The main event in the history of the cruiser Aurora is considered to be a blank shot, which became the signal for the storming of the Winter Palace during the Great October Socialist Revolution.

Much less is known about the main military event in the cruiser’s history—Aurora’s participation in the tragic Battle of Tsushima for the Russian fleet.

The Aurora is undoubtedly a lucky ship. The cruiser, whose technical characteristics were significantly inferior to the most modern ships of that time, not only managed to survive the battle, but also avoided the shameful participation of lowering the flag in front of the victorious enemy.

The ship, which was launched on May 24, 1900 in the presence of the Emperor Nicholas II and empresses Maria Feodorovna And Alexandra Fedorovna, was accepted into the Russian fleet in June 1903 and by the time the Russo-Japanese War was one of the newest.

The newest, but by no means the most advanced. The problems with the Aurora began at the design stage and never ended. The deadlines for the construction of the vessel were repeatedly missed, and when it came to testing, the engineers clutched their heads from the huge number of shortcomings and shortcomings. Due to the overload of state-owned shipyards in St. Petersburg, where the construction of the Aurora was underway, work on its construction was carried out in a hurry and at the same time with a lack of workers.

The Aurora's engines and boilers turned out to be unreliable, the cruiser never reached its planned speed, and there were many questions about the ship's armament.

Peter Pickart

The ship "Lefort". Unknown artist

I.K. Aivazovsky. "Wreck of a Ship"

K.V. Krugovikhin “The wreck of the ship “Ingermanland” on August 30, 1842 off the coast of Norway,” 1843.

I. K. Aivazovsky “The Ship “The Twelve Apostles.” 1897

First trip

Testing of the cruiser continued at the beginning of 1903, and a lot of time was still needed to bring the Aurora to fruition, but it was not there. The aggravated situation in the Far East required the immediate strengthening of the Pacific squadron, for which purpose it was formed in the Baltic special squad ships. The Navy Ministry intended to include the Aurora in this detachment, for which it was ordered to complete the tests as soon as possible.

On June 16, 1903, Aurora officially became part of the Russian imperial fleet and almost immediately was included in the rear admiral’s detachment Virenius, focusing on the Mediterranean Sea for the fastest route to Port Arthur.

September 25, 1903 "Aurora" under the command of captain 1st rank Sukhotin left the Great Kronstadt roadstead, going to join Virenius’s detachment.

The cruiser Aurora during trials on June 14, 1903. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

During this campaign, the Aurora encountered a lot of technical malfunctions, including further problems with the vehicles, which caused extreme dissatisfaction among the command. While in Suez, the crew was forced to fix problems with the steering gear. In Djibouti, on January 31, 1904, the Aurora received the news of the outbreak of war with Japan, and on February 2, the highest order to return to Russia.

The Aurora reached the Russian military base in Libau on April 5, 1904, where its first campaign ended.

The Aurora's ship's chaplain died from "friendly fire"

The military situation for Russia was developing unfavorably, and the Russian command decided to form the Second Pacific Squadron, which was to pass through three oceans and change the situation in the naval theater of military operations.

At Aurora, work was carried out to eliminate technical deficiencies and strengthen weapons. Captain 1st Rank became the new commander of the Aurora Evgeny Egoriev.

On October 2, 1904, the Second Pacific Squadron, in four separate echelons, left Libau to proceed to Far East. "Aurora" led the third echelon of ships consisting of the destroyers "Bezuprechny" and "Bodriy", the icebreaker "Ermak", the transports "Anadyr", "Kamchatka" and "Malaya". On October 7, the Russian ships were divided into small detachments. "Aurora" ended up in the 4th detachment under the command of Rear Admiral Oscar Enquist and was supposed to move together with the cruiser “Dmitry Donskoy” and the transport “Kamchatka”.

The tension that reigned on Russian ships led to the fact that in the North Sea, off the coast of Great Britain, the Russian squadron mistook fishing ships for enemy destroyers. In the ensuing chaos, Russian sailors fired not only at the fishermen, but also at each other.

As a result of such “friendly fire,” the Aurora was damaged, and the ship’s chaplain father Anastasy was mortally wounded.

Record holders for loading coal

The further hike was quite calm. The team on the Aurora was united, which was greatly facilitated by its commander.

Senior ship's officer doctor Kravchenko wrote in his diary: “The first impression of the Aurora is the most favorable. The crew is cheerful, vigorous, looks straight into the eyes, and not from under their brows, does not walk on the deck, but flies straight, carrying out orders. It's good to see all this. At first I was struck by the abundance of coal. There is a lot of it on the upper deck, and even more in the battery deck; three quarters of the wardroom are littered with it. The stuffiness is therefore unbearable, but the officers do not even think of losing heart and not only do not complain about the inconvenience, but, on the contrary, proudly informs me that until now their cruiser has been the first in loading, received the first bonuses and is generally in very good standing with the admiral.”

Leisure on the Aurora was provided by an amateur theater troupe of sailors and officers, whose performances were also highly appreciated by sailors from other ships.

The Aurora crew was also very strong in the matter of loading coal. So, on November 3, 1300 tons of coal were loaded onto the Aurora in unbearable heat at a rate of 71 tons per hour, which was the best result in the entire squadron. And in the last days of December 1904, with a new fuel load, the Aurora sailors broke their own record, showing a result of 84.8 tons of coal per hour.

If the mood of the crew and its preparation did not cause alarm in Captain Yegoriev, then the same could not be said about the ship itself. The infirmary and operating room were so poorly constructed that they were completely unusable in the tropics. It was necessary to adapt new premises and arrange possible protection for them from artillery fire. All provisions were concentrated in almost one place, and therefore, if this part of the ship were flooded, 600 people would be left without food. Much of this kind had to be corrected. On the upper deck, it was necessary to construct protection from the masts from wooden fragments from spare Bullivin anti-mine nets and traverses from the same nets with sailor's bunks to protect the servants of the guns. The internal wooden shields of the sides were broken and removed, which could produce a lot of fragments,” wrote the commander of the Aurora in March 1905, when the meeting with the enemy was already approaching.

The captain of the Aurora was one of the first to die

On May 1, 1905, the Second Pacific Squadron, after some reorganization and brief preparations, left the shores of Annam and headed for Vladivostok. "Aurora" took its place on the right outer side of the column of transports in the wake of the cruiser "Oleg". On May 10, in complete calm, the last coal loading took place; coal was accepted with the expectation of having a reserve at the entrance to the Korean Strait, which should have been enough to reach Vladivostok. Soon after the separation of the transports, the cruisers Oleg, Aurora, Dmitry Donskoy and Vladimir Monomakh, together with the third armored detachment, formed the left wake column.

On the night of May 14, 1905, the Russian squadron entered the Korean Strait, where Japanese ships were already waiting for it.

For the Aurora, the Battle of Tsushima began with a firefight with Japanese ships at 11:14. At the beginning of the battle, the Aurora supported with fire the cruiser Vladimir Monomakh, which was exchanging fire with the Japanese reconnaissance cruiser Izumi, forcing the latter to retreat.

With the appearance of the third and fourth Japanese detachments, which launched an attack on Russian transports, the Aurora, which was covering the transport ships, found itself under heavy enemy fire. The cruiser received the first damage.

But it was really hard for the crew of the Aurora around three o’clock in the afternoon, when the Japanese ships managed to get close and put the Russian cruisers in crossfire. The damage followed one after another; as a result of one of the hits, a fire started dangerously close to the bomb magazine, fraught with an explosion of ammunition. It was only thanks to the dedication of the Aurora sailors that the disaster was averted.

At 15:12, a 75-mm shell hit the front bridge ladder. Its fragments and debris from the ladder fell through the viewing slot into the wheelhouse and, reflected from its dome, scattered in different directions, injuring everyone in the wheelhouse. The commander of the Aurora, captain 1st rank Evgeny Romanovich Egoriev, received a fatal wound to the head and died soon after. One of the senior officers took command of the ship.

The crew did not drop the honor of the flag

Twenty minutes later, the Aurora barely dodged an enemy torpedo. The hit by a 203-mm Japanese shell led to holes, as a result of which the bow torpedo tube compartment was flooded.

