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 a message that was discovered in a top secret Soviet years"Chronicle of the Great Patriotic War at the Black Sea Theater." 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.

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?

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.

YEREVAN, November 7 – Sputnik, David Galstyan. Exactly 77 years ago, one of the largest maritime tragedies of the Second World War occurred - the Germans sank the Soviet ambulance ship "Armenia".

"Armenia" was designed by marine engineers of the Leningrad Central Bureau of Maritime Shipbuilding under the leadership of chief designer J. Koperzhinsky and launched in November 1928. The motor ship entered the top six passenger ships of the Black Sea, consisting of “Abkhazia”, “Adjara”, “Ukraine”, “Crimea”, “Georgia” and, accordingly, “Armenia”.

The ship had a cruising range of 4,600 miles, could carry 518 passengers in cabins, as well as up to 1,000 tons of cargo, while developing maximum speed 14.5 knots (about 27 km/h). All these ships began to serve the “express line” Odessa - Batumi - Odessa, regularly transporting thousands of passengers until 1941.

With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the ship was redirected to military service. At the Odessa Shipyard, it was converted into a floating hospital, designed to transport and provide emergency care to 400 wounded. A large white flag with the image of the International Red Cross was raised on the mainmast.

By the end of October 1941, a catastrophic situation. Not only the wounded were evacuated on the ship, but also the civilian population. 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.

“Armenia” set off on its last voyage with a huge number of wounded soldiers, as well as civilians. On board, in addition, there was party leadership Crimea, personnel of the Main Military Hospital of the Black Sea Fleet, as well as important secret cargo (accompanied by NKVD officers).

Captain Plaushevsky knew that only a dark night could ensure secrecy of navigation and would not allow enemy aircraft to attack the Armenia.

However, the ship went to sea not at night, but during the day. It is unknown whether the captain made the decision himself, or whether he was given an order from above. Such an order promised death, and some historians are inclined to believe that the captain was misinformed by the intelligence services of the German Abwehr. Other sources say that NKVD officers put pressure on him.

In his notes, the commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Admiral Filipp Oktyabrsky, writes: “When I learned that the transport “Armenia” was going to leave Yalta during the day, I personally conveyed the order to the commander under no circumstances to leave until 19.00, that is, until darkness. it was not possible to provide cover for transport from the air and sea. Communications worked reliably, the commander received the order and, despite this, left Yalta. At 11.00 he was attacked by torpedo bombers and sunk. After the torpedo hit, the "Armenia" was afloat for four minutes ".

According to official figures, 5 thousand people died, and only eight were saved. The fact that documents on the tragic incident were destroyed in 1949 raises many questions.

According to some reports, through German veterans they tried to find the crew of the torpedo bomber that attacked the Armenia in order to clarify the details and coordinates of the death of the ship, since German archives are famous for the high safety of documents. The answer came unexpected: “the Luftwaffe archive was taken to the USSR.”

The tragedy of “Armenia” still remains one of the “blank spots” of the Great Patriotic War, since many questions in this story have not been answered.

November 7, 1941, on the day of the traditional parade on Red Square, south coast A new terrible tragedy has unfolded in Crimea. It was strictly forbidden to report anything about the “Armenia” disaster. It is difficult for the current generation to comprehend the meaning of hiding the truth of the war from the people, which undoubtedly played into the hands of the enemy, but such were the “laws” of those years.

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, was removed as “top secret” only in 1989. It sparingly, in just a few lines, reported the time of death and the coordinates of warships and vessels that ended up at the bottom of the sea, including the motor ship "Armenia". We bring to the attention of readers an investigation of the disaster at sea, conducted by Captain 2nd Rank Sergei Alekseevich Solovyov, scientific secretary of the Military Scientific Society of Sevastopol, who was one of the first to study in detail the documents and testimony of eyewitnesses of that terrible event.

"Armenia" was designed by marine engineers of the Leningrad Central Bureau of Maritime Shipbuilding under the leadership of chief designer J. Koperzhinsky, launched in November 1928 and entered the top six passenger ships of the Black Sea, consisting of "Abkhazia", "Adjara", "Ukraine" , “Armenia”, “Crimea” and “Georgia”.

