"Armenia" is a passenger and cargo ship of the "Adzharia" type. It was built at the Baltic Shipyard in Leningrad in 1928.

The last voyage departed from Sevastopol, besieged by fascist troops, and on board had a huge number of wounded soldiers from the hospital, the civilian population, the leadership of the Artek camp, part of the party leadership of Crimea, the staff of the Main Military Hospital of the Black Sea Fleet, as well as important secret cargo.

On November 7, 1941, she was sunk by a German torpedo bomber near the coast of Crimea.
Sank in 4 minutes. Of all those on board, 8 people survived and swam to shore on their own.

According to various estimates, the death toll ranged from 5,000 to 7,000 people. It is possible that the number of victims could be about 10,000 people.
The coordinates of the place were possibly deliberately distorted. the following are known today: 44°15′00″ N. w. 34°17′00″ E. d. / 44.25° n. w. 34.283333° E. d.
The current location on the map was chosen according to the latest research of the 2005 expedition (15 km from Yalta) and numerous mentions in a variety of sources - at the intersection of the Gurzuf traverse, and sea route Yalta - Tuapse, and of course also very approximately.

In the magazine “Neptune XXI Century” No. 1-6/2008, a sensational statement was even made: “Armenia” was found by a unique search complex:

“In 1998, a group of Russian and Ukrainian scientists developed a special set of equipment for sensing the Earth and remote delineation of various objects and minerals underground and underwater to depths of 5,000 meters.

South of Yalta... the search area was limited to a water area of 100 square meters. km (10x10 km)...

Work to detect the hulls of sunken ships in this area, determine their coordinates and identify the vessel "Armenia" was completed within two weeks. At the same time, new technologies were used for the integrated use of the results of special processing and interpretation of space photographs using highly sensitive equipment - the stationary geoholographic complex "Poisk" and active microwave equipment, automatically coordinated with the OR8-76 receiver. As a result, three sunken vessels of various sizes were discovered in a search area of 100 km2, and their sizes and coordinates were determined.

A vessel with dimensions similar in characteristics to the dimensions of the vessel “Armenia” was identified. The results of remote holographic identification prove that in this place at a depth of 520 m there is a torpedoed ship "Armenia" in the bow. The vessel lies on the bottom under a layer of 6-7 m of bottom silt, its center is located at a distance of 250 meters from the previously assumed point of its death (the accuracy of detecting the coordinates of the vessel’s center is ± (6-10) m).

On board (under upper deck in the area of the superstructure), signs of finding a significant amount of items made of precious metals (silver, gold, platinum) were remotely detected. A visual inspection using a manned submersible in June 2005 confirmed the presence of a plateau in the area, which characterizes a vessel of appropriate size lying on the port side, covered with a layer of silt.

Carrying out prospecting work using traditional technologies large areas water area is currently difficult due to the impossibility of attracting divers to search (the depths are too great), the limited capabilities of hydroacoustic, ultrasonic and television transmitting means for detecting metal objects located under a large layer of soil and at great depth, as well as due to the high cost of underwater work .

The area is located in the Black Sea, 15 km from Yalta. The depths as you move away from the shore are 350-1200 m. According to available information from military archives, at the point where the ship is torpedoed, the depths are about 380 m, but every 100 m they increase by 80-120 m. ...On the second trip to sea, the place The flooding was examined using the autonomous manned underwater vehicle (UA) "Langust".

The guidance of the device to the exact location of the sinking of the vessel "Armenia" was carried out according to the calculations of the operators of the "Poisk" complex installed on the support vessel. The PA crew, while diving to a depth of 500-520 meters, visually discovered a canyon up to 40 meters deep; on the right slope of the canyon (almost in the canyon itself) a smooth platform about 100 meters long with a slope in depth of about 30° can be seen, the depth of the platform is 540 meters. As you approach the site, clouds of silt rise from it, and large volumes of silty soil begin to crumble from the slopes. Due to the danger of the PA being blocked by silty soil, further examination of the bottom was stopped.

The ambulance ship "Armenia" was identified according to the following parameters:
∞ the location of the sunken ship with its bow to the southeast (coincidence with the general course of the ship after leaving the port of Yalta);
∞ coincidence in the length of the sunken ship (about 100 meters), a fragment of the torn off bow (about 10 meters) is located at a distance of about 40 meters from the ship’s hull;
∞ coincidence of the resonant information-energy spectra of samples of copper electrical cables and cables from a sunken ship, a flooded fragment of the severed bow of the ship and the same spectra in a photograph of the ship;
∞ reliable fixation of the resonant information-energy spectra of non-ferrous metal screws (2 screws);
∞ clear recording of coincidences of resonant information-energy spectra from brass letters on the stern of the vessel (by frequency and by letter configuration);
∞ determination of the characteristic dimensions of the wooden superstructure of a given vessel (only from the navigation bridge to the pipes) and the resonant information and energy spectra of the types of wood of the superstructure;
∞ coincidence of characteristic protrusions on the deck of a submerged object with the location of the pipes on the upper deck of the ship and the coincidence of the resonant frequencies of the information-energy spectrum from their material;
∞ coincidence of resonance spectra from the metal of the ship’s hull;
∞ clear recording of characteristic resonance spectra from precious metals located in the following places: platinum and diamonds - under the upper deck in the area of the central part of the ship (where special mail and luggage rooms are located); gold and silver - in many rooms of the superstructure where the cabins are located increased comfort;
∞ fixation of a large number of human remains (bones) throughout the ship along a characteristic resonant information-energy spectrum (there is no fixation of such a massive accumulation of human remains on two other sunken ships in the area).”
www.blackseanews.net/read/28329

