More terrible than the Titanic: the wreck of the motor ship Armenia became the main secret of the Second World War. The death of the liner "Armenia" The death of Armenia

A symbol of large-scale disasters at sea was the death of the passenger liner Titanic, which in April 1912 claimed the lives of about 1,500 people.

In fact, Titanic isn't even in the top thirty. maritime disasters With the largest number victims. The most terrible tragedies of this kind occurred during the Second World War, when transports with thousands of people, not only military personnel, but also women, old people and children, sank to the bottom.

On November 7, 1941, the Soviet motor ship Armenia, with several thousand people on board, perished in the Black Sea. The tragedy of “Armenia” to this day remains one of the “blank spots” of the Great Patriotic War, because many questions in this story are never answered.

In the mid-1920s, when the country had recovered a little from the shock Civil War, the government began to think about the development of civil shipbuilding. In 1927, at the Baltic Shipyard in Leningrad, the construction of the motor ship "Adzharia", the lead ship of the series of the first Soviet passenger airliners. In 1928, at the same Baltic plant, work was completed on five more ships of this project: “Crimea”, “Georgia”, “Abkhazia”, “Ukraine” and “Armenia”.

“Armenia” was a vessel 107.7 meters long, 15.5 meters wide, with a side height of 7.84 meters and a displacement of 5,770 tons. The ship was served by a crew of 96 people. The ship could simultaneously take on board up to 950 passengers.

"Armenia", like other vessels of the project, was intended for transportation between the ports of Crimea and the Caucasus. The ships coped with their task perfectly, having a very decent speed of 14.5 knots for their size.

floating hospital

With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, “Armenia” was “called up” for military service. At the Odessa Shipyard, it was urgently converted into a floating hospital, designed to transport and provide emergency care to 400 wounded.

On August 10, 1941, “Armenia” began to fulfill its new duties. The captain of the ship was Vladimir Plaushevsky, and military doctor 2nd rank Pyotr Dmitrievsky was appointed chief physician of the floating hospital. Until recently, the head doctor was a civilian and worked in one of the hospitals in Odessa.

The situation at the front was depressing. Five days before the Armenia officially became a medical ship, the enemy came close to Odessa. The ship had to evacuate not only the wounded from the besieged city, but also civilian refugees. Then “Armenia” began transporting the wounded from Sevastopol. By the beginning of October the ship had transported to Mainland about 15 thousand people.

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

Thousands of refugees and secret cargo

Considering that at that moment the battles for Sevastopol were just unfolding, the order looked somewhat strange. Who will save the lives of the wounded?

Historians who have studied this issue believe that the commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Admiral Filipp Oktyabrsky, considered the fate of the city a foregone conclusion and decided to begin the evacuation.

But on November 7, 1941, Oktyabrsky received a directive from Headquarters, which said: “Do not surrender Sevastopol under any circumstances and defend it with all your might.”

However, before November 7, there were no orders from Moscow, so “Armenia” took on board evacuated doctors and others. Actors of the local theater named after Lunacharsky, management and staff of the Artek pioneer camp and many others climbed on board.

There were no exact lists of those who boarded the Armenia. Captain Plaushevsky received another order: after loading in Sevastopol, go to Yalta, where to take refugees and local party activists on board. After leaving Sevastopol, an additional order came: to go to Balaklava and pick up a special cargo. The boxes were brought on board accompanied by NKVD officers. Perhaps it was gold or valuables from Crimean museums.

“The brave ones climbed onto the ship using the shrouds”

Here crowds of refugees were waiting for the ship. This is what Vera Chistova, who was 9 years old in 1941, recalled about this: “Dad bought tickets, and my grandmother and I had to leave Yalta on the ship “Armenia.” On the night of November 6, the pier was full of people. First they loaded the wounded, then they let in the civilians. No one checked the tickets, and a stampede began on the ramp. The brave ones climbed onto the ship using the shrouds. In the bustle, suitcases and things were thrown off the board. By dawn the loading was completed. But we never got to “Armenia”. Hundreds of people remained on the pier. My grandmother and I went to my father’s workshop on the embankment. I fell asleep there."

At that moment, those remaining on board the “Armenia” seemed lucky. In fact, everything was exactly the opposite.

