Who is sinking the school fleet?

In the north of Moscow, not far from the Vodny Stadion metro station, in the waters of Kirpichnaya Bay, an entire fleet has been moored for several years without any movement. The thunder of submarines, the motor ship from the film “Volga-Volga”, a huge sea liner and a training boat - all of them served as training grounds for schoolchildren who dreamed of becoming sailors, and in their best years, together with teenagers, sailed to the shores of Germany, Romania and Bulgaria. However, over the years, everything has changed: today's students prefer computer games, and officials are thinking about whether to send the unique educational flotilla for scrap. The MK correspondent visited the ships and found out what prevents them from setting sail, who wants to get rid of the “school fleet” as quickly as possible, and also why bureaucratic delays are fraught with a real environmental disaster for the Moscow River.

Ships trapped in government procurement

The owner of the training ships - the State Budgetary Educational Institution "Moscow City Children's Maritime Center (MGDMC) named after Peter the Great" (judging by the sign, related to the capital's Department of Education), founded in 1957, was and is still a place where schoolchildren dreaming of sea voyages , free of charge prepare seafarers for their future careers - both in theory and in practice. At various times, such outstanding people as the famous polar explorer Ivan Papanin, polar pilot, one of the first heroes of the USSR Mikhail Vodopyanov, pilot-cosmonaut, twice hero of the USSR Pavel Popovich and many others worked with teenagers here. The pride of the center has always been its unique training flotilla, which today has no analogues not only in Moscow, but throughout Russia. The ships included in it were donated to the center for training schoolchildren from all over the USSR by both military and civilian shipowners; There have been about twenty such gifts in the entire 57-year history of the club. In their best years, the ships of the school fleet sailed from Moscow to the Black Sea, Lakes Ladoga and Onega, as well as the Gulf of Finland; Moreover, students studying at the club could, during a 30-day practice, visit foreign countries such as Germany, Romania or Bulgaria on a ship, and then return back to Moscow.

With the advent of the turbulent 90s, everything changed, and future sailors had to forget about foreign “cruises” due to lack of funding. True, no one canceled trips around Russia, and training ships went to the reservoirs of Moscow and the Moscow region, as well as sailing along the Volga and its reservoirs. However, not only the geography of training cruises decreased - many ships were sold or scrapped. As a result, by the beginning of the 2000s, the “school fleet” consisted (and still includes) only four ships: the boat “UK-5”, the river passenger motor ship “Belyakov” (until recently called “Lastochka”), the warship “Leningrad” "and the sea passenger motor ship "Saima".

The maintenance and repair of these ships was carried out according to the state procurement system: a contractor company was selected on a competitive basis, which carried out the necessary work. In 2012, the rules for holding competitions and tenders changed: now only companies registered in the Moscow region and with access to the public procurement system could repair the “school fleet” and supply it with spare parts. However, despite the fact that Moscow is considered a “port of five seas,” there are practically no ship repair enterprises here; According to river workers, perhaps the only enterprise of this kind in Moscow - the Moscow Shipbuilding and Ship Repair Plant - has long been retrained for the production of yachts and is no longer involved in motor ships. Thus, the training flotilla actually found itself in a “government procurement trap”, instantly deprived of any repairs and services. Moreover, it became impossible to conclude contracts for docking (a ship analogue of a car inspection, which is carried out once every 5 years), which soon led to a ban on the training of schoolchildren on ships.

Ecological time bomb

The fact that the ships of the “school fleet” have lost all maintenance has a downside, a frightening side: in the future, this state of affairs could turn into a real environmental disaster for Moscow. The role of a “time bomb” is played by the “Saima” - a sea passenger motor ship built in 1965, the flagship of the training flotilla of the Moscow State Medical Center, which in its best years transported schoolchildren to Germany, Poland and Bulgaria. The last full repair on the ship was done by the Finns in 1974; because of this, in 2005, “Saima” was laid up in the waters of Kirpichnaya Bay - to wait for its “second birth”. In 2010, the underwater part of the ship was repaired, and soon it was planned to update its decks and premises, but due to the new government procurement system this did not happen.