However, the veil of secrecy around the sunken "Armenia" has not yet been dispelled.
Historians have established that file No. 19, concerning this tragedy, was removed from the Central Military Museum and... destroyed back in 1949. By whom, why - questions that still have no answer.

This disaster is one of the largest maritime disasters in history.

Does everyone remember the global disaster with the Titanic? Certainly…. But why do we remember and know so many details about this shipwreck, and do not know about more terrifying and global disasters that occurred on the waters of the world's oceans? But because films were not made about these troubles, many books were not written, and because some of them are still classified as secret.

Motor ship "Armenia"

Armenia…. This is not only a beautiful and friendly small country, not only a city in sunny Colombia, but also the name of one of the ships built at the Baltic Shipyard in Leningrad in 1928. Together with this ship, the vessels “Abkhazia”, “Adzharia” and “Ukraine” also entered the open sea. All ships were designed to transport passengers, goods and mail on the Crimean-Caucasian line.

With the outbreak of World War II, the countries involved in the confrontation with Germany used all possible resources, including passenger and cargo ships. They were rebuilt into ambulance transport for transporting the wounded. During the war, three ships of the Baltic Shipyard were sunk, but the biggest secret is hidden in the loss motor ship "Armenia".

In 1941, the ship was commanded by an experienced 39-year-old captain Vladimir Yakovlevich Plaushevsky. It was he who received the order from the command of the Black Sea Fleet to save the military hospital and the residents of the city of Sevastopol. To get a complete picture of the ship, it is worth writing about the facts that played an important role in the fate of the ship. The ship could take on board 950 people plus a crew of 96 people, but it took on board 4.5-7 thousand people, which was many times more than its capabilities. Eyewitnesses who were in the port of Sevastopol say that every resident of the city was eager to board the ship; everyone was afraid to stay, since German troops were already nearby. Let us clarify that such an overload threatened the ship with very strong instability on the waves of the Black Sea; it could capsize in even a small storm. The deck and holds of the ship were filled with doctors and city residents. After loading the people, the ship at about 17:00 on November 6, 1941, left the port of Sevastopol and headed towards the Caucasus, to Tuapse.

But along the way the ship had two more stops. At one of them, in the port of Yalta, the ship was supposed to evacuate political workers and several hundred civilians. But on the second one, take on board NKVD officers and unknown wooden boxes. The second stop was not far from the shore of Balaklava, where the ship waited for a boat with cargo and NKVD officers. We had to wait about three hours. What was in such valuable boxes, because of which thousands of people were in danger every second, remained unknown; we can only guess about their contents.

There are several guesses about what was transported in wooden boxes. The first is the documents of the NKVD, which could not be left to the advancing enemy. The second, in favor of which many facts speak, are paintings by famous Russian artists. At a distance of an hour and a half by car from Balaklava, there was Alushta, in which in the summer of the same year there was an exhibition of paintings by outstanding Russian artists such as Bryullov, Kramskoy, Repin, Levitan and many others.

Upon arrival in Yalta, the ship took several hundred more people on board. The motor ship, which arrived at the port at 2:00 on November 7, was ordered to wait for darkness and go to sea only at 19:00. But, taking responsibility, Captain Plaushevsky took the ship out to sea at 8 a.m. on November 7. For such a violation of the order, the entire crew of the ship could have been shot, but this was prevented by a more tragic circumstance.

Motor ship "Armenia" had on its sides the distinctive signs of ambulance transport in the form of red crosses. But the ship was also additionally armed with four 45-mm cannons, which made it possible to consider the ship a military target and attack it accordingly.

On November 7, 1941, at 8:00 am, “Armenia” left the port of Yalta and headed straight to Tuapse, carrying several thousand passengers on board, including an entire military hospital and NKVD officers with an unknown but valuable cargo. And, presumably, at 11:25 a.m., the ship was attacked by a German Heinkel He-111 aircraft. The ship was hit by dropped torpedoes. The sinking of the ship took just a few minutes, from which historians conclude that the damage from the torpedo hit was devastating and the ship was most likely torn apart.