How many people were on “Armenia” by that time? According to the most conservative estimates, about 3,000 people. The upper limit is 10,000 people. Most likely, the truth is somewhere in the middle, and there were between 5,500 and 7,000 people on board. And this despite the fact that even in its “passenger” version the ship was designed for only 950 people.

In fact, “Armenia” could have successfully evacuated a similar number of people if it had departed from Yalta in the dark. But the loading was completed around 7 am.

Going to sea during the day without virtually any cover was tantamount to suicide. Admiral Oktyabrsky later wrote that the captain of the Armenia received a strict order to remain in the port until the evening, but violated it.

But Captain Plaushevsky, in fact, had no choice. The port of Yalta, unlike Sevastopol, did not have a powerful air defense system, which means that ships here became an excellent target for aviation. In addition, German motorized units were already approaching the city and occupied it in just a few hours.

The ship sank in 4 minutes

Before talking about what happened next, it should be noted that historians still have not decided whether “Armenia” can be considered a legitimate military target.

According to the laws of war, a medical ship bearing the appropriate identification marks is not one of them. Some argue that “Armenia” was marked with a red cross, which means that the attack on the ship was another crime of the Nazis. Others object: “Armenia” violated its status by having four 45-mm anti-aircraft guns on board. Still others are completely sure that the ship, which was engaged not only in transporting the wounded and refugees, but also military cargo, did not have the signs of a medical ship.

As cover, “Armenia” was accompanied by two patrol boats, and in the sky there were two Soviet fighter I-153.

However, today the version that there was only one plane seems more reliable: the German torpedo bomber He-111, which belonged to the first squadron of air group I/KG28. This was not a targeted attack on “Armenia”: the torpedo bomber was looking for any of the Soviet transport ships on the Crimea-Caucasus line.

Entering from the shore, the Non-111 dropped two torpedoes. One passed by, and the second hit the bow motor ship.

"Armenia" sank in just four minutes. Only eight people on board were saved. The bottom of the Black Sea became the grave for thousands.

Could not find

The mysteries of “Armenia” do not end there. 75 years after the tragedy, the exact location of the sinking of the ship has not been discovered.

The official report on the death of “Armenia” reads: “At 11:25 a.m. (November 7, 1941), the TR “Armenia,” guarding two patrol boats from Yalta to Tuapse with the wounded and passengers, was attacked by an enemy torpedo plane. One of the two dropped torpedoes hit the bow of the ship and at 11:29 am it sank at w = 44 deg. 15 min. 5 sec., d = 34 deg. 17 min. Eight people were saved, about 5,000 people died."

The supposed site of the ship's sinking has been studied several times. In 2006, Robert Ballard, who found the Titanic at the bottom of the Atlantic, joined the search. In Ukraine it was reported that “Armenia” was about to be found, but this did not happen. No traces of the lost ship were found.

There is an assumption that the real place of death of “Armenia” is not where indicated in the documents. According to this version, Captain Plaushevsky sent the ship not to Tuapse, but to Sevastopol, under the protection of the air defense of the fleet base, but along the way he was attacked by a torpedo bomber.

This, however, is only an assumption, like much else in the history of the death of “Armenia”.

It will be possible to reveal all the secrets only when last refuge the ship will still be found.

THE BIGGEST MARINE TRAGEDY OF THE SECOND WORLD: JAVAD STAYED WITH THEM

When you look at old documents and photographs from the war period of 1941-1945, you always want to know more about the people with whom they are associated. You start looking for relevant information - and the glorious and tragic pages of our history literally come to life before your eyes.

The young man in the photo is Muratkhanov Javad Feyzulla oglu.

He was born in 1914. in Salyan. The Muratkhanov family was famous in this city - Javad's grandfather was a local bailiff. Soon the family moved to Baku and Javad grew up in Icheri Sheher, on the famous Malaya Fortress street. He was fascinated by medicine and after school he graduated from the Faculty of Pharmacy of the Azerbaijan State Medical Institute. Then he worked in one of the Baku pharmacies on Bailovo. I just didn’t have time to start a family. The war came and Javad left to defend his homeland. The family knew that Javad, as a military paramedic-pharmacist, was in the ranks of the 8th separate medical battalion of the Black Sea Fleet. His letter home has also been preserved, where the young man asks not to worry about him and not to send him money.

