Ladoga Honors the Memory of Hydrographers Who Perished 80 Years Ago

Фото: Пётр Иванов

The memory of the passengers of the barge No. 752, which sank during a strong storm 80 years ago, on the sixth day of the blockade of Leningrad by the German fascist troops, was honored on September 17, on Lake Ladoga. Among the victims of the long-ago tragedy are military hydrographers, cadets and teachers of the city's military schools, and their families.

The relatives of the deceased, officers and cadets of the Russian Navy, members of the Russian Geographical Society, “Young Army” students who gathered for the mourning event laid wreaths at the central stele of the “Ladoga Kurgan” memorial. After that, ever-burning candles were lit on the shore of the lake, and wreaths, bouquets of flowers, and 80 paper boats (to match the number of years that have passed since the tragedy) were lowered into the water. In the silence, the names of everyone who did not survive that stormy night were called.

The participants of the ceremony, organized by the Directorate for Navigation and Oceanography of the Russian Ministry of Defense, visited the "Road of Life" branch of the Central Naval Museum. Part of its exhibition is dedicated to the sinking of barge No. 752.

The caravan that evacuated people from besieged Leningrad was heading from the port of Osinovets to Novaya Ladoga. At night, it got into a nine-point storm, the strength of which the structures of the wooden barge could not withstand. On board there were, according to various estimates, from 1200 to 1500 people. Only 216 of them were saved by the efforts of the "Oryol" tugboat crew.

As a result of the disaster, together with others, 50 military personnel and civilian employees of the Hydrographic Directorate and the Cartographic Department of the Navy, 136 officers, sailors and cadets of the Higher Naval Hydrographic School were killed. The waters of Ladoga have also forever hidden a large amount of valuable cartographic materials.

In Osinovets, commemorative plaques were erected in memory of the dead hydrographers. The names of all those killed in the wreckage of September 17, 1941, are engraved on them.