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In Kerch I served during one year (in 1947-1948), until they sent me back to Sevastopol and half a year later - abroad, to the Danube River.
Suddenly they called me and told that there came an order from Moscow to send me on Danube, to the Danube Military River Flotilla. ‘Very good!’ I got my documents and left for Izmail. [Izmail is a city on the Danube River near the Romanian border.] After my arrival they said ‘You go adroad for postwar creeping.’ Danube was stuffed with mines: Germans dropped them, Russians dropped, Americans and French did it. It meant that Danube was completely unsuitable for navigation: mines were everywhere. As for me I was an experienced specialist in creeping: I did it on the Black Sea and on the Azov Sea, too. On the Azov Sea I was blown up and thrown overboard, nearly died… And there it was necessary to creep all Danube long: through Germany, Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Romania, and Bulgaria. It was necessary to creep, and I was appointed for that job – I do not know for what sins or battle services. We were in the process of training for about a month, our commander estimated our achievements, taught us the way to behave (you know, in the USSR authorities always taught people how to behave), etc. And we started: from Germany to Bulgaria twenty two times! That means that we shuttled over each area 22 times, because Germans made special magnetic mines, which reacted only to the 22nd pass of a ship: the first ship passed by – nothing happened, the second one passed – nothing happened, and only the 22nd one caused explosion. That means that twenty one ships could pass over that dangerous place safe, and the 22nd one had to be lost. That is why we moved there and back over every area 22 times, and then passed on to the next one – again and again along the whole river. Only after we finished, navigation was opened.
Vienna was damaged greatly. In Budapest all five bridges across the Danube River were destroyed [editor's note: the interviewee is wrong, there were seven bridges across the Danube]; and in 1948 all of them were still in ruins down in the Danube; people used bridges of boats, though 4 years had passed since Hungary was liberated. Situation in Belgrad was better. In Belgrad they started to develop uninhabited islands in the mouth of Drava River: they arranged communist subbotniks [24] (they were all Communists), where millions of people worked under banners and flags to ‘build the best decoration of the Earth.’ They worked so enthusiastically! They were building new city. At present that place is very beautiful.
I saw Marshal Tito, Rankovich, Kardel, Milutinovich, and doctor Ribar: in fact, I saw all the Yugoslavian history. Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia followed our socialist way of development, except Yugoslavia. However hard Stalin tried to break them down, Tito went capitalist way. Therefore in Pravda Newspaper there appeared an article, signed by the CC [the Communist Party Central Committee] - we all knew that that signature meant Stalin himself, he wrote it personally (we recognized his style). It was titled ‘What is the future of the country leaded by the Anti-Communist Tito’s clique?’ There was a caricature: Tito holding an axe, and blood flows down from it. At that time the 5th congress of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia was held in Belgrad. And I was in Belgrad at that moment. In the streets there were tanks, portraits of Stalin and Tito, and slogans ‘Long live Marshal Tito! Long live comrade Stalin!’ Tito gave a five-hour report, I understood it a little (we learned their language), listening to the report by the radio.
Two weeks later they offered us to leave, to go home. By that time I moved from a flat in Belgrad to our ship (they ordered us to move). And as soon as we finished creeping, they ordered us to go home. So I witnessed to moment, when they separated from us, from the Communist International. And only Khrushchev [25] managed to renew contacts many years later. And other countries were with us. I visited Bratislava several times (the former Czechoslovakia), but I have never been to Prague. I have been to Budapest, Bucharest, Bulgaria, and Austria (in Vienna). I simply went there for a walk, when our ship moored there. And in Yugoslavia I managed to spend about 20 days in a hospital. In Novi Sad city there was a Hospital of Yugoslavian National Army - Hospital no.3. I caught cold, and had 22 furuncules and running temperature. I could not sit, lie down, I ate and slept upright. At first I was treated by our doctors, but it went from bad to worse, and they decided to send me to a hospital. They brought me there and left alone.
