Rescue of Soviet sailors in the Pacific Ocean. "Ziganshin boogie, Ziganshin rock, Ziganshin ate the second boot

"Ziganshin boogie, Ziganshin rock, Ziganshin ate the second boot!"

After 55 years, Askhat Ziganshin, an order-bearing soldier and idol of Soviet rock and roll, revealed the uncombed truth about the drift of the T-36 barge across the Pacific Ocean.

Fifty-five years ago, these four were more popular than the Liverpool quartet. The guys from the Far East were written and talked about all over the world. But the music of the legendary Beatles is still alive, and the glory of Askhat Ziganshin, Anatoly Kryuchkovsky, Philip Poplavsky and Ivan Fedotov has remained in the past.

Their names are remembered today only by the older generation. Young people need to be told from scratch how on January 17, 1960, the T-36 barge with a team of four conscripts was carried away from the Kuril island of Iturup into the open ocean, to the epicenter of a powerful cyclone. Designed for coastal navigation, and not for ocean voyages, the ship dangled for 49 days at the behest of the waves, overcoming about one and a half thousand nautical miles in a drift. From the very beginning there was almost no food and water on board, but the guys resisted without losing their human form.

Half a century later, two participants in an unprecedented raid survived. Ziganshin lives in Strelna near St. Petersburg, Kryuchkovsky lives in independent Kyiv ...

It seems, Askhat Rakhimzyanovich, those forty-nine days - the main thing that happened in your life?

Maybe I would like to forget about the campaign, because they remind me all the time! Although now the attention is far from what it used to be. In 1960, not a day passed that we did not perform somewhere - at factories, at schools, institutes. They bypassed almost all the ships of the Black Sea Fleet, the Baltic, the Northern ...

Over time, I got used to speaking from the stage, everywhere I told about the same thing, I didn’t even think about it. Like reading a poem.

Will you read to me too?

I can prose for you. Previously, one still had to embellish a little, round off the details, let in pathos. Reality is not so romantic and beautiful, in life everything is more boring and banal. While drifting, there was no fear, no panic. We had no doubt that we would be saved. Although we did not think that we would spend almost two months in the ocean. If a bad thought had wandered into the head, the day would not have lived. He perfectly understood this, he did not become limp and did not give the guys, he stopped any defeatist moods. At some point, Fedotov lost heart, began to break into a cry, they say, Khan, no one is looking for and will not find us, but I quickly changed the record, transferred the conversation to another, distracted.

There were two Ukrainians in our team, a Russian and a Tatar. Everyone has their own character, demeanor, but, believe me, it never came to quarrels. I served with minders Poplavsky and Kryuchkovsky for the second year, I knew Fedotov worse, he came from training and almost immediately got to us instead of the sailor Volodya Duzhkin, who thundered into the infirmary: he swallowed carbon monoxide from a potbelly stove. At the beginning of the drift, Fedotov kept the ax under his pillow. Just in case. Maybe he feared for his life...

There were no equipped berths on Iturup. In Kasatka Bay, ships were tied to raid barrels or the mast of a sunken Japanese ship. We did not live in the village of Burevestnik, where our detachment was based, but right on the barge. It was more convenient, although you can’t really turn around on board: in the cockpit there were only four beds, a stove and a portable RBM radio station.

In December 1959, all the barges were already pulled ashore by tractors: a period of severe storms began - there was no hiding from them in the bay. And yes, there was some refurbishment. But then came the order to urgently unload the refrigerator with meat. "T-36" together with "T-97" was launched again. Our service also consisted in transferring cargoes from large ships standing on the roadstead to land. Usually there was a supply of food on the barge - biscuits, sugar, tea, stew, condensed milk, a bag of potatoes, but we were preparing for the winter and moved everything to the barracks. Although, according to the rules, it was supposed to keep NZ on board for ten days ...

Around nine in the morning, the storm intensified, the cable broke, we were carried to the rocks, but we managed to inform the command that, together with the T-97 crew, we would try to hide on the eastern side of the bay, where the wind was calmer. After that, the radio was flooded, and communication with the shore was lost. We tried to keep the second barge in sight, but in the snowfall visibility dropped to almost zero. At seven o'clock in the evening the wind suddenly changed, and we were dragged into the open ocean. Another three hours later, the minders reported that the fuel reserves in diesel engines were running out. I made the decision to throw myself ashore. It was a risky move, but there was no choice. The first attempt was unsuccessful: they collided with a rock called Devil's Hill. Miraculously, they didn’t crash, they managed to slip between the stones, although they got a hole, the water began to flood the engine room. Behind the rock, a sandy shore began, and I sent a barge to it.

We almost reached the bottom, we were already touching the bottom of the ground, but then the diesel fuel ran out, the engines died out, and we were carried into the ocean.

And if you swim?

Suicide! The water is icy, high waves, sub-zero temperatures... And they wouldn't have survived on the surface for a couple of minutes. Yes, it never crossed our minds to abandon the barge. Is it possible to squander state property?!

Anchoring with such a wind would not have been possible, and the depth did not allow. In addition, everything on the barge was iced over, the chains were frozen. In a word, there was nothing left but to look at the shore disappearing in the distance. The snow continued to fall, but in the open ocean the wave dropped a little, not so ruffled.

We didn't feel fear, no. All forces were thrown at pumping water from the engine room. With the help of a jack, they patched the hole, eliminated the leak. In the morning, when it dawned, the first thing we did was check what we had with food. A loaf of bread, some peas and millet, a bucket of potatoes smeared with fuel oil, a jar of fat. Plus a couple packs of Belomor and three boxes of matches. That's all wealth. A five-liter tank of drinking water crashed in a storm, they drank technical water, designed to cool diesel engines. She was rusty, but most importantly - fresh!

At first, we hoped that they would quickly find us. Or the wind will change, drive the barge to the shore. Nevertheless, I immediately introduced severe restrictions on food and water. Just in case. And he turned out to be right.

Under normal conditions, the commander should not stand in the galley, this is the duty of the privates, but on the second or third day Fedotov began to shout that we would die of hunger, so the guys asked me to take everything into my own hands, control the situation.

Were you more trusted than yourself?

Probably, they were calmer that way ... They ate once a day. Each got a mug of soup, which I cooked from a couple of potatoes and a spoonful of fat. I added more grits until it ran out. They drank water three times a day - a tiny glass from a shaving kit. But soon this rate had to be cut in half.

I decided on such cost-saving measures when I accidentally discovered in the wheelhouse a piece of the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper, which reported that the Soviet Union would conduct missile launches in the specified region of the Pacific Ocean, therefore, for security reasons, any ships - civil and military - were forbidden to appear there until early March. . A schematic map of the region was attached to the note. The guys and I figured out by the stars and the direction of the wind and realized that ... we were drifting exactly to the epicenter of missile tests. So, there was a possibility that they would not look for us.

Is that how it happened?

Yes, as it turned out later. But we hoped for the best, we did not know that on the second day a lifebuoy from our barge and a broken coal box with tail number "T-36" were thrown onto the coast of Iturup. The wreckage was found and it was decided that we died, having flown into the rocks. The command sent telegrams to the relatives: so, they say, and so, your sons were missing.

Although, perhaps, no one thought to strain, organizing large-scale searches. Because of the unfortunate barge to cancel the launch of missiles? Successful tests for the country were much more important than the four disappeared soldiers ...

And we continued to drift. My thoughts revolved around food all the time. I began to cook soup every two days, using one potato. True, on January 27, on his birthday, Kryuchkovsky received an increased ration. But Tolya refused to eat an additional portion and drink water alone. They say that the birthday cake is shared among all the guests, so help yourself!

No matter how they tried to stretch the supplies, on February 23 the last ones ended. Such a festive dinner in honor of the Day of the Soviet Army turned out ...

You know, for all the time no one tried to steal something from the common table, snatch an extra piece. It wouldn't work, to be honest. Everything was out of the blue. Tried to eat soap, toothpaste. With hunger, everything will fit! In order not to think endlessly about grub and not go crazy, I tried to load the guys with work. At the beginning of the raid two weeks - day after day! - tried to scoop water from the hold. Fuel tanks were located under it, hope was glimmering: suddenly there was diesel fuel there and we could start the engines. In the daytime, they rattled buckets as much as they could, in the dark they did not dare to open the hatch in order to prevent depressurization of the compartment, and during the night the sea water again accumulated - the draft of the barge was a little over a meter. Sisyphean work! As a result, we got to the necks of the tanks, looked inside. Alas, no fuel was found, only a thin film on the surface. They closed everything tightly and did not meddle there anymore ...

Did you count the days?

I had a clock with a calendar. At first, even the boat log filled in: the mood of the crew, what who was doing. Then he began to write less often, because nothing new happened, they hung out somewhere in the ocean, and that's all. They saved us on March 7, and not on March 8, as we decided: they miscalculated for a day, forgetting that it is a leap year and February has 29 days.

Only on the last segment of the drift, the "roof" slowly began to move off, hallucinations began. We almost did not go out on deck, we lay in the cockpit. There is no strength left. You try to get up, and it’s like you get a blow on the forehead with a butt, blackness in your eyes. This is from physical exhaustion and weakness. Some voices were heard, extraneous sounds, the horns of ships that did not really exist.

While they could move, they tried to fish. They sharpened hooks, made primitive gear ... But the ocean raged almost without interruption, for all the time it never pecked. What fool would climb a rusty nail? And we would have eaten the jellyfish if we had pulled it out. True, then flocks of sharks began to circle around the barge. A meter and a half long. We stood and looked at them. And they are on us. Maybe they were waiting for someone to fall overboard unconscious?