Memorial plaque in memory of "Armenia"

The bottom of the Black Sea even at this moment, with modern technology very little has been surveyed. And the remains of the motor ship "Armenia" have not yet been found. And no one knows what was in these ill-fated boxes, which became one of the reasons for the death of 4.5-7 thousand people, the death of first-class Soviet doctors who could have saved hundreds of soldiers’ lives. The sinking of the motor ship "Armenia" remains one of the most mysterious secrets the beginning of the Second World War.

On November 7, 1941 he died in the Black Sea Soviet motor ship"Armenia", on board which were over 5,000 people.

"White spot" of war

A symbol of large-scale disasters at sea was the death of the passenger liner Titanic, which in April 1912 claimed the lives of about 1,500 people. In fact, the Titanic is not even among the top thirty maritime disasters with the largest number victims. The most terrible tragedies of this kind occurred during the Second World War, when transports with thousands of people, not only military personnel, but also women, old people and children, sank to the bottom. On November 7, 1941, the Soviet motor ship Armenia, with several thousand people on board, perished in the Black Sea. The tragedy of “Armenia” to this day remains one of the “blank spots” of the Great Patriotic War, since many questions in this story have not been answered.

In the mid-1920s, when the country had recovered a little from the shock Civil War, the government began to think about the development of civil shipbuilding. In 1927, at the Baltic Shipyard in Leningrad, the construction of the motor ship "Adzharia", the lead ship of the series of the first Soviet passenger airliners. In 1928, at the same Baltic plant, work was completed on five more ships of this project: “Crimea”, “Georgia”, “Abkhazia”, “Ukraine” and “Armenia”.
“Armenia” was a vessel 107.7 meters long, 15.5 meters wide, with a side height of 7.84 meters and a displacement of 5,770 tons. The ship was served by a crew of 96 people. The motor ship could simultaneously take on board up to 950 passengers. “Armenia”, like other vessels of the project, was intended for transportation between the ports of Crimea and the Caucasus. The ships coped with their task perfectly, having a very decent speed of 14.5 knots for their size.

floating hospital

With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, “Armenia” was “called up” for military service. At the Odessa shipyard, she was urgently converted into a floating hospital, designed to transport and provide emergency care to 400 wounded. On August 10, 1941, “Armenia” began to fulfill its new duties. The captain of the ship was Vladimir Plaushevsky, and military doctor 2nd rank Pyotr Dmitrievsky was appointed chief physician of the floating hospital. Until recently, the head doctor was a civilian and worked in one of the hospitals in Odessa. The situation at the front was depressing. Five days before the Armenia officially became a medical ship, the enemy came close to Odessa. The ship had to evacuate not only the wounded from the besieged city, but also civilian refugees. Then “Armenia” began transporting the wounded from Sevastopol. By the beginning of October the ship had transported to Mainland about 15 thousand people.

By the end of October 1941, a catastrophic situation. Manstein's Eleventh Army, sweeping away Soviet defense lines, occupied one city after another. The threat of the fall of Sevastopol within a few days was more than real.
Under these conditions, on November 4, 1941, “Armenia” left the port of Tuapse in the direction of Sevastopol. On board there were reinforcements for the garrison of the main fleet base. "Armenia" reached Sevastopol safely. On November 5, Captain Plaushevsky received an order: to take on board not only the wounded, but also the personnel of all hospitals and medical institutions of the Black Sea Fleet, as well as part of the medical staff of the Primorsky Army.

Thousands of refugees and secret cargo

Considering that at that moment the battles for Sevastopol were just unfolding, the order looked somewhat strange. Who will save the lives of the wounded? Historians who studied this issue believe that the commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Admiral Philip Oktyabrsky, considered the fate of the city a foregone conclusion and decided to begin evacuation. But on November 7, 1941, Oktyabrsky received a directive from Headquarters, which said: “Do not surrender Sevastopol in no case should we defend it with all our might.” However, before November 7 there were no orders from Moscow, so “Armenia” took on board evacuated doctors and not only them. Actors of the local theater named after Lunacharsky, management and staff of the Artek pioneer camp and many others boarded the ship. There were no exact lists of those who boarded the Armenia. Captain Plaushevsky received another order: after loading in Sevastopol, go to Yalta, where to take refugees and local party activists on board. After leaving Sevastopol, an additional order came: to go to Balaklava and pick up a special cargo. The boxes were brought on board accompanied by NKVD officers. Perhaps it was gold or valuables from Crimean museums.