A regular letter mentioning all the people close to his heart.

And in January 1942 Through the Voroshilovsky District Military Commissariat of Baku, Javad's father received a "funeral" letter for his son, signed by the military commissar of the medical and sanitary department of the Black Sea Fleet - "In the fight against German fascism, he died at sea on November 7, 1941."

And that’s all - nothing was known about any circumstances surrounding the death of military paramedic Muratkhanov. These documents were kindly provided to us by Javad Muratkhanova’s niece, Gulnara-khanum Radzhabova, the daughter of Javad’s sister Lumi-khanum Muratkhanova-Amrakhova. This is the same sister Lumi that Javad recalls in his letter.

Thanks to information from the Memorial electronic database, we were able to find out where, how and under what circumstances Javad’s life ended that day.

He died in a sea disaster equal to the disaster of five (!) Titanics, when on November 7, 1941. The ambulance transport "Armenia", on board which was military paramedic Muratkhanov, was sunk as a result of a torpedo attack by German aircraft at the exit from Yalta.

Registration card of Javad Muratkhanov, stored in TsAMO USSR

This was a little-known and perhaps the most tragic episode of that war at sea. Transport "Armenia" evacuated the wounded and refugees from Yalta when German troops were already approaching the city and was attacked by a fascist torpedo bomber abeam Gurzuf in the area of Mount Ayu-Dag. As a result of a direct hit by a torpedo, the ship broke and sank. Almost all 7,000 people on board were killed.

"Armenia" on the slipway of a shipyard.

Official information about the death of “Armenia” is very scarce. More interesting information gives a “Final report on the combat activities of the Black Sea Fleet in the Second World War of 1941 - 1945.” The third volume of this closed document of the operational department of the Black Sea Fleet headquarters reports that “on November 7, 1941, on the ambulance transport “Armenia” the following were completely lost: “Sevastopol Naval Hospital” with 700 beds, the Black Sea Fleet naval hospital and its property, the 5th medical sanitary detachment, base hospital, and so on... the number of dead was about 7,000 people, 8 people were saved. After the death of “Armenia”, the Black Sea Fleet was left without medical support, and it was necessary to create the main hospital of the Black Sea Fleet No. 40, base hospitals, calling in doctors from the reserve. Loading the entire staff of several medical and sanitary institutions onto one medical transport was a grave mistake."

The commander of the ship was Lieutenant Commander V.Ya. Plaushevsky. The ship's standard evacuation capacity was 400 people; there was one operating room and 4 dressing rooms with 11 tables. The ship's medical staff: 9 doctors, 29 nurses and 75 orderlies.

Among the members of the medical staff, in addition to Javad Muratkhanov, there were several more of our fellow countrymen:

Akhundov D.A. 3rd rank military doctor - surgeon;
Mamedova A.Kh. - pharmacist
Akhundova Sharifa - dentist

In total, before its death, the Armenia managed to make 15 evacuation flights (mostly from Odessa and Sevastopol) and delivered more than 15,000 people to the Caucasus (an average of 1,000 people per flight).

The ship was not so large (with a displacement of 6,700 tons), and was designed to transport 980 people. But that day, people literally packed into “Armenia” like sardines in a barrel. Eyewitnesses recall that the passengers stood on the deck, huddled closely together. savash-az.

Perhaps military paramedic Javad Muratkhanov could have been saved, but as a medic, a soldier and just a man, he chose not to abandon the wounded. He probably also thought - what will I tell our guys from Malaya Krepostnaya?...

Chapel in Yalta dedicated to those who died on the ship

The death of the transport "Armenia" on November 7, 1941 is one of the most tragic cases of the death of passenger ships.

On November 7, 1941, the Soviet motor ship Armenia, with over 5,000 people on board, perished in the Black Sea.

"White spot" of war

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

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

floating hospital

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

Thousands of refugees and secret cargo

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

“The brave ones climbed onto the ship using the shrouds”

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

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

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

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

Could not find

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

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

Andrey Sidorchik

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By the end of October 1941, a catastrophic situation had developed in Crimea. Not only the wounded were evacuated on the ship, but also the civilian population. Manstein's Eleventh Army, sweeping away Soviet defense lines, occupied one city after another. The threat of the fall of Sevastopol within a few days was more than real.