As for the “Armenia,” it had a cruising range of 4,600 miles, could carry 518 passengers in class cabins, 125 “seated” and 317 deck passengers, as well as up to 1,000 tons of cargo, while developing a maximum speed of 14.5 knots (about 27 kilometers per hour). All these ships began to serve the “express line” Odessa - Batumi - Odessa, regularly transporting thousands of passengers until 1941.

With the outbreak of the war, the Armenia was urgently converted into a medical transport ship: the 1st and 2nd class restaurants were turned into operating rooms and dressing rooms, the smoking lounge into a pharmacy, and additional hanging bunks were installed in the cabins. 39-year-old Vladimir Yakovlevich Plaushevsky was appointed captain of “Armenia”, and Nikolai Fadeevich Znayunenko as first mate. The ship's crew consisted of 96 people, plus 9 doctors, 29 nurses and 75 orderlies. The head physician of the Odessa railway hospital, whom many in the city knew well, Pyotr Andreevich Dmitrievsky, was appointed head of the medical staff with the rank of military doctor of the 2nd rank. Huge crosses, clearly visible from the air, were painted on the sides and deck with bright red paint. A large white flag, also with the image of the International Red Cross, was raised on the mainmast.

But this did not save the hospital ships. From the first days of the war, Goering aircraft carried out raids on them. In July 1941, the ambulance transports “Kotovsky” and “Anton Chekhov” were damaged, and the “Adzharia”, attacked by dive bombers, completely engulfed in flames, ran aground near Dofinovka in full view of Odessa. In August, the same fate befell the Kuban ship.

Pressed by the enemy, the Red Army suffered heavy losses in heavy battles. There were a lot of wounded. Day and night, in any bad weather, the medical staff worked until exhaustion on board the Armenia. The ship made fifteen incredibly difficult and dangerous voyages with the wounded defenders of Odessa and transported about 16 thousand people, not counting women, children and the elderly, whom the crew members accommodated in their cabins.

There is a lot of mystery in the circumstances of the death of “Armenia”. The already mentioned “Chronicle of the Great Patriotic War...” states that the “Armenia”, as well as the “Kuban” and the training ship “Dnepr” made their voyages from Odessa accompanied by the destroyer “Besposhchadny”, which undoubtedly saved these ships from the daring attacks of the German aviation.

The offensive of Manstein’s 2nd Army on the Crimea was rapid, for which the command of the Black Sea Fleet, including Vice Admiral F.S. Oktyabrsky, was not prepared. All fleet exercises before the war boiled down to the “destruction” of large amphibious assault forces and military campaigns of ships of the Black Sea Fleet. It never occurred to anyone that Sevastopol would have to be defended from the land side.

In October and November 1941, confusion reigned everywhere. Everything that was needed and not needed was hastily evacuated from Sevastopol. The hospitals equipped in the adits and the city itself were filled with wounded, but someone gave the order to urgently evacuate all medical staff. And now, already in our time, approaching Sevastopol, from the window of a carriage or bus in the Inkerman area you can see huge blocks and heaps of stones from blown up hospitals located in adits. By order of Stalin, only the lightly wounded were evacuated from there to ships. As the nurse of this hospital, E. Nikolaeva, testifies, “so that the wounded would not fall to the enemy,” the adit was blown up along with the “non-transportable” ones. The blasting work was supervised by a representative of SMERSH. Two doctors refused to leave the wounded and died along with everyone else.

Vice Admiral F. S. Oktyabrsky himself constantly kept the high-speed destroyer “Boikiy” with him and almost always “shied away” from the tasks of forming convoys and from guarding passenger and hospital ships during sea passage, believing that this should be done by the leaders of the civilian fleet. Oktyabrsky’s self-removal from such an important and responsible task was one of the reasons that so many of the best passenger ships with people were sent to the bottom of the Black Sea.

According to the documents found and the testimony of eyewitnesses, it was possible to reconstruct many of the events preceding the exit of the “Armenia” to the sea from Sevastopol Bay on November 6, 1941.

The ship was stationed in the inner roadstead and hastily took on board numerous wounded and evacuated citizens. The situation was extremely nervous. An enemy air raid could begin at any moment. The bulk of the fleet's warships, on Oktyabrsky's orders, went to sea, including the cruiser Molotov, which had the only shipborne radar station in the fleet, Redut-K.