By that time, we had already eaten a watch strap, a leather belt from trousers, and took up tarpaulin boots. They cut the top into pieces, boiled for a long time in ocean water, instead of firewood using fenders, car tires chained to the sides. When the kirza softened a little, they began to chew it in order to fill their stomach with at least something. Sometimes they were fried in a frying pan with technical oil. It turned out something like chips.

In a Russian folk tale, a soldier boiled porridge from an ax, and you, then, from a boot?

And where to go? Found skin under the accordion keys, small circles of chrome. Also ate. I suggested: "Let's, guys, consider this meat of the highest grade ..."

Amazingly, even indigestion did not toil. Young organisms digested everything!

There was no panic or depression until the very end. Later, the mechanic of the Queen Mary passenger ship, on which we sailed from America to Europe after the rescue, said that he found himself in a similar situation: his ship was left without communication for two weeks in a severe storm. Of the thirty crew members, several were killed. Not from hunger, but because of fear and constant fights for food and water... Are there really few cases when sailors, finding themselves in a critical situation, went crazy, threw themselves overboard, ate each other?

How did the Americans find you?

We noticed the first ship only on the fortieth day. Far away, almost on the horizon. They waved their hands, shouted - to no avail. That evening they saw a light in the distance. While a fire was being made on deck, the ship disappeared into the distance. A week later, two ships passed by - also to no avail. The last days of the drift were very unsettling. We had half a teapot of fresh water left, one shoe, and three matches. With such stocks, they would have lasted a couple of days, hardly more.

March 7 heard some noise outside. At first they decided: again hallucinations. But they couldn't start at the same time for four? With difficulty they climbed onto the deck. We look - planes are circling overhead. They threw flares on the water, marked the area. Then two helicopters appeared instead of planes. We went down low, low, it seems that you can reach it with your hand. Here we finally believed that the torment was over, help had come. We stand, hugging, supporting each other.

Pilots leaned out of the hatches, threw down rope ladders, showed signs how to climb, shouted something to us, and we were waiting for someone to go down to the barge, and I, as commander, would set my conditions: "Give food, fuel, maps, and We'll get home on our own." So they looked at each other: they - from above, we - from below. Helicopters hung, hung, ran out of fuel, they flew away. They were replaced by others. The picture is the same: the Americans are not going down, we are not going up. We look, the aircraft carrier, from which the helicopters took off, turns around and begins to move away. And helicopters follow. Maybe the Americans thought that the Russians liked to hang out in the middle of the ocean?

At this point, we really freaked out. Understood: now they will make us a pen and - bye-bye. Although even then there was no thought to abandon the barge. Let them at least take them on board! With the last of their strength, they began to give signs to the Americans, they say, they dumped the fool, don’t throw them to death, take them away. Fortunately, the aircraft carrier returned, came closer, from the captain's bridge in broken Russian they shouted to us: "Рomosh vam! Pomosh!" And again the helicopters took to the skies. This time we did not force ourselves to be persuaded. I climbed into the cradle lowered onto the deck and was the first to board the helicopter. They immediately put a cigarette in my teeth, I lit it with pleasure, which I had not done for many days. Then the guys were picked up from the barge.

On the aircraft carrier they immediately took us to feed. They poured a bowl of broth, gave bread. We took a small piece. They show: take more, do not be shy. But I immediately warned the guys: good - a little, because I knew that you can’t overeat from hunger, it ends badly. Still, he grew up in the Volga region in the post-war period ...

Probably, you still don’t leave an uneaten piece on your plate, do you choose to crumbs?

On the contrary, I am picky in tastes: I don’t eat it, I don’t want it. Let's say, I didn't like boiled vegetables - carrots, cabbage, beets... I didn't have any fear of hunger.

But I will continue the story about the first hours on an aircraft carrier. The Americans gave out clean linen, razors, and took me to the shower. As soon as I started to wash and ... collapsed unconscious. Apparently, the body worked at its limit for 49 days, and then the tension subsided, and immediately such a reaction.

I woke up three days later. The first thing I asked was what happened to the barge. The orderly who looked after us in the ship's infirmary just shrugged his shoulders. This is where my mood dropped. Yes, it's great that they are alive, but who do we have to thank for salvation? Americans! If not bitter enemies, certainly not friends. Relations between the USSR and the USA at that moment were not so hot. Cold War! In a word, for the first time ever, I frankly dreyfil. I was not so afraid on the barge as on the American aircraft carrier. I was afraid of provocations, I was afraid that they would leave us in the States, they would not be allowed to return home. And if they let him go, what will happen in Russia? Will they be accused of treason? I am a Soviet soldier, a member of the Komsomol, and suddenly fell into the jaws of the sharks of world imperialism...

To be honest, the Americans treated us exceptionally well, they even cooked dumplings with cottage cheese on purpose, which we dreamed about on the barge. A descendant of emigrants from western Ukraine served as a cook on an aircraft carrier, he knew a lot about national cuisine ... And yet, in the first days after the rescue, I seriously thought about suicide, tried on the porthole, wanted to throw myself out. Or hanging on a pipe.

Is it true that your parents were searched while you drifted?

I learned about this after 40 years! In 2000, they were invited to their native lands, to the Samara region, they arranged something like celebrations on the occasion of the anniversary of swimming. In the regional center of Shentala, after all, there is a street named after me ...

After the end of the official part, a woman came up to me and, very embarrassed, asked for forgiveness for her husband, a policeman, who, together with the special officers, roamed the attics and basements in our house in 1960. They probably thought that the guys and I deserted, sailed on a barge to Japan. And I didn’t even know about the search, my parents didn’t say anything then. All their lives they were modest people, quiet. I am the youngest in the family, I still have two sisters, they live in Tatarstan. The elder brother died long ago.

In March 1960, my relatives heard on the Voice of America that I was found, did not die and did not go missing. More precisely, not they themselves, but the neighbors came running and said, they say, they are broadcasting about your Vitka on the radio. Only my family called me Askhat, and the rest called me Victor. And on the street, and at school, and then in the army.

Newsreel filmed on the aircraft carrier "Kearsarge" in 1960.

The Americans immediately reported that they had caught four Russian soldiers in the ocean, and for a week our authorities were deciding how to react to the news, what to do with us. What if we are traitors or defectors? Only on the ninth day, March 16, in Izvestia did the article "Stronger than death" appear on the front page...

By this time we managed to give a press conference. Right on board the aircraft carrier. An interpreter who knew Russian well flew in from the Hawaiian Islands, with several dozen journalists with him. With television cameras, cameras, spotlights... And we are village guys, for us it's all wild. Maybe that's why the conversation turned out to be short. They put us in the presidium, brought ice cream to everyone. A correspondent asked if we spoke English. Poplavsky jumped up: "Thank you!" Everyone laughed. Then they asked where we come from, from what places. The guys answered, I also said, and suddenly blood gushed from my nose in a stream. Probably from excitement or overexertion. The press conference ended on that, without really starting. They took me back to the cabin, put sentries at the door so that no one would break in without asking.

True, in San Francisco, where we arrived on the ninth day, the press made up for it, accompanied me at every step. They also talked about us on American television. I had only heard about this miracle of technology before, but now I turn it on - there is a story about our salvation. We are overgrown, emaciated ... I lost almost 30 kilograms, and the guys are about the same. I remember that later they showed a "trick": three of them stood together and clasped themselves with one soldier's belt.

One year later. Gagarin's flight

They received us in the States at the highest level! The mayor of San Francisco presented the symbolic keys to the city, made him an honorary citizen. Later, in the Union, the girls pestered me for a long time with questions: "Is it true that the key is golden?" After all, you won’t begin to explain: no, wooden, covered with golden paint ... At the embassy they gave us one hundred dollars for pocket expenses. I collected gifts for my mother, father, sisters. He didn't take anything. They took them to a fashion store and dressed them up: they bought everyone a coat, a suit, a hat, a tie. True, I didn’t dare to walk at home in tight trousers and pointed shoes, I didn’t like that they began to call me a dude. I gave the trousers to my brother Misha, and the boots to Kryuchkovsky. He sent it to his family. They also gave us bright underpants with cowboys. Now I would easily wear it, but then I was wildly shy. Slowly shoved it behind the radiator so that no one would see.

On the way from San Francisco to New York, everyone was given a scale of whiskey on the plane. I didn’t drink, I brought it home, I gave it to my brother. By the way, there was a funny episode on the aircraft carrier when the translator brought us two bottles of Russian vodka. Says: at your request. We were very surprised, and then laughed. Apparently, the owners mixed up water and vodka...

Did you offer to stay overseas?

We asked carefully if we were afraid to return. They say, if you want, we will provide asylum, we will create conditions. We categorically refused. God forbid! Soviet patriotic education. Until now, I do not regret that I was not tempted by any proposals. There is only one motherland, I do not need another. Then they said about us: these four became famous not because they ate an accordion, but because they did not stay in the States.

In Moscow, in the early days, I was afraid that they would be taken to the Lubyanka, hidden in Butyrka, and tortured. But they didn't call us to the KGB, they didn't arrange interrogations, on the contrary, they met us at the gangway of the plane with flowers. It seems that they even wanted to give the title of Heroes of the Soviet Union, but everything was limited to the Orders of the Red Star. We were happy with that too.

Have you been abroad then?

In Bulgaria. Twice. I went to Varna to visit a friend, he lived with his wife. But this is much later. And then, in the 60s, we started a fun life. When we arrived in Moscow, we were given a program: at nine in the morning to be at the Radio House, at eleven in the morning - on television in Shabolovka, at two o'clock - a meeting with the pioneers on the Lenin Hills ... I remember driving around the city, and along the streets - posters: "Glory to the brave sons of our Motherland!" In the morning at the CDSA hotel they got into the sent car, in the evening they returned to their rooms. No instruction on what to talk about. Everyone said what they wanted.