Despite the losses and damage, the Aurora continued to fight. The ship's flag was knocked down by shrapnel six times, but Russian sailors put it back in place.

At about half past four in the evening, the Russian cruisers found themselves covered from Japanese fire by a column of Russian battleships, which gave the Aurora crew time to catch their breath.

The artillery battle finally ended around seven in the evening. The defeat of the Russian squadron was obvious. The surviving ships did not maintain their overall formation and control; the remaining part of the squadron left the battlefield, literally in all directions.

By the evening of May 14, its commander Evgeny Yegoriev, as well as nine sailors, died on the Aurora. Five more sailors died from their wounds. 8 officers and 74 lower ranks were injured.

By ten in the evening, Admiral Enquist’s cruising detachment consisted of three ships - in addition to the Aurora, they were Oleg and Zhemchug. In the dark, Japanese destroyers tried to attack Russian ships, and Aurora had to evade Japanese torpedoes more than ten times during the night of May 14-15.

Admiral Enquist He tried several times to turn the cruisers towards Vladivostok, but the Japanese blocked the way, and the naval commander no longer believed in the possibility of a breakthrough.

The dead were buried at sea

As a result, the cruisers headed southwest, leaving Korea Strait and breaking away from the enemy destroyers.

The night was hot for the Aurora doctors: those who, in the heat of battle, did not pay attention to their wounds, flocked to the infirmary. Those remaining in the ranks were engaged in minor repairs, awaiting new attacks by the Japanese.

During the time Battle of Tsushima The Aurora fired 303 152mm, 1282 75mm and 320 37mm shells at the enemy.

At noon on May 15, Admiral Enquist and his headquarters moved to the Aurora, taking command of the cruiser that had lost its commander. At about four o'clock in the afternoon, the sailors who died and died from wounds were buried at sea; Captain Yegoryev's body was going to be buried on the shore.

Two hours later, a military squadron was spotted from the Aurora, which was initially mistaken for Japanese, but the ships turned out to be American - the Philippine port of Manila was under US control. On the same day, the Aurora and other Russian ships dropped anchor in the port of Manila.

Damage to the Aurora received in the Battle of Tsushima. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

Hostages of Manila

The United States officially took a neutral position in the Russo-Japanese War, but secretly expressed support for Japan. Therefore, on May 24, the American Admiral Tran received a directive from Washington - Russian ships must either disarm or leave the port within 24 hours.

Admiral Enquist requested St. Petersburg and received the following response: “In view of the need to repair the damage, I authorize you to give an undertaking to the American government not to participate in hostilities. Nikolai."

In this situation, this decision was the only correct one - the damaged Russian ships could no longer change the situation that arose after the defeat at Tsushima. The war was coming to a disappointing conclusion for Russia, and it was already pointless to demand new sacrifices from the sailors.

On May 26, 1905, the Aurora crew gave the American administration a subscription not to participate in further hostilities, and the gun locks were removed from the cruiser and handed over to the American arsenal. The war for the crews of Russian ships is over.

40 wounded from the Aurora were sent to an American hospital. A few days later, hired local workers began repairing the cruiser.

Return

The longer the forced stay in Manila continued, the more discipline on the Aurora fell. News of revolutionary unrest in Russia caused unrest among the lower ranks, which the officers, with difficulty, managed to calm down.

Repairs to the Aurora were completed in August 1905, shortly before the peace treaty between Russia and Japan was signed in Portsmouth. Russian ships began preparing to return home. A captain of the 2nd rank was appointed as the new commander of the Aurora. Barsch.

On October 10, 1905, after the final approval of the Russian-Japanese treaty by the parties, official Washington lifted all restrictions on the actions of Russian ships.

On the morning of October 15, the Aurora, as part of a detachment of ships that were ordered to return to the Baltic, headed for Russia.

The return journey was also long. The Aurora celebrated New Year 1906 in the Red Sea, where it received orders to proceed to Russia on its own. At the same time, 83 sailors from the cruiser "Oleg" who were subject to demobilization came on board. After this, the Aurora turned into a real “demobilization cruiser” - from the crew of the Aurora itself, about 300 lower ranks had to be demobilized upon returning to Russia.

At the beginning of February 1906, while staying in Cherbourg, France, an incident occurred that prophetically indicated the future glory of the Aurora as a ship of the revolution. The French police received information that the ship's crew had purchased a batch of revolvers for revolutionaries in Russia. The search on the Aurora, however, did not yield any results, and the cruiser continued its journey home.

On February 19, 1906, the Aurora dropped anchor in the port of Libau, completing the longest military campaign in its history, which lasted 458 days.

On March 10, 1906, after the dismissal of all sailors subject to demobilization, just over 150 people remained in the cruiser’s crew. Aurora was transferred to the fleet reserve.

There were 11 and a half years left before the main shot of the cruiser...

Low October sky over the silent northern city and the slender silhouette of a warship waiting for something... For more than 100 years, many representatives of the bourgeoisie and ruling circles All countries shudder from this picture. The armored cruiser Aurora, born at the beginning of the turbulent twentieth century, received the same turbulent biography.

The ship has not fought very many wars, but it has seen three wars, and its victories are those that would be enough for an entire fleet. “Aurora” is a ship that, in one shot, paved the way for a new historical era.

Marine reinforcement projects

Aurora is the goddess of the dawn. The romantic name given to the cruiser strangely predetermined the fate of his country. “Aurora” was born at the junction of eras. It was created for a time determined to divide by force an already divided world. But in fact, the cruiser launched the era of elevating those who were previously nothing to the top of the social ladder.

New cruisers, including the Aurora, were built as part of the military program to strengthen the Russian fleet in 1895. There were objective reasons for the arms race - Russia had information about the build-up of the Japanese fleet, and it was necessary to prevent foreign dominance in the Baltic Sea.

A future world war was in the air. The Triple Alliance had already been created, the process of forming the Entente began (in 1895 the Franco-Russian alliance was concluded). Spheres of influence had to be won from competitors - there were no more free places on the planet.

As part of the fleet strengthening program, it was planned to build 3 armored cruisers of the 1st rank. All of them received ancient names - “Diana”, “Pallada” and “Aurora”. Why they were called that is unclear, but the king personally gave the order.

Their laying took place in May 1897, on the same day, although construction did not proceed simultaneously. “Aurora” was considered a laggard - work on its construction was constantly behind schedule.

Technical characteristics and disadvantages of the ship

The design of the Aurora ship assumed that the cruiser would become a worthy rival to enemy ships. The description of its characteristics looked convincing for its time:

1. Dimensions: draft – 6.2-6.4 m; width – 16.8 m; length – 126.7 m.
2. Normal displacement is 6731 tons, full displacement is 7130 tons.
3. Personnel – 570 people (including 20 officers). Crew numbers varied slightly during service.
4. Power point included three steam engines, each of which drove its own propeller. The total power was almost 12 thousand hp.
5. The design speed was supposed to be up to 20 knots; in fact, the cruiser did not develop more than 19.2 knots.
6. The cruiser's initial armament consisted of eight 152 mm/45 Kane guns, 24 75 mm Kane anti-mine guns (barrel length 50 calibers), and auxiliary artillery (eight 37 mm guns). To support the landing, there were two 63.5 mm Baranovsky cannons on wheeled carriages on board. Additionally, three 381 mm torpedo tubes were installed (one in the bow and one on each side). In 1904, the cruiser was equipped with a pair of 7.62 mm Maxim system machine guns.
7. The ship's protection consisted of an armored deck with a thickness of 38 to 63.5 mm. The thickenings of the sheets were located above the critical sections of the structure. The command post was located in the conning tower, which had protection 152 mm thick. The shields installed later on the main caliber had a thickness of 25.4 mm.
8. Cruising range in economy mode is 4000 miles.

But in these beautiful numbers there are tricks lurking. A speed of 20 knots was insufficient for a cruiser at that time (the same Varyag, according to the project, was supposed to produce 23 knots, and Askold showed 24.5 knots in tests). Tests have shown that the ship cannot even achieve this indicator - speeds above 19.2 knots were not recorded.

The cruiser's guns were deprived of armor protection. This drawback, however, was corrected before the ship entered the first battle - conclusions were drawn from the unfortunate fate of the same “Varyag”.

