Suicide note from the Kursk submarine. The main mysteries of the death of the nuclear submarine “Kursk” What the captain of the wheelmen wrote

Today is the anniversary of the tragedy on the Kursk submarine. Let us recall that on August 12, 2000, as a result of a disaster that occurred during exercises in the Barents Sea, the K-141 Kursk nuclear submarine sank at a depth of 108 m.

Below the cut is a suicide note from the Kursk submarine, written by Captain Dmitry Kolesnikov.

During the inspection of the submarine, only one body was identified - Dmitry Kolesnikov. Two notes were found on him. One was to his wife, a fragment of the text of which was nevertheless made public, the other, addressed to the command, was classified. It was in the second note that Kolesnikov outlined the true reasons for the crash of the Kursk nuclear submarine on August 12, 2000.

"15:45. It's dark to write here, but I'll try by touch... There seems to be no chance. 10-20 percent. Let's hope that at least someone will read. Here are the lists of personnel of the compartments, some are in the ninth and will try come out. Hello everyone, there is no need to despair.

The events will take place in several cities. The funeral event will take place in St. Petersburg. At the Serafimovskoye cemetery, where 32 sailors out of 118 are buried, including the crew commander, captain of the first rank Gennady Lyachin.
A memorial service for the crew members of Kursk will be held in one of the city churches, where there is a copy of the icon painted in memory of the dead submariners. The submarine Kursk sank on August 12, 2000 during an exercise. All 118 sailors on board were killed. The cause of the crash was said to be an accidental explosion of ammunition on board the nuclear-powered ship.

The nuclear submarine Kursk sank on August 12, 2000. It became a mass grave for 118 submariners. Despite the fact that 14 years have passed since the tragedy, the events of those days still remain a huge black spot in people’s memory.

In memory of the victims, Babr publishes two suicide notes from Kursk crew members Dmitry Kolesnikov and Sergei Sadilenko. They are filled with love for life, courage in the face of death and faith in the best.

Dmitry Kolesnikov,
captain-lieutenant,
27 years

“Hello everyone, there is no need to despair. Kolesnikov."

Sergey Sadilenko,
captain-lieutenant,
24 years

According to the official version, put forward only in 2002, the Kursk submarine sank due to the explosion of the Kit torpedo, which occurred as a result of a torpedo fuel leak.

Just a couple of minutes after the explosion, a fire broke out, which led to the detonation of other torpedoes in the compartment. As a result of the second explosion, the Kursk submarine with 118 submariners on board sank.

In addition to the official version of the crash of the Kursk submarine, there are many alternative versions events of those days. From the very beginning of the tragedy, there were about ten versions of the death of the Kursk:

Version No. 1. Internal explosion.

Version No. 2. Collision with a foreign submarine.

Version No. 3. Collision with a surface object.

Version No. 4. World War II mine.

Version No. 5. Defeated by one's own missile from the Peter the Great.

Version No. 6. Hit by a ground-based missile.

Version No. 7. Terrorist act.

Version No. 8. UFO.

Version No. 9. Torpedo attack by a foreign submarine.

Version No. 10. Fire in the battery compartment.

What really happened in the Barents Sea on August 13, 2000? This question still remains open.

Two months after the tragedy, the head of the Russian Federation gave an interview to Larry King on CNN. Putin’s answer to a journalist’s question about what actually happened to the submarine was laconic: “It drowned.”

On August 12, 2000, two explosions occurred on the nuclear-powered icebreaker Kursk. The tragedy that worried everyone then, 15 years later, is beginning to be forgotten. The story of the death of the crew is increasingly difficult to separate from speculation and lies.

Was there criminal negligence?

According to the plan for the exercises that took place in August 2000, the nuclear-powered submarine K-141 was supposed to carry out a simulated torpedoing of an enemy surface ship between 11-40 and 13-20 hours on August 12. But instead, at 11 hours 28 minutes 26 seconds, an explosion with a power of 1.5 on the Richter scale was heard. And after 135 seconds - a second one - more powerful. The Kursk did not get in touch until 13:50. Commanding Northern Fleet Vyacheslav Popov orders “to start acting on the worst case scenario at 13.50” and takes off with nuclear cruiser"Peter the Great" to Severomorsk, obviously, to discuss the situation. And only at 23-30 he announces a combat alert, recognizing the “loss” of the best submarine of the Northern Fleet.