“The brave climbed onto the ship using the shrouds”

“Armenia” left Sevastopol at 17:00 on November 6, and arrived in Yalta at 2:00 on November 7. Crowds of refugees were waiting for the ship here. This is what Vera Chistova, who was 9 years old in 1941, recalled about this: “Dad bought tickets, and my grandmother and I had to leave Yalta on the ship “Armenia.” On the night of November 6, the pier was full of people. First they loaded the wounded, then they let in the civilians. No one checked the tickets, and a stampede began on the ramp. The brave ones climbed onto the ship using the shrouds. In the bustle, suitcases and things were thrown off the board. By dawn the loading was completed. But we never got to “Armenia”. Hundreds of people remained on the pier. My grandmother and I went to my father’s workshop on the embankment. I fell asleep there.” At that moment, those remaining on board the “Armenia” seemed lucky. In fact, everything was exactly the opposite.
How many people were on “Armenia” by that time? According to the most conservative estimates, about 3,000 people. The upper limit is 10,000 people. Most likely, the truth is somewhere in the middle, and there were between 5,500 and 7,000 people on board. And this despite the fact that even in its “passenger” version the ship was designed for only 950 people.

In fact, “Armenia” could have successfully evacuated a similar number of people if it had departed from Yalta in the dark. But the loading was completed around 7 o'clock in the morning. Going to sea during the day without virtually any cover was tantamount to suicide. Admiral Oktyabrsky later wrote that the captain of the Armenia received a strict order to remain in the port until the evening, but violated it. But captain Plaushevsky, in fact, had no choice. The port of Yalta, unlike Sevastopol, did not have a powerful air defense system, which means that ships here became an excellent target for aviation. In addition, German motorized units were already approaching the city and occupied it in just a few hours. Therefore, at 8 o’clock in the morning on November 7, “Armenia” went to sea. The ship sank in 4 minutes

Before talking about what happened next, it should be noted that historians still have not decided whether “Armenia” can be considered a legitimate military target. According to the laws of war, a medical ship bearing the appropriate identification marks is not one of them. Some argue that “Armenia” was marked with a red cross, which means that the attack on the ship was another crime of the Nazis. Others object: “Armenia” violated its status by having four 45-mm anti-aircraft guns on board. Still others are completely sure that the ship, which was engaged not only in transporting the wounded and refugees, but also military cargo, did not have the signs of a medical ship. As cover, the “Armenia” was accompanied by two patrol boats, and in the sky there were two Soviet fighter I-153.

The circumstances of the fatal attack on the ship are also contradictory. For a long time it was believed that “Armenia” was the victim of an attack by several dozen bombers. One of the surviving passengers, Yalta resident Anastasia Popova, spoke about this: “Having gone out to sea, the ship was attacked by enemy aircraft. All hell broke loose. Bomb explosions, panic, people's screams - everything mixed up in an indescribable nightmare. People rushed around the deck, not knowing where to hide from the fire. I jumped into the sea and swam to the shore, losing consciousness. I don’t even remember how I ended up on the shore.” However, today the version that there was only one plane seems more reliable: the German torpedo bomber He-111, which belonged to the first squadron of air group I/KG28. This was not a targeted attack on “Armenia”: the torpedo bomber was looking for any of the Soviet transport ships on the Crimea-Caucasus line. Entering from the shore, the Non-111 dropped two torpedoes. One passed by, and the second hit the bow of the ship at 11:25 a.m. “Armenia” sank in just four minutes. Only eight people on board were saved. The bottom of the Black Sea became the grave for thousands.

Could not find

The mysteries of “Armenia” do not end there. 75 years after the tragedy, the exact location of the ship’s death has not been discovered. The official report on the death of the “Armenia” reads: “At 11:25 a.m. (November 7, 1941) TR “Armenia”, guarded by two patrol boats from Yalta in Tuapse with wounded and passengers, was attacked by an enemy torpedo plane. One of the two dropped torpedoes hit the bow of the ship and at 11:29 am it sank at w = 44 deg. 15 min. 5 sec., d = 34 deg. 17 min. Eight people were saved, about 5,000 people died.” The supposed site of the ship’s sinking was studied several times. In 2006, Robert Ballard, who found the Titanic at the bottom of the Atlantic, joined the search. In Ukraine it was reported that “Armenia” was about to be found, but this did not happen. No traces of the lost ship were found. There is an assumption that the real place of death of the “Armenia” is not where indicated in the documents. According to this version, Captain Plaushevsky sent the ship not to Tuapse, but to Sevastopol, under the protection of the air defense of the fleet base, but along the way he was attacked by a torpedo bomber.

This, however, is only an assumption, like much else in the history of the death of “Armenia”.
It will be possible to reveal all the secrets only when last refuge the ship will still be found.
The crash, which surpassed the number of victims of the Armenia, occurred at the end of the war. On the night of April 16, 1945, the Soviet submarine L-3 under the command of Vladimir Konovalov torpedoed the fascist transport Goya at the exit from Danzig Bay. Of the more than 7,000 people on board, less than 200 survived.

Andrey Sidorchik

At the end of September 1941, Nazi troops under the command of Erich von Manstein captured the Perekop Isthmus and penetrated deep into Crimea. The capture of the peninsula was of great importance for Adolf Hitler - it would deprive the Soviet army of air bases and would give the Germans unhindered access to the oil fields of the Caucasus. By the end of October, Nazi troops had strengthened their positions on the peninsula and forced the Soviet army to retreat to Sevastopol, the main Black Sea base. In early November, the siege of the city began. The Soviet command decided to evacuate the civilian population by sea along the Sevastopol - Tuapse route.