People familiar with shipping know well: a motor ship is not a car, it cannot simply be parked. Due to its design features, Saima constantly needs heating from the inside in winter: unlike other ships of the “school fleet”, the water from its numerous systems, pipes and outboard boxes cannot be drained. If it freezes, it will simply tear apart the “insides” of the ship, and in the spring the ship will sink. To heat Saima in winter, you need a lot of diesel fuel, which can only be purchased through the government procurement system. As is the case with the rest of the vessels of the “school fleet”, it is almost impossible to find suppliers for the ship - and Saima still does not have “winter reserves”, which is fraught with a real environmental disaster for the Moscow River.

“Every ship has so-called bilge water accumulated at the very bottom of the hull,” says one of the Saima crew members, standing with me in the engine room of the ship, “in fact, this is everything that drains from engines and other mechanisms (oil, fuel oil, etc.) and then mixed with water. Subsoil waters must be submitted for special disposal as environmentally unsafe compounds - and if the Saima sinks, they will end up in the Khimki Reservoir, which will turn into a real disaster for Moscow. And here we also have a tank with oil for two tons, tanks with remaining fuel - two for 14 tons and another for thirty... And all this may end up in the water we drink.

As for the rest of the ships of the “school fleet”, their situation, although not as dangerous as that of the “Saima”, is also very sad: they have not left the waters of Kirpichnaya Bay for many months, and no one knows when their stay will end. Take, for example, the Belyakov, a river passenger ship, the oldest in the school fleet: built in 1937, it managed to “shine up” in the finale of the famous film “Volga-Volga” and became a real favorite of Moscow schoolchildren, who rode on it with their parents. Moscow River on City Day and other holidays. Last year, the Belyakov was supposed to undergo dry-docking, but due to new government procurement rules, this did not happen (there was simply no place for it in the Moscow region), and the legendary ship has been laid up for two years now. The situation is similar with the Leningrad, a warship built in 1950: in the post-war period, belonging to the class of “big hunters,” it was a real threat to diesel submarines. With the advent of their nuclear analogues, Leningrad could no longer compete with them on equal terms due to lack of power and was soon donated by the USSR Navy to the training flotilla of the Moscow City Club of Young Sailors, Rivermen and Polar Explorers (as the current MGDMC was called in Soviet times). And during this navigation, the ship, apparently, is not destined to leave the waters of Kirpichnaya Bay: it, like the Belyakov, did not pass the required docking. For the same reason, their “younger comrade”, the 20-meter training boat “UK-5” built in 1979, does not go on voyages; in its best years, it acted as a supply vessel, transporting everything needed to the boat camps, which student trainees set up, including on the Volga, and also monitored the safety of students on the water.

What are you dreaming about, poor “Saima”?

“Not so long ago we applied to the Moscow Shipbuilding and Ship Repair Plant about the repair of our ships,” says one of the employees of the MGDMC, who wished to remain anonymous, “they refused us: they say, we do not deal with such ships.” And then representatives of the plant wrote a letter to the mayor of Moscow Sergei Sobyanin: they say, let us buy all the training ships for scrap metal, and build new ones for you instead. Now higher authorities are closely involved with us - they are deciding what to do with the “school fleet”. But most river boaters understand well: if we put “Belyakov”, “Leningrad”, “Saima” and “UK-5” under the knife, as they say, we will never have new ships, it’s too expensive.

Among the crews of the “school fleet” there is an interesting theory regarding the numerous attempts to decommission ships: since, due to fraud in the 90s, the center lost most of the extremely expensive land on the banks of the Moscow Canal, it is the ships moored there that are perhaps the only obstacle on the ways of interested parties to obtain the area of ​​the training base.

