Ladoga. The Road №101.

Expedition...What does it mean? Are expeditions "to the end of the earth" necessary? No, they are not. The main thing is the aim of expedition: scientific research, search of unknown or shooting films, for example.

The being of expedition is devoted to common aim, but every participant has his own obligations at the same time. The main purpose of "Underwater expeditions" is to investigate and cognize the underwater world. If you are a diver-enthusiast, you are always welcome to cooperate with us. If you have some interesting ideas and you wish to make your usual diving more vivid, please, contact us without hesitation. This article is about two trips of "Underwater Expeditions": the first - to Ladoga with WaterWorld Company (St. Petersburg) in October, and the second one - video safari to the Red Sea in December, organized with the help of TV programme "Dialogues about Animals".

It's possible to say that in St. Petersburg on the 1st of October, 2001 rather an ordinary event took place. A small sea vessel with strange name "Kartesh" sailed away from Vasilievskiy Island. Regardless of casual observer's expectations, it made its way to the opposite site of Gulf of Finland - to Ladoga, along Neva. But what is it so amazing in this? The Belomorskiy Canal is in order, and hundreds of vessels sail here and there daily, so there is nothing unusual in such a course of "Kartesh". But it's until a casual observer looks into a chief cabin at three young men, where in deep dreaminess they are inclining to the maps, lying on the wide table. After some mysterious phrases: "GBO (Russian - "ГБО") will prove...", "there are 7 meters above...", "Osinovezckiy lighthouse", ""The Moriy Bay " and so on, casual viewer's imagination begins to run high: chests, treasures, gold...

One of the men enunciates in low tones, pointing at a distant spot on the map: "This is the place of "Purga" shipwreck, - the guard-flagship of Ladoga Flotilla, which was destroyed by fascist bombing in September, 1942. And it seems like you hear a shrill roar of bombers, whine of shells, artillery cannonade. You can imagine like huge streams rise high up and tons of cold water with debris pounce upon the deck and defenseless heads of seamen. Somebody puts the last shell into antiaircraft gun's bare, darkened because of continuous gunnery. It seems the sky goes to pieces, threatening to impinge on people and bury them under its debris. Suddenly - terrible thunder, that takes the ship soul away, and than - silence and depth. And you feel tingles down your back...

Having a look round, our casual observer understands that it's a place of documentary film shooting, the film about sea battles during World War II, the first film in special series made by "Underwater Expeditions". All the names, mentioned during the talk of three young men, are the names of places, which may help to discover many important events happened on the Lake Ladoga where the famous Road of Life run from September 1941 to April 1943.

So, our casual viewer caught the moment of the expedition's start, when it proceeded to the search of the legendary Ladoga Road signs.

After 8 hours way, gloomy banks of Neva have moved apart, making some kind of funnel, from which "Kartesh" rushed out to the vast expanses of Ladoga. There were two rainbows waiting for the vessel: the real and the allegorical ones. The real one is like a many-colored arc, cutting the dome of the sky and letting the second expedition's vessel "Irida" pass (from Greek "irida" means "rainbow"). The team of divers is completely ready to work.

It's not the easy task. Ladoga is very uncertain and self-will, especially in autumn. The sun shines, the rainbow is on the sky, but it may rain and snow in an hour. So, the expedition is under the pressure of time. Everybody understands it, working hard on the vessel "Kartesh". The side survey sonar, device for catching underwater objects' signals, is put overboard in a few seconds. And after half an hour, the expedition has measuring results. Both vessels have almost the same size. There is almost 1 kilometer between them. One of them is the guard-ship "Purga", destroyed in September 1942. The name and destination of the second one are unknown. The task of divers is to make it clear during their underwater trip. After two control passages, the expedition vessels dropped anchor near the place, marked as "unknown ship".

Many cities of Russia, Byelorussia and Ukraine were almost destroyed in two months after the German attack. The enemy approached to Leningrad early in September. In spite of the massive assault, it was the first time in World War II when fascists could not capture the city immediately. All the following attempts in capturing Leningrad failed. So, German leaders decided to change their tactics. Leaving the tactics of frontal attacks, German forces went a roundabout way in the opposite direction to Finnish military units. Leningrad was under the threat of encirclement. Unfortunately, this threat became the terrible reality. On the 8th of September, Soviet military units left Shlisselburg, a small town situated near beginnings of Neva. It was the beginning of the Blockade. The Lake Ladoga was some kind of a "holding alley" for communication with other soviet regions. Its southwest part run directly to the blockade-ring. There were 30 kilometers between banks, 30 kilometers of Ladoga water actually in possession of neither German nor Russian forces. The leadership of Leningrad front made the only possible in such a situation decision - to link banks of Ladoga with thoroughfare, supplying deposited city. But there was a problem. The bank of possible cargo-ships mooring was absolutely unsuitable for it. There were neither landing nor mooring line. There were even no ordinary roads for traffic transportation to Leningrad. Today, it seems impossible. It took about a month to build a harbor near the village Osinovezckiy. The Ladoga-bed was made deeper; the railway was build there. At the same time, the Ladoga Flotilla was being established - to put it more precisely - reestablished after its disbandment in 1940 (in accordance with Soviet-Finnish agreement). Firstly, this Flotilla consisted of old river steamers, self-propelled barges, towboats, with machine-guns and small-caliber cannons on its boards. After that the Gulf of Finland became the main area of activity of the Baltic Fleet, and several tens of guard-ships, trawlers and speedboats were sent to Ladoga.