During the construction and service of the cruiser, changes were made to its weapons system. For example, the number of torpedo tubes was changed during the construction process - there were three instead of one. Significant changes were made during the First World War.

Ceremonial start of the service

The laying and launching of the Aurora took place in a solemn atmosphere. Delays in the production of work did not affect this.

The cruiser left the slipway (in May 1900) in the presence of Nicholas II and two empresses - the dowager and the reigning empress.

The further progress of the work went worse. Completion and sea trials of the ship took another three years, and the cruiser entered service only in June 1903. The first trip to sea took place even later - in September of the same year.

As part of the squadron of Admiral Virenius, the ship visited the ports North Africa(Algeria, Suez). The trip revealed shortcomings and defects of steam engines, which had to be eliminated by the team and coastal specialists.

And then the ship’s history began to develop mysteriously. “Aurora” turned out to be both a failure and a phenomenal lucky one. She was constantly exposed to minor vicissitudes of fate, but remained relatively unscathed in serious trials.

Lucky of the Battle of Tsushima

The ship's first campaign was the Russo-Japanese War. And the cruiser’s biography strangely reflected the peculiarities of Russia’s position in this war. The Aurora became part of the squadron immediately upon its return to the Baltic.

The cruiser became one of the few ships in the squadron that had long-distance voyage experience.

At the same time, a change of commander occurs - he becomes captain 1st rank E.R. Egoriev.

The Aurora learned about the beginning of the war in the Far East on January 31, 1904, while staying in Djibouti. At the same time, an order to return was received. In April 1904, the ship returned to Kronstadt, and was immediately included in the squadron of Admiral Rozhestvensky, who was going to fight Japan.

The campaign began with a bad omen. On October 7, while passing by the British Isles, the squadron encountered fog. In conditions of poor visibility, the sailors confused the fishing ships and their own squadron comrades with the enemy and began shooting. At sea, such things are sarcastically called "friendly fire." There were casualties, and the ship's priest died on the Aurora.

This event, called the Ghull Incident, led to a major international scandal. And the squadron went to further path with bad advice. Her journey ended near the island of Tsushima.

Winner in a lost battle

The Battle of Tsushima was a disaster for the Russian fleet. But not for the cruiser Aurora. He took part in the battle, but remained afloat and escaped capture.

Admiral Rozhdestvensky, among his other mistakes, lined up the squadron incorrectly. As a result, many cruisers, including the Aurora, were unable to immediately enter the battle and help their own at the initial stage. But then the ship entered the battle and bravely resisted the attacks of Japanese cruisers on the transport ships of the Russian squadron. The flag on it was knocked down 6 times, but the team raised it again.

The ship received serious damage, but retained the ability to move independently.

At one point in the battle, the ammunition on it caught fire, but the serving sailors managed to prevent the ammunition from exploding. The cruiser managed to reach the Philippines under its own power, where it was interned by the US military. But the team was allowed to carry out repair work.

Personnel losses were significant. 10 people were killed, another 5 later died from their wounds. There were 80 people wounded. But bad luck happened here too - the only thing dead officer turned out to be captain 1st rank E.R. Egoriev, commander of the cruiser.

He was one of the first to die, and the cruiser fought under the command of first the senior navigator, and then senior officer A.K. Nebolsina.

Revenge for neglect

It turned out that near Tsushima, the Aurora took revenge in a unique way on the squadron commander, Admiral Rozhestvensky, for neglect. The squadron commander came up with various, often offensive, nicknames for all the ships of his formation. He did not hesitate to call the ships “Idiots” and “Sneaks” out loud. He especially “loved” “Aurora,” probably because of her feminine name. Therefore, in his vocabulary, a cruiser was designated as a sub-fence... lady with low social responsibility.

At the same time, unbiased eyewitnesses noted that the cruiser makes a good impression, the crew is hardworking and efficient, and order reigns everywhere.

The ship showed particular skill in loading coal and always had fuel in reserve.

Fate restored justice. The Aurora team near Tsushima showed itself with the best side, having withstood a decently dangerous battle and managed to save the ship. And Rozhdestvensky at the very beginning of the battle practically lost control over its course. After the end of the war, he was put on trial for unprofessionalism, which led to the death of the squadron, and was found guilty.

Fleet Rescue Service

Upon returning to Russia in 1906, the Aurora was put in for repairs - the work was not completed in Manila. During the work, the armament was changed - all the useless 37 mm artillery was removed, leaving only two installations on the boats, and two 75 mm guns were removed. Two more 75 mm guns were removed, and 152 mm guns were installed instead. A relic of the sailing fleet—the combat tops—disappeared, as well as the onboard torpedo tubes. Fire extinguishing systems and armor have undergone modifications.

Between the Russo-Japanese War and World War I, the Aurora performed somewhat unusual duties for a warship. Her team had to act as rescuers and firefighters.

In 1908, during an overseas raid, the ship's crew provided assistance to Italians affected by the famous Messina earthquake. In Italy, the help of Russian sailors was highly appreciated, and in 1910 they invited the cruiser to Messina in order to present the captain with a commemorative medal of honor.

But when the Aurora arrived in the city, a large fire suddenly started there. The cruiser's crew turned out to be more efficient than the Italian firefighters and were the first to begin extinguishing the fire.
The Messinians did not have a second medal, and they expressed their gratitude in the form of 1800 oranges and the same number of lemons. With this pleasant cargo, the Aurora went to the Spanish port of Malaga, and well, a fire broke out there too, which the cruiser’s crew also struggled with.

The time free from rescue activities was devoted to diplomacy.

“Aurora” took part in the celebrations of the coronation of the monarch of Siam (1911), transported Grand Duke Boris Vladimirovich from Italy, and was part of a squadron demonstrating international support for Crete. An important component of the ship's service between the wars were training trips with students Marine Corps.

World War at an Inexpensive Price

Formally, the cruiser fought throughout the First World War - the Aurora was part of the 2nd Cruiser Brigade. But there were few real battles during this period. One of the few combat episodes was patrolling the site of the accident of the German cruiser Magdeburg.

As part of the brigade, the Aurora went on cruising patrols. But she had to take part in battles infrequently (mainly in the 1916 campaign).

At the beginning of the war, the ship was equipped with rails and a hangar for storing 150 mines. The composition of the weapons was also changed - 16 75 mm guns, which had become useless in battle, disappeared, and the openings in the sides were sealed. Instead, they installed four six-inch guns, borrowed from Diana. In the summer of 1915, new at that time “anti-aircraft” guns of 40 mm (one barrel) and 75 mm (four pieces) caliber were installed on the ship.

But in the fall of 1916 it was put under repair, and the imperialist war de facto ended for the Aurora.

Less attractive target

The World War again demonstrated the strange luck of the ship. Similar interesting facts mark his entire biography.

During the First World War, the Aurora did not receive significant damage.

But her “sister” “Pallada” sank in a few seconds from being hit by a torpedo from a German submarine.

Similar luck accompanied the ship during the Great Patriotic War. Patriotic War. The number of his crew at the start of the war was only 260 people, then it was further reduced (sailors were sent to the front from an outdated ship). But still it had 10 130 mm guns, 2 76.2 mm anti-aircraft guns, two general purpose guns of the same caliber, 3 45 mm guns. In July, as the enemy approached Leningrad, 9 out of 10 main caliber guns were brought ashore in the Duderhof area.

They were served by Auror sailors. The guns were called battery "A" (from the name of the cruiser). From the beginning of September 1941, the battery actively attacked the approaching enemy. On the 11th of the same month, she was attacked by the enemy, but held out for 8 days, and the sailors, due to a lack of ammunition, tried to damage the guns. Of the 165 battery personnel, only 25 survived the battle.

The cruiser itself was part of Oranienbaum's air defense system. Data on the results of its activities are inaccurate, but there is information that the Aurora managed to shoot down enemy aircraft.

At the same time, the Nazis did not pay much attention to her - just think, an ancient cruiser! And these are Nazis who understand the importance of ideology and the moral factor, dreaming of a symbolic parade on Red Square! For some reason they did not realize that the moral impact of the sinking of the Aurora on the Red Army and the citizens of the USSR would be no less than that of the fall of Moscow!

