both ventilation and sweat wicking at the same time. Sweat, oil, and other body fluids lubricate the reindeer fur from the inside, preventing the skin/fur from getting wet and keeping critters out (but if you were to have one and get a slight warmth at -40°C... Lice—are they that crazy?). An air layer of skin/skin-fur-fat is created. And you don't need any sweaters, synthetic padding, or other miracles: it's reliable, cheap, and cheerful. In severe frosts, they put the outer jacket over the undercoat, fur side out. This "suit" is completely impenetrable by any cold. As for the smell—well, it's nonexistent in the cold, and in the tent they usually take it off, plus there's smoke from the fireplace—so all's well, my beautiful marquise! And so, with my mouth open and my eyes wide open, I rode to Urelik. Whether this is true or not, I don't know, but I saw people sleeping in the snow, and I smelled the stench for a full half hour; I thought I'd die with that smell...
And you - "yes, we are in the North"... That's how things are...
Do you know who was held in the highest esteem in Chukotka? The district head? No way, he was just a bureaucrat... The most respected was the border squadron commander, the head of the military trade department, followed by the director of the Providensky brewery, and then there was—again, you'll never guess! Next up was the Pacific Fleet company commander (as they called it, the electronic reconnaissance and direction-finding company). And why was some commander of some "company" of 15 sailors, warrant officers, and officers combined called a "Big Man"?
Don't worry, all the answers will be wrong. And he was a truly respected man because he had an amazing bathhouse, the best in the area!
The thing is, a banya in Chukotka isn't just a simple service establishment. A banya in Chukotka is a religion... All military units, enterprises, and institutions in Chukotka had banyas. And in this company, the banya was a place of worship for all the commanders and their superiors. The naval officers managed to fine-tune the steam room and banya stove so that in terms of steam quality, temperature, and freshness, as well as the comfort of a relaxation room, they were unrivaled. Many tried, but failed. One of the main secrets was the firebox. This is the Far North, and the temperature in the banya must be created almost like a volcano's crater and maintained for a long time. Any firebox couldn't handle it and burned out. They even sawed up air cylinders to create a firebox, but they also burned out quickly. But the naval officers "bought" a turbine or a jet engine nozzle from pilots. This firebox could withstand any temperature and ran practically around the clock.
It must be said that people didn't go to the bathhouse to wash—they went there to chat and converse, and the actual washing itself served only a secondary purpose. The head of the military trade department went there and considered it an honor to steam there, and other leaders, great and small, preferred the naval bathhouse. Well, of course, the company commander made the schedule to prevent random people from crossing paths with special guests, but he could also arrange for the right people to meet the right people in the steam room. In general, politics at the local level was no different from the highest, only the chimney was lower and the smoke thinner. In Moscow, it was lower, but in Chukotka, both the chimney and the smoke were at the highest level!
At that time, a genius of Soviet electronic intelligence, Colonel Vladimir Nikolaevich Molchanovsky, was serving in Chukotka. He was a fine, thoughtful officer, a veritable encyclopedia of electronics and more, a superb organizer, an undeniable technical talent, and a beloved officer and commander by his subordinates. I won't dwell on his professional qualities; he was a true genius. He had once participated in the creation and deployment of the electronic intelligence center in Lourdes, Cuba. I was very proud to have developed an excellent personal and professional relationship with him, despite the significant age difference. But since the scope of his work is confidential, I will only share a few details about our acquaintance. And most importantly, it was he who introduced me to the naval company's private bathhouse club. Molchanovsky was immensely respected by all the unit commanders based in that area. And if he recommended someone, they listened to him unconditionally. That's how I ended up in that bathhouse.
From the outside, it seems like, so what? It's a banya, after all; we've seen better ones. But when I returned home after the first time, I felt like a newborn—I was practically flying, both at home and at work. And being a quiet person, I earned the respect of those around me, and even started getting invitations to social clubs where everyone was in the same group—anyone could say they didn't want to see that kind of person at a meeting, and they wouldn't receive an invitation.
All in all, it was quite an establishment! But the respect with which people treated each other—you'd have to look hard to find that... Sometimes Molchanovsky and I would go to the bathhouse at six in the evening and return at five in the morning... There were occasional adventures, but everything went smoothly...