By 3-30 o'clock the approximate search area is determined, and by 16-20 technical contact is established with the Kursk. The rescue operation itself begins at 7 a.m. on August 14.

On the one hand, the actions of the rescuers, which seemed sluggish to an outside observer, on the other hand, the apparent inaction of the country’s president, who continued to rest in Sochi for four days after the accident, on the third, data on the technical defects of the submarine, on the fourth, contradictory information from the authorities, as if who tried to confuse everyone who followed the fate of the crew - all this gave rise to rumors about the incompetence of the leaders.

People, according to Vladimir Putin, have indulged in their favorite popular pastime: searching for those to blame. And subsequently they were indignant that, by and large, no one was punished. But the trouble is that if we were to punish, then many would have to be punished - all those who had a hand in the collapse of the fleet, who turned a blind eye to it, who did not work in full force for a meager (1.5-3 thousand rubles) salary. But this did not matter: even if the military had started searching for the Kursk at 13:00 on August 12, they still would not have had time to save the crew.

Who gave the distress signals?

The reason for numerous speculations was the SOS signals by which the Kursk was discovered and which continued for two days. The signals were recorded on different ships, and some eyewitnesses even claimed that they heard the call sign of the submarine - “Vintik”.

Until August 15, the leaders of the operation continued to assure that the connection with the crew, established through tapping, was continuing. And already on the 17th it was established as official a new version: Most of the Kursk sailors died in the first minutes after the explosion, the rest lived only a few hours.
And SOS signals were recorded on magnetic tape and studied by experts. It was proven that it was not a person who was tapping, but an automatic machine, which could not have been and was not on board the Kursk. And this fact provided new evidence for the theory of a collision between a nuclear-powered ship and a foreign submarine.

Did the Kursk collide with an American submarine?

The cause of the first explosion on the Kursk was the deformation of the torpedo. This is recognized by most researchers. But the cause of the deformation itself remains a matter of debate. The version of the collision with the American submarine Memphis has become widespread. It is believed that it was she who gave the notorious distress signals.

In the Barents Sea, Memphis, along with other American and British submarines, monitored the exercises Russian fleet. Carrying out a complex maneuver, its officers made a mistake with the trajectory, came close and crashed into the K-141, which was preparing to fire. "Memphis" sank to the bottom, like "Kursk", plowed the soil with its nose and stood up. A few days later she was found undergoing repairs in a Norwegian port. This version is also supported by the fact that K-141 was a kilometer or two from the place from which the distress signal was sent.

When did the crew die?

The question of the time of death of the crew of the Russian submarine became fundamental. The fleet command actually admitted that at first they misled everyone: there was no chatting with the submariners. Most of the crew actually died as a result of the first and second explosions. And the survivors locked in the ninth compartment could have lasted longer if not for the tragic accident discovered during the autopsy of the corpses.

The sailors' attempts to get to the surface on their own were unsuccessful. They had to sit patiently and wait for rescue. At 19 o'clock, when those above were still hesitating whether to declare a combat alert, oxygen starvation began in the compartment. The sailors needed to charge new regeneration plates. The three went to the installation, and someone apparently dropped the plate into the oily water. To save his comrades, one of the submariners rushed in and covered the plate with his body. But it was too late: there was an explosion. Several people died from chemical and thermal burns, while the rest suffocated in a matter of minutes from carbon monoxide.

Note from Captain-Lieutenant Kolesnikov

Indirectly, the hypothesis about the death of the crew on August 12 is confirmed by a note left by Lieutenant Commander Kolesnikov: “15.15. It's dark to write here, but I'll try by touch. There seems to be no chance: 10-20 percent. Let's hope at least someone reads it." That is, already at three o'clock in the afternoon, the team members saved light, sat quietly in the dark and waited. And the uneven handwriting in which this second note was written indicates that Dmitry Kolesnikov had little strength left.

And then in the note there was a now famous testament to all of us who are still alive: “Hello everyone, there is no need to despair. Kolesnikov." And - some phrase, missed, hidden from the public by the investigation.
From that phrase new speculations grew: as if the commission was covering up someone’s sloppiness, as if the lieutenant commander responded with that phrase to the question of who was to blame or, at least, what was the cause of the accident. For a long time, investigators tried to convince us that for ethical reasons they were not revealing the contents of the rest of the note, that it contained a personal message to my wife that had no meaning for us. Until then, the public did not believe it until the contents of the classified part were revealed. But the investigation never gave the note itself to Dmitry Kolesnikov’s wife—only a copy.