Of course, the ship was fired upon. The Aurora had been under fire (air and artillery) since mid-September. She received significant damage and even sat down on the ground. The commander, Captain 3rd Rank Sakov, decided to take the team ashore at the end of the month, but was arrested and shot “for alarmism.”

The team stayed on the cruiser until November, and then only the watch at the anti-aircraft gun was left.

However, the damage to the cruiser was not so serious that it sank. After the end of the blockade, the Aurora was removed from the ground and put in for repairs in 1944.

Signalman of a new era

Children of the USSR listened to stories about the cruiser "Aurora" already in kindergarten. The reason was good - the ship was associated with the beginning of the revolution and was its recognized symbol.

Revolutionary sentiments arose on the ship even during the first Russian revolution, during the stay in the Philippines and immediately after returning to Russia. But then the officers managed to reassure the sailors by promising them quick demobilization (this was fulfilled) and familiarizing them with the tsar’s manifesto of October 17. But the second revolution changed the situation.

During the start February Revolution In 1917, the cruiser was under repair near the Admiralty plant. The sailors decided to support the strike that began there. But the commander, M.I. Nikolsky, had a different point of view. When the sailors did not obey his order and tried to go ashore, he began to shoot at them with a revolver.

The matter ended badly - the rebel crew killed the captain. The riot also killed another officer. But this does not mean that anarchy has reigned on the Aurora. The commanders were now elected by the ship's committee, but the cruiser remained fully operational.

Otherwise, the Provisional Revolutionary Committee would not have instructed him to fire a shot on the evening of October 24, 1917, to signal preparations for the assault on the Winter Palace. To do this, it was necessary to move away from the factory pier and walk along the river, which would not have been possible without proper leadership and well-coordinated work of the team. The Aurora sailors also carried out work to demolish the Nikolaevsky Bridge, which had been erected by the cadets.

Kill shot at the past

A single shot near the Winter Palace immediately turned the Aurora into the most famous ship in the world. Many legends are told about him. Soviet power considered it the starting point of a new historical era. After the collapse of the USSR, the Aurora gun was denounced as a criminal who dared to shoot at the cultural heritage of humanity. But few people know the details about this event.

It was supposed to serve as a signal for the beginning of the final stage of the Bolshevik seizure of power. But not to storm the Winter Palace. The assault began later, and the cannon only transmitted the “combat readiness” signal.

It did not cause any damage to the Winter Palace building. By the time the revolution began in February, the ship was being repaired, and the military shells had been unloaded from it. Later they were not loaded due to revolutionary sentiments in the team.

The shot was blank and could not cause destruction! The goal was to capture the palace, not to destroy or damage it.

The long odyssey of the symbol of revolution

After its legendary shot, the Aurora remained in service. In addition to participating in the Great Patriotic War, she managed to accomplish many more glorious deeds and play many controversial roles.

1. In 1923, the Aurora was re-equipped. The 152mm main caliber was replaced by 130mm artillery.
2. The cruiser sailed around the Scandinavian Peninsula in 1924 and arrived in Murmansk under a red flag. It had the same effect on other countries then as it might have on a bull in a bullfight.
3. Since 1928, the Aurora became a training ship - at first underway, then (since 1935) laid up.
4. The ship is the star of the screen. He played himself in the film “October” (1927) and “Varyag” (1946). For the sake of the last role, he was given an additional fake pipe (Aurora had 3 of them, and Varyag had 4). USSR animators created the cartoon “Aurora” even for the youngest viewers. It is now forgotten, but the song from it continues to sound: “The waves are steep, the storms are gray, such is the fate of the ships”...
5. In 1948, Aurora became the residence of graduates of the Nakhimov School. Joining the cruiser's crew meant for them last stage preparation. At the same time, the Aurora became laid up on the Bolshaya Nevka. It was assumed that she would never leave this parking lot, but today changed the situation.
6. In 1956, a museum was opened on the ship - a branch of the Naval Museum.
7. Aurora was awarded the Order of the Red Banner and the Order of the October Revolution. The second award is all the more appropriate since the image of the cruiser is its most important part.
8. The cruiser was depicted on the 1967 commemorative coins dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the revolution.
9. After the collapse of the USSR, the cruiser turned into a recreation area for the “new” city leadership. This was not prevented even by the raising of St. Andrew's flag over it in 1992. But the ugliness did not last long. In 2010, Aurora finally acquired museum status. The ship is an object of Russian cultural heritage.

Evil tongues say that the current ship has nothing in common with the Aurora that fought near Tsushima and fired at Zimny. They say that numerous alterations turned it into a copy. Really, old ship could not survive 100 years without major renovations. In addition to the mentioned upgrades, the cruiser's wooden parts and the metal plating of the underwater part were completely replaced (they rotted from time to time).

After being permanently parked, the running machinery and boilers were removed from it, and a significant part of the equipment was replaced with copies. The cruiser's guns are also copies - they only reflect the features of its original weapons. The guns were specially manufactured according to old drawings and installed on the cruiser for the sake of historical authenticity.

But it doesn't matter. Now “Aurora” is not a combat unit, but a symbol. Her historical significance- not in the age of the metal and the reliability of the equipment, but in the actions performed by the crew of this ship.

Today, its appearance is quite consistent with the historical one.

You can verify this by looking at the surviving photographs showing the Aurora from the time of the war with Japan and the campaign to Messina.

Veterans do not grow old at heart

You can have different attitudes towards the communist idea and the USSR. But there was something in the historical shot of the Aurora that does not allow the old ship to be relegated to the repository of history.

The whole world today knows where the cruiser Aurora is located and what it looks like. For 100 years the scale of any historical event compared to his shot. Among the symbols of St. Petersburg, the Aurora ship is the youngest, but at the same time the most recognizable.

The silhouette of the cruiser is decorated with the Order of the October Revolution, which veterans of the Great Patriotic War and many of the most important industrial enterprises are justifiably proud of. The older generation of Russians will never forget the purest young voice, the embodiment of their happy childhood: “What do you dream about, the cruiser Aurora, at the hour when morning rises over the Neva?”

In 2014, it was put under another renovation. Defense Minister S. Shoigu stated at the same time that, among other things, the cruiser would be given back running vehicles that had long since been replaced by mock-ups. Having exchanged the second century of age, “Aurora” is again ready to weigh anchor.

Every year on Navy Day, the old cruiser hosts a parade of Baltic ships - the unsinkable flagship of an invincible country.

Having officially become a museum, the Aurora has not lost its status as a warship - there are no contradictions here.

"Aurora" will not leave the city on the Neva. Maybe she has changed since her legendary shot. But the cruiser continues to symbolize the same idea - the fight for respect for work and working people. Patrols in black pea coats with a menacing name on their peaked caps are ready to come after those who profit unjustly and are greedy beyond measure. Is this what the old cruiser is dreaming about now?

Video

Haven't you heard about this? Let's find out where the legs of these conversations come from. First, let's remember the history of this warship.

For several generations of Soviet (and not only Soviet) people, the name of this cruiser became a kind of fetish. The legendary ship, which with its salvo heralded the onset of a new era in the history of mankind, the symbol of the Great October Socialist Revolution, is the most widely replicated cliché. What is the actual history of the cruiser Aurora?

At the end of the 19th century, the Russian navy grew and was replenished with new ships. According to the classification of that time, there was such a subclass of cruisers - armored cruisers, that is, having an armored deck to protect the vital parts of the ship from mounted fire from enemy artillery. Armored cruisers did not carry side armor and were not intended for duels with battleships. It was to this type of warship that the cruiser Aurora, laid down on May 23, 1897 in St. Petersburg (at the New Admiralty), was of the same type as the previously laid down Pallada and Diana.

In the Russian fleet there was (and still is) a tradition of continuity of ship names, and new cruisers inherited the names of sailing frigates. Construction of the ship took more than six years - the Aurora was launched on May 11, 1900 at 11:15 a.m., and the cruiser entered the fleet (after completion of all outfitting work) only on July 16, 1903.

This ship was by no means unique in its combat qualities. The cruiser could not boast of a particularly fast speed (only 19 knots - squadron battleships of that time reached a speed of 18 knots), or weapons (8 six-inch main caliber guns - far from amazing firepower). Ships of another type then adopted by the Russian fleet ("Bogatyr") armored cruisers were much faster and one and a half times stronger. And the attitude of the officers and crews towards these “domestic-made goddesses” was not too warm - the Diana-class cruisers had a lot of shortcomings and constantly arising technical problems.