This was the banya—the spirit, honor, and conscience of our lives in Chukotka. Nowhere else did the banya reach such a level of importance: it was a club, a friendly get-together, a business meeting, a political event, a get-together for three, and many other aspects of life were governed by a simple log house with a stove…
And one very sad day, this bathhouse caught fire... Such incidents happen all the time in the North, but this bathhouse was especially sad. It was later repaired, but it was no longer the same... And I left these hospitable lands...
Vladimir Nikolaevich Molchanovsky, of course, was the clear leader in this "small part of the country." Subordinate to the central government, he said and did what he considered necessary, regardless of positions, ranks, and other trappings of greatness among the high and lowly officials in Chukotka. By virtue of his profession, he was the best-informed man in Chukotka, and I think even beyond that. People listened to him attentively, and not out of fear of being rebuked by Moscow, although, of course, that did happen... They listened to him primarily because he had the habit of thinking before speaking. As you can imagine, this is not a common occurrence in the service. And, as a rule, his advice and conclusions were well-considered and balanced, and always to the point.
He wielded the authority of God's deputy on earth... He was in Chukotka with his wife, Margarita, a beautiful, highly intelligent, and sensitive woman, and their adult son, who was serving in another unit. They were a very sensitive, hospitable, and friendly family, a rarity these days... Later, he resigned and went to Moscow. We met him a couple of times—a wonderful man, a clever one, but the new leaders in his service didn't need such people... Words cannot describe what he invented and created, both during and after his service. Many of his ideas are still being developed by various firms for enormous sums of money and remain unresolved to this day, while for him, a few weeks were enough to ponder, refine their designs, and test them in the field. For Molchanovsky, only one thing was important—the correct formulation of the problem, its formulation, and the freedom to think and act. That's all. The last device we discussed was created by him without any support from his former service. It cost pennies and offered performance characteristics that the very expensive American systems our services had begun using couldn't match... And the security of those systems is beyond words. But Molchanovsky was no longer needed by the younger generation, which was a shame...
But let's return to our boats. The command decided to deploy an entire division from the group (which, of course, wasn't a tactical unit) with its own staff and a whopping five senior officers. Previously, warrant officers commanded the group, simultaneously acting as the boat's commander. The boat's entire crew consisted of two warrant officers (the commander and the chief petty officer of the engine room) and seven sailors and chief petty officers. The crew lived on the boat during navigation season; in winter, the boats were frozen into the ice, and the crew was housed in the border detachment barracks. And so it went, year after year...
The T-4M type self-propelled barge, in the amount of two copies, was in service with the 110th self-propelled barge
The boats served in the interests of the border detachment—specifically, in its interests. Their service could be described as a sea taxi, "stay here, come here." That is, the boats supported the border detachment's operations, its logistics, procurement, and other similar needs. Occasionally, they would transport border patrols to inspect ships in the port of Provideniya, and even more rarely, they were used to provide sea cover for foreign vessels anchored in the roads of Komsomolskaya Bay. In other words, the boats were only occasionally engaged in border protection and service, in the academic sense of the term, and such a task was not even assigned to them. At the start of navigation, division headquarters would arrive, check readiness for sailing, accept the K-1 mission, and conduct repairs at the ship repair shops in Provideniya or Anadyr. The division also supplied the boats.
Overall, it all worked somehow, somehow existed, and was familiar to everyone. On the surface. In reality, the picture was dire. Throughout their entire service life, the boats never underwent a single mid-life or routine overhaul, if at all. The mechanisms were somehow maintained in working order, but none of the manufacturer's scheduled maintenance was performed at all. The reason was that the boats were under the control of both the DIPSKR and the Pogo. Spare parts and kits weren't ordered, and maintenance of the main and auxiliary engines wasn't planned due to the Pogo rear's lack of knowledge, skills, finances, supplies, and so on. Whatever the boat commander and crew did was good. On PSKA 273, the commander changed the boat's entire electrical system simply because he thought it was necessary. Everyone was stewing in their own juices, and no one dared touch this structure of life in the Pogo.
Discipline on the boats was conditional and had nothing to do with military affairs. From the perspective of a normal naval officer, it wasn't a group, but a disorganized mob of anarchists in uniform, who could only loosely be called soldiers.
Are they to blame for this? Unlikely. It's the pure fault of the command, which understood it was incapable of bringing this group of two dozen sailors and warrant officers up to standard military readiness, and every demand from the boat commanders for anything at all was met with the same monologue:
— Dissatisfied? Are you supplying the boats according to the quotas? Are you providing spare parts? Uniforms? Are you doing repairs? Have you created a berth? Are you providing housing for the warrant officers and those serving beyond their enlistment? No? And what the hell are you demanding? I'm ready to resign from here yesterday. Any other questions? Who should I hand over my affairs to? By the way, what affairs? Did you hand them over to me? No? Then there's nothing to hand over. I'm leaving.