“The problem is that without ships, training work makes no sense,” my interlocutor complains, “how to train sailors without a training base, without flights and trips?” In the best years, up to three thousand schoolchildren studied at the center annually. As the ships stopped, they barely reached a thousand... Without practice on ships, the center for schoolchildren finally loses its attractiveness. Previously, they accepted children from 10 to 18 years old for education, but now they also accept those younger - there is no way out.

However, the head of the MGDMC, Anatoly Fateev, does not lose optimism about the future of the ships of the “school fleet”:

“We need to deal with the docking and repair of our ships; After that, we want to unite all the young sailors’ clubs in Moscow on the basis of our center. On our ships, their students will be able to do internships, arrange excursions, and go on long trips, which will actually give the MGDMC a new life.

However, the capital’s Department of Education disowned the ships, sending them to the mayor’s office, and on Tverskaya they were unable to promptly comment to MK on the question of the future of the MGDMC and its ships.

On Sunday afternoon I accidentally found an unusual convoy on the Moscow Canal. Two tugboats very cheerfully pulled a ship named "Saima" towards the Northern River Station.


"Saima" was built in 1964 and was originally called "Kara Bogaz Gol". A series of three ships was intended to operate in the Caspian Sea basin. However, already in August 1968, the Leningrad-Lappenranta connection was opened (the route passed along the Saimaa Canal). It was to work on this route that the motor ship “Kara Bogaz Gol” made the transition to St. Petersburg, where it received its new name “Saima”. In 1981, the ship was removed from the passenger line and transferred to the Moscow City Club of Young Sailors and Rivermen. For some time, the ship made periodic cruises with students of the Young Sailors Club. But in recent years it has been laid up at the club's pier.
This is where I filmed it in January 2010.


Then there was information on the Internet that in August 2010, the Belogorodsk Shipyard, as a result of a competition, entered into a state contract for the overhaul of the boiler of the training ship “Saima”, and in November 2010 it planned to take part in an auction for the repair of the underwater part of the ship’s hull. Maybe the updated "Saima" was towed to the pier?

By the way, I was surprised by the high towing speed for such an old ship.

Used materials from the post "Training ship "Saima" (

Training ship "Saima" alexvess wrote in May 22nd, 2009

A curious ship. Now he is permanently laid up in the Kirpichnaya Bay on the Khimki Reservoir. The ship belongs toMoscow City Club of Young Sailors and Rivermen named after Peter the Great. For many years, Saima was the flagship of the flotilla of young sailors of the capital, making voyages with representatives of the younger generations of sailors and rivermen on board.

A series of three small ships were built in 1963-1964. The ships were named “Sulak”, “Kara Bogaz Gol” and “Khudat”. The ships were built for regional passenger transportation in coastal areas of inland seas with the ability for ships to approach berths in shallow water (which is especially important in small settlements on the coast), as well as with the ability to pass through narrow sections of rivers/canals to ports or piers located away from the coast at some distance. Such water communication was especially useful where there was no land transport, where it was poorly developed or where traveling on it would not be rational.

The motor ship “Kara Bogaz Gol”, which later became “Saima”, was built in 1964. Initially, all three ships began operating in the Caspian basinseas. However, already in 1968, in August, the Leningrad-Lappenranta connection was opened (the route passed along the Saimaa Canal). It was to work on this route that the motor ship “Kara Bogaz Gol” made the transition to St. Petersburg, where it received its new name “Saima”.

Leningrad becomes the ship's home port. During this period, some modernization of the vessel was carried out, increasing its comfort. The ship operated on this line until the early 1980s.

The Peter the Great Children's Marine Center seems likely to sink due to indifference. With the arrival of new management, the fleet of the unique school, where sea romance has been instilled since childhood, was decided to be scrapped. Allegedly, ships are unsafe for children. However, teachers and students have their own version. Are there any chances of winning this naval battle?

SOS - save our souls! The distress signal from the young sailors is not related to the storm. The Peter the Great Children's Maritime Center is drowning in the abyss of bureaucratic callousness. In the officer's wardroom there is a general crew meeting on alert.