Nevertheless, these cruisers fully corresponded to their intended purpose - reconnaissance, destruction of enemy merchant ships, covering battleships from attacks by enemy destroyers, patrol service - having a solid (about seven thousand tons) displacement and, as a result, good seaworthiness and autonomy . With a full supply of coal (1430 tons), the Aurora could reach from Port Arthur to Vladivostok and return without additional bunkering.

All three cruisers were intended for the Pacific Ocean, where a military conflict with Japan was brewing, and the first two of them were already in the Far East by the time the Aurora entered service as active ships. The third sister also hurried to her relatives, and on September 25, 1903 (just a week after staffing, which ended on September 18), the Aurora with a crew of 559 people under the command of Captain 1st Rank I.V. Sukhotin left Kronstadt.

Armored cruiser "Aurora", 1903

In the Mediterranean Sea, the Aurora joined the detachment of Rear Admiral A. A. Virenius, which consisted of the squadron battleship Oslyabya, the cruiser Dmitry Donskoy and several destroyers and auxiliary ships. However, the detachment was late for the Far East - in the African port of Djibouti, on Russian ships they learned about the Japanese night attack on the Port Arthur squadron and about the beginning of the war. It was considered too risky to proceed further, since the Japanese fleet was blockading Port Arthur, and there was a high probability of meeting with superior enemy forces on the way to it. A proposal was made to send a detachment of Vladivostok cruisers to the Singapore area to meet Virenius and go with them to Vladivostok, and not to Port Arthur, but this quite reasonable proposal was not accepted.

On April 5, 1904, the Aurora returned to Kronstadt, where it was included in the 2nd Pacific Squadron under the command of Vice Admiral Rozhestvensky, which was preparing to march to the Far Eastern theater of operations. Here, six of the eight main caliber guns were covered with armor shields - the experience of the battles of the Arthurian squadron showed that fragments of high-explosive Japanese shells literally mowed down an unprotected personnel. In addition, the commander of the cruiser was changed - he became captain 1st rank E.R. Egoriev. On October 2, 1904, as part of the Aurora squadron, it set off for the second time - to Tsushima.

Admiral Rozhdestvensky was, let's say, an original personality. And among the many “quirks” of the admiral was the following - he had the habit of giving the warships entrusted to him nicknames that were very far from examples of fine literature. Thus, the cruiser "Admiral Nakhimov" was called "Idiot", the battleship "Sisoy the Great" - "Invalid Shelter", and so on. The squadron included two ships with female names- former yacht "Svetlana" and "Aurora". The commander nicknamed the first cruiser “The Maid,” and “Aurora” was awarded the completely obscene title “Fence Prostitute.” If Rozhdestvensky knew what ship he calls so disrespectfully!

Damage to the bow of the cruiser Aurora in the Battle of Tsushima, June 1905

"Aurora" was part of the detachment of cruisers of Rear Admiral Enquist and during the Battle of Tsushima conscientiously carried out Rozhdestvensky's order - it covered the transports. This task was clearly beyond the capabilities of four Russian cruisers, against which first eight and then sixteen Japanese cruisers acted. They were saved from heroic death only by the fact that a column of Russian battleships accidentally approached them and drove away the advancing enemy.

in the Battle of Tsushima, the Aurora fired 303 152 mm, 1282 75 mm and 320 37 mm shells at the enemy. During the battle, the cruiser received 18 hits from shells of various calibers, but she managed to escape from the encirclement and go to Manila, where she remained disarmed until the end of the war.

The cruiser did not distinguish itself in anything special in battle - the author of the damage attributed to the Aurora by Soviet sources that it received Japanese cruiser"Izumi" was actually the cruiser "Vladimir Monomakh". The Aurora itself received about a dozen hits, had a number of damage and serious losses in people - up to a hundred people killed and wounded. The commander died - his photograph is now on display in the cruiser's museum, framed by a steel plating sheet pierced by shrapnel from a Japanese shell and charred deck planks.

1st rank cruiser "Aurora" on the roadstead of Manila after the Battle of Tsushima, June 1905

At night, instead of protecting the wounded Russian ships from the furious mine attacks of the Japanese, the cruisers Oleg, Aurora and Zhemchug broke away from their main forces and headed to the Philippines, where they were interned in Manila. However, there is no reason to accuse the cruiser’s crew of cowardice - responsibility for fleeing the battlefield lay with the confused Admiral Enquist. Two of these three ships subsequently perished: the Pearl was sunk in 1914 by the German corsair Emden in Penang, and the Oleg was sunk by the British in 1919. torpedo boats in the Gulf of Finland.

The Aurora returned to the Baltic at the beginning of 1906, along with several other ships that survived the Japanese defeat. In 1909-1910, "Aurora", together with "Diana" and "Bogatyr", was part of a detachment of foreign voyages, specially designed for internship by midshipmen of the Naval Corps and the Marine Corps. Engineering School, as well as students of the Training Team of Combat Non-Commissioned Officers.

Cruiser "Aurora". Holes in the area of ​​the 75-mm gun No. 7 on the starboard side, June 1905

The Aurora crew did not participate in saving the residents of Messina from the consequences of the 1908 earthquake, but the Russian sailors from the Aurora received a medal for this feat from the grateful residents of the city when the cruiser visited this Sicilian port in February 1911. And in November 1911, Aurors took part in celebrations in Bangkok in honor of the coronation of the Siamese king.

In 1910, the cruiser accompanied the imperial yacht to Riga.

“At the end of the first hour, the Imperial yacht “Standart”, sailing in the wake of the cruiser “Aurora”, began to slowly approach its mooring site opposite the Tsar’s pier. At exactly 2 o'clock in the afternoon the Imperial yacht came to anchor. The sounds of music were heard from the military vessels accompanying the yacht. Bells were ringing in the city.”
Newspaper "Rizhsky Vestnik", July 5, 1910

The cruiser underwent its first modernization after the Russo-Japanese War, and the second, after which it took on its current appearance, in 1915. The ship's artillery armament was strengthened - the number of 152-mm main caliber guns was first increased to ten, and then to fourteen. Numerous 75-mm artillery was dismantled - the size and survivability of the destroyers increased, and three-inch shells no longer posed a serious danger to them.

The cruiser was able to take on board up to 150 mines - mine weapons were widely used in the Baltic and proved their effectiveness. And in the winter of 1915-1916, a new product was installed on the Aurora - anti-aircraft guns. But the glorious cruiser might not have lived to see the second modernization...

Armored cruiser "Aurora" in 1916

First World War"Aurora" met the second brigade of cruisers of the Baltic Fleet (together with "Oleg", "Bogatyr" and "Diana"). The Russian command expected a breakthrough of the powerful German High Seas Fleet into the Gulf of Finland and an attack on Kronstadt and even St. Petersburg. To counter this threat, mines were hastily laid and a Central Mine and Artillery Position was set up. The cruiser was entrusted with the task of carrying out patrol duty at the mouth of the Gulf of Finland in order to promptly notify of the appearance of German dreadnoughts.

The cruisers went out on patrol in pairs, and after the patrol period expired, one pair replaced the other. The Russian ships achieved their first success on August 26, when the German light cruiser Magdeburg landed on rocks near the island of Odensholm. The cruisers "Pallada" (the older sister of the "Aurora" died in Port Arthur, and this new "Pallada" was built after the Russian-Japanese War) and the "Bogatyr" arrived in time and tried to capture the helpless enemy ship. Although the Germans managed to blow up their cruiser, at the scene of the accident Russian divers found secret German codes, which served both the Russians and the British well during the war.

But a new danger awaited the Russian ships - in October, German submarines began operating in the Baltic Sea. Anti-submarine defense in the fleets of the whole world was then in its infancy - no one knew how and with what it was possible to hit the invisible enemy hiding under water, and how to avoid its surprise attacks. There were no traces of diving shells, much less depth charges or sonars. Surface ships could only rely on a good old ram - after all, one should not take seriously the anecdotal instructions that were developed, which instructed to cover spotted periscopes with bags and roll them up with sledgehammers.