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

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

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

In his notes, the commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Admiral Filipp Oktyabrsky, writes: “When I learned that the transport “Armenia” was going to leave Yalta during the day, I personally conveyed the order to the commander under no circumstances to leave until 19.00, that is, until darkness. There was no way to provide air and sea cover for the transport. The communications worked reliably, the commander received the order and, despite this, left Yalta. At 11.00 he was attacked by torpedo bombers and sunk. After being hit by a torpedo, the "Armenia" was afloat for four minutes. ".

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

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

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

On November 7, 1941, the motor ship Armenia was sunk by the Germans near Yalta. “Armenia” is called differently: military transport, ambulance transport and ambulance ship, cargo and passenger ship. A freight and passenger ship with this name was built at the Baltic Shipyard in Leningrad in 1930. The ship had a length of 107.72 meters, a width of 15.5, a side height of 7.7 m, a minimum draft of 5.96 m, a gross register capacity of 4727 tons with a displacement of 5805 tons. Crew - 96 people. There were five such ships in total. They traveled on the Crimean-Caucasian line and all died during the war.

The captain of the "Armenia" was Vladimir Yakovlevich Plaushevsky, who died during this disaster. In terms of the number of deaths, it was the largest disaster not only of the Second World War, but also of almost the entire history of navigation!
If 1,503 people died on the Titanic (April 14, 1912), then approximately 6,000 people died on the Armenia. The fact is that there is no exact number of deaths on “Armenia”.

These figures are not found either in the Museum of the Black Sea Fleet or in the Museum of the Heroic Defense and Liberation of Sevastopol, where I applied. In the Museum of the Black Sea Fleet, it is listed: “Sanitary transport of the Black Sea Fleet “Armenia”. Date and place of death: November 7, 1941, south of Yalta, 44° 17′ N. latitude, 34° 10′ e. etc. (This data is also listed in the directory “Ships of the Ministry of the Navy that perished during the Great Patriotic War in 1941 - 1945. Moscow). He walked from Yalta to Tuapse with the wounded and cargo. Sunk by enemy aircraft. The death toll is unknown. 8 people were saved. (TsVMA, f. 10, d. 9096, l. 8).”

On the ship were the wounded, personnel of the Sevastopol Naval Hospital, the Sanitary and Epidemiological Laboratory of the Black Sea Fleet, the 5th medical detachment of the Black Sea Fleet, the 280th medical warehouse. property, medical staff of the Nikolaev naval hospital, a branch of the Sevastopol hospital in Yalta.

Researchers of this tragedy, including the Sevastopol historian, writer Evgeny Venikeev, the scientific secretary of the military-scientific society of the Black Sea Fleet, retired captain of the 2nd rank Sergei Solovyov (unfortunately, both are already deceased), put the figure at 5,000 to 7,000 people. S. Soloviev believes that in terms of the number of deaths, “only the German liner Wilhelm Gustloff, sunk in January 1945 in the Baltic by the submarine S-13 under the command of A. I. Marinesko, is ahead. There were 6,535 people on the liner. 988 people were saved. The death toll was 5,547.

According to Sergei Solovyov, there could have been more dead on the Armenia. Thus, this is one of the largest maritime tragedies. There are many insinuations associated with it. Soloviev debunks one of them, which wandered through the pages of newspapers, as if “Armenia” was bombed by 40 planes. At 11:25 a.m. on November 7, 1941, the transport, escorted by two patrol boats from Yalta to Tuapse with the wounded and passengers, was attacked by an enemy torpedo bomber. One of the dropped torpedoes hit the bow of the ship, and at 11 hours 29 minutes it sank.