We were received by Defense Minister Marshal Malinovsky. He gave everyone a navigator's watch ("So that they don't get lost again"), awarded me the rank of senior sergeant, gave everyone a two-week vacation home. We stayed at home, met in Moscow and went to the Crimea, to a military sanatorium in Gurzuf. Everything is first class again! There, generals and admirals rested - and suddenly we, soldiers! Rooms with a view of the Black Sea, enhanced meals ... True, it did not work out to sunbathe. As soon as you undress, tourists from all sides run with cameras. They ask for a picture and an autograph. Already hiding from people began ...

In Gurzuf, we were offered to enter the Navy School in Lomonosov near Leningrad. Everyone except Fedotov agreed.

Fear of the sea did not arise after a month and a half drift?

Absolutely none! Another worried: we had 7-8 classes of education, we ourselves would not have passed the entrance exams. For a month we studied the Russian language and mathematics with the attached teachers, filled in some gaps in knowledge, and yet the enrollment took place in a preferential mode. The political department got busy... And then, frankly speaking, we studied so-so. "Tails" happened, tests were not passed the first time. After all, we went to classes in between performances. I even managed to be a delegate to the congress of the Komsomol.

How long did round dances take place around you?

Consider, before the flight of Yuri Gagarin, we made noise, and then the country and the whole world had a new hero. Of course, we could not come close to his glory. They didn't even try.

Have you met astronaut number one?

Once we had lunch together. But this cannot be considered an acquaintance. True, in the then fashionable children's counting rhyme, our names stood side by side:

"Yuri Gagarin.
Ziganshin is a Tatar.
German Titov.
Nikita Khrushchev".

A feature film was made about our four, Vladimir Vysotsky wrote a song for it.

There was a moment when he began to drink heavily. Taught. How are we? Every meeting ends with a feast. And called often. First my performance, then the banquet. And you can’t refuse people, they are offended ... But in the last 20 years I haven’t taken a drop of alcohol in my mouth. I don't even drink beer. Thank you medicine for helping me.

55 years later. Honorable Sir

You say: those 49 days are the main event of life. Yes, the episode is bright, you can not argue with that. But some people don't have that. People die, as they say, without being born. And they themselves have nothing to remember, and no one knows them.

And our four, whatever one may say, even after that drift lived with dignity. Fate, of course, abandoned, but did not break. From March 1964 to May 2005 I plied the waters of the Gulf of Finland. Forty-one years he served in one place. In the rescue division of the Leningrad naval base. As they say, in thirty-minute readiness. The court, however, changed. First he worked with firefighters, then with divers. There were many different stories. I went to Moscow for the parade in honor of the Navy Day four times. Eleven days we walked along the rivers and canals, we rehearsed for a month to give a stream of water a hundred meters high in front of the VIP spectators. From the Northern Fleet, a combat submarine was specially dragged to the parade! However, that's for another story...

Fedotov served in the river fleet, sailed along the Amur. By the way, Ivan found out that his son was born when an American aircraft carrier picked us up. Returning to Moscow and having received a vacation, he immediately rushed to the Far East to his family ...

Poplavsky, after graduating from college in Lomonosov, did not go anywhere, and settled there forever. Participated in expeditions in the Mediterranean Sea, the Atlantic, conducted surveillance of spacecraft. He, like Fedotov, unfortunately, has already died. We remained with Kryuchkovsky. Tolya, after studying, asked to join the Northern Fleet, but did not stay there for long - his wife fell ill and he moved to his native Ukraine, to Kyiv. He worked all his life at the Leninskaya Kuznitsa shipyard. The last time we saw each other was in 2007. We flew to Sakhalin. They gave us such a gift - they invited us. Stayed for a week.

Was it stormy again?

Not that word! According to the program, a flight to the Kuriles was planned, but the Iturup airfield did not receive it for three days. The pilots were almost persuaded, but at the last moment they refused, they say, we are not suicidal. The Japanese built a strip on Iturup for kamikaze: it was important for them to take off, they did not think about landing ...

So I never had a chance to visit the places where we served. Now let's not get out. There is no health, and there is no one to pay for the road. Kryuchkovsky suffered a stroke at the end of last year, spent a long time in the hospital, I also work for a pharmacy, and there are no number of chronic illnesses. Although he survived until the age of 70, he almost did not get sick. There is not enough pension, I am a watchman at the boat station, I guard private yachts and boats. I live with my daughter and grandson Dima. He buried his wife Raya seven years ago. We sometimes call Kryuchkovsky on the phone, we exchange old man's news.

Are you talking about politics?

I don't like this. Yes, and what to discuss? There was one country that was destroyed. Now there is a war in Ukraine... Someday it will end, but I'm afraid we won't live to see it.

Are you an honorary citizen of the city?

Yes, not only San Francisco... In 2010 they were elected. First Vladimir Putin, then me. Certificate No. 2 was issued. True, the title is literally honorary, it does not imply any benefits. Even to pay utility bills. But I'm not complaining. For the fiftieth anniversary of the drift, they gave me a refrigerator. Imported big...

P.S. I keep thinking about your question about the main event of life. Honestly, it would be better if they were not there, those forty-nine days. In every way, it's better. If we hadn’t been swept out to sea then, after the service I would have returned to my native Shentala and continued to work as a tractor driver. It was that storm that made a sailor out of me, turned my whole life upside down ...

On the other hand, what would we talk about today? Yes, and you would not come to me. No, it's stupid to be sorry.

Where it went, there, as they say, it went...

In 1960, the song "About Four Heroes" appeared. Music: A. Pakhmutova Lyrics: S. Grebennikov, N. Dobronravov. This song, performed by Konstantin Ryabinov, Yegor Letov and Oleg Sudakov, was included in the album "At Soviet Speed" - the first magnetic album of the Soviet underground project "Communism".

My friends! I have been downloading all sorts of films and series (seasons) about survival in various conditions for a long time. And all the same, the thought haunts me that in all these films we are only talking about meat protein food. Either the poor fellows grow weaker and thinner without meat, or they fall into fainting spells, or they predict starvation for themselves. Of course! Tear off your fat ass from the computer and chop down a forest with an ax, well, how can you not get tired and lose weight? But no, they are to blame for the lack of meat !!! It seems that all these people have not even heard what fasting is. And this is almost never practiced anywhere: survinat.ru/2010/01/dve-nedeli-bez-edy/#ixzz1P6LH3LVe
I don’t understand who and why vtemyashevaet these thoughts in theirs and our heads! They make heroes of people who have eaten their own comrades! Although cannibalism is a great sin in all religions! And against the background of all these thoughts, I came across an article about which I heard for the first time, although the whole country of the Soviets, and the whole world, once buzzed about it! I believe that many of you know about this case, but after conducting a survey among many people, I was convinced of the opposite and now, with great pride in my fellow tribesmen, I consider it my duty to bring this information to those who have not heard.
These lines were written by me about a month ago, and I had no idea when I would finish this article, but today I read an article by comrade mamont and realized that this time has come!

This is not a copy-paste, but a kind of abstract collected bit by bit from a dozen articles. I would like to cover this topic more fully. I hope that I succeeded.

In January 1960, in stormy weather, the self-propelled barge T-36, which was unloading on the Kuril Islands, was torn from anchor and carried into the sea. On board were four servicemen of the engineering and construction troops of the Soviet Army: junior sergeant Askhat Ziganshin and privates Philip Poplavsky, Anatoly Kryuchkovsky and Ivan Fedotov.
These people spent 49 days on the high seas without food or water. But they survived! Starving sailors who ate seven pairs of leather boots were rescued by the crew of the American aircraft carrier Kearsarge. Then, in 1960, the whole world applauded them.

OCEAN WINNERS
The whole world knows about the feat of four. The unprecedented drift of Ziganshin, Poplavsky, Fedotov, Kryuchkovsky has become synonymous with the strength of the spirit of the young generation of the Soviet country. People's thoughts invariably return to this event, and everyone strives to evaluate what happened.
“Their epic courage shook the world. They are not only soldiers of the Soviet Army, these four guys. They are also the soldiers of humanity,” said the American writer Albert Kahn. “Russia gives birth to iron people. You can't help but admire these people,” said the secretary of the Italian seafarers' union. "This is an absolutely amazing epic," said the brave Frenchman Dr. Alain Bombard, author of the famous book "Overboard of his own free will." "In the history of navigation - this is the only case." "Their feat is a wonderful display of human endurance." "This is a great example for all seafarers in the world." "Along with its heroic significance, the drifting of a barge with four warriors on board is of great scientific interest." “Nervous restraint, their spiritual strength, their comradely soldering, mutual help and support in difficult times were of the main importance here. They lost 30 kilograms of weight, weakened physically, but did not lose their fortitude "...
There are hundreds of such statements coming from the very depths of the heart.

Ivan Fedotov

Anatoly Kryuchkovsky

Philip Poplavsky

Askhat Ziganshin

They were not border guards, these guys. They were not military sailors either. They were not sailors at all - they served in a construction battalion and were engaged in loading and unloading operations: they took goods onto a barge and transported them ashore.
By night it was stormy. A squally wind blew at night. It reached 50-70 meters per second. It snowed. As Anatoly Fedorovich Kryuchkovsky recalled later, many years later, “in a matter of seconds, huge waves rose, our barge was torn off the mooring mast and the rearing ocean let’s throw it across the bay like a chip.” I had to hastily cut off the nylon end connecting the T-36 with another barge, which was soon thrown ashore. The struggle of the brave four with the furious elements began ... An instruction was received on the radio: to hide from the hurricane in the bay. Then they attempted to throw themselves ashore together with the barge, but unsuccessfully: they only got a hole, which they had to close up right there, in a 18-degree frost, and broke the radio. The signal fire on the mast went out, the antenna was torn off. Communication with the shore was cut off. The wave washed overboard a barrel of oil for the engine, as well as boxes of coal for the stove ...
They weren't smashed against rocks, no. They just washed up in the ocean...
- We were torn off the coast and carried into the sea, - probably for the thousandth time he tells about those incredible events. - Kasatka Bay is completely open, and the weather in the Kuril Islands is not joking. Wind 30-35 meters per second - it's a common thing there. But we were not very upset, we thought: in a day or two, the wind will change, and we will be driven to the shore. This has happened to us before.