On October 11, 1914, at the entrance to the Gulf of Finland, the German submarine U-26, under the command of Lieutenant Commander von Berkheim, discovered two Russian cruisers: the Pallada, which was finishing its patrol service, and the Aurora, which had come to replace it. The commander of the German submarine, with German pedantry and scrupulousness, assessed and classified the targets - in all respects, the new armored cruiser was a much more tempting prey than a veteran of the Russian-Japanese War.

The torpedo hit caused the detonation of the ammunition magazines on the Pallada, and the cruiser sank along with the entire crew - only a few sailor caps remained on the waves...

"Aurora" turned around and took refuge in the skerries. And again, one should not accuse Russian sailors of cowardice - as already mentioned, they did not yet know how to fight submarines, and the Russian command already knew about the tragedy that happened ten days earlier in the North Sea, where german boat sank three English ships at once armored cruisers. "Aurora" escaped destruction for the second time - fate was clearly protecting the cruiser.

There is no need to dwell too much on the role of the Aurora in the events of October 1917 in Petrograd - more than enough has been said about this. Let us only note that the threat to shoot the Winter Palace from the cruiser’s guns was pure bluff. The cruiser was undergoing repairs, and therefore all the ammunition was unloaded from it in full accordance with the current instructions. And the stamp “Aurora salvo” is purely grammatically incorrect, since a “volley” is simultaneously fired shots from at least two barrels.

The Aurora did not take part in the civil war or battles with the English fleet. An acute shortage of fuel and other supplies led to the fact that the Baltic Fleet was reduced to the size of a bunker - an "active detachment" - consisting of only a few combat units. The Aurora was put into reserve, and in the fall of 1918, some of the cruiser’s guns were removed for installation on homemade gunboats of river and lake flotillas.

At the end of 1922, the Aurora - by the way, the only ship of the old imperial Russian fleet that retained its name given to it at birth - it was decided to restore it as a training ship. The cruiser was repaired, ten 130-mm guns were installed on it instead of the previous 6-inch ones, two anti-aircraft guns and four machine guns, and on July 18, 1923 the ship began sea trials.

Then, for ten years - from 1923 to 1933 - the cruiser was engaged in a task that was already familiar to him: cadets of naval schools were practicing on board. The ship made several overseas voyages and took part in the maneuvers of the newly revived Baltic Fleet. But the years took their toll, and due to the poor condition of the boilers and mechanisms, the Aurora, after another repair in 1933-1935, became a non-propelled training base. In winter, it was used as a floating base for submarines.

During the Great Patriotic War, the old cruiser stood in the harbor of Oranienbaum.

The ship’s guns were once again removed, and nine of its “one hundred and thirty” mounted on a coastal battery defended the approaches to the city. The Germans did not pay much attention to the decrepit veteran, seeking first to incapacitate the best soviet ships(such as the cruiser "Kirov"), however, the ship still received its share of enemy shells. On September 30, 1941, the half-sunken cruiser, damaged as a result of artillery shelling, sat on the ground.

The cruiser "Aurora" in Oranienbaum, 1942

But the ship again - for the third time in its more than forty-year history - survived. After the blockade of Leningrad was lifted in July 1944, the cruiser was brought out of the state of clinical death - raised from the ground and (for the umpteenth time!) put in for repairs. The boilers and onboard engines, propellers, brackets for the side shafts and the shafts themselves, as well as some of the auxiliary mechanisms, were removed from the Aurora. They installed the weapons that were on the ship in 1915 - fourteen 152-mm Kane guns and four 45-mm salute guns.

Now the cruiser was to become a monument ship and at the same time a training base for the Nakhimov School. In 1948, the repairs were completed, and the restored Aurora stood where it stands to this day - on the Petrogradskaya embankment opposite the building of the Nakhimov School. And in 1956, a Ship Museum was opened on board the Aurora as a branch of the Central Naval Museum.

The Aurora ceased to be a training ship for students of the Leningrad Nakhimov School in 1961, but it still retains its status as a museum ship. Long voyages And naval battles are a thing of the past - the time has come for a well-deserved and honorable pension. A ship rarely meets such a fate - after all, ships usually either perish at sea or end their journey at the wall of a factory, where they are cut for scrap...

IN Soviet years Naturally, the main (and, perhaps, the only) attention was paid to the revolutionary past of the cruiser. Images of the Aurora were present everywhere possible, and the silhouette of the three-pipe ship became as much a symbol of the city on the Neva as the Peter and Paul Fortress or Bronze Horseman. The role of the cruiser in the October Revolution was extolled in every possible way, and there was even a joke: “Which ship in history had the most powerful weapons?” - "Cruiser "Aurora"! One shot - and the whole power collapsed!"

In 1967, the 50th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution was widely celebrated in the Soviet Union. In Leningrad, near Smolny, fires were burning, near which, leaning on rifles, stood people in soldiers' greatcoats and pea jackets of revolutionary sailors of the seventeenth year with an indispensable attribute - with machine gun belts crossed on the chest and on the back.

The cruiser "Aurora" follows the location of the filming of the film "Aurora Salvo", 1967

It is clear that the deserved ship simply could not be ignored. For the anniversary, the film "Aurora Salvo" was made, where the cruiser played main role- yourself. For greater authenticity of the events depicted, all filming was done on location. "Aurora" was towed to a historical site near the Nikolaevsky Bridge, where the episode of the Aurora's capture of the aforementioned bridge was filmed. The spectacle was impressive, and thousands of Leningraders and city guests watched the gray three-pipe beauty slowly and majestically sail along the Neva.

However, it was not the first time for Aurora herself to act as a movie star. Back in 1946, during repairs, the Aurora played the role of the cruiser Varyag in the film of the same name. Then the Aurora, like a true actress, even had to put on makeup for her character - the shields were removed from the guns (there were none on the Varyag), and a fourth false pipe was installed to ensure the truthfulness of the image of the most heroic cruiser of the Russian-Japanese War.

The last renovation of the Aurora took place in the mid-80s of the last century, and rumors about the “fake Aurora” are associated with this. Let’s find out in more detail how it happened.

The first major overhaul of the Aurora took place immediately after the Second World War at the Kronstadt shipyards. Almost all the guns were replaced with new ones, the ship repairers replaced the wooden deck and completely re-equipped the interior in which the Nakhimovites settled. Soon, however, the question of new renovation work arose. The iron hull of the Aurora simply rotted. Pumps were constantly running in the ship’s hold, pumping out several tens of tons of water every day. By the early 1980s, it became clear that it was simply impossible to preserve the Aurora in its original form.

The restoration of the Aurora began in 1984. Powerful tugs removed the cruiser from its eternal mooring and dragged it to the Northern Shipyard. There, at the docks, the cruiser of the revolution was simply cut into pieces. The lower part of the vessel, including the entire underwater part, was completely replaced with a new one. What was above the water also underwent severe alteration. By the anniversary date, the Aurora returned to its usual place, and then the question arose of what to do with the skeleton remaining at the shipyard. Selling the cruiser of the revolution for scrap metal in Soviet times would have been considered ideological sabotage. So they decided to hide the real “Aurora” from the eyes of the people.

IN last trip cruiser, sailed along the southern coast of the Gulf of Finland in 1987. The military brought him to the village of Ruchyi, located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland in Luga Bay. Before the Great Patriotic War, a naval base was being built there, designed to reduce the load on Kronstadt. Leaving the territory to the advancing fascists, in September 1941, Soviet troops blew up all ground buildings. Neither our engineers nor the Germans, who left these territories a few years later, however, were able to destroy the huge piers on the Gulf of Finland. Until recently, they were used as a sump for warships.

For a while legendary cruiser I stood there near the huge pier. This did not last long, however. At first, the Aurora was slowly taken away by the military, and then they actually handed the ship over to be plundered by the workers of the Baltika fishing state farm operating in these places.