I was placed in the officer’s ward: 5 beds (4 Yugoslavs and me). But they loved us: ‘Oh! Here is our friend captain!’ I was a lieutenant commander (a captain). They spoke Russian a little, and I knew Yugoslavian a little, because in 1945, 5 Yugoslav's came to study in our School: 2 captains, a senior lieutenant, a lieutenant and a private. And I was appointed to show them Leningrad, to teach them Russian. We made friends. They were Mario Ostoich, Rade Stiela, and Tonko Zanetich. All of them were given Soviet uniform (they arrived in Yugoslavian uniform). I brought them round the city, taught them Russian. And they studied at our School, finished it and left for Yugoslavia. Therefore when I talked to Yugoslavs in the hospital, I already understood a lot of their words. I spent there about 20 days, and then my guys visited me and told me that they were going to leave for Vienna (Austria). ‘What shall we do with you?’ I answered ‘It’s enough, I am going to leave the hospital!’ The hospital command did not object: I was a Soviet officer, they gave me a certificate of health and I left.
But still I was sick. It lasted 2 months more, but not in a hospital. Therefore they gave me a holiday and I went to Simferopol, to my father’s. People working abroad had 45-day leave, in contrast to others (others had only 30 days). I reached Bucharest by transeuropean train Paris – Bucharest, and then I moved to Galatz, crossed the Soviet border and arrived in Izmail. [Galatz is the city-port on the Danube River in Romania.] We did not receive salary during a year, we had savings books. Therefore I arrived very hungry: I could not buy food, having no cash. First of all I went to the bank and received 22 thousand roubles. Rye-bread cost 16 copecks, white bread cost 9 copecks, sausage cost 2 roubles and 20 copecks per kilogram. I wore white uniform (it was summer), I was filling my pockets with money and people stared at me… A car waited for me, I ordered the driver to go to a restaurant. There I ordered meals for the driver and for myself. Then we went to buy a train ticket, and the next day morning I arrived in Odessa. I immediately went to the airport and on April 30 I was already in Simferopol in the face of my father. May 1st was my birthday.
Suddenly they called me and told that there came an order from Moscow to send me on Danube, to the Danube Military River Flotilla. ‘Very good!’ I got my documents and left for Izmail. [Izmail is a city on the Danube River near the Romanian border.] After my arrival they said ‘You go adroad for postwar creeping.’ Danube was stuffed with mines: Germans dropped them, Russians dropped, Americans and French did it. It meant that Danube was completely unsuitable for navigation: mines were everywhere. As for me I was an experienced specialist in creeping: I did it on the Black Sea and on the Azov Sea, too. On the Azov Sea I was blown up and thrown overboard, nearly died… And there it was necessary to creep all Danube long: through Germany, Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Romania, and Bulgaria. It was necessary to creep, and I was appointed for that job – I do not know for what sins or battle services. We were in the process of training for about a month, our commander estimated our achievements, taught us the way to behave (you know, in the USSR authorities always taught people how to behave), etc. And we started: from Germany to Bulgaria twenty two times! That means that we shuttled over each area 22 times, because Germans made special magnetic mines, which reacted only to the 22nd pass of a ship: the first ship passed by – nothing happened, the second one passed – nothing happened, and only the 22nd one caused explosion. That means that twenty one ships could pass over that dangerous place safe, and the 22nd one had to be lost. That is why we moved there and back over every area 22 times, and then passed on to the next one – again and again along the whole river. Only after we finished, navigation was opened.
Vienna was damaged greatly. In Budapest all five bridges across the Danube River were destroyed [editor's note: the interviewee is wrong, there were seven bridges across the Danube]; and in 1948 all of them were still in ruins down in the Danube; people used bridges of boats, though 4 years had passed since Hungary was liberated. Situation in Belgrad was better. In Belgrad they started to develop uninhabited islands in the mouth of Drava River: they arranged communist subbotniks [24] (they were all Communists), where millions of people worked under banners and flags to ‘build the best decoration of the Earth.’ They worked so enthusiastically! They were building new city. At present that place is very beautiful.