The barge was swept out into the open ocean. And here they are alone among the icy waves and impenetrable darkness. The ship was covered with a thick crust of ice, clothes stiffened in the cold. Askhat Ziganshin and Ivan Fedotov were driving, replacing each other. Poplavsky and Kryuchkovsky struggled with icy water that flooded the engine room. Waist-deep in water, in total darkness, they tried to find a hole. And when it was finally discovered and repaired, it took another two days to pump out the water. Stretched languid days, filled with uninterrupted anxiety. The wind was blowing with incredible force, the snow was still swirling.

Rocket R-7

And the T-36 barge, along with the crew, disappeared without a trace. Neither Ziganshin, nor Fedotov, nor Kryuchkovsky, nor Poplavsky knew that their ship, having left the cold Oyashio Current, was picked up by one of the streams of the warm Kuroshio Current, called by Japanese fishermen, not without reason, the “death current”. Few people managed to escape from the captivity of the "blue current". There are cases when Japanese junks that got into Kuroshio, after many months of drifting, were found off the coast of Mexico, California, and the northwestern coast of the United States. Even fish and birds do not dare to cross the "stream of death."

On the second day of the drift, the crew of the T-36 barge continued to fight for the ship's survivability. I had to constantly break off the freezing ice. The unfortunate hoped that the next shaft would not overturn the flat-bottomed river boat. It was impossible to sleep: the waves rolled people from side to side. Only on the fourth day of the drift did the T-36 crew manage to get some sleep. Their faces and hands bled from blows against the walls of the cockpit, salt corroded abrasions. But it was half the trouble.
Askhat found on the barge the number of the "Red Star", which reported that in the area of the Hawaiian Islands - that is, exactly where, apparently, the barge was carrying, firing was being carried out - tests of Soviet missiles. It was clearly stated in the newspaper that from January to March, ships were prohibited from moving in that direction of the Pacific Ocean, since the entire area was declared unsafe for navigation. So, no one will look for them here.

Ziganshin, after checking the food and water supplies, said: “We need to save! ..” Two cans of canned food, a can of fat, a loaf of bread and a little cereal, also in cans, there were also two buckets of potatoes, but during a storm it scattered around the engine room and soaked with fuel oil - a two-day emergency supply ... At the same time, the tank with drinking water also overturned, and salt water was mixed with fresh water to cool the engines. - And we began to save our meager reserves in such a way as to hold out until March, - recalls Askhat Rakhimzyanovich. Yes! Here's another thing: there were several packs of Belomor. Do not eat, so at least smoke ...
They did smoke. Their cigarettes ran out first. Stew and pork fat ran out very quickly. They tried to boil potatoes, but could not bring themselves to eat them. Because of the same oil.
A few days later, those potatoes soaked in fuel oil began to seem like a delicacy to them ... They decided to save the remaining food and water with the utmost rigor. The authority of their commander Ziganshin was indisputable for all three, the guys entrusted him with the most important thing: to prepare food and distribute portions. And he inquisitively watched his comrades and gradually calmed down: he realized that they would withstand any test! The calculation was - to hold out until the end of the announced missile launches. At first, each person had two tablespoons of cereal and two potatoes a day. Then - potatoes for four. Once a day. Then a day later...
They drank the same water from the cooling system. At first they drank it three times a day, three sips each. Then this rate was halved. Then this water also ended, and they began to collect rainwater. Each one got a sip of it every two days ...
The last potato was eaten the day after the February 23 holiday. It's been a month of their loneliness in the ocean. During this time, the barge was carried hundreds of miles away from their shore ... And they no longer had any food left.
Almost half a century later, Askhat Ziganshin recalled:
… Hunger tormented me all the time. Because of the cold, there were no rats on the barge. If there were, we would eat them. Albatrosses were flying, but we couldn't catch them. We tried to make fishing tackle, to catch fish, but we didn’t succeed either - you get on board, as the wave gives you, and you quickly run back ... I somehow lay, there was almost no strength left, fiddling with the belt. And suddenly he remembered how at school the teacher told about sailors who ran aground and suffered from hunger. They skinned the masts, boiled and ate. My belt was leather. We cut it finely, like noodles, and began to cook “soup” from it. Then the strap was cut off from the radio. Then they thought that we still have leather. And, except for tarpaulin boots, they didn’t think of anything else .... But you can't eat kirza so easily, it's too tough. They boiled them in ocean water to boil the shoe polish, then they cut them into pieces, threw them into the stove, where they turned into something similar to charcoal and ate it ...
“What does the leather of boots taste like?” - Asked Anatoly Kryuchkovsky half a century later.
... Very bitter, with an unpleasant odor. Was it then up to taste? I wanted only one thing: to deceive the stomach. But you can't just eat the skin - it's too hard. So we cut off a small piece and set it on fire. When the tarpaulin burned, it turned into something similar to charcoal and became soft. We smeared this “delicacy” with grease to make it easier to swallow. Several of these "sandwiches" made up our daily diet ...
And none of them could know how soon and from where help would arrive in time. Or maybe there will be no help at all ... But they could not assume that they would be carried along the desert ocean for forty-nine days!

They were in a difficult situation and firmly decided that they would hold out to the last.
It would be possible to remind once again with what warmth and care they treated each other, how they supported each other's cheerfulness and confidence. They retold the contents of previously read books, recalled their native places, sang songs. When fresh water ran out, they tried to collect rainwater. They made baubles from a tin can, fish hooks from nails, but the fish was not caught. Shark hunting was also unsuccessful.
Surprisingly, it's not that there were no fights between them - none of them even once raised their voices to the other. Probably, with some incomprehensible instinct, they felt that any conflict in their position is certain death. And they lived, lived in hope. And they worked as much as their strength allowed: standing waist-deep in cold water, they scooped out the water that constantly entered the hold with bowls.
They starved, suffered from thirst, gradually began to lose their hearing and sight.
But even at the most critical moments of human appearance, they have not lost.
Friends did not forget that Anatoly Kryuchkovsky turned 21 on January 27 and celebrated this event. The hero of the occasion was offered a double portion of water. But Anatoly refused a double portion. Only a convulsive lump rolled up to the throat.
On February 23, the crew members congratulated each other on the Day of the Soviet Army and Navy. I didn’t have to dine that day, as there was only one spoonful of cereal and one potato left. We limited ourselves to a smoke break, twisting a cigarette from the remnants of tobacco.
Now they moved little, as they were weakened to an extreme degree. Leather boots, belts - everything went into a common boiler. Technical vaseline was smeared on the boiled pieces and it was all swallowed.
Experienced people say that in the situation in which these four found themselves, people often go crazy and cease to be people: they panic, are thrown overboard, kill because of a sip of water, kill to eat. These same guys held on to the last of their strength, supporting each other and themselves with the hope of salvation. On the 45th day of the drift, those in distress saw the ship for the first time.
- We shouted, lit a fire. But they didn't see us...
Three times they saw steamships in the distance, but no one noticed the signals from the barge in distress.
Salvation came on March 7, late in the evening, when they had very little time left to live: then only three matches, half a teapot of fresh water, and the last uneaten boot measured their life span.
On the forty-ninth day of the drift, completely exhausted, they basked on a sunny day on deck.

Salvation came to them literally from the sky, in the form of two helicopters Not far away - a ship, the American aircraft carrier Carsarge.

The Americans dropped ropes from a helicopter onto the deck and ... and there was a pause. Askhat Ziganshin:
... They scream, and we are waiting for one of them to come down to the deck, and we will set our own conditions: "Give us food, fuel, and we will get to the house ourselves." Some helicopters hung, the fuel ran out - they flew away. Others have arrived. We look - a huge ship appeared on the horizon, an aircraft carrier. When these helicopters also ran out of fuel, they disappeared along with the ship. And this is where we got really scared. So, when a couple of hours later the ship came close to us, we no longer drove the fool. I got in first...
On the aircraft carrier "Kearsarge", they were given a bowl of broth, and the guys themselves refused more. Askhat warned that one should not eat much from hunger. The Americans were struck by the way they took the food - each at first carefully passed the plate to the other. Nobody pulled. It was for this that the barge team was appreciated. Watching people thinned from hunger, they realized that before them were real heroes.

The Soviet soldiers were received on the American aircraft carrier with exceptional care. Literally the whole team, from the captain to the very last sailor, looked after them like children, and tried to do everything possible for them.

Having lost "between 35 and 40 pounds" in weight (every day they lost almost a kilogram in weight), the guys were still able, albeit with great difficulty, to stand on their feet and even move independently. They were immediately changed, fed and taken to the shower. There Ziganshin tried to shave, but lost consciousness.
He woke up already in the infirmary, where he saw his comrades nearby, sleeping peacefully on neighboring beds ...