On August 26, 2000, by order of the President, the submarine commander Gennady Lyachin was awarded the title of Hero of Russia, and everyone on board was awarded the Order of Courage. This news was met rather with skepticism: they decided that the country’s leadership was in this way trying to atone for their sins before the crew, to make up for the mistakes made during the rescue operation.

But the commander of the Northern Fleet explained: the Kursk submariners were nominated for the award much earlier, after an operation successfully carried out in the Mediterranean in 1999, at the very height of NATO aggression in Yugoslavia. Then the K-141 crew managed to conditionally hit enemy ships five times, that is, destroy the entire American sixth fleet, and escape unnoticed.
But in fairness, it is worth noting that many of those who died in August 2000 did not participate in the Mediterranean campaign the year before.

Would the Norwegians have saved?

Almost from the very beginning of the rescue operation, the British and Americans offered their help, and a little later the Norwegians. The media actively promoted the services of foreign specialists, convincing them that their equipment was better and their specialists were more skilled. Then, in hindsight, accusations were poured in: if they had been invited earlier, the 23 people locked in the ninth compartment would have been saved.
In fact, no Norwegians were able to help. Firstly, by the time the Kursk was discovered, the submariners had already been dead for a day. Secondly, the amount of work that our rescuers did, the level of self-sacrifice and dedication with which they worked and which allowed them to conduct the operation around the clock, without interruptions, was unthinkable for foreign specialists.
But - the main thing - even if the members of the Kursk crew were still alive on the 15th and 16th, it was impossible to save them for technical reasons. Submersible vehicles could not attach themselves to the submarine due to damage to its hull. And here the most modern and perfect technology was powerless.
The submarine and its crew became the victim of a confluence of thousands of different circumstances. And her death, in which there is no one’s personal fault, is perhaps for the first time in long years, united the embittered country.

“Whoever talks about death will tell us a few honest words,
It's a pity that the fallen sailors don't have black boxes.

The pencil breaks, it's cold, it's dark
Captain Kolesnikov writes us a letter
There are a few of us left on the cold bottom,
Three compartments have been blown up, and three are still on fire,

I know there is no salvation, but if you believe
You will find my letter on your chest,
This act fell to fly up to heaven,
Goodbye honey, we took in the parade

Do you remember our stairs, sun, popsicle
Captain Kolesnikov writes her letter
Kursk shook like a ragged grave due to the explosion
As a farewell, I cut the ropes of torn veins

Seagulls and ships over the cloudy water
The submarine is sleeping on the ground, but it’s so far from the ground
Later they will lie for a long time about what happened
Will the commission tell you how difficult it is to die?

Which of us are the same age, which is a hero, which is a schmuck,
Captain Kolesnikov writes us a letter"

Yu.Yu. Shevchuk (DDT)