“When new management came to us, they said: our main task is to get rid of the fleet. If we rely on the experience of previous clubs, then after the sale and disposal of ships, the clubs closed within six months to a year,” emphasizes the senior engineer of the training ship." Saima" Ivan Zhatko.

A unique children's flotilla is ordered to be cut into scrap metal - the training boat, the ship "Belyakov", the sea liner "Saima" and the pride of the club - the submarine hunter "Leningrad".

“If all this is destroyed, it will be impossible to restore it. The ships are on the move, hundreds of millions of rubles have been spent on them. The ships went for repairs, and returning them from there “on pins and needles” is a crime,” Nikolai Nikolsky, head of the Department of Navigation, is convinced.

The Young Sailors Club was founded back in 1957 by the famous polar explorer Papanin. Over these 59 years, thousands of boys and girls have undergone practical training on operating ships. They studied seamanship, scrubbed decks, and stood on watch as helmsmen. Cabin boys of different generations, who themselves became captains, ascend to the captain's bridge. Their fate was determined in this wheelhouse.

“We went on hikes, I remember this most of all. We worked with our hands. I was 14 years old, I drove this “Saima”, we went to St. Petersburg,” recalls the captain of the ship “Sergei Kladko” Roman Mokhov.

The newly appointed head of the children's maritime center claims that the training vessels should be disposed of due to wear and tear.

“The Department of Property Relations of the city of Moscow decided to write off the vessels on the basis of defect reports issued by the river register, stating that the vessels are not intended and are unsuitable for children from a safety point of view,” the head of the Moscow city children’s marine center named after. Peter the Great Anatoly Fateev.

“In 2010, the motor ship Saima underwent a major overhaul with 100 percent replacement of the underwater part, 100 percent replacement of all systems, and repair of electrical equipment,” says Mikhail Trifonov, second mechanic of the training ship Saima.

The same situation applies to the flagship Leningrad. 10 million rubles were spent on repairs. But it's not just about the money. The captains, who dedicated their entire lives to their ships and their students, are unable to hold back their tears.

“I feel sorry for the steamship that I made with my own hands. They did it, they did it - and now they’re sawing it all? How is that possible?” - asks the captain of the training ship "Leningrad" Alexey Sinitsyn.

Last year, three of the four ships were detained without explanation at the Gorodets shipyard, with their propellers removed. The club's teachers suspect that the club is being destroyed for the sake of a fabulously expensive piece of land - the banks of the Moscow Canal near the Leningradskoye Shosse.

“Children will not go without a fleet, then they will close the club, and the territory is huge, it will go to some private owner,” says Alexander Medvedev, assistant mechanic of the training ship Saima.

But it is impossible to explain this to teenagers who have fallen ill with naval romance. Schoolchildren Kolya and Andrey, at 17, are accomplished professionals, ship mechanics. On the training ship Saima - from the age of 11.

“During these six years, we learned a lot. If we leave out the formalities and control of the engine and generators, as well as monitoring the instruments, then, in principle, every day of practice is a school of life. Personally, I grew up on this ship, my parents themselves say: they sent a skete to study, and the man came back,” emphasizes Nikolai Orlov, a student at the Peter the Great Moscow Children’s Maritime Center.

But none of the officials seemed to even think about children. While the children's flotilla is not cut up, it can still be saved from death. As Vladimir Vysotsky sang, “I’d like to think that this is not so, that burning ships will soon go out of fashion.”

After the story aired, the capital’s Department of Education commented on the situation. And this comment gives me hope.

“The years of construction of those ships that are decommissioned are 1937, 1951, 1965 and 1979. Since August 2013, none of these ships are suitable for operation. To replace these ships, two ships will be purchased that will fully meet the needs of students in maritime practice. The approximate date is summer," promised Deputy Head of the Moscow Department of Education Igor Pavlov.

For several years now in Moscow there has been a struggle for the Moscow City Children's Maritime Center named after Peter the Great, or, as teachers and graduates traditionally call it, the Club of Young River Sailors and Polar Explorers (YUMRP). The city Department of Education intends to dispose of the club's flotilla, consisting of four vessels, which since 1957 have provided full-fledged practice for thousands of future captains, navigators, and mechanics.