The aircraft carrier, meanwhile, headed for San Francisco. Three days later, when our guys slept off and recovered a little, an interpreter specially called from the Hawaiian Islands arrived on the ship. And the very first question that Askhat Ziganshin asked him was the question: “What about our barge?”. The Americans willingly reaffirmed their previous promise to take care of her. (Of course, they only cared about Ziganshin not worrying. The barge was destroyed long ago, because, from the point of view of the Americans, it was of no value, and it was simply unsafe to leave it afloat and unattended).
After long weeks of loneliness, hopelessness, desperate hunger and thirst, truly happy days have come for our four boys who have not been spoiled by life. They were under the constant supervision of a doctor, fed them almost with a spoon and on a special diet. Every morning, the commander of the aircraft carrier himself visited them, inquired about their health. Ziganshin once asked him why the aircraft carrier did not approach the barge as soon as they were discovered. “And we were afraid of you,” the admiral joked. The Americans, helpful and smiling, did everything possible so that they would not be bored on the ship. The guys did not remain in debt and showed the Americans a unique trick: this is when three people wrap themselves around themselves with one soldier's belt.

Here we have to make a small digression to remind readers that all this took place in 1960, the last year of the presidency of Dwight Eisenhower, at the height of the Cold War. When they were told through an interpreter: “If you are afraid to return to your homeland, then we can leave you with us,” the guys replied: “We want to return home, no matter what happens to us later” ...
And while the T-36 barge was making its unparalleled ocean voyage, its mysterious disappearance was by no means our favorite journalistic topic. Knowing nothing about the fate of the ship's crew, the competent authorities carefully checked the version of the possible desertion of four servicemen. Their relatives were informed that the guys were missing, and the places of their possible appearance were taken under surveillance. The version about the escape of the entire four to the West was also not ruled out.
And it is only at first glance that Askhat Ziganshin's answer to the question of what moment in all this epic of theirs was the most terrible for him personally looks strange:
… It wasn't even 49 days on the barge. The real fear came after we were rescued. At first I left for three days. Then he sat down and thought. I'm a Russian soldier. Whose help did we take? That's why they didn't follow us from Moscow for a long time. We couldn't decide what was the right thing to do with us. It was very hard. I almost didn’t even get into the loop ...
Like this. Nightmarish fifty days in the ocean, scarier than which it’s hard to imagine, but “real fear” came to them in the warmth and comfort of an American aircraft carrier. Such was the time.
The US State Department informed the Soviet embassy in Washington about the happy rescue of the whole four just a few hours after the guys were on board the Kearsarge aircraft carrier. And all that week, while the aircraft carrier was heading for San Francisco, Moscow hesitated: who are they - traitors or heroes? All that week, the Soviet press was silent, and the Pravda correspondent Boris Strelnikov, who contacted them by phone on the third day of their idyll on an aircraft carrier, strongly advised the guys to keep their "tongue out". They kept it as best they could...
By the time the aircraft carrier arrived in San Francisco, having weighed all the pros and cons, Moscow finally decided: they are heroes !! And the article “Stronger than death”, which appeared in Izvestia on March 16, 1960, launched a grandiose propaganda campaign in the Soviet media. Of course, the American press started even earlier. The brave four were now destined for truly world glory.
The solidarity, modesty and courage with which they survived the ordeal caused real admiration around the world. Meetings, press conferences, goodwill and admiration from strangers. The Governor of San Francisco presented the heroes with a symbolic key to the city.

Now we know that the crew of the T-36 barge made an unprecedented drift in the history of navigation: in total, about a thousand miles were covered by a small boat.

The Americans dressed up the guys - they bought coats, suits, hats, pointed boots.

- Since then, they have been asking me all my life: why didn’t you stay in America? I can’t justify myself in any way, - Askhat Rakhimzyanovich laughs. He just knows that "it's better here anyway", but he can't explain it.

A few days later, when the barge crew was leaving San Francisco, they looked back at the bay. The commander of the USS Kearsarge aircraft carrier lined up the entire crew of the ship on the upper deck. The sailors of the two powers, ready to destroy each other in a nuclear battle, now understood each other without words.
Then there was New York, a transatlantic crossing on the Queen Mary liner, Paris, a plane to Moscow, a solemn meeting at the airport: flowers, generals, crowds of people, banners and posters. Their incredible, almost round-the-world trip is over.

Posters hung everywhere: “Glory to the brave sons of our Motherland!” They were broadcasted on the radio, films were made about them, newspapers wrote about them.
Ziganshin was immediately awarded the rank of senior sergeant.

Glory was ahead of the heroes. Returning to the Soviet Union, the top military leadership signed orders to award all four soldiers the Orders of the Red Star.

Soon the brave four returned to serve in the Kuriles. The Heroes did not even suspect that their main merit was not that they had survived, but that they had returned to their homeland.

Now, of those who drifted for 49 days on the T-36 barge, only two remain. Now they are separated by the state border and are no longer recognized on the streets. Anatoly Kryuchkovsky lives in Kyiv.

Askhat Ziganshin is now 70 years old, he is a pensioner, lives in Strelna, cared for by his children and grandchildren. Askhat Rakhimzyanovich - honorary citizen of San Francisco

- works as a watchman of yachts and boats.

Why do you think you didn't die in the ocean then? they ask him.
- First of all, we didn't lose our presence of mind. This is the main thing. We believed that help would come. In difficult moments of life, you can not even think about the bad. Secondly, they helped each other, never cursed. For all the time of that extreme trip, none of us raised our voices at each other.

Born in the USSR and having lived for so many years, I first heard about these heroes, but I heard about American cannibals more than once! Something is not right in this world...

A 44-minute video prepared by the Rossiya TV channel about these events can be viewed here

They wanted to be made traitors, but they came out as heroes. In fact, the guys were just four soldiers who spent 49 days alone with the elements and hunger.

Ziganshin, Poplavsky, Kryuchkovsky and Fedotov ... Once these four surnames were heard in every Soviet family. Newspapers and magazines wrote about them, famous travelers admired their courage, and politicians awarded them honorary keys to the city and orders of the Red Star. Pompous poems were composed in their honor, and ordinary people very quickly reacted to the 49-day drift of four sailors of the T-36 barge with comic couplets.

Catastrophe

Askhat Ziganshin was called up for military service on Sakhalin Island from Syzran in 1958. Before that, he was engaged in a completely peaceful business: he was a tractor driver, worked on a collective farm. Yes, and the guy had the most common desires - to become a mechanic, to start a family. After eight months in the "training school", where he was trained as a navigator, he served in the Kuriles. True, the recruits were not engaged in a purely military business - they worked on a barge, ensuring the loading and unloading of ships.

We lived on this barge. She was small, not to turn around: only four beds and fit. There is also a stove and a small portable radio station,” says Askhat Rakhimzyanovich. - Our team consists of four people: I am the foreman of the boat, minders - Philip Poplavsky with Anatoly Kryuchkovsky and Ivan Fedotov - a sailor.

On that day, January 17, 1960, from which it all began, the work was already completed, and the barge was pulled ashore. But it turned out that a ship with meat was supposed to come from the mainland, and the team was urgently sent back. On the third day a strong wind arose.

“We and another barge were blown off the shore by the wind and carried out to sea,” recalls Askhat Ziganshin. - The bay was completely open, and the weather in the Far East is no joke. Wind 30-35 meters per second - it's a common thing there. But we were not very upset, we thought: in a day or two, the wind will change, and we will be driven to the shore. This has happened to us a couple of times already.

Fifteen minutes later, communication with the ground was lost. The wind rose to 70 meters per second. First, the barge was carried towards the coast, then it rushed into the ocean. Soon the fuel supplies ran out.

- The prospects were eerie: if we do not run aground, we will be carried into the ocean or smashed against the rocks. Stones on the left, rock in the middle, coast on the right. Jumping into the water is very risky, because it was 18 degrees of frost on the shore, until help comes, we will freeze. The wind was blowing with terrible force, there was no visibility, there was nothing to cling to the shore, everything was covered in ice. An anchor with such wind strength is like a toy. Then we realized that this would not end quickly, and from the first days we began to save food. We had with us a loaf of bread, potatoes, a can of stew, some cereals and several packs of Belomor. Cigarettes ran out first. What else to do in such a situation? Only smoke.

A teaspoon of water for two days

Hope for a speedy rescue disappeared when the "travelers" read in a newspaper that happened to be on a barge that from January to March, all ships were prohibited from entering the Hawaiian Islands in the Pacific Ocean. Soviet missiles were tested there. And according to all the landmarks, the barge was carried exactly there.

“And we began to save our meager supplies in such a way as to hold out until March.

Water for lack of another was taken from the engine cooling system. She was rusty, but fresh. There were two hundred liters of it, enough until the day they were rescued. Strictly saved, used only for cooking. You can't drink ocean water - it's too salty. Snow water was collected drop by drop, and later rain water. It came out on a teaspoon for two days.

There was a loaf of bread. The guys stretched it piece by piece for several days. There was a can of stew. In several cans of powdered milk, they found a little cut, pearl barley. All this was spent very sparingly. They took two potatoes, sharply reeking of diesel fuel, a little stew, a pinch of cereals and cooked a soup. Well, at least three boxes of matches survived. Coal was collected bit by bit, and the wooden parts of the bed were used for ignition. In the engine room, there was a kilogram and a half of potatoes, but they were all soaked in diesel fuel. At first, no one began to eat it, but they prudently guessed not to throw it away. Later, the potatoes were eaten with gusto.

- We “recovered” normally, as it turned out later, we dropped an average of 800 grams per day. When we were rescued, I was 40 kilograms in weight, and before that I weighed 69.

Photo: American aircraft carrier Kearsarge, which picked up four Soviet sailors

All-seeing eye of the KGB

Since the ship’s radio was stubbornly silent (it was damaged. - Auth.), the command of the unit did not come up with anything better to notify what had happened, like: “The four took advantage of the bad weather and went to surrender to the Americans on a self-propelled barge.” It was reported upstairs that the self-propelled barge T-97 had successfully returned to the base. And the T-36 disappeared in an unknown direction.