In addition to the “Armenia”, another former “trotter”, the motor ship “Bialystok”, was loading in Quarantine Bay, and equipment and people were loaded onto the transport “Crimea” at the Morzavod pier. Loading went on continuously. Captain Plaushevsky received orders to leave Sevastopol on November 6 at 19:00 and proceed to Tuapse. Only a small sea hunter with tail number 041 under the command of Senior Lieutenant P. A. Kulashov.

“On November 5, the head of the Main Base department received orders... to close hospitals and infirmaries. About 300 wounded, medical and economic personnel of the Sevastopol Naval Hospital (the largest in the fleet), headed by its chief physician, military doctor of the 1st rank S. M. Kagan, were loaded onto the “Armenia”. 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...”

Captain Plaushevsky knew that in the absence of security, only a dark night could ensure secrecy of navigation and would not allow enemy aircraft to attack the Armenia. Imagine his surprise and annoyance when he was given an order from the Military Council of the Fleet to leave Sevastopol not in the evening twilight, but two hours earlier, that is, at 5 p.m., during daylight hours. Such an order promised death, and some historians were inclined to believe that it came from the depths of the Abwehr of Admiral Canaris, from his special services involved in “misinformation.”

"Armenia", leaving Sevastopol at 17 o'clock, moored in Yalta only 9 hours later, that is, about 2 o'clock in the morning. It turns out that a new order followed on the way: to make a stop at Balaklava and there to pick up NKVD workers, the wounded and medical personnel, because the Germans continued to advance.

Captain Plaushevsky was informed that “party activists”, NKVD workers and eleven more hospitals with the wounded were awaiting loading in Yalta.

From the notes of Admiral F.S. Oktyabrsky: “When I learned that the transport “Armenia” was going to leave Yalta during the day, I myself personally conveyed the order to the commander in no case to leave Yalta until 19.00, that is, until dark. We did not have the means to provide good transport cover from the air and sea. The communication worked reliably, the commander received the order and, despite this, left Yalta. At 11.00 she was attacked by torpedo bombers and sunk. After the torpedo hit, “Armenia” was afloat for four minutes.”

The lack of documents destroyed in 1949 and later casts a shadow on Admiral F. S. Oktyabrsky, because any historian might suspect that the admiral was looking for an excuse in hindsight, years after the terrible tragedy. However, it must be admitted that he, as the commander of the fleet, knew the operational situation in the theater, knew where the "Armenia" was located, knew the time when she left the pier, crowded with people, he also knew that with the dominance of German aviation in the air "Armenia", deprived of security, is an ideal target for torpedo bombers and dive bombers. Therefore, it is very likely that he actually conveyed the order and even the very strict “wait for night” to Captain Plaushevsky, but some ominous event occurred on the “Armenia” that forced the captain to violate Oktyabrsky’s order. This is another mystery of the ship's death.

Let's explore the events and come back. It is reliably known that the initial order to Captain Plaushevsky was clearly formulated: pick up the wounded and medical personnel and proceed from Sevastopol to Tuapse at night. Then came an urgent order: to go to Yalta to save the party activists and the wounded. The departure time of the ship from Sevastopol was changed to two hours. The third order, transmitted to Captain Plaushevsky, forced him, without entering Balaklava Bay, to also pick up representatives of local authorities and the wounded. The fourth order, transmitted to the captain of the "Armenia" early in the morning by F. S. Oktyabrsky on November 7, ordered to leave Yalta no earlier than 19 hours, turned out to be strangely violated, and the captain set sail without security to meet his death.

There is no doubt that Captain Plaushevsky did not obey the order of the fleet commander only because he was forced to obey another authority that was on board, which were the NKVD and SMERSH officers who were accepted on board the Armenia. The people remaining on the pier saw how the captain, before giving the command to release the mooring lines, was furious, like a hunted animal, and loudly swore at the top of his lungs. And this was Captain Plaushevsky, whom all his colleagues described as an exceptionally cold-blooded and self-possessed person. Undoubtedly, he was threatened by those who were in a hurry to leave Yalta, and for refusal to comply they were threatened with reprisals.

The “Armenia”, which left Yalta early in the morning, accompanied by a sea hunter, did not travel even thirty miles when it was attacked by two torpedo bombers.