Until 1941, pleasure and tourist “Crimean-Caucasian” motor ships sailed along the Black Sea. The first motor ships - "Abkhazia", "Georgia", "Ukraine", "Adzharia", "Crimea" and "Armenia" - appeared in the mid-1920s. Some of them were built in Germany, and some in Leningrad on the Baltic shipyard. After the start of the war, the “Krymchaks,” as they were popularly called, were converted into ambulance transport ships and given to the medical service of the Black Sea Fleet. They carried the wounded, children, women and medical personnel. The ship "Armenia" was the largest among the converted ships. Its displacement was about 6 thousand tons, its length was 112 meters, and its capacity was about a thousand passengers. Under the leadership of experienced captain Vladimir Plaushevsky, during August-September, “Armenia” transported about 15 thousand wounded soldiers from Odessa to the mainland. In early November, Manstein's troops shelled Sevastopol from land, air and water. There was a real threat of the city surrendering to the enemy. The leaders of the defense of Sevastopol decided to evacuate hospitals, infirmaries and part of the civilian population in Tuapse on the ship "Armenia".

Mysterious cargo in Balaklava

The evacuation began on November 6, according to orders received from high command the day before. A participant in the defense of Sevastopol, Colonel of the medical service Alexander Vlasov, recalled the first days of evacuation:

“On November 5, the head of the Main Base department received orders... to close hospitals and infirmaries. About 300 wounded were loaded onto the "Armenia", medical and economic personnel of the Sevastopol Naval Hospital (the largest in the fleet), led by its chief physician, military doctor 1st rank S.M. Kagan. The heads of departments (with medical staff), X-ray technicians were also located here... The 2nd naval and Nikolaev base hospitals, sanitary warehouse No. 280, sanitary-epidemiological laboratory, 5th medical-sanitary detachment, hospital from the Yalta sanatorium were also located here . Some of the medical personnel of the Primorsky and 51st armies, as well as evacuated residents of Sevastopol, were accepted onto the ship.”

As soon as it became known that the ship was preparing to depart for Tuapse, panic began in the city. Everyone wanted to escape, to get out from under the endless shelling, but the small capacity of the ship did not allow everyone to be taken on board. According to various estimates, from 4.5 thousand to 7 thousand people ended up on the Armenia, which significantly exceeded the permissible number of passengers. On the route Sevastopol - Tuapse there was supposed to be one planned stop in Yalta, but immediately after departure, at 17:00, the captain of the "Armenia" Vladimir Plaushevsky received an order to stop in Balaklava along the way. There, NKVD boats were waiting for the ship to load secret boxes, which, according to one version, contained gold and valuables from Crimean museums, in particular, paintings by famous Russian artists.

“We never got to “Armenia””

On November 7 at 2 a.m. "Armenia" arrived in Yalta. Nazi troops continuously attacked the city. E.S. Nikulin, a man who did not get on the ship, recalled its arrival:

“Since the evening, we still didn’t know anything about the motor ship “Armenia”. At night, at about two o'clock, they woke us up and led us almost in formation down the middle of the street to the port. There was a huge ship in the port. The entire pier and pier are filled with people. We joined this crowd. Boarding the ship was slow; In two hours we moved from the pier to the pier. The crush is incredible! Loading lasted from about two o'clock until seven in the morning. NKVD soldiers with rifles stood across the pier and only women and children were allowed through. Sometimes men broke through the cordon».

Along with the wounded, employees of the Artek pioneer camp, and staff of the main hospital of the Black Sea Fleet, representatives of the party leadership of Crimea were on board. While waiting for the authorities to arrive at the landing site, the ship remained in the port for several hours longer than planned. Vera Chistova, who was unable to get to “Armenia” that day, recalled:

“Dad bought tickets, and my grandmother and I had to leave Yalta on the Armenia ship. On the night of November 6, the pier was full of people. First they loaded the wounded, then they let in the civilians. No one checked the tickets, and a stampede began on the ramp. The brave ones climbed onto the ship using the shrouds. In the bustle, suitcases and things were thrown off the board. By dawn the loading was completed. But we never got to “Armenia.”

After everyone was on the crowded deck, the ship was ready to continue its journey along the route Sevastopol - Tuapse. But Admiral Philip Oktyabrsky gave the order to leave after 19:00, with the onset of darkness. During daylight hours, the ship could have been subject to air strikes. However, the captain of the “Armenia” Plaushevsky dared not to carry out the order, since he perfectly understood that being in a port unprotected from the air was mortally dangerous. At any moment, the Wehrmacht pilots could strike. According to another version, pressure on the captain from the NKVD officers on board could also have caused an earlier departure. Party leaders wanted to quickly leave the peninsula in order to save themselves and not allow the Nazis to seize the secret precious cargo. On November 7 at 8 a.m., accompanied by two armed boats and two I-153 Chaika fighters, the Armenia sailed from Yalta.