No one, it seems, was going to look for a barge with a crew in the oceanic expanse. They began to “search for” the guys, or, as they would say today, to identify them, through other channels, establishing their identity, collecting evidence. Several KGB officers also came to Shentala. In search of compromising evidence, they searched the parents' house, interrogated relatives and neighbors about what the guy was like before the army. For many days they guarded the Ziganshins' house: whether the deserter son would return to his parents. We checked their relatives in the Leninogorsk and Cheremshansk districts. The same thing happened in the Amur Region, in the homeland of Private Ivan Fedotov, in Ukraine, in the homeland of Philip Poplavsky and Anatoly Kryuchkovsky.

For almost two months, the guys' parents could not find a place for themselves from anxious concern for their sons who had sunk into obscurity ...

Cut belts like noodles

The first two weeks were especially difficult. They were no longer talking about women, but about their favorite dishes.

“I didn’t have any plans to eat anyone, and I don’t know about the rest. But Fedotov, for example, kept an ax under his pillow just in case. We supported each other, distracted from difficult thoughts, and therefore held out.

It is for this that the barge team is still appreciated. Usually such cases ended tragically. People were thrown overboard, it even came to cannibalism.

- On February 23, a holiday was celebrated on board the barge. A whole day of memories. We thought about our guys, colleagues, how are they? They remembered the barge that was carried away with us. Did you think she might be around somewhere? February 24 ate the last potato.

Hunger tormented all the time. Because of the cold, there were no rats on the barge. If there were, we would eat them. Albatrosses were flying, but we couldn't catch them. We tried to make fishing tackle, to catch fish, but we didn’t manage to do that either - you go on board, as the wave gives you, and you quickly run back. In the program "The Last Hero" everything is simpler. They have wire, nails, hooks, spinners at hand, you can still make tackle ... I somehow lay there, I had almost no strength left, fiddling with the belt. And suddenly he remembered how at school the teacher told about sailors who ran aground and suffered from hunger. They skinned the masts, boiled and ate. My belt was leather. We cut it finely, like noodles, and added it to the soup instead of meat. Then the strap was cut off from the radio. Then they thought that we still have leather. And, except for boots, they didn’t think of anything else. On the barge lay several pairs of tarpaulin boots. We boiled them in ocean water to boil the shoe polish. Then they cut them into pieces, threw them into the stove, where they turned into coal, and they ate it.

Photo: This is how the Americans saw them. Poplavsky and Ziganshin.

Sharks felt like we were dying

On the 30th day, the barge ended up in warmer regions. "Robinsons" carried to the Hawaiian Islands.

“We have already seen the sharks swimming in packs below us. They looked at them wildly. They already felt something, the creatures understood that we were dying of exhaustion and living out the last hours.

- Suddenly we see: a ship is coming! It is, of course, not close, about forty meters from us. We yelled, shouted, lit a fire. Vessel! Finally!

But the ship passed by.

On the 48th day at night they again saw a light, waved, shouted, but again they did not notice us.

- We realized that we were in more navigable areas, and began to calm each other down. They said to each other: “Maybe they saw us after all and they would send rescuers after us.” We did not lose hope for a single minute. This is what saved us. The most important thing was not to panic, otherwise the worst could happen. Fedotov could no longer stand it, he began to panic. I tried to distract him. You will say, for example: “Here I saw something, some kind of ship appeared there.” And he is immediately distracted from panic thoughts.

The Americans destroyed our barge

On the forty-ninth day, there was absolutely nothing left of the edible on the self-propelled gun. Askhat had the last three matches and half a teapot of rusty fresh water left. The children lay motionless in half-asleep side by side on the common bed. I didn't want to eat anymore. The feeling of hunger is gone. There was no strength to move. Suddenly, in the afternoon, there was some kind of noise, or rumble. Askhat forced himself to get on deck and saw several military planes above the barge.

- And here we are somehow lying, already completely exhausted, it was at the end of the 49th day, suddenly we hear some kind of rumble. At first they thought it was a hallucination. No, look, the planes are already flying over us, they are throwing rockets in the distance. Help has come to us! Helicopters circled around us, they threw a ladder at us. And we think: “These are not ours. Who are they?" We were waiting for someone to come down to us, we would ask them for fuel, water and go back on our own. We are Soviet soldiers. And God knows who they are. Not our own, foreigners, enemies. Such an upbringing was - from childhood to hate enemies. Two helicopters were spinning, spinning above us, the helicopter pilots were waving their arms. Look, the ship is not far away. Suddenly they all disappeared. This moment was very difficult for us. But after a while we saw a ship coming straight at us. We heard shouts in Russian: “Help you! Help you!" They took us to the ship. They gave me a bowl of broth, a block of cigarettes, a lighter. Washing in the shower, I lost consciousness, woke up already on the bunk. I look, all our people are sleeping, clean. The sentries are nearby. Beauty, warmth. After three days, I walked away a bit and thought: “Where did I get to? I'm a Soviet soldier!

Photo: Junior Sergeant Askhat Rakhimzyanovich Ziganshin, privates Philip Grigoryevich Poplavsky, Anatoly Fedorovich Kryuchkovsky and Ivan Efimovich Fedotov. This four competed in popularity with Gagarin and the Beatles.

Soon the aircraft carrier entered Hawaii and stayed there for several days. The rescued lay in the infirmary with the American sailors. Relations were surprisingly cordial. A few days later, the guys were transferred to triple cabins. In each there are two of ours, and the third is an American midshipman. Guards were posted at the door, so as not to annoy the curious. During the day, an interpreter came, and all together, Soviets and Americans, gathered in one cabin, watched films, listened to records. Then a team of American sailors gathered in one of the conference rooms and arranged an amateur concert for the guests.

Clothes (if that rag could be called clothes) were taken away and given out new, working, but tidy. The uniforms of Ziganshin and his comrades were washed, ironed and returned to the rescued by the Americans. It was then shown at the Central House of the Soviet Army (CDSA) in Moscow and the Naval Museum in Leningrad.

Three days later, a translator was delivered.

“I immediately asked what happened to our barge, he said that another ship would come and take it away. But then it turned out that it was destroyed for the safety of navigation. Someone from the command told us: "Maybe you are afraid to return to your homeland, so we can leave you here, at home." To which I replied: “I want to return home, no matter what happens to me later.”

Heroes or traitors?

For several days the authorities in Moscow were silent. It did not know who to consider the rescued team - heroes or traitors?

On the eighth day, already on the way to San Francisco, a press conference was held on board the aircraft carrier for foreign journalists. Before it began, Askhat received a phone call from Pravda's correspondent in the United States, Boris Strelnikov. He asked about his well-being, in response to Askhat's question, he explained what the press conference meant, advised him to be more laconic, wished him a speedy return to his homeland. The guys were told that there would be ten or fifteen journalists, and more than fifty of them flew to the aircraft carrier.

A mass of people gathered in the huge hall of the aircraft carrier. The guys were seated at the table, brought ice cream. Spotlights were sent from all sides for television shooting.

- While we were "traveling", our parents were shaken, they checked the basements and attics - all of a sudden we deserted. Until the Americans rescued us, Moscow did not know what had happened to us... On the seventh day of our stay on the American ship, we were given a press conference. They asked the question: “Which city are you from?” Then they asked how we learned English during our stay on the aircraft carrier? Poplavsky gets up, says: "Sank yu." At this point, blood gushed out of my nose. This ended the press conference. Before that, we had no idea what an interview was, what a press conference was, what television was. And then we arrived in New York, went to the hotel, and suddenly I was watching TV, and on the screen it was me, I was being lifted into a helicopter.

Two days later, Soviet sailors were transported by plane to New York to the dacha of the Soviet embassy. Here the children had a real holiday. Every day they were taken on excursions around the city-metropolis. Soviet films were shown in the evenings. They visited schools where the children of Soviet diplomats studied. The guys at the dacha enthusiastically read Soviet newspapers, which were full of reports about Askhat Ziganshin and his comrades, their photographs. There were many telegrams addressed to them. They received their first telegram from the head of the USSR, Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev. “We are proud and admire your glorious feat, which is a vivid manifestation of the courage and fortitude of the Soviet people in the fight against the forces of nature. Your heroism, steadfastness and endurance serve as an example of the impeccable performance of military duty. With your feat, unparalleled courage, you have increased the glory of our Motherland, which has brought up such courageous people, and the Soviet people are rightfully proud of their brave and faithful sons, ”it said. It was published in all Soviet newspapers, as was an open letter from Askhat's parents N.S. Khrushchev, in which, according to the custom of those times, they thanked the CPSU and the native government for taking care of their son.

They traveled to Moscow via San Francisco, New York, Paris. They bought us civilian clothes. Pointy shoes, I threw them away later, because everyone teased me as a dude. I didn't wear tight pants either. But the suit, coat and hat are very suitable. The Governor of San Francisco gave us the "golden" key to the city. When we later rested in the south, women were always keenly interested in: “How much does it weigh, how much gold is in it?”

"Ziganshin-boogie, Ziganshin-rock"

And then - Moscow, meeting at the airport, crowds of people, flowers, congratulations. At the airport, four guys were met by General of the Army Golikov. Minister of Defense Malinovsky presented the saved navigational watches "so that they no longer wander." Askhat Ziganshin was immediately awarded the rank of senior sergeant.

Photo: At a reception at the Minister of Defense of the USSR Marshal of the Soviet Union R.Ya. Malinovsky. From left to right: Private A. Kryuchkovsky, Head of the Main Political Directorate of the Soviet Army and Navy, General of the Army F.I. Golikov, Private I. Fedotov, Minister of Defense of the USSR Marshal of the Soviet Union R.Ya. Malinovsky, junior sergeant A. Ziganshin, Marshal of the Soviet Union A.A. Grechko, private F. Poplavsky.