Authorities say the vessels, one of which dates back to 1937, are dilapidated and unsafe for children to learn from. The opposite side, the social movement “Save the Fleet,” claims that the ships have recently been repaired and are in good condition. And the process of destroying ships is not connected with concern for schoolchildren, but with plans to build a hotel complex on the last undeveloped plot of land on the coast of the Khimki Reservoir.

YOUNG SAILORS CLUB: FROM 1957 TO THE PRESENT

The Moscow City Club of Young Sailors, Rivermen and Polar Explorers was created by order of the Moscow City Council on the basis of the Moskvoretsky Children's Park in 1957. From the very beginning, the club had its own flotilla of training ships that made long voyages with crews of cadets. Schoolchildren underwent internships on ships of the Baltic, Northern and Black Sea fleets, participated in conferences, rallies and meetings with famous sailors. By the way, the club itself was created with the participation of the legendary polar explorer Ivan Papanin. At the exit, schoolchildren received certificates in the specialties of navigator, signalman and mechanic, but in the late 90s they stopped issuing documents. During the existence of the club, more than 50 thousand people studied there, a third of them connected their lives with the civil and military fleet.

The club's problems began in April 2013, when it was first renamed the Moscow City Children's Maritime Center named after Peter the Great (MGDMC), and then included in the GBOU DPO "Center for Military-Patriotic and Civil Education" (TSVPGV). Since that time, there has been talk about the need to dismantle four ships at the disposal of the center: Saima, Leningrad, Belyakov and UK-5. In the fall of 2014, “Leningrad”, “Belyakov” and “UK-5”, based on a negotiated auction, were sent to the Gorodetsky shipyard near Nizhny Novgorod for the next scheduled repair. More than 10 million rubles were allocated from the city budget for this.

According to the staff of the Kyiv Youth Club and the “Save the Fleet” public movement, the work was almost completed ( “Repair contracts were completed by 80-90%, and by 99% for Leningrad”), when in the summer of 2015 the contracts were terminated by agreement of the parties. The ships were blocked inside the plant, where they remain to this day. The club's largest ship, the motor ship Saima, is located in Moscow, but the TsVPGV guards do not allow outsiders, including journalists, to approach the ship. On January 18, 2016, the Moscow City Property Department issued an order to write off and dispose of all ships based on defect reports issued by the Russian River Register, where the ships were declared unfit. The crews of three ships located at the plant have already been given redundancy notices.

RARE SHIPS

We ask the senior mechanic of the Saima, Ivan Zhatko, whether the ships are so dilapidated and unsafe for children.

– No, I don’t think so and will never agree with it,” he replies. – Ships can sail for 100 years, or 200, or 300. It all depends on how they are looked after. All our ships are repaired and in good condition. The motor ship "Belyakov", built in 1937, was also filmed in the film "Volga-Volga". But the administration is silent that six years ago the underwater part of the hull was completely replaced, electrical equipment was changed and repaired, it has the latest navigation and even a computer that monitors the presence of water in the ship’s hull. The premises have been finished, there are air conditioners, TVs and video surveillance. According to documents, it was built in 1937, but in fact it is a new ship. Moreover, this is already a rarity, there is no other like it.

According to Ivan, all ships undergo repairs every five years.

– "Leningrad" 1951 release. This does not mean that it is a piece of scrap metal that no longer represents anything. It underwent scheduled repairs every five years, all necessary units were replaced or repaired. “Leningrad” is 99% ready, it may need to change five or six square meters of deck and fencing, this costs about 100 thousand rubles. The ship is safe to sail.