"All hell has broken loose"

In July 1941 air force The Wehrmacht bombed hospital ships in the Black Sea. Then the Kotovsky and Anton Chekhov came under fire, and later, in August, the Adzharia and Kuban sank as a result of air raids. In the hope of preventing possible air attacks, the distinctive sign of a hospital ship - a huge red cross - was placed on board the Armenia. Ships on which such a cross is depicted, according to international law, should not have been subject to fire. But this did not stop the Nazis. To protect against possible raids, four 21-K anti-aircraft guns were placed on the deck of the Armenia, but they did not save her from death. Three and a half hours after departure at 11:25 am, a few kilometers from Yalta, the ship was overtaken by the Nazi torpedo bomber Heinkel He-111, which dropped two torpedoes on the Armenia from a height of 600 meters. One hit the water, and the second landed right in the bow of the ship. A few minutes later the ship sank.

According to another version, “Armenia” was bombed by eight Nazi Junkers Ju 87s at once. Of all those on board (remember, this is about 4.5-7 thousand people), only eight managed to survive. Among them was Anastasia Popova. Despite the terrible cold, she, pregnant, swam to the shore on her own. Anastasia recalled the terrible minutes of the tragedy this way:

“On November 6, 1941, on the advice of friends, I decided to evacuate from Yalta. With great difficulty they took me on board, since the Armenia was already overcrowded with wounded and refugees. Having set out to sea, the ship was attacked by enemy aircraft. All hell broke loose. Bomb explosions, panic, people screaming - everything was mixed up in an indescribable nightmare. People rushed around the deck, not knowing where to hide from the fire. I jumped into the sea and swam to the shore, losing consciousness. I don’t remember how I ended up on the shore.”

“The death toll is about 7,000 people”

On the day of the tragedy, November 7, a parade was held in Moscow on Red Square in honor of the 24th anniversary of the October Socialist Revolution. During the war and after its end, the fact of the tragedy was hushed up, so there was no reliable information about the location of the death of “Armenia” and the number of victims for a long time.

Pyotr Morgunov, one of the organizers of the defense of Sevastopol, mentioned the tragedy in passing in the 1970s in his memoirs “Heroic Sevastopol”:

« On November 6, an ambulance transport left Sevastopol - the motor ship "Armenia" with wounded soldiers, employees of the main hospital and evacuated citizens. He went to Yalta, where he also picked up some of the evacuees from Simferopol, and on the morning of November 7 he headed for the Caucasus. At 11:25 am, not far from Yalta, the transport, although it had the distinctive signs of a medical ship, was torpedoed by a fascist plane and sank four minutes later. Many residents, doctors and wounded were killed.”

At the end of the above passage there is a footnote to case No. 19, stored in the Central Naval Archives. Recently, historians learned that in 1949 (according to other sources — in 1947) it was classified and destroyed. Some information about the tragedy is contained in the third volume of the “Final Report on the Combat Activities of the Black Sea Fleet during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945,” published in 1956. The essay reported that on November 7, 1941, 7 thousand people died on the “Armenia”, only eight people were saved.

Finally, the book “Chronicle of the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union on the Black Sea,” published by the historical department of the People’s Commissariat of the USSR Navy back in 1946, but declassified as “top secret” only in 1989, provides information about the time and coordinates of the vessel’s location during the shelling . The only clue for future searches appeared in 1991. It was an extract from a document stored in the materials of the Museum of the Medical Service of the Black Sea Fleet. It talked about 7 thousand people who died on the ship “Armenia”, who were attacked from the air near the village of Gurzuf in the area of Bear Mountain (Ayu-Daga).

A special investigation dedicated to the search for the place of death of “Armenia” was carried out in Soviet years captain of the second rank, scientific secretary of the Military Scientific Society of Sevastopol Sergei Solovyov. He managed to get acquainted with partially preserved archival documents and with the testimony of eyewitnesses, among which was the testimony of the boat from the sea hunter “MO-04” M.M. Yakovlev, who accompanied the ship:

“On November 7, at about 10 o’clock in the morning, in the area of Cape Sarych, a German reconnaissance aircraft flew over us, and after a short time, over the water in a low-level flight, almost touching the crests of the waves (the weather was stormy and we were thoroughly chattered), two enemy fighters came into our area torpedo bomber One of them began to make a turn for a torpedo attack, and the second went towards Yalta. We could not open fire, since the boat's roll reached 45 degrees. The torpedo bomber dropped two torpedoes, but missed, and they exploded in the coastal rocks of Cape Aya. We were amazed by the force of the explosion - we had never seen a more powerful one before, and almost everyone said at once that if the second torpedo bomber gets to “Armenia”, then it will be in trouble.”

