The Presidential Library Cinema Club bore witness how “Izhora” repeated in 1942 the feat of “Varyag”

March 7, 2017, marks the 75th anniversary of the heroic death of one of the partakers of polar convoy - the “Izhora” timber. This event was remembered by “Don’t forget “Izhora”!” documentary film screening and disputing (director Alexander Sorokin), which was held during a session of the Presidential Library Cinema Club.

This taught “manlike” movie tells how in one of the Russian convoys (that how the polar convoys, shipping to us during World War II vital Lend-lease cargoes, were called in the West), was sunk one transport – the “Izhora” timber. At the cost of their lives, violating the requirement of radio silence, under the gun sights of the German squadron headed by the “Tirpitz” battleship our sailors went on the air and warned two allied convoys and protecting them escort ships of impending danger. A clause of absolute secrecy by the Germans carefully planned operation was broken, thus were saved hundreds of thousands of tons of military cargo, so needed in leading heavy defensive battle Red Army.

Film of Alexander Sorokin explores in detail how, by sacrificing their lives, the crew of “Izhora” saved the “PQ-12” convoy, which was going to us from Iceland with a cargo of weapons for the battle of Stalingrad, and the “QP-8” convoy - going from Arkhangelsk with a load of raw materials (in exchange for provided to us weapons). Almost from the first frame it becomes clear that the author of the documentary has done a lot of archival work, including a study of the diaries of the destroyers of German squadron, a unique selection of the newsreels, which made a picture so convincing and lively.

“For me, this film is especially valuable, - its author Alexander Sorokin admitted to an audience. - All the events of the last day of “Izhora” went through the heart. Just imagine shells and mines pouring into the agonizing Russian transport, against which torpedoes and depth charges were already used. However, stunned of fierce fire cargo ship did not sink… A sign of destiny showed through a sight of the defeated, but remained afloat ship, and it crossed over given by Hitler course: “The Northern region – the zone of fate.”

Only at 6:13 pm the leaden waters of the Barents Sea engulfed the ship. According to the passed on Russian and German radio message: “No one remained alive.”

owever, this was not the case. For years, no one knew that survived XO – Executive Officer of cargo ship Nikolay Adayev, subsequently martyred in Nazi captivity as a member of the underground. He asked to tell public about a feat of “Izhora" his camp fellow Leo Nekipelov, who was lucky to make it up to Victory, but the words of the former camp inmate were not heard, because there were not that much people who trusted back then returning from a captivity veterans-prisoners of war. A family of Nikolay Adayev new nothing about his fate as well, about what his granddaughter and great-granddaughter Svetlana and Elena told an audience of the Cinema Club.

A book of German researcher Norbert Klapdor, which included photographs and memories of a direct participant in this fight - Jorgen Brunca, artillery officer of the “Friedrich Inn” destroyer, on board of which the half-frozen Nicholas Adayev was raised, became new unquestionable evidence of the heroism of Soviet sailors. In the book, the author pointed out that Valentin Pikul in his famous novel “Requiem for the PQ-17 Convoy” was the one who wrote about the heroism of “Izhora” crew first, appointing everyone: “People, remember that “Izhora”!” Norbert Klapdor visited St. Petersburg, continuing to gather more and more evidences of the “Izhora” timber biography and meeting with our native researchers of the polar convoys theme.

It is no coincidence that marine writers Yuri Lebedev, Andrei Kivinov, Ivan Ilyin attended the meeting of the Cinema Club - they all took part in the discussion of screened in the Presidential Library movie.

“There were several cases of alike heroism in the history of the Russian Navy - Ivan Dmitriyevich Ilyin said. – Everyone knows about the “Varyag” Cruiser. The “Mercury” Brig fought against two linear Turkish ships and came a winner out of it, returned all wounded to Sevastopol… The “Dmitry Donskoy” Cruiser fought against six Japanese cruisers and was all heroically ready to go to their doom. But those on the “Izhora” were not ready, because they remained civilian sailors, peaceful workers of the sea. Yet, they faced certain death, without thinking then that they accomplishing a feat.”