“Saima” was built in 1965, but from 2010 to 2012 almost 25 million rubles were invested in the repair of the ship. The underwater part of the hull is completely new, the rudder group is done, the electrical equipment is done, the only problem is in the finishing - the walls need to be painted, the furniture needs to be changed somewhere, because for the last 30 years no one has dealt with these issues inside the ship. Also according to UK-5, he is the youngest, 1979. Everything that was needed was done at the factory. Meanwhile, our shipowner is positioning that the ships are beyond repair.

CLUB VERSION: DISPOSAL OF SHIPS = DESTRUCTION OF EVIDENCE

“Initially, we saw the problem as an attempt to hide the theft of allocated funds for ship repairs, because some of the work was not completed, and some was carried out at greatly inflated prices. They were inflated literally 10 times; what cost 1,000 rubles, our organization paid for as 10 thousand,” a senior mechanic at Saima voices the opinion of the Center’s employees. – The second main reason is that we have very good land near the Vodny Stadion metro station. As long as there are ships, a shore is needed. There are no ships - the site will go under some developer, who, I think, had his eye on it a long time ago. Believe me, this is the only piece of land on the Khimki Reservoir that still belongs to the state.”

“Why was the decision made to scrap the ships and not sell them, for example? There are only millions of non-ferrous metals there,” asks lawyer, former cadet of the club Ivan Yuzhin and quickly answers his question. – It is impossible to get rid of the ships “according to the law”, the ships are in good condition, planned repairs have been carried out on them, and budgetary funds have been spent. Their write-off and disposal is based on a criminal principle, and a criminal principle requires the destruction of evidence. They wanted to start the disposal procedure in September, but then our initiative group appeared.”

According to Ivan, once the Young Sailors Club actually saved his life. In the early 90s, a fatherless street hooligan, who had completely gotten out of hand and dropped out of school, suddenly got sick from the sea... I went to Leningrad for several years, reinstated myself in school, entered a university, got a profession and a good job, and years in the club remembers with trepidation. Many former cadets tell similar stories.

“KYUM has always been such a melting pot, where children from very different families found a common language, sometimes for many years. Now, during a crisis, this is especially important, parents are starting to work more and earn less: hobbies that are really interesting for teenagers are either expensive or dangerous. But here there is both interest and safe risk, and the club has never been an expensive pleasure,” says former Saima cadet Maria Cheglyaeva, now the head of the Internet broadcasting “MIR 24”.

But let's return from the lyrical to the prosaic. “In the 90s, a program for developing the coast of the Khimki Reservoir was adopted, among others, a land plot transferred by the Moscow City Council to the Young Sailors Club was involved. This is the last piece of land on the Khimki Reservoir that is not used for commercial purposes. Previously there were two of them, ours and the neighboring one. The neighboring area belonged to DOSAAF, at first there was a very good maritime school “Severomorets”, then they began to train drivers there. About six months ago this plot of land was taken away, and what remained was ours. Bye. There is also a small area on the opposite side, but this is a water protection zone, it is very tiny,” says the lawyer.

“So, in 1997, the development of the coasts was adopted, and the well-known INTECO company received investment rights to the land plot that was taken from KYUM. According to the investment contract, a new building with a gym and a swimming pool, a high-quality pier, etc. were to be built on the territory of the base. For some reason, INTECO did not do anything, and the property rights were transferred to another company. Nothing happened either, but at some point this land plot disappeared from the cadastral register. If you open a cadastral map today, you won’t see it in the register - it doesn’t exist. This is considered empty land, that is, undemarcated, undefined. A small strip of land was left for the club, I am convinced that it was left due to the fact that it is simply a water protection zone. In 2011-2012, club employees began to write to the Moscow government, Mr. Isaac Kalina, Marat Khusnullin, with a request to return the site, but no answers were forthcoming.”

LEGALITY OF SHIPS DESCRIPTION

According to Yuzhin, from a legal point of view, decommissioning ships is illegal for a number of reasons. Representatives of the public movement “Save the Fleet” have not seen the original orders on the basis of which the disposal is planned. In addition, the documents were certified only by a seal, but not by a signature, which is a necessary formality in documents of this kind. The documents in question, firstly, are the order of the property department number 633 and 634 dated January 18, 2016. 634 is for the ship “Saima”, 633 is for the other three ships.