Let us turn to the following testimony from the boat from the sea hunter MO-04 M. M. Yakovlev: “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, at low level flight, almost touching crests of waves (the weather was stormy and we were chattered thoroughly), two enemy torpedo bombers came into our area. 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 hits Armenia, then it will be in trouble.”

After the torpedoing, "Armenia" was afloat for four minutes. Only a few people survived, including foreman Bocharov and serviceman I.A. Burmistrov. The death of the ship was also seen by the commander of the sea hunter, Senior Lieutenant P. A. Kulashov, who, upon returning to Sevastopol, was interrogated by the NKVD for a whole month, after which he was released.

Through German veterans, they tried to find the crew of the torpedo bomber that attacked the Armenia in order to clarify the details and coordinates of the death of the ship, since German archives are famous for the high safety of documents. The answer came unexpected: “the Luftwaffe archive was taken to the USSR.”

What is hidden by the expedition, which can shed light on one of the main military tragedies of the Black Sea?

The search for the site of the tragic accident of the motor ship "Armenia" with supposedly seven thousand people on board has been going on for more than 10 years. Why is the next expedition completely classified, what did scuba divers discover in 2005 when they announced the discovery of “Armenia”, and could the organizers of the expeditions, partially financed by the US Navy, pursue more than just scientific goals?

Was the find hidden because of the gold?

The first expedition to search for the motor ship "Armenia" took place back in 2005. Then the Institute of Archeology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine received three coordinate points from various sources, including from the Central Naval Archive in Moscow, and also took as a basis the testimony of eyewitnesses of the tragedy and survivors. But the most important thing on which the search was based was a secret report presented by a certain Crimean organization that had already discovered “Armenia” using the Poisk geological complex.

“A vessel with dimensions similar in characteristics to the dimensions of the vessel “Armenia” has been 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 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 movement of the vessel after leaving the port of Yalta); the length of the sunken vessel coincides (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; fixation large quantity human remains (bones) throughout the ship along a characteristic resonant information-energy spectrum; fixation of characteristic resonance spectra from precious metals located in the following places: platinum and diamonds - under 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", etc.

The deep-sea submersible "Langust" was lowered to the site of the death, the crew of which confirmed the find. The news immediately spread across all media with loud headlines like “The legendary “Armenia” has been found!” The archaeological season was already closed, but next summer promised to be rich in artifacts, photos and video footage from the ship...

However, the next year the search for “Armenia” resumed in other areas. This was explained as follows: they say, the find was not confirmed, and what the crew of the Lobster saw was a completely different ship, completely uninteresting. By the way, the report taken as a basis was made public after Ukrainian archaeologists examined the supposed site of the death of the “Armenia” from American scientific vessels in 2006-2007.

According to the most daring conspiracy theory, the cargo that was mentioned in the geological survey report, and which, according to legend, was loaded by NKVD officers in Yalta, became the reason for withholding information about the discovery of the ship.

Although, perhaps, all this is nothing more than speculation...

History and tragedy

The passenger and cargo ship "Armenia" was built at the Baltic Shipyard in Leningrad in 1928. Displacement 5770 tons, length 107.7 m, width 15.5 m, side height 7.84 m, crew - 96 people. The ship belonged to the class of double-deckers, six of the same type “Krymchaks”, which worked on the Crimean-Caucasian cruise line in the pre-war period (“Armenia”, “Adjaristan”, “Crimea”, “Abkhazia”, “Ukraine”, “Georgia”). Soon after the start of the war, all six ships were converted into ambulance transport ships and transferred to the medical service of the Black Sea Fleet.

The tragedy of “Armenia” occurred on November 7, 1941 and in terms of the number of victims it is one of the largest in world history. The death toll was, according to various estimates, from 3 thousand to 10 thousand people.