The officer interviewed for the division commander position was recruited from the ships. Both the division headquarters and the district's naval department warned him immediately: there would be a lot of work, the situation was difficult, the team was quite disorganized, the relationship between the boats and the patrol boats was tense, there was no shipboard organization, and no one at patrol boat headquarters knew anything about it. The task was to try to create a division on this basis and bring the unit up to standard, but how and what—it was up to you to decide...
It was against this backdrop that the "deployment" began in the summer of 1990. For the first few months, it seemed like this deployment made sense—both for border control and for service, and for the potential to eventually deploy a brigade. But after three or four months, it became clear that the idea itself, as it was being implemented, would lead to nothing good. Sea to sea, naval units needed to be assembled under a naval structure; leaving the naval unit under the control of the ground forces was a mistake from the start. But that's how it is...
Think about it: a headquarters has arrived, which has never existed here, either organizationally or as a mechanism for organizing and managing the service. There's no mission statement, unless you consider the parting words, "Well, you see what you're doing there and act accordingly," to be a mission statement. "You'll report to the detachment commander, and for supply and other matters, call the district's naval department, we'll help you out." That's the entire mission statement. What to protect, what borders, how and with whom to interact, rights and authorities—all of this is not even off-screen... But the border detachment already had its own familiar "go there, I don't know where," its own internal hierarchy, chain of command, organization of supplies, management, and simply everyday life. Good or bad—it was there.
And then—hello, Nastya... Here we are, a whole bunch of senior and not-so-senior officers (let me remind you that for many years the detachment hadn't seen a single sailor above a midshipman under its command), with vague powers but a very respectable and menacing title—Division Headquarters... And what did they need us for? A mere fifth wheel, since no clear tasks or management organization for the district command have been defined. And simply calling the district if there's a misunderstanding with the detachment command is a non-trivial matter... After all, the border detachment's telephone operator:
a) may not connect under the pretext of poor connection;
b) can disconnect, since the conversation is going through his headphones;
c) may report the content of the conversation with the district to his superiors.
That's how it is... So what are you commanding here? And who? Of course, we managed to organize and advance some things, but every report to the detachment's chief of staff was almost always met with the answer: "We did it this way before you, and we'll do it this way after you."
The group, as ridiculous as it may sound, consisted of approximately 20 warrant officers, petty officers, and sailors, with the boats manned at 30-50% of their full complement. Both warrant officers and sailors were reluctant to change anything in the long-established tradition. Then came the naval officers, who viewed all these liberties as a class to be exterminated. The freewheeling and utter chaos that the naval officers assigned to the division headquarters witnessed shocked some of them outright, but others saw this as an opportunity to become a freewheeling individual themselves... And unfortunately, the young officer appointed chief of staff of the division turned out to be such a person... This quickly led to familiarity, then to drinking, and finally, the comrade went berserk... And if not for his high-ranking father, he would have come to a bad end...
Some time after the division headquarters' arrival, order began to return to the units, without excessive strictness or foolishness (I hope). The team slowly returned to normal, moving not like a gang of anarchists, but as something resembling a military collective. And although 13 sailors and petty officers were sent to the guardhouse for 111 days during the year, the teams gradually began to "come to their senses," and with the dismissal of the "old-timers, free Cossacks," even the contours of military order began to emerge. The crews were generally good, with sufficient naval training, weren't particularly afraid of the work, and even looked with interest at headquarters—to see what they could do. Headquarters, on the whole, began to fulfill its role, and within a year everyone had adjusted—both staff and crew, and crew and headquarters. But there were still sparks, sometimes violent ones.
Believe it or not, this "group" of boats was based at a man-made pier with a moored, half-submerged pontoon and fragments of a sunken vessel. The detachment's fence was about two hundred meters away as the crow flies; a power cable and a telephone line to the detachment's duty officer were laid to the pier. Three boats and a self-propelled barge—a tank carrier—were moored to this semblance of a pier. One tank carrier and the boat were in Anadyr, under the operational control of the border commandant's office.
That's the whole Black Sea Fleet - Chukotka fleetAnd this fleet needed to be expanded into a proper border division, which I'll discuss further...
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