On the 12th of September 1941 the first convoy of cargo boats with grain (about 800 tons) reached the port Osinovezckiy. That day the route became the reality and got its famous name The Road of Life. But after several days the gladness was clouded by a terrible storm. On the night of September, 17 several tens of barges were destroyed by a storm near the Osinovezckiy lighthouse. Hundred tons of food and military equipment went down to the Ladoga-bed. More than 1000 people were killed.

Having understood the Russian stratagem, the German forces began a terrible bombing of convoys and lakeside constructions, trying to destroy port economy and damage vessels as many as possible. But it was in vain. They haven't known what was waiting for them in winter. And they haven't even suspected what the "enigmatic" Russians were capable of, being driven into a corner.

The first things divers have seen at the bottom were some scattered objects: ammunition, fragments of uniform, gas masks. But there was some kind of regularity in that chaos. All objects were within one passage, so, we could suppose the vessel hadn't gone down in a moment. It had been moving with hole in its hull. Our supposition proved to be true: suddenly, through the shroud of dredge, we have noticed the vessel silhouette.

The expedition decided to pay the next visit to the barge in another direction. The antiaircraft gun was situated with its wheels upwards, buried the barrel in the ground. There were a lot of shells around, overgrown with mussel like stones. There was an illegible shadow of something square in the dark. Having approached to that mysterious object, the divers understood it was some kind of a turret of the tank or the tankette There was a hole instead of a barrel. And the tank itself wasn't found nearby.

There were a lot of versions after returning to "Kartesh". The most reasonable version was that those technics and barge were "the traces" of different events. Many facts argued for it. There was a rather large distance between those objects. Moreover, the common weight of technics was too high to be the cargo of a flat-bottomed barge. It was obvious those objects went down to the bottom in winter, when the lake was coated with ice. Besides, very often, tank turrets were got off their bases and put on the ice to defend the track against enemy attacks from the bank.

In the beginning of November the lake was covered with ice. The navigation was stopped. On the 19th of November 1941 Soviet leadership issued order № 00172. According to that, back military units of the Leningrad front had to organize motor traffic throughout Ladoga within a month. But already the next day the first sleigh transport started on its "journey". After a couple of days, the first autocade was organized. So, Military-Motor Road № 101 was created. In spite of the fact the Road was mainly known due to winter newsreel, it functioned almost the whole year round.

There were heavy tolls during the first months of the Road existence. Fascist bombers raked our cars, medical units with terrible fire. They tried to break Ladoga ice with high-explosive bombs and to destroy the Road. The Leningrad front command placed antiaircraft guns and machine-guns on the ice. But it was not enough: almost each of four trucks was damaged by bombing or fell into an ice trap. Early in 1942 the Baltic Fleet Airforce went into action. It cardinally changed alignment of airforces in defender's favor. From this moment nothing could stop Ladoga autocade's traffic.

Next morning Ladoga met the expedition with hostility, even not hostility - it absolutely ignored them, gathering herd of grey, "thorny" clouds over heads of the divers. It was snowing and raining cats and dogs. It was that moment when divers were going to put overboard the flang survey sonar to detect the exact location of "Purga". But nothing could be done about. It took Ivan Kronberg and Igor Ratkevich about an hour to struggle stubbornly with a bad weather and heavy sonar, under the force of terrible wind blasts and rain. As the result, they succeeded in it. The location of the vessel was detected.

The guard-ship "Purga" of 600 tons displacement was launched in 1935. It was included into the Baltic Fleet in 1936. "Purga" was armed with two large-caliber antiaircraft guns, two cannons (37mm) and three large-caliber machine-guns. Its crew consisted of 114 people.

The Ladoga Military Flotilla contained two guard-ships - "Purga" and "Constructor" (from Russian "конструктор" - designer), as like as two peas in a pod. Both vessels were built in the same year, both came to Ladoga from The Baltic Fleet and both had almost the same destiny. There was only one distinction - "Purga" became the flagship, the leader ship in Flotilla. "Constructor" didn't. But "Constructor" was fortunate in another way, if it was possible to say. After tragic wreck of "Purga", "Constructor" was also destroyed by fascist bombing. Many times several attempts were made to raise it to the surface and put into operation, but vainly. It was raised and put into operation only after World War II. "Constructor" acted as a ship of the Baltic Fleet and as a vessel of public service for many years to come. Ship is like a human. It lives, grows old and dies - on a honored pension or in battles and catastrophes. It depends on fortune.

Fortunately, the storm has settled as soon as it began before. To the moment of diving, the lake was almost calm. There were only few reminders of the previous storm.

Dredge and silt, raised by the storm, surrounded the divers, decreasing the visibility. It was very easy to overpass the ship in such the conditions.

But suddenly, the anchor and the guard-ship bow stood out of the dark. There was no any doubt - it was "Purga". There were shapeless mass of wreckage and broken metal. And today the frame of the 70-metres guard ship "Purga" has such an appearance. Waves and ice broke it into some fragments.

You can hardly discern just some parts of ship centers and machinery among metal shapeless mass.

Finally, our divers reached the place, known as a deck-cabin "inter vivos". And, there were only hollow eye-sockets of windows. They were following the divers sadly. "Purga" continued its heroic way in complete silence. The calm and the peace, doughtily defended by it 60 years ago, have embraced the ship forever.

An October week proved to be very short, as an October day. The expedition's period was limited by winter closing of the Belomorskiy Canal. "Kartesh" had to go home, to the White Sea, to its winter station, until the next expeditions and the divers were going to the cities - St. Petersburg, Moscow and Tver. It was time to work and plan the next expeditions during job intervals.

The participants of that expedition express their thanks to "Kartesh" and "Irida".