The chronology of the disaster is briefly as follows. At about 17:00 on November 6, 1941, the ship under the sign of the Red Cross left Sevastopol. There were several thousand wounded soldiers and evacuated citizens on board. The ship also loaded the personnel of the main hospital of the Black Sea Fleet and a number of other military and civilian hospitals (23 hospitals in total), as well as the leadership and employees of the Artek pioneer camp, members of their families and part of the party leadership of Crimea. The loading of evacuees was in a hurry; their exact number is unknown. Captain Vladimir Plaushevsky led the “Armenia” on its last voyage. The ship was accompanied by two armed boats and two I-153 fighters. At 2:00, November 7, the ship arrived in Yalta, where it took on board several hundred more people (the loading of evacuees was also in a hurry, so their exact number is unknown) and some valuable cargo - it is possible that, in addition to documents, there was gold and valuables from Crimean museums. At 8:00 the ship left the port, and at 11:25 am it was attacked by the German torpedo bomber Heinkel He-111, which belonged to the 1st squadron of air group I/KG28. 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. Four minutes later, "Armenia" sank. Only eight people were saved, who were picked up by a patrol boat.

There is a version that the cause of the disaster was mistakes by the command of the Black Sea Fleet. The overcrowded ship, instead of making the transition to the Caucasian coast in the dark in relative safety, was sent by the command to Yalta, although there were dozens of other ships in Sevastopol that could evacuate this city. As a result, the loading dragged on all night and the captain was forced to set out to sea from Yalta in the morning. But what was Captain Plaushevsky guided by when he put the ship out to sea during daylight hours - in violation of the order of the commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Admiral Philip Oktyabrsky? According to some, he saw no point in staying in the port of Yalta for a day, since the stationary ship was an excellent target (Yalta did not have air defense systems, in addition, at any moment it could be captured by advancing German units, because the Germans had already broken into the neighboring Gurzuf). Others believe that the captain obeyed the NKVD officers on board, who sought to leave Crimea as quickly as possible.

Secrecy and conspiracy theories

A few days ago, a new stage of the search for “Armenia” started. This time under the auspices of the Russian Ministry of Defense. Among the expedition participants are specialists from the Main Directorate of Deep Sea Research of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, and Crimean professionals. Although the mission of the expedition does not focus only on “Armenia”: the search for submarines, ships and aircraft that sank during the First and Second World Wars. The task is carried out by a detachment of ships of the Black Sea Fleet, which includes the KIL-158 fleet vessel, designed to lift objects from the bottom. For example, in Kutch it is planned to find submarines from the First World War, in Evpatoria - the A. Serov", in the area of Cape Aya - the destroyer "Impeccable", from Feodosia to Anapa - search for the destroyer "Smyshleny". Search activities are also planned in the areas of capes Khersones, Opuk, Fonar and in the Kerch Strait.

“Found ships and submarines will be declared military graves, the places of their destruction will be marked on all nautical charts, and from now on, all ships and vessels of the Russian Navy, passing in this area, will lower their flags and give military honors to the fallen defenders of the Fatherland,” said Deputy Head of the Military Department Dmitry Bulgakov.

But official comments on the progress of search work have so far been limited to reports that south entrance A German torpedo boat S-102 was discovered in the Kerch Strait (on June 8, 1943, the boat hit a mine), from which a 40-mm Flak 28 anti-aircraft gun, fragments of the boat’s hull and propellers were recovered. And they also pulled out an Il-2 attack aircraft from the bottom (shot down on November 8, 1943, the plane was flown by Hero of the Soviet Union Yusup Akaev).

Not a word about “Armenia”. Although Crimean Telegraph knows from its own sources that the search for the ship is planned in at least two points of the Black Sea. Moreover, information about underwater work abruptly stopped and, as it became known, even journalists working for the Russian Ministry of Defense were denied access to the ships involved in the work. But why? As a Crimean Telegraph source associated with this expedition explained: “Nobody wants to prematurely give even a reason for news. If “Armenia” is found, then yes, it will be a sensation, but for now we need to remain silent. Anyone associated with the expedition is prohibited from disclosing information. Everything is classified."

Along with this, another assumption appeared true goal expeditions. Allegedly, it is connected with clearing the Black Sea of certain tracking sensors or interception of information. The fact is that journalists noticed: the expedition requires very large expenses, and it is unlikely that the military will invest huge amounts of money on simply discovering sunken objects. And I remembered that in 2006, from Cape Khersones to Cape Meganom, an expedition of the American scientist Robert Ballard, who was subsequently accused by the Crimean media of collaborating with US intelligence, worked on the research vessel Endeavor. Allegedly, it is known that this work cost the American side $2.5 million, and in 2007 Ballard involved the oceanographic vessel Pathfinder, owned by the US Naval Sealift Center, in the research, and the costs increased even more. And the secret goal of the Americans was to study the topography of the bottom and coast for military purposes, as well as to install special listening devices and special technical tracking equipment on the underwater cable communication lines of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, which now need to be gotten rid of. So they equipped an expedition from the Ministry of Defense... However, commenting on this assumption, the representative of the Black Sea Fleet sincerely laughed.