From this story it follows that the ship "Armenia" on that very morning, November 7, may have been on its way from Yalta not to Tuapse, but back to Sevastopol, because Capes Sarych and Aya are located west of Yalta, towards Sevastopol. Thus, written evidence made it possible to identify several possible places where the ship was lost, but one way or another they are all located in the area of the Yalta coast.

“Perhaps on one of the expeditions we passed by “Armenia”

In 2005, a group of Ukrainian archaeologists led by Sergei Voronov began underwater research in the Yalta area with the aim of discovering a sunken ship. In 2006, the famous American explorer Robert Ballard began his search, who discovered the Titanic in 1985, and in 1989 — wreck of the German battleship Bismarck. Despite the presence of expensive equipment and machinery, he was unable to detect “Armenia”.

According to media reports, the last attempt to search for the vessel was made at the end of July 2016 by specialists from the Main Directorate of Deep-Sea Research of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. The search results are still unknown.

For details about the search for “Armenia,” RT turned to Viktor Vakhoneev, head of the underwater archeology department of the Black Sea Center for Underwater Research. He himself was a participant in the very first searches for the vessel, which were carried out since 2005 by Ukrainian, Russian and American specialists. In an interview with RT, Vakhoneev noted that the work was carried out at different depths:

“The main reason why the ship could not be found in 2005-2006 was the collapse of the depths. The Black Sea bottom has a very mountainous terrain. It is quite possible that on one of the expeditions we passed by “Armenia”, but it is extremely difficult to identify it among the underwater rocks. When scanning the bottom, shadow zones are formed where a ship could theoretically be located. But due to the existing stall, the scanning process becomes more complicated.”

Viktor Vakhoneev explained that the expeditions do not have accurate data on the location of the vessel. This is due to the fact that the case of the death of “Armenia” in 1947 was removed from the archives and now it is classified as “top secret” in the archives of the FSB. The specialist noted:

“We proceeded from the time when the Armenia left the port, adding three hours to it until the moment of its sinking. Then multiplied by the minimum, average and maximum speed progress. Based on the data obtained, a radius was drawn where the ship could go. It is most logical that “Armenia” went towards Gurzuf (east of Yalta), the Ayu-Dag mountain along the coast. But we also scanned the bottom not only in this area, but also in central region Yalta".

Regarding the version that the ship was heading from Yalta back to Sevastopol, Vakhoneev explained that confusion had crept into it. Katernik, testifying that he saw the “Armenia” in the area of Cape Sarych, confused it with another ship, the “Lenin”. He was blown up by a mine in this area in July 1941. According to Viktor Vakhoneev, the waters of Sarych have been well studied and no traces of “Armenia” have been found there.

According to one version, the ship may be under a layer of silt. RT's interlocutor expressed doubts:

"This is impossible. The height of the ship's side was too high. Silt of such a height that would exceed the parameters of the vessel simply does not exist. The only difficulty preventing the search for the vessel is the mountainous topography of the bottom.”

In conclusion, Viktor Vakhoneev noted that the history of the death of “Armenia” is full of mysteries. Thus, he expressed doubt about the evidence of Anastasia Popova, who managed to swim to the shore in cold water.

It is still not known whether the wreckage of the Armenia was found during the last search in the summer of 2016. We can only hope that one day this story will come to an end.

Eduard Epstein

November 7, 1941. There is a parade of Soviet troops on Red Square, which attracts the attention of the whole world. At the same time, German troops are fighting their way to Moscow and Leningrad.

And nowhere on this day, in the world media, did the message that was found in the top secret “Chronicle of the Great Patriotic War at the Black Sea Theater”, which was top secret during the Soviet years, pass through. This document states that at the same moments that a parade was taking place on Red Square in Moscow, near Yalta, as a result of a German air attack,

The civilian steamer Armenia sank.

About 7,000 people died on board.

Even today we know almost nothing about one of the largest and most tragic disasters at sea! This disaster claimed 4 times more lives than the tragic death of the Titanic.

The “Seekers” conducted their own investigation to answer the questions: under what circumstances did this tragedy occur, and why the Soviet government hid the very fact of the disaster and its scale throughout the years of its existence. To do this, we will go to Crimea and study all the circumstances of the tragedy on the spot.

And let's remember... Those who have not forgotten.

The ship "Armenia" was one of the six best passenger ships in the Black Sea. These beautiful high-speed motor ships were popularly called “trotters”. They served the Odessa - Batumi - Odessa line and regularly transported thousands of passengers until 1941.

Motor ship "Armenia"
Flag
Vessel class and type	passenger-cargo ship


Commissioned
Removed from the fleet	(sunk)
Status	sunk
Main characteristics
	5770 tons
Length	107.7 m
Width	15.5 m
Board height	7.84 m
	5.95 m.
	2 x 1472
Mover	VFS
	96 people
Passenger capacity	950 people
Registered tonnage	4727 t.