The contents of Captain-Lieutenant Kolesnikov's note appear in the press. As follows from the diving report conducted by our divers, on October 25 it contains the following entry: “During the inspection, two sheets of A-4 size paper were found on one of the unidentified corpses.” These sheets were probably torn from some magazine, because they contained tables written in typographical font under the heading “Section 4. Comments of inspectors”, and in the upper right corner of the front side handwritten with a pen of blue color numbering entries: “67” and “69” respectively. It is customary on boats that all sheets of operational and logbooks, and not only secret ones, are numbered in a similar way, laced and sealed with the ship's seal for packages.
On the front side of the sheet with No. 66 there is handwritten text that reads:
“List of l/s 6,7,8,9 ots., located in the 9th compartment after the accident on 08/12/2000.” And below this entry is a list of surnames, numbered 1 to 23. It begins with the line: “1, 5-6-31 - Mainagashev” and ends with the line: “23. 5-88-21 - Neustroev." There are two columns to the right of the last names. In the first one, 13.34 is written at the top, and then there is a “+” sign next to each surname. In the second column from the top it was not possible to make out the time, there are no pluses opposite the surnames, only opposite the surnames: Kubikov, Kuznetsov, Anikeev, Kozaderov, sailor Borisov and midshipman Borisov, Neustroyev there is a sign in the form of a checkmark. Below the list of names is the entry: “13.58 (arrow up) R 7 ots.” There are no more entries on this sheet number 66.
On the reverse side of sheet No. 69 there is a note with the following content:
“13.15. All personnel from compartments 6, 7 and 8 moved to compartment 9. There are 23 of us here. I don't feel well. Weakened by the action of carbon monoxide. The pressure rises. Regenerative cartridges are running out. When we reach the surface we will not be able to withstand decompression. There are not enough belts on individual breathing apparatus. There are no carabiners on the stoppers. We won’t last more than a day.”
Then another entry: “15.15. It's dark to write here, but I'll try by touch. There seems to be no chance: 10-20 percent. Let's hope at least someone reads it. Here is a list of the personnel of the compartments who are in the 9th and will try to leave. Hello everyone, there is no need to despair. Kolesnikov."
It was possible to determine from this list who was in the 9th compartment:
1. Chief Petty Officer of the contract service V.V. Mainagashev, 6th compartment.
2. Sailor Korkin A.A., 6 compartment.
3. Captain-Lieutenant Aryapov R.R., 6th compartment.
4. Midshipman Ishmuradov F.M., 7th compartment.
5. Sailor Nalyotov I.E., 7th compartment.
6. Foreman 2 articles of contract service V.S. Sadova, 7th compartment.
7. Sailor Sidyukhin V.Yu., 7th compartment.
8. Sailor A.N. Nekrasov, 7th compartment.
9. Sailor Martynov R.V., 7th compartment.
10. Foreman 2 articles of contract service Gesler R.A., 8th compartment.
11. Sailor R.V. Kubikov, 8th compartment.
12. Senior midshipman V.V. Kuznetsov, 8th compartment.
13. Foreman 2 articles of contract service Anikeev R.V., 8th compartment.
14. Senior midshipman V.V. Kozaderov, 8th compartment.
15. Sailor Borisov Yu.A., 8th compartment.
16. Senior midshipman A.M. Borisov, 8th compartment.
17. Captain-Lieutenant Kolesnikov D.R., 7th compartment.
18. Captain-Lieutenant Sadilenko S.V., 8th compartment.
19. Senior Lieutenant A.V. Brazhkin, 9th compartment.
20. Midshipman Bochkov M.A., 9th compartment.
21. Foreman 2 articles of contract service Leonov D.A., 9th compartment.
22. Foreman 1st article of contract service Zubaidulin R.R., 7th compartment.
23. Chief ship's foreman of the contract service Neustroev A.V., 8th compartment.
But this list was not published.
The note became the object of intense interest. Messages about “new” and “previously unknown” parts of the note excited the public, fueling, in general, idle interest in this aspect of the tragedy. Idle, because it was immediately clear: the person located in the 9th compartment of the boat, the one farthest from the scene of the accident, could not know anything about the cause of the accident. The maximum that can be understood while being there is that several explosions occurred.
The note does not contain facts that would “reveal the secret” of what happened on the Kursk. The fact that it is not published is due to two obvious reasons.
Firstly, it is in the investigation materials, the disclosure of which is illegal.
Secondly, the note, as was said by the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy from the very beginning, at a meeting with the wives of sailors in Vidyaevo, in addition to speaking about the number of personnel in the compartment, is also of a purely personal nature, since it contains the words , addressed to his wife, and from this point of view, its publication - for any reason - would be immoral. Relatives of submariners are already the object of intense interest. So, the note does not contain any secrets - it is a purely private document, a letter to his wife, a letter of an exclusively personal nature.
Nine months later, on July 16, 2001, before the stage of preparation of the Kursk for lifting, the chief diving doctor of the Navy, Colonel of the Medical Service Sergei Nikonov, spoke about this note: “Again, the note, it was published almost completely. There is not a single word missing. Believe me, please, you will see this when you really have the opportunity to verify it, maybe a photo of her will be published or something else. Not a single word was left out of it. What was said in this note is information that concerns everyone. And then it’s personal, for my wife. It's literally one line. It is really of a purely personal nature, there is no information in it that allows us to judge anything, about some reasons or about what was going on in the boat, there is nothing like that at all. In the part in which it was voiced, it had a very serious impact on the nature of diving work. It became clear that the guys were concentrated in the 9th compartment, which means there is nothing to look for in other compartments, which means there is no more need to climb into other compartments and cut, and this is quite a lot of work. Kolesnikov’s note, it didn’t just narrow it down, it seriously simplified the work. We would have cut up the entire boat, but here we concentrated on compartment 9, and, in general, it became clear that if the task was to lift bodies, then there was no point in going into other compartments.”
A year after the sinking of the Kursk, the assistant to the President of the Russian Federation, Sergei Yastrzhembsky, was asked: “When will Kolesnikov’s note be published in full?” He replied: “The timing of publication of the note by Lieutenant Commander Dmitry Kolesnikov is determined by the investigative authorities. Only the Main Military Prosecutor’s Office will determine this period.”
Dmitry Kolesnikov’s wife, Olga, with whom they married 4 months before the death of the Kursk, said this about this note: “I saw the note, but they didn’t give it to me. They gave me a photocopy of what was dedicated to me, this is his will to me. The note was not given because back side The names of 22 people who were with him in the compartment were recorded. They didn’t give it because not all of them were raised, and they didn’t want to disclose to their relatives who else was in the compartment. I was told that I would receive the note when the criminal case was closed. But we will never know the truth, since the matter will be immortal.”
She also said that they often slipped short notes to each other, which they then unwittingly came across in various unexpected situations. For example, she could put a piece of paper in his sock with the words: “I love you!” He could have written the same thing in the bathroom, or put a note in the sugar bowl. A few days before his death, he wrote her a quatrain. She says that at that time they were too happy and he could not write such words, but for some reason he wrote them. Here they are:
And when the hour comes to die,
Although I drive such thoughts,
Then I will have to whisper:
“Dear, I love you!”
A copy of the note briefly flashed in the frame in her hands; it was clear that it contained a list of personnel who were in the compartment, and even opposite each name there was a + sign, which is how the military usually notes the presence of people during their roll call. Columns were also made nearby for further roll calls. But this check in the 9th compartment turned out to be the last for everyone.
And the contents of the note became known to the wife, she herself later showed a copy of it, on which one could read: “Olechka, I love you, don’t worry too much.
G.V. Hello. My greetings. (Signature in the form of an unreadable stroke).