Vyacheslav Trukhachev, head of the information support department of the Russian Black Sea Fleet:

“I know about this version. She's so...unexpected. And not serious. To comment on it, it’s best to turn to conspiracy theorists, this is their topic.”

But another version of the true goal of the Americans does not sound so fantastic - this is conducting geological and hydrographic exploration near the Crimean coast under the legend of archaeological research. This was required to enter fresh data into the cards seabed, which is certainly invaluable information for the owners of the oceanographic vessel kindly provided to Ballard.

Igor SHILOV
Maxim RUSINOV
The material was published in the Crimean Telegraph newspaper No. 391 dated August 12, 2016

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.

The motor ship "Armenia" was launched in Leningrad in 1928 and was designed to carry 980 passengers and 1000 tons of cargo. It was one of the six best passenger ships in the Black Sea. These beautiful fast ships were called “trotters”. They served the Odessa - Batumi - Odessa line and regularly transported thousands of passengers until 1941. On the last voyage "Armenia" was led captain Vladimir Yakovlevich Plaushevsky.
The paradoxical thing about this tragedy is that “Armenia” had every opportunity to make this transition at night and with a 100 percent guarantee of arriving in Tuapse safe and sound. In 1941, not a single ship of ours on the Black Sea was attacked by enemy surface ships or submarines, and German aviation did not then have radar sights for carrying out night strikes on ships at sea. However, due to completely incomprehensible and inexplicable orders from the command of the Black Sea Fleet, the ship went to sea on the morning of November 7.

There were several thousand wounded soldiers and evacuated citizens on the ship. The ship also loaded the personnel of the main hospital of the Black Sea Fleet and a number of other military and civilian hospitals (23 hospitals in total), as well as the leadership and staff of the Artek pioneer camp, members of their families and part of the party leadership of Crimea. The loading of evacuees was in a hurry, their exact number is unknown.

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.
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. There is an assumption that the boxes contained gold and valuables from Crimean museums.

At 11:25 a.m. the ship was attacked by a single German torpedo bomber "Heinkel He-111", belonging to the 1st squadron of air group I/KG28 ( Oberst commander Ernst-August Roth). 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.
It should be noted that this catastrophe could neither be remembered nor talked about.
Later, according to official data, in Soviet times it was recognized that about 5 thousand people died. At the beginning of the 21st century, estimates were increased to 7-10 thousand people, as a large number of “unaccounted for” refugees were taken on board. Only eight people were saved.

The “Armenia” disaster in terms of the number of victims is one of the largest in world history.

For over half a century, documents relating to the sinking of the "Armenia" were kept under the heading "Top Secret". There were no attempts to raise the ship or its cargo during Soviet times. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Department of Maritime Heritage of Ukraine carried out search work in the area where the Armenia sank.
"Armenia" sank in just four minutes.
Only eight people on board were saved. The bottom of the Black Sea became the grave for thousands.
The transport had the distinctive insignia of a medical ship, however, according to some military historians, the Armenia violated this status, as it was armed with four 21-K anti-aircraft guns. In addition to the wounded and refugees, there were military personnel and NKVD officers on board.

45-mm semi-automatic universal gun 21-K

The ship was accompanied by two armed boats and two I-153 fighters. In this regard, “Armenia” was a “legitimate” military target from the point of view of international law.

The captain's decision was justified, since Yalta did not have any air defense systems, in addition, at any moment it could be captured by advancing German units; in this case, “Armenia” would simply be shot by German field artillery. At sea, the ship had the ability to evade attacks by maneuvering. However, the transport was overloaded with refugees and the team’s lack of combat experience did not allow them to detect the enemy in time. And since the main danger was considered to be a supposed attack by dive bombers, the fighters patrolled at an altitude of about three thousand meters and did not notice the low-flying torpedo bomber.
The patrol boats stayed ahead of the transport and also “missed” the attack.

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