I saw Marshal Tito, Rankovich, Kardel, Milutinovich, and doctor Ribar: in fact, I saw all the Yugoslavian history. Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia followed our socialist way of development, except Yugoslavia. However hard Stalin tried to break them down, Tito went capitalist way. Therefore in Pravda Newspaper there appeared an article, signed by the CC [the Communist Party Central Committee] - we all knew that that signature meant Stalin himself, he wrote it personally (we recognized his style). It was titled ‘What is the future of the country leaded by the Anti-Communist Tito’s clique?’ There was a caricature: Tito holding an axe, and blood flows down from it. At that time the 5th congress of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia was held in Belgrad. And I was in Belgrad at that moment. In the streets there were tanks, portraits of Stalin and Tito, and slogans ‘Long live Marshal Tito! Long live comrade Stalin!’ Tito gave a five-hour report, I understood it a little (we learned their language), listening to the report by the radio.
Two weeks later they offered us to leave, to go home. By that time I moved from a flat in Belgrad to our ship (they ordered us to move). And as soon as we finished creeping, they ordered us to go home. So I witnessed to moment, when they separated from us, from the Communist International. And only Khrushchev [25] managed to renew contacts many years later. And other countries were with us. I visited Bratislava several times (the former Czechoslovakia), but I have never been to Prague. I have been to Budapest, Bucharest, Bulgaria, and Austria (in Vienna). I simply went there for a walk, when our ship moored there. And in Yugoslavia I managed to spend about 20 days in a hospital. In Novi Sad city there was a Hospital of Yugoslavian National Army - Hospital no.3. I caught cold, and had 22 furuncules and running temperature. I could not sit, lie down, I ate and slept upright. At first I was treated by our doctors, but it went from bad to worse, and they decided to send me to a hospital. They brought me there and left alone.
I was placed in the officer’s ward: 5 beds (4 Yugoslavs and me). But they loved us: ‘Oh! Here is our friend captain!’ I was a lieutenant commander (a captain). They spoke Russian a little, and I knew Yugoslavian a little, because in 1945, 5 Yugoslav's came to study in our School: 2 captains, a senior lieutenant, a lieutenant and a private. And I was appointed to show them Leningrad, to teach them Russian. We made friends. They were Mario Ostoich, Rade Stiela, and Tonko Zanetich. All of them were given Soviet uniform (they arrived in Yugoslavian uniform). I brought them round the city, taught them Russian. And they studied at our School, finished it and left for Yugoslavia. Therefore when I talked to Yugoslavs in the hospital, I already understood a lot of their words. I spent there about 20 days, and then my guys visited me and told me that they were going to leave for Vienna (Austria). ‘What shall we do with you?’ I answered ‘It’s enough, I am going to leave the hospital!’ The hospital command did not object: I was a Soviet officer, they gave me a certificate of health and I left.
But still I was sick. It lasted 2 months more, but not in a hospital. Therefore they gave me a holiday and I went to Simferopol, to my father’s. People working abroad had 45-day leave, in contrast to others (others had only 30 days). I reached Bucharest by transeuropean train Paris – Bucharest, and then I moved to Galatz, crossed the Soviet border and arrived in Izmail. [Galatz is the city-port on the Danube River in Romania.] We did not receive salary during a year, we had savings books. Therefore I arrived very hungry: I could not buy food, having no cash. First of all I went to the bank and received 22 thousand roubles. Rye-bread cost 16 copecks, white bread cost 9 copecks, sausage cost 2 roubles and 20 copecks per kilogram. I wore white uniform (it was summer), I was filling my pockets with money and people stared at me… A car waited for me, I ordered the driver to go to a restaurant. There I ordered meals for the driver and for myself. Then we went to buy a train ticket, and the next day morning I arrived in Odessa. I immediately went to the airport and on April 30 I was already in Simferopol in the face of my father. May 1st was my birthday.
Period
Location
Russia
Interview
Boris Lesman