The “Armenia” did not even have a Red Cross sign, since it, along with other transports, in addition to sea evacuation, was engaged in the delivery of weapons, ammunition, and manpower from the rear areas to the battlefields. "Armenia" was painted in military color with ball paint and even had machine guns. All this deprived transport of the right of inviolability.
True, there is another point of view. One of the organizers of the defense of Sevastopol, artillery lieutenant general P. A. Morgunov, who was at that time the commandant of the coastal defense of the Crimea and the main base of the Black Sea Fleet, wrote in the book “Heroic Sevastopol”:
“On November 6, an ambulance transport left Sevastopol - the motor ship "Armenia" with wounded soldiers, employees of the main hospital and evacuated citizens. He went to Yalta, where he also picked up some of the evacuees from Simferopol, and on the morning of November 7 he headed for the Caucasus. At 11 o'clock 25 min. Not far from Yalta, the transport, although it had the distinctive signs of a medical ship, was torpedoed by a fascist plane and sank four minutes later. Many residents, doctors and wounded were killed.” “At this point in the text,” wrote Evgeniy Venikeev in his research “The Death of “Armenia”: the number of dead is unknown,” there is a footnote: “Department of the Central Naval Archive (CVMA), fund 10, file 19, sheet 221.”

There is a certain mystery about the death of “Armenia”, because file No. 19, concerning this tragedy, was destroyed in 1949. This was announced by the head of the department of the Central Naval Archive L. Kirsanov. “Who did it bother, why was it destroyed?” - researcher E. Venikeev asked questions. There are a number of other mysterious moments associated with the death of “Armenia”. According to one version, the ship was sunk not by a torpedo bomber, but by bombers that dropped bombs.
Much would be revealed if “Armenia” could be discovered. Almost 64 years have passed since that terrible tragedy, but only recently have they begun to seriously search for the lost ship. The initiative here belongs to the leader of the expedition, head of the department of underwater heritage of the Institute of Archeology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Sergei Voronov. She was supported by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.
The search is directly carried out by specialists from the research center “State Oceanarium of the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” whose team has been headed by Captain 1st Rank Valery Kulagin for many years. By the way, Valery Vladimirovich personally took part in the expeditionary search for “Armenia” and, together with hydronauts, crew commander Igor Avrashov and Gennady Belnikov, dived on the universal multi-purpose manned underwater vehicle “Langust”.

The head of the department of the National Research Center “State Oceanarium”, captain 1st rank Igor Rodin, the head of the department of underwater technical works, captain 1st rank Vasily Kuts, and other officers and specialists of the oceanarium took part in the development and conduct of the search operation.
“The impetus for this expedition was the anniversary date - the 60th anniversary of the Great Victory,” says Igor Rodin. - And the initiator was the Institute of Archeology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and, in particular, Sergei Aleksandrovich Voronov. The government of the country was tasked with determining the exact coordinates of the death of “Armenia”. The fact is that various sources indicate several places where the ship sank. The work began with an examination of one of them, the most likely one...
“We made our first dive on the Languste on May 26, 2006,” says Igor Avrashov, captain of the manned vehicle’s crew. “The lobster was towed to a given area, and there we went under the water. We worked at depths from 465 to 540 meters, and examined very complex terrain in the area of the Yalta fault. The depth isobaths are close to each other and resemble a kind of five. The distance between the underwater canyons is from 20 to 40 meters wide, and the height of the steep walls reaches 35 meters. In such underwater mountain ravines it is very difficult to search, even for a large object. Due to the difficult terrain, hydroacoustic search was ineffective, and we did not find the ship.
Time will tell how the expedition will end. We are obliged to fulfill our filial duty to the older generation - to perpetuate the memory of those killed on the "Armenia".

In 2011, it was 70 years since one of the largest maritime disasters - the sinking of the motor ship "Armenia".
All possible coordinate points of the site of the death of the ambulance transport were examined. Alas, even with the most modern American search equipment, “Armenia” could not be found then. In 2006-2008, using the most advanced German and American technology, we climbed that square up and down. This point has been crossed 27 times! Even 20-centimeter shell casings from artillery shells were found.
There are only two squares left where we haven’t looked yet: the chances are growing. One of them is beyond the territorial waters opposite Ai-Todor. The second one is abeam Ayudaga. Search depths: from 470 to 1500 meters. My greatest fear is that in those places the ship slipped down the slope to great depths. There will definitely be an expedition! This is our duty to those who died 70 years ago,” summed up Sergei Voronov.