“I remember very well the events of those days,” says Vladimir Yurchenko, former chief mechanic of the Baltika fishing state farm. - Our superiors came to an agreement with the military and one fine day we were sent to cut down the Aurora. We were allowed to take whatever we could carry. At the state farm they even shouted “Guys! Let’s cut the Aurora!” Many responded. We removed property from the ship by truck. First of all, the metal ladders were removed. The copper plating was torn off from the surface parts - then the entire ship was covered with a layer of sheet copper. The interior was virtually untouched. In one of the showers, for example, I removed tiles from the floor and walls. Later I covered the floor in the bathhouse with these tiles. Many took away the doors along with the jambs and removed the portholes.

The new lower part of the Aurora hull in the dock of the shipyard.

Refurbishment of the cruiser "Aurora" at the Zhdanov plant, 1984-1987

Looted by the military and fishermen, the wreck of the ship, like the skeleton of a giant fish, stood at the old pier for several months. The cruiser of the revolution was destined for a completely unenviable end. A brilliant idea came to someone's bright head in a military cap. Load the metal hull with stones and sink it into the harbor, turning it into a breakwater.

The bay in these places is actually quite restless,” says Vladimir Yurchenko. - In spring and autumn it is quite difficult to land on the shore and a breakwater is really necessary here. But because of the mistakes made by the workers, nothing good came out of this venture. The ship, loaded with stones, went sideways, and then completely capsized and sank in a completely different place than planned. Now this is real garbage lying in the coastal strip. Later, local merchants wanted to lift the frame, cut it up and sell it abroad as scrap metal, however, the military prohibited any work from being carried out in their harbor.

Anyone can find the remains of the revolution cruiser lying in the coastal strip without any difficulty. In the surrounding villages, anyone can show the current location of the Aurora.

Tourists eagerly take pictures against the backdrop of the wreckage and are carried into a rather remote part of the Kingisepp district. In the summer, local boys enthusiastically climb the iron frame. At low tide, the hull, which stretches 120 meters in length, is visible in its entirety. When the tide is high, the waves only hit a small section of the bow with rope attachments.

Two half-abandoned buildings still stand next to the giant concrete piers. In one, sailors appear from time to time, in the other, retired military man Vasily Mochalov has lived for six years. In the mid-1990s, a migrant from Moldova lost his home and documents in a fire. Taking over an empty house, he fishes himself and helps local fishermen manage their nets. According to Vasily Stepanovich, almost every year the sunken Aurora is examined by scuba divers.

This summer, some guys who came from Belarus dived here for almost a week,” says Vasily Mochalov. “True, they didn’t find anything interesting and began to remove the copper plates that had been preserved in the once underwater part. They said that they would cut them into small pieces and sell them as souvenirs. While still underwater, they found an old iron and gave it to me as a thank you for my stay. Museum workers are unlikely to be interested in it, but ironing with it when heated on a tile is very possible.

However, in order to find souvenirs from the Aurora, it is not at all necessary to go underwater with scuba diving. All you need to do is walk through the nearby villages and take a closer look at the houses built in the late 1980s. Parts of the ship turned into building materials are visible here and there. The ladders along which sailors and officers moved became staircases in residential buildings, metal frames were used for the construction of greenhouses, and in some places roofs were covered with metal. At the entrance to the village of Dubki there is a brick house with portholes installed instead of windows on the gates of the barn and in the outhouse. According to the local elder, Viktor Larionov, who lives there, he did not remove the portholes from the Aurora himself, but simply took them from a neighbor who worked on a fishing state farm.

He just had them lying around in his garden, but I adapted them for business,” says Viktor Ilyich. - From the inside, the toilet resembles a latrine on a famous cruiser.

Towing the cruiser "Aurora" while passing through the Trinity Bridge.

The modern cruiser is only a replica, since during the last reconstruction in 1984 more than 50% of the hull and superstructures were replaced. One of the most noticeable differences from the original is the use of welds on the new body instead of rivet technology.

The St. Andrew's flag was again raised on the ship in 1992, the cruiser is listed as part of the Russian Navy, until recently officers and sailors served on the ship (even if there are ten times fewer of them than there once was). Of course, the Aurora itself will no longer be able to move away from its eternal mooring, but all auxiliary mechanisms and life support systems are maintained by the cruiser’s crew in working order. The ship's guns are also in working, well-maintained condition.

Today, the main occupation of the cruiser "Aurora", whose age has already exceeded one hundred years, is to serve as a museum. And this museum is very visited - there are up to half a million guests a year on board the ship. And honestly, this museum is worth a visit - and not only for those who are nostalgic for times gone by forever.

It’s great that “Aurora” has survived to this day. All over the world, similar ships-monuments can be counted on one hand: "Victoria" and "Cutty Sark" in England, "Queen Mary" in the USA, "Mikasa" in Japan. All that remains is to wish the veteran good health for the next hundred years; after all, a blank shot in October 1917 is just one of many pages long biography glorious cruiser. And you can’t erase a word from it, like from a song...

Let us remind you that the Aurora lost its status as ship No. 1 of the Russian Navy on December 1, 2010. The ship became a branch of the Central Navy Museum. On August 1, the Aurora was finally transferred to the jurisdiction of the Central Naval Museum. The military unit serving on the ship was disbanded. The crew of the cruiser Aurora was reorganized into a staff of three military personnel and 28 civilian personnel; the ship's status remained the same. On June 27, 2012, deputies of the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly adopted an appeal to the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Armed Forces with a request to return the cruiser to the status of ship No. 1 in the Russian Navy with the preservation of the military crew on the ship.

Let's see how this whole story ends...

sources
http://russiantourism.ru
http://wordweb.ru/
http://gorod.tomsk.ru
http://www.nashflot.ru

And I’ll remind you of another difficult fate:

A true biography of "Aurora" with little-known details

For several generations of Soviet (and not only Soviet) people, the name of this cruiser became a kind of fetish. The legendary ship, which with its salvo heralded the onset of a new era in the history of mankind, the symbol of the Great October Socialist Revolution, is the most widely replicated cliché. What is the actual history of the cruiser Aurora?

A ship born at the turn of the century

At the end of the 19th century, the Russian navy grew and was replenished with new ships. According to the classification of that time, there was such a subclass of cruisers - armored cruisers, that is, having an armored deck to protect the vital parts of the ship from mounted fire from enemy artillery. Armored cruisers did not carry side armor and were not intended for duels with battleships. It was to this type of warship that the cruiser Aurora, laid down on May 23, 1897 in St. Petersburg (at the New Admiralty), was of the same type as the previously laid down Pallada and Diana.

Armored cruiser "Aurora", 1903

In the Russian fleet there was (and still is) a tradition of continuity of ship names, and new cruisers inherited the names of sailing frigates.

Construction of the ship took more than six years - the Aurora was launched on May 11, 1900 at 11:15 a.m., and the cruiser entered the fleet (after completion of all outfitting work) only on July 16, 1903.

The cruiser inherited its name - "Aurora" (morning dawn) from the forty-four-gun Russian frigate, which distinguished itself in battles during the siege of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky in 1854. The construction of the Aurora was carried out under the leadership of the talented Russian engineer K. M. Tokarevsky at the NovoAdmiralteysky and Franco-Russian factories.

CRUISER AURORA. TACTICAL AND TECHNICAL CHARACTERISTICS:

• Class - Cruiser 1st rank.
• Type - KR I "Pallada".
• Shipyard - "New Admiralty". St. Petersburg.
• Laid down - May 23 (June 4, Old Style) 1897
• Launched - May 11 (24, Old Style) 1900
• Entered service on July 16 (29 in the old style) 1903 (Baltic Fleet).
• Total displacement - 6,731 tons.
• Length - 126.7 m.
• Width - 16.8 m.
• Draft - 6.2 m.
• Mechanism power - 11,971 hp.
• Speed ​​- 20.0 knots.
• Cruising range - 4,000 miles (7,200 km).
• Fuel reserve - 964 tons of coal.
• Artillery weapons (as of 1917): 152 caliber (Kane system) - 14; 76.2 caliber (Lender system anti-aircraft guns) - 6.
• Torpedo tubes - 3 (1 surface; 2 underwater).
• Mass of metal fired by guns from one side: in a broadside - 267 kg; in one minute - 652 kg.
• Crew - 570 people (of which 20 are officers).
• The armor was supplied by Izhora, and the artillery by Obukhov plants.

This ship was by no means unique in its combat qualities. The cruiser could not boast of a particularly fast speed (only 19 knots - squadron battleships of that time reached a speed of 18 knots), or weapons (8 six-inch main caliber guns - far from amazing firepower).