P.S. There is a film “Volunteers”, where a submariner, played by Leonid Bykov, in a submarine that sank during the war, suffocating from lack of oxygen, writes his suicide note to the girl he loved, but who didn't know it.

And this was written by Vladimir Vysotsky 30 years before the death of Kursk...

We go underwater in neutral water,
We can not care about the weather throughout the year,
And if they cover you, the locators will howl
About our trouble.
Save our souls,
We are delirious from suffocation,
Hear us on land
Our SOS is getting louder and louder,
And the aortas are torn, but you don’t dare go up,
There on the left side, there on the right side,
It's blocking the passage right along the way
Horned Death.
Save our souls,
We are delirious from suffocation,
Save our souls, hurry to us.
Hear us on land
Our SOS is getting louder and louder,
And horror cuts souls in half.
But here we are free, because this is our world,
Are we crazy?
Float in a minefield
Well, no hysterics, we'll crash into the shore, -
The commander said.
Save our souls,
We are delirious from suffocation,
Save our souls, hurry to us.
Hear us on land
Our SOS is getting louder and louder,
And horror cuts souls in half.
Let's surface at dawn, an order is an order,
And it’s better to die in color in the light,
Our path is not marked, we have nothing, we have nothing,
But remember us.
Save our souls,
We are delirious from suffocation,
Save our souls, hurry to us.
Hear us on land
Our SOS is getting louder and louder,
And horror cuts souls in half.
So we went up, but there was no way out,
Here it is, nerves are tense at the shipyard,
The end of all sorrows, ends and beginnings,
We are rushing to the piers instead of torpedoes.
Save our souls,
We are delirious from suffocation,
Save our souls, hurry to us.
Hear us on land
Our SOS is getting louder and louder,
And horror cuts souls in half.
Save our souls, save our souls.
Save our souls, save our souls...

When asked what happened to the Kursk submarine, Russian President Putin, smiling gently, replied: “It drowned.”

It turns out she “just” drowned.

And her crew members “simply” drowned along with her. Who spent many hours, dying, knocking on the walls of their ship and were sure until their last breath that the Motherland, the government and the president would come to the aid of their faithful sons, carrying public service. They were wrong...
The homeland, the government and the president were in no hurry to help them. They were on a consolidated vacation in Sochi and they were very pressed for time, and they didn’t want to interrupt their vacation..
That's why Kursk drowned.
Let's look into the eyes and faces of the dead sailors. We are all in their debt.

Eternal memory to the fallen martyrs.
And Captain Kolesnikov still writes to us.