Everywhere, on every wall, on every fence, posters hung: “Glory to the brave sons of our Motherland!” Rock-n-rollers expressed their delight differently, the most popular at that time was the song about the barge crew: “Ziganshin boogie, Ziganshin rock, Ziganshin eats the second boot.” These four guys in the early 60s competed in popularity with Gagarin. And they were definitely more popular than the Beatles. They caused a real storm, helped to open the "Iron Curtain" and show that ordinary people live "over the hill", and not "enemies of the Soviet state."

- Everything was hung with posters with our faces, broadcasts on radio, television, I constantly spoke at rallies. Many girls wrote letters, offered to marry them. When I went home, from neighboring cities came to see me.

In the homeland of Askhat Ziganshin, in Syzran, a street was even named after him. The young guy traveled all over the country, spoke at the 14th Congress of the Komsomol, where he met Yuri Gagarin. And then he met his future wife at a dance. “In the youth cafe of the city of Lomonosov, Askhat and Raisa played a cheerful Komsomol wedding. The public of the city congratulated the young people, ”the newspapers wrote.

From fear I almost climbed into the noose

What was the scariest moment for you?

“It wasn't even 49 days on the barge. The real fear came after we were rescued. At first I left for three days. Then he sat down and thought. I'm a Russian soldier. Whose help did we take? That's why they didn't follow us from Moscow for a long time. We couldn't decide what was the right thing to do with us. It was very hard. I didn't even get into a loop.

Two of the heroes of those days, Poplavsky and Fedotov, died in the year 2000. Kryuchkovsky now lives in Kyiv, where he has been working at the Leninskaya Kuznya shipyard for 37 years. Askhat Ziganshin lives in St. Petersburg and to this day keeps a model of that same barge in his house.

Exactly 50 years ago, in mid-January 1960, in stormy weather, the self-propelled barge T-36, which was unloading on the Kuril Islands, was torn off the anchor and carried into the sea. On board were four servicemen of the engineering and construction troops of the Soviet Army: junior sergeant Askhat Ziganshin and privates Philip Poplavsky, Anatoly Kryuchkovsky and Ivan Fedotov.

These people spent 49 days on the high seas without food or water. But they survived! Starving sailors who ate seven pairs of leather boots were rescued by the crew of the USS Kearsarge. Then, in 1960, the whole world applauded them, they were more popular than the Beatles, films were made about them, and Vladimir Vysotsky dedicated one of his songs to them ...

On the eve of this anniversary, the correspondent of the Free Press visited Askhata Ziganshina. Now he is 70 years old, he is a simple Russian pensioner living in Strelna, cared for by his children and grandchildren. Askhat Rakhimzyanovich, an honorary citizen of San Francisco, works as a watchman for yachts and boats on the shore of the bay in Strelna.

— We were torn off the shore and carried into the sea, - probably for the thousandth time he tells about those incredible events. — Kasatka Bay is completely open, and the weather in the Kuril Islands is not joking. Wind 30-35 meters per second - it's a common thing there. But we were not very upset, we thought: in a day or two, the wind will change, and we will be driven to the shore. This has happened to us before.

However, communication with the earth was lost very soon. The wind intensified to 70 meters per second ... The fuel supplies ran out, and the guys began to understand that if they were not thrown aground, they would be carried into the ocean or smashed against the rocks. Then they made an attempt to jump ashore with the barge, but unsuccessfully: they only got a hole, which they had to close up right there, in a 18-degree frost, and broke the radio. The wind was blowing with terrible force, there was no visibility, it was snowing, it was dark, there was nothing to cling to the shore, everything was covered in ice ... They had a loaf of bread, potatoes, a can of stew, some cereals and several packs of Belomor.

... Ziganshin fastened, held on,

Cheered, himself pale as a shadow,

And what I was about to say

He said only the next day:

"Friends!" An hour later: “Darlings!”

"Guys! - In another hour, -

After all, we were not broken by the elements,

So will hunger break us?

Forget about food, what's there

Let's remember our soldiers...

“I would like to know,” Fedotov began to rave, “

And what do we eat in the unit "...

(V.Vysotsky)

Askhat found the number of the Red Star on the barge, which reported that in the area of the Hawaiian Islands - that is, exactly where, apparently, the barge was carrying, firing was being carried out - tests of Soviet missiles. But the guys who were in trouble on a small boat were not afraid of shelling. It was clearly stated in the newspaper that from January to March, ships were prohibited from moving in that direction of the Pacific Ocean, since the entire area was declared unsafe for navigation. So, no one will look for them here. They had no chance of survival...

“And we began saving our meager supplies in such a way as to last until March,- Askhat Rakhimzyanovich recalls.

Drinking water was taken from the diesel cooling system, and when it ran out, rain water was collected. Barely enough. As it turned out later, they “lost” 800 grams a day. When they were rescued, Ziganshin, who had previously weighed 70 kg, lost weight to 40.

If there were, we would eat them. Hunger tormented relentlessly. Albatrosses were flying, but we couldn't catch them. The fish did not catch a single one, although they tried to do this all the time, preparing gear from improvised material that they found on board.

Then they learned that there were no living creatures in those places because of the powerful ocean current, which the Japanese call the “death current”. And there was no energy left for fishing.

- You will go on board, as the wave will give you, and run back ...

Free from watch - and they still tried not to miss any rescue ship - the guys for the most part lay. And now, lying down, Ziganshin fiddled with his belt, and suddenly he remembered how at school the teacher told about sailors who ran aground and suffered from hunger. They skinned the masts, boiled and ate. And Askhat had a leather belt!

- We cut it finely, into noodles and began to cook “soup” from it. Then we welded a strap from the radio. We began to look for what else we have leather. We found several pairs of tarpaulin boots. But you can't eat kirza so easily, it's too tough. They boiled them in ocean water to boil the shoe polish, then they cut them into pieces, threw them into the stove, where they turned into something similar to charcoal and ate it ...

Ziganshin boogie!

Ziganshin rock!

Ziganshin ate the second boot!

Kryuchkovsky rock!

Kryuchkovsky-boogie!

Kryuchkovsky ate a letter from a friend.

(1960 folk hit)

... On the 30th day of the drift, the barge ended up near the Hawaiian Islands, and it was warm there. And there was a new misfortune - sharks. How did these creatures feel that people were dying on a tiny barge with a draft of just over a meter?

“We have already seen the sharks swimming in packs below us. They looked at them with wild eyes. The sharks understood that we were living out the last hours...

On the 45th day of the drift, those in distress saw the ship for the first time.

We shouted, lit a fire. But they didn't see us...

However, they realized that they were in a navigable area. And three days later the ship's lights reappeared at night. But the dead were not noticed again. Looks like only sharks could smell them.

We didn't lose hope even for a minute. This is what saved us. The most important thing was not to panic, otherwise something terrible could happen. Fedotov could no longer stand it, he began to panic. I tried to distract him. You will say, for example: “Here I saw something, some kind of ship appeared there.” And he is immediately distracted from panic thoughts.

At the end of the 49th day, a rumble was heard. Hallucinations? Completely exhausted, they warmed themselves on a sunny day on a barge. And then they saw helicopters in the sky above them. Not far away is a ship. Help has arrived!

- Helicopters are spinning around us, they are throwing a ladder. But who is it? It's not ours. God knows who they are. Foreigners means enemies. And we took the oath, signed the charter. "Do not surrender to the enemy"!

The time was like this: the height of the Cold War, the guys were Soviet servicemen, stoned by Soviet propaganda, like a drug. Even dying of exhaustion, they did not want to accept help from foreigners. But then the ship and the helicopters disappeared. It was very hard to see how the salvation that had just been nearby was gone. But it seems that foreign sailors have understood something. After a short time, exhausted people lying on the barge heard in Russian: “Help you! Help you!" Ziganshin was the first to climb the rope ladder.

On March 7, helicopters transported them to the American aircraft carrier Kearsarge, where they were given a bowl of broth, and the guys themselves refused more. Askhat warned that one should not eat much from hunger. This village boy from the Volga region got used to hunger from childhood. In a peasant family in the post-war period, the four Ziganshin brothers knew exactly where which edible grass grows, where to get mushrooms, berries, how to bake potatoes in a coal dump so as not to burn bare feet - one pair of shoes for four ...

But even more Americans were struck by the way they took food - at first, each carefully passed the plate to the other. Nobody pulled. It was for this that the barge team was appreciated. Watching people thinned from hunger, they realized that they were real heroes. The rescued were given a smoke, taken to the shower. And here, while washing, Ziganshin lost consciousness, and woke up already on a bed in the infirmary.

- I looked around: all of our people are sleeping, clean, beautiful, warm. The Americans treated us very well, kindly, looked after us like children, fed us under the supervision of a doctor.

Every morning the aircraft carrier commander himself inquired about their health. Ziganshin once asked him why the aircraft carrier did not approach the barge as soon as they were discovered. “But we were afraid of you,” the admiral joked. Smiling Americans did everything possible so that they would not be bored on the ship.

- Movies were shown all the time about cowboys, they played music. The equipment around us was the latest at that time, and we pretend that we are not surprised, they say, we are used to everything. When they were told through an interpreter: “If you are afraid to return to your homeland, then we can leave you with us,” the guys replied: “We want to return home, no matter what happens to us later” ... Since then, I have been like this all my life they ask: why didn’t you stay in America? I can't justify Askhat Rakhimzyanovich laughs. He just knows that "it's better here anyway", but he can't explain it.