“In our country, state and municipal property is at the disposal of the property department - if in Moscow, Rosimushchestvo - if in Russia. But the state is not engaged in acquisitiveness; on the contrary, it must use this property. It is distributed among institutions, business entities - this can be rent, operational management, in our case, the property was transferred to the Department of Education for operational management. In this case, the education department should be viewed as the owner.”

“We have budget funds that have been spent, the result has not been achieved, and property has been lost. According to the decree of the Moscow government, an algorithm has been established for writing off property. To do this, you must provide a package of documents, including a market value assessment report. This act should not be prepared more than six months before the submission of these documents. An assessment was made on Saima, but in January last year. For the rest, they didn’t do it at all. Yes, maybe they did this somehow at the level of a desk assessment, that is, they assessed solely based on documents, but can this be trusted? The market value is still based on the actual condition of the property. Judging by the fact that they did not conduct an assessment, they could not collect the necessary package of documents.”

According to naval practice, a ship that currently does not meet the requirements and is formally declared unfit is either sent for repairs or written off - removed from the fleet, but usually not disposed of, but transferred to someone else. Unsuitability in this case does not mean the impossibility of use in the everyday sense, but the presence of certain comments during the examination. Even if the ship passed it after the deadline, the report will indicate “unfit” with the note “missed the deadline.” At the same time, the ship may be in good condition and need to eliminate formal comments. In our case, the RRR inspector was not provided with documents confirming the completion of the work, due to their retention by the shipyard and the contractor, Neptune LLC.

LITTLE CAMP TO REPLACE A MOTOR SHIP AND A FORMER WARSHIP

After stories about the fate of the flotilla appeared in a number of media outlets, Deputy Head of the Moscow Department of Education Igor Pavlov announced that it was planned to buy others to replace the scrapped ships by the summer of 2016.

“This is a lie,” says Ivan Zhatko. – Our administration said that they will probably purchase it by the summer of ’17. But we don’t believe in this either: normal people first bring in new ships and then get rid of the old ones. None of them said what kind of ships they wanted to buy. And I’ll tell you: they want to buy four small vessels. Two of them are motor-sailing, 12 meters long, for 12 children. And two small ships, wooden, which there is no one to service and store, for four people. That is, four fleet units can take on 30 people in total. Such small ships, the size of a boat, do not ensure navigation safety in any way. In addition, there are no toilets, no electricity, no refrigerator. There is a gas stove, which is dangerous on a wooden boat. These ships cannot provide normal, safe practices.”

"Saima" takes almost 100 cadets, "Leningrad" (former ship - Large submarine hunter of project 122-BIS)– 30. This is despite the fact that these are large iron ships, safe, with refrigerators, a normal kitchen, toilets, showers, good living quarters and normal practices. Children, if they want to continue working in the navy, will not row boats, but will work on large ships, that is, they must undergo practical training on appropriate ships. “Saima” and “Leningrad” have a register class of M30, the highest on inland waterways. So it's just an unequal replacement, even if there is one. And in terms of cost - they seem to be going to spend 25 million - believe me, in order to repair four of our ships, this money will be even a lot.”

According to the crew, the small vessels promised by the Moscow government will go on one-day trips at most in the Khimki Reservoir area:

“Saima” went along the route Moscow - St. Petersburg and back, or Moscow-Volgograd and back. “Leningrad” is the same. And these small boats will at most go on daytime walks in the area of ​​the Khimki Reservoir. There will be no practice as such - it will just be children riding boats. And on our ships, children undergo the full scope of training: they steer the ship, they learn to operate the controls and navigation of the ship, they stand watch in the engine room, and they help in the galley, that is, our children completely replace the crew. There’s nothing to do on a small boat,” sighs the mechanic of the “Saima” motor ship. “You can’t imagine how many of these small vessels are sinking...”

VERSION OF THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND CVPGV