With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the Armenia was urgently converted into a medical transport ship. Luxurious salons and restaurants were converted into operating rooms and dressing rooms. Huge crosses were painted on the sides and deck in bright red paint, and the flag of the International Red Cross was raised on the mast.

The Red Army defended Odessa in stubborn and bloody battles, and the main front retreated to the east, to the Crimea. There were a lot of wounded. Day and night, in any weather, on board the "Armenia" there was a struggle for the life and health of our soldiers and officers. Captain Plaushevsky managed to make fifteen incredibly difficult and dangerous flights from Odessa to the ports of the Caucasian coast, evacuating about 16 thousand wounded and civilians.

The offensive of Manstein's 2nd Army to the Crimea was rapid. Under powerful blows from superior enemy forces, on October 26-27, Soviet troops began a disorderly retreat from Perekop. Only on the approaches to Sevastopol, units of the Red Army that had suffered heavy losses were able to organize a defense and put up serious resistance to the enemy. Two days later, on October 29, a state of siege was introduced in the city.

On the morning of November 6, boarding began on the motor ship "Armenia" in Sevastopol. It took place spontaneously, and no one even knew the number of people taken on board. As early as November 5, all naval medical organizations were ordered to evacuate, although a difficult and bloody defense of the city lay ahead. Several naval hospitals, along with the wounded, medical personnel and equipment, ended up on the Armenia.

Suddenly, a message came to fleet headquarters that a large group of senior officials and party members had gathered in Yalta and had to be evacuated. There were enough small ships in Sevastopol that could well have completed this task, but they decided to send the Armenia, although there was no need to risk such a valuable ship. To accomplish this task, the ship was ordered to set sail at 17:00, i.e. two hours before dark. Leaving Sevastopol during daylight hours was already associated with great risk at that time, since the ship could well have been sunk during the transition to Yalta.

Immediately after leaving Sevastopol, a new order followed - to go to Balaklava. There, several boats approached the Armenia, and NKVD officers loaded wooden boxes onto the ship. The day before, November 6, Stalin signed an order for the urgent evacuation of the most valuable property from Crimea. In this regard, it is assumed that the boxes contained gold and valuables from Crimean museums. After this, the ship again headed for Yalta and arrived there only at about 2 am. The loading of evacuees, wounded and hospital personnel began again. Thus, on one ambulance it turned out 23 hospitals - almost the entire medical staff of the Black Sea Fleet.

The motor ship was accompanied by two patrol boats and two I-153 Chaika fighters. The weather deteriorated, a storm began, the sky was covered with low, ragged clouds. At 11:25 a.m. the ship was attacked by a single German torpedo bomber He-111. The plane came in from the shore and dropped two torpedoes from a distance of 600 m. One of them hit the bow of the ship. After 4 minutes, "Armenia" sank. According to official data, about 5 thousand people died. Eyewitnesses claim that there were one and a half or two times more passengers on the ship, since from the lower premises to the captain's bridge people stood in a solid mass. Only 8 people were saved by the boat. According to Ukrainian scientists, 3 more people swam to the shore.

It will probably be difficult to find a person who has not heard about the death ocean liner"Titanic". Articles and books are devoted to this story of what happened in 1912, documentaries and feature films have been made, and expeditions have been organized to the wreck of the ship. Of course - a huge maritime disaster, more than 1,500 dead. That's true, but in the maritime history of mankind there are much more terrible examples.

One of the worst maritime disasters (according to some sources, the worst) happened not somewhere in the North Atlantic, but here on the Black Sea, with our ship, and not so long ago. How much do we know about her? But it was precisely on these autumn days, on November 7, 1941, that the ambulance transport “Armenia” went to sea...

This tragedy has received disproportionately little attention; there are no books, no films, no modest paragraph in a school textbook. Even in the official directory “Ships of the Ministry of the Navy that perished during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945,” which can be found here, meager lines are dedicated to her:

"ARMENIA"
cargo-pass. m/v, 4727 GRT, ChGMP (Black Sea Fleet). Captain - V. Ya. Plaushevsky (died).
Date and place of death - 07.11.41, south of Yalta, 44°17"N, 34°10"E.
He walked from Yalta to Tuapse with the wounded and cargo; sunk by enemy aircraft. The number of deaths is unknown. 8 people were saved*
CVMA, f. 10, no. 9096, l. 45; d. 32780, l. 8; MF Museum.

We are left with memory.

Museum of Water Disasters, Lighthouse Temple of St. Nicholas, Archbishop of Myra

In memory of this tragedy, every year on May 9, Yalta port workers go to sea to the site of the sinking of the motor ship "Armenia" to honor the memory of those killed in the tragedy and lay wreaths.

which claimed the lives of our compatriots among other victims of the monstrous Great Patriotic War.

Remember, Lord, the souls of the dead, forgive them all their sins, voluntary and involuntary, and grant them the Kingdom of Heaven.