In America, the most enthusiastic reception awaited them. Meetings, press conferences, goodwill and admiration from strangers. In San Francisco, for the first time in his life, Ziganshin saw a TV, and, moreover, just at the moment when it was shown how they were taken aboard a helicopter in a semi-conscious state. Voice of America reported on the incident on the same day. But Moscow was silent. And then Askhat, who by that moment had eaten a little, warmed up and came to his senses, was really scared. "Honest mother! We're on an American aircraft carrier!" He, a Soviet soldier, surrendered to the enemy. What awaits him at home? Torture, camp, prison? The guy tortured himself: “What did I do wrong? How could he have done otherwise? I almost fell into a noose from fear.

- I came to my senses only after a year, probably. Even when I returned to my bay for further service, I still could not believe that I would not be punished.

Only quite recently Askhat Rakhimzyanovich found out that while he was in trouble on the barge, they came to his parents with a search: they were looking for a deserter. A couple of years ago, when he was again invited to tell about his story in his homeland, a woman approached him and confessed: I'm sorry, my husband was a policeman in those years, he had to search your house. And the frightened parents of Askhat did not say anything about this to their son.

Only on the ninth day of the soldiers' stay in America did Soviet newspapers report their miraculous rescue. The article “Stronger than death” appeared in Izvestia on March 16, 1960 and launched a powerful propaganda campaign in the Soviet media. The world press started earlier. So the brave four fell into the arms of glory. New York, and then Paris, willingly revealed their beauties to the heroes. The Americans dressed up the guys - they bought coats, suits, hats, pointed boots in a beautiful store. (Askhat threw away his boots and tight trousers as soon as he got home: he didn't like that they began to call him a dandy.) They gave out 100 dollars to the rescued. Ziganshin bought gifts for his mother, father, brothers. He didn't take anything.

The unity, modesty and courage with which they survived the ordeal of hunger and cold caused real delight around the world. The Governor of San Francisco presented the heroes with a symbolic key to the city. In Moscow, they were also met with a solemn meeting, crowds of people at the airport, flowers, congratulations. Minister of Defense Malinovsky presented the saved navigational watches "so that they no longer wander." Askhat Ziganshin was immediately awarded the rank of senior sergeant. Posters hung everywhere: “Glory to the brave sons of our Motherland!” There were programs about them on the radio, films were made about them, newspapers wrote, and then the most popular song at that time about the barge crew on the rock and roll tune “Rock Around the Clock” appeared: “Ziganshin-boogie, Ziganshin- rock, Ziganshin ate his boot.

In the homeland of Ziganshin, in Syzran, a street was named after him. The young guy traveled all over the country, spoke at the congress of the Komsomol, two or three hundred letters a day came to him from girls who dreamed of meeting him. Many fans offered to marry. But how to choose a wife by mail?

- I immediately put aside letters from girls who lured me with a dowry: an apartment, a car. My main condition: just not to be rich.

He met his Raisa at a dance in Lomonosov, where he studied after the service.

“I was immediately drawn to her.

They lived together, raised two children, and last year Raisa passed away. He arrived from the dacha and found his wife in the last minutes of her life.

He was friends with his comrades on the legendary barge all his life, which was not easy for any of them. Propaganda made noise, made noise, and left them alone. Kryuchkovsky and Poplavsky, together with Ziganshin, after such a memorable adventure, devoted their lives to the sea, together they graduated from the Lomonosov Naval School. Poplavsky and Fedotov are no longer alive. Kryuchkovsky served in the Northern Fleet, now lives in Kyiv, has been caring for his paralyzed wife for more than 40 years.

Askhat became a professional rescuer: he devoted 41 years to the emergency rescue service at the Leningrad Naval Base. The Gulf of Finland also does not like to joke, a lot here he had to save people in trouble. How much exactly? Yes, he never thought of his modesty. I just lived all my life in a state of 30-minute readiness for an emergency. So he lived up to the financial crisis: he substituted the shoulder of his daughter, who was laid off from service at the Peterhof Museum. Alfiya is an athlete, a certified teacher, for the second year she cannot find a job. And the St. Petersburg authorities, it seems, do not even know what a wonderful person lives in Strelna. But the people remember their hero, they recognize him on the street, especially those who are older.

Why do you think you didn't die in the ocean then? I ask him.

“Firstly, we didn’t lose our presence of mind. This is the main thing. We believed that help would come. In difficult moments of life, you can not even think about the bad. Secondly, they helped each other, never cursed. For all the time of that extreme trip, none of us raised our voices at each other.

St. Petersburg

On the pictures: In the house of Askhat Ziganshin and his daughter Alfiya.

April 13, 2013, 19:44

The whole world knows about the feat of four. The unprecedented drift of Ziganshin, Poplavsky, Fedotov, Kryuchkovsky has become synonymous with the strength of the spirit of the young generation of the Soviet country. People's thoughts invariably return to this event, and everyone strives to evaluate what happened.
“Their epic courage shook the world. They are not only soldiers of the Soviet Army, these four guys. They are also the soldiers of humanity,” said the American writer Albert Kahn. “Russia gives birth to iron people. You can't help but admire these people,” said the secretary of the Italian seafarers' union. "This is an absolutely amazing epic," said the brave Frenchman Dr. Alain Bombard, author of the famous book "Overboard of his own free will." "In the history of navigation - this is the only case." "Their feat is a wonderful display of human endurance." "This is a great example for all seafarers in the world." "Along with its heroic significance, the drifting of a barge with four warriors on board is of great scientific interest." “Nervous restraint, their spiritual strength, their comradely soldering, mutual help and support in difficult times were of the main importance here. They lost 30 kilograms of weight, weakened physically, but did not lose their fortitude "...
There are hundreds of such statements coming from the very depths of the heart.

They were not border guards, these guys. They were not military sailors either. They were not sailors at all - they served in a construction battalion and were engaged in loading and unloading operations: they took goods onto a barge and transported them ashore.

They still hoped, still believed that they would soon be washed ashore, to some island. They had no doubt that they were being sought.
Of course, they were looked for ... when weather conditions allowed. But those searches were hardly distinguished by particular perseverance: few doubted that the T-36-type ship was not able to withstand the ocean storm.
When the wind died down a little, a platoon of soldiers combed the shore. Fragments of a barrel for drinking water swept from the deck and boards were found, on which the inscription "T-36" was clearly read. Confusing names and surnames, the command of the Pacific Fleet hastened to send out telegrams to the relatives of the "missing" telegrams informing them of their death. Not a single aircraft or ship was sent to the disaster area. Until now, it has not been openly said that the reason for this was not weather conditions, but completely different circumstances: global politics intervened in the fate of the four soldiers. Askhat found on the barge the number of the "Red Star", which reported that in the area of the Hawaiian Islands - that is, exactly where, apparently, the barge was carrying, firing was being carried out - tests of Soviet missiles. It was clearly stated in the newspaper that from January to March, ships were prohibited from moving in that direction of the Pacific Ocean, since the entire area was declared unsafe for navigation. So, no one will look for them here.

Salvation came to them literally from the sky, in the form of two helicopters Not far away - a ship, the American aircraft carrier Carsarge. The Soviet soldiers were received on the American aircraft carrier with exceptional care. Literally the whole team, from the captain to the very last sailor, looked after them like children, and tried to do everything possible for them.

This is how the Americans saw them.

It should be recalled that all this took place in 1960, the last year of Dwight Eisenhower's presidency, at the height of the Cold War. When they were told through an interpreter: “If you are afraid to return to your homeland, then we can leave you with us,” the guys replied: “We want to return home, no matter what happens to us later” ...

The US State Department informed the Soviet embassy in Washington about the happy rescue of the whole four just a few hours after the guys were on board the Kearsarge aircraft carrier. And all that week, while the aircraft carrier was heading for San Francisco, Moscow had doubts: who are they - traitors or heroes? By the time the aircraft carrier arrived in San Francisco, having weighed all the pros and cons, Moscow finally decided: they are heroes !! And the article “Stronger than death”, which appeared in Izvestia on March 16, 1960, launched a grandiose propaganda campaign in the Soviet media. Of course, the American press started even earlier. The brave four were now destined for truly world glory.
The solidarity, modesty and courage with which they survived the ordeal caused real admiration around the world. Meetings, press conferences, goodwill and admiration from strangers. The Governor of San Francisco presented the heroes with a symbolic key to the city.

Now we know that the crew of the T-36 barge made an unprecedented drift in the history of navigation: in total, about a thousand miles were covered by a small boat.

Junior Sergeant Askhat Rakhimzyanovich Ziganshin, privates Philip Grigorievich Poplavsky, Anatoly Fedorovich Kryuchkovsky and Ivan Efimovich Fedotov. This four then competed in popularity with Gagarin and the Beatles.

Glory was ahead of the heroes. Returning to the Soviet Union, the top military leadership signed orders to award all four soldiers the Orders of the Red Star. Soon the brave four returned to serve in the Kuriles. The Heroes did not even suspect that their main merit was not that they had survived, but that they had returned to their homeland.

Now, of those who drifted for 49 days on the T-36 barge, only two remain. Now they are separated by the state border and are no longer recognized on the streets. Anatoly Kryuchkovsky lives in Kyiv.

Askhat Ziganshin is now 70 years old, he is a pensioner, lives in Strelna, cared for by his children and grandchildren. Askhat Rakhimzyanovich is an honorary citizen of San Francisco.

Why do you think you didn't die in the ocean then? they ask him.

First, they did not lose their presence of mind. This is the main thing. We believed that help would come. In difficult moments of life, you can not even think about the bad. Secondly, they helped each other, never cursed. For all the time of that extreme trip, none of us raised our voices at each other.

In 1960 you were offered political asylum in the USA. Do you regret not giving up?

I have no regrets! From a young age, I used to be among my own people. In America, you can visit, but not live. And now they will offer to move to the States - I will not go for anything!

Portal for the student. Self-training

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