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Immortal division: we are united by caring for perished sailors’ memory

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Immortal division: we are united by caring for perished sailors’ memory

30.05.2018

Svetlana Smetanina

On May 5, one of the Baltic fleet's ships left Kroonstad carrying on board representatives of the Western military district, Moscow Religious Academy and members of the Bow to the Ships of the Great Victory expedition. Their purpose is to tribute the honoured dead of the Soviet submarines lost while forcing German mine obstacles. Konstantin Bogdanov, the leader of the project talks about this unusual initiative.

- The Expedition project has been in place for the last 10 years. How did it all begin? How did you come up with the idea to look for the lost military submarines?

- The idea appeared in 2005, so the project exists more than 10 years. It began as a memorial activity dedicated to the Victory Day. School children usually hold guard of honour at collective graves and by memorials to the perished soldiers, while we have a chance to pay tribute to the graves inaccessible for the most people. However, in a few yeas' time I realized that memorial activities were not enough because too many ships and submarines were lost during the war, some of which are still listed as missing in action. So, I though it would be good to contribute to locating those vessels.

Picture: Konstantin Bogdanov/Facebook

That was how the Bow to the Ships of the Great Victory project developed from the memorial one into an exploratory submarine expedition, which began at the Black Sea - in the Crimea, Novorossiysk. There were a few projects in Bulgaria in cooperation with Bulgarian researchers. Since 2012, our team has been closely involved in working at the Gulf of Finland.

- When you are saying "our team" who do you mean? Who are your partners in searching for the sunk ships?

- They are ordinary people who do something else in their daily life. There are businessmen, IT an PR specialists, a military man, a priest, a photographer. We come together and join in search for a sunk submarine at certain time. The most important thing is that all of them care for the common endeavour, the country’s history and the memory of the perished sailors.

- You had to buy special equipment, didn't you?

- Any expedition by itself is quite an expensive endeavour, starting from the current catering - the freight and nutrition. The expedition includes people who have their own equipment and have been diving for many years in different circumstances. They are highly qualified not only as technical divers capable of diving to certain depths, but also as specialists in their sphere, such as operators, underwater photographers and subsea sound locating. This means that well-equipped and highly qualified people gather in order to do the search and document the historical process.

Picture: Search submarine team/Facebook

While surface ships can be located easily enough using the data from the German and Soviet archives - they might have been detected by lookout stations, there are much less evidence as far as submarines are concerned.

It just happened so that we've lately focused on the history of the subsea war. 12 sunk submarines have been found in the Gulf of Finland as of today. Submarines are the most difficult vessels to find. What is a submarine? It is a capsule that submerges with a definite task. Normally they have to force mine obstacles, enter the enemy's line and sink enemy ships. Less often their task is surveillance or transporting recon teams. In case submarines went missing, it was impossible to locate them. While ships can be located easily enough using the data from the German and Soviet archives - they might have been detected by lookout stations, there are much less evidence as far as submarines are concerned.

Our top priority is to study all available archives, define the area of possible search. Miroslav Morozov, a well-known historian and the author of numerous books on the subsea fleet of WW2 contributes a lot in defining the search area. After the search area is defined the search team sails off.

Picture: Search submarine team/Facebook

If we manage to locate an underwater object, we start diving to identify it and take its photos. Our goal is not just to locate the submarine, but also to pay tribute to the crew, to serve requiem.

We use Russian equipment produced at V. Tikhomorov R&D of Equipment Manufacturing. One of the members of our search team, Evgeni Tutynin is a designer of such equipment, so he often tests new developments during our expeditions. If we manage to locate an underwater object, we start diving to identify it and take its photos. Our goal is not just to locate the submarine, but also to pay tribute to the crew, to serve requiem.

Underwater photographs are important for opening an online memorial Submarine Museum.

Picture: Search submarine team/Facebook

The memorial museum appeals to the sailors’ relatives and to the people interested in the history of the Great Patriotic War’s submarines. In general, this is a new way of presenting information on submarines. Foreign search teams have just started to use this approach, but we try to apply it for every submarine we can find.


– Does the government support you?

–Of course it would be impossible without the governmental support. This year we are using finances of the President's Grant Foundation. The Russian State Duma deputy and the Army General Nikolai Kovalev has been very supportive through all of these years. He heads the coordinating council for the expedition and makes sure we meet our objectives.

Some time ago while working on the story of SH-408 submarine we happened to meet very enthusiastic and patriotic people, such as Deputy Minister of Energy Kirill Molodzov and his friends from school Vladimir Shumilov and Maxim Puslis. They used to go to school, which had a museum of the SH-408 submarine and its crew. They spent quite a few years collecting the information on the crew, their letters and personal belongings in order to turn a small school museum into a proper modern interactive exhibition. We met and in 2016 together with the Finnish researchers found the place where the submarine had sunk. Now we are working to locate other submarines and to find the dead sailors’ relatives.

We are greatly supported by the Command of the Western Military District and the Russian Navy. Ships from the Leningrad military base arrive at the point where the submarine sank to perform a salute firing and wreath laying on water. The tradition for our expedition is to adjust a plate with a list of crew members to the hull of the vessel, thus marking it as a communal grave for this particular crew. Then we submit the coordinates of the place to the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation, so that they could register it and reflect it on their maps.

Picture: Search submarine team/Facebook


Another tradition that we keep in holding a requiem necessarily naming every crew member. The priests who help us do it are the Hegumen Nikifor (Kirzin) and Protodeacon Igor Mikhailov from Moscow Religious Academy. They have been a part of the project since 2009 and keep coming from the Trinity Lavra of St.Sergius to pray for the dead crews. Another priest, Hegumen Innokenty from Moscow Danilov Monastery, is a member of our team too. He dives and performs important tasks underwater and then conducts the church service.

- According to your estimates, how many more submarines are there in the Gulf of Finland?

- At the Victory Day eve, we came up with the title Immortal Division, which stuck to the project. The submarines, which seemed to have sunk into oblivion, are now coming back to the crews’ relatives though even as a handful of soil and the exact coordinates of their death. There are eight more submarines in the Gulf of Finland. Hopefully we’ll be able to find them all before the 75th anniversary of the Great Victory, so that the saying “a war is not over until the last soldier is buried” could come true, at least, speaking about the history of underwater war in the Baltics.

Picture: Konstantin Bogdanov/Facebook

Some submarines are in the Russia’s territorial waters, some in the European waters. Over the years we have developed close partnership with the Finnish searchers. SH-408 submarine, for instance, was located together with the Finnish team. So, I hope that combining our efforts and using the money of the President’s Grant Fund and of other structures caring for the Russia’s history, we’ll find all the submarines of the Immortal Division missing in action in the Baltics.

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