The ships of another type of armored cruisers then adopted by the Russian fleet ("Bogatyr") were much faster and one and a half times stronger.

And the attitude of the officers and crews towards these “domestic-made goddesses” was not too warm - the Diana-class cruisers had a lot of shortcomings and constantly arising technical problems.

Nevertheless, these cruisers fully corresponded to their intended purpose - reconnaissance, destruction of enemy merchant ships, covering battleships from attacks by enemy destroyers, patrol service - having a solid (about seven thousand tons) displacement and, as a result, good seaworthiness and autonomy . With a full supply of coal (1430 tons), the Aurora could reach from Port Arthur to Vladivostok and return without additional bunkering.

All three cruisers were intended for the Pacific Ocean, where a military conflict with Japan was brewing, and the first two of them were already in the Far East by the time the Aurora entered service as active ships. The third sister also hurried to her relatives, and on September 25, 1903 (just a week after staffing, which ended on September 18), the Aurora with a crew of 559 people under the command of Captain 1st Rank I.V. Sukhotin left Kronstadt.

In the Mediterranean Sea, the Aurora joined the detachment of Rear Admiral A. A. Virenius, which consisted of the squadron battleship Oslyabya, the cruiser Dmitry Donskoy and several destroyers and auxiliary ships. However, the detachment was late for the Far East - in the African port of Djibouti, on Russian ships they learned about the Japanese night attack on the Port Arthur squadron and about the beginning of the war. It was considered too risky to proceed further, since the Japanese fleet was blockading Port Arthur, and there was a high probability of meeting with superior enemy forces on the way to it. A proposal was made to send a detachment of Vladivostok cruisers to the Singapore area to meet Virenius and go with them to Vladivostok, and not to Port Arthur, but this quite reasonable proposal was not accepted.

"Favorite" of Admiral Rozhdestvensky

On April 5, 1904, the Aurora returned to Kronstadt, where it was included in the 2nd Pacific Squadron under the command of Vice Admiral Rozhestvensky, which was preparing to march to the Far Eastern theater of operations.

1. Adjutant General E.I. Alekseev, Governor of the Far East.

2. Commander of the Manchurian army operating against the Japanese, Adjutant General, Infantry General A.N. Kuropatkin.

3. Count Admiral A.A. Virenius, commander of the squadron that sailed into the waters of the Eastern Ocean.

4. Rear Admiral M.P. Molas, appointed at the disposal of the governor.

5. Lieutenant General N.P. Linevich.

6. Commander of the battleship “Tsesarevich” I.K. Grigorovich.

Poster from the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905.

Zinovy ​​Petrovich Rozhdestvensky

Here, six of the eight main caliber guns were covered with armor shields - the experience of the battles of the Arthurian squadron showed that fragments of high-explosive Japanese shells literally mowed down unprotected personnel. In addition, the commander of the cruiser was changed - he became captain 1st rank Evgeniy Romanovich Egoriev.

Admiral Rozhdestvensky was, let's say, an original personality. And among the many “quirks” of the admiral was the following - he had the habit of giving the warships entrusted to him nicknames that were very far from examples of fine literature. Thus, the cruiser "Admiral Nakhimov" was called "Idiot", the battleship "Sisoy the Great" - "Invalid Shelter", and so on. The squadron included two ships with female names - the former yacht "Svetlana" and "Aurora". The commander nicknamed the first cruiser “The Maid,” and “Aurora” was awarded the completely obscene title “Fence Prostitute.” If Rozhdestvensky knew what ship he calls so disrespectfully!

"Aurora" was part of the detachment of cruisers of Rear Admiral Enquist and during the Battle of Tsushima conscientiously carried out Rozhdestvensky's order - it covered the transports.

This task was clearly beyond the capabilities of four Russian cruisers, against which first eight and then sixteen Japanese cruisers acted. They were saved from heroic death only by the fact that a column of Russian battleships accidentally approached them and drove away the advancing enemy.

The cruiser did not distinguish itself in anything special in the battle - the author of the damage attributed to the Aurora by Soviet sources, which the Japanese cruiser Izumi received, was in fact the cruiser Vladimir Monomakh. The Aurora itself received about a dozen hits, had a number of damage and serious losses in people - up to a hundred people killed and wounded.

Damage to the Aurora after the Battle of Tsushima

The commander died - his photograph is now on display in the cruiser's museum, framed by a steel plating sheet pierced by shrapnel from a Japanese shell and charred deck planks.

Damage to the cruiser
According to senior mine officer Lieutenant G. K. Stark, during the battle the Aurora received 18 hits from medium and small caliber shells. Major damage to the cruiser:

1. On the starboard side the fairlead was disabled by shrapnel; the anchor chain was broken; the anchor stopped giving.

2. From the hawse to the upper deck, a meter from the waterline, there were two holes with an area of ​​0.18 m² and 10-15 small holes; two frames are deformed.

3. In the room of the bow mine apparatus, the fastening of the right anchor was damaged, several rivets were knocked out.

4. A shell that exploded in the area of ​​the 71st frame on the starboard side in the joint of the battery deck caused a large hole and tears along 3.7 m; two frames are bent.

5. In the area of ​​the 40th frame there is a crack and 5 holes.

6. There are more than ten small holes in the second coal pit.

7. Three holes appeared on the left side in the area of ​​the 65th frame; the ladder to the navigation bridge was broken.

8. On the spardeck in the area of ​​the 47th frame there is a hole with an area of ​​0.45 m².

9. The chimneys received multiple damages, the largest of which was a hole with an area of ​​3.7 m in the front pipe; The middle pipe, due to a hole of approximately the same area, tilted forward somewhat.

10. All boats, boats and barges of the cruiser are riddled with shrapnel, as are the ventilation pipes.

11. The Aurora's foremast received three hits: the first one demolished the fore-topmast and fore-tops-yards, the second knocked down a third of the topmast, the third hit the mast at the top, making a crack in it.

12. The cruiser's artillery suffered significant damage: all 75-mm guns, except one, were damaged, and five of them were completely out of action. The stern 152-mm gun on the starboard side became unusable for firing, and the right 37-mm gun on the stern bridge was knocked overboard with its entire mount.

13. Mars rangefinder station destroyed; a searchlight was knocked off the right wing of the aft bridge. Barr and Strood's only rangefinder is broken.

Based on the results of the inspection of the cruiser in Manila, the American commission determined that the Aurora required 30 days of repairs to safely continue sailing.

1st rank cruiser "Aurora" on the roadstead of Manila after the Battle of Tsushima, June 1905

At night, instead of protecting the wounded Russian ships from the furious mine attacks of the Japanese, the cruisers Oleg, Aurora and Zhemchug broke away from their main forces and headed to the Philippines, where they were interned in Manila. However, there is no reason to accuse the cruiser’s crew of cowardice - responsibility for fleeing the battlefield lay with the confused Admiral Enquist. Two of these three ships were subsequently lost: the Pearl was sunk in 1914 by the German corsair Emden in Penang, and the Oleg was sunk by English torpedo boats in the Gulf of Finland in 1919.

The Aurora returned to the Baltic at the beginning of 1906, along with several other ships that survived the Japanese defeat. In 1909-1910, "Aurora", together with "Diana" and "Bogatyr", was part of a detachment of overseas sailing, specially designed for internship by midshipmen of the Naval Corps and the Naval Engineering School, as well as students of the Training Team of Combat Non-Commissioned Officers.

The Aurora crew did not participate in saving the residents of Messina from the consequences of the 1908 earthquake, but the Russian sailors from the Aurora received a medal for this feat from the grateful residents of the city when the cruiser visited this Sicilian port in February 1911. And in November 1911, Aurors took part in celebrations in Bangkok in honor of the coronation of the Siamese king.

World War I in the Baltic

The cruiser underwent its first modernization after the Russo-Japanese War, and the second, after which it took on its current appearance, in 1915. The ship's artillery armament was strengthened - the number of 152-mm main caliber guns was first increased to ten, and then to fourteen. Numerous 75-mm artillery was dismantled - the size and survivability of the destroyers increased, and three-inch shells no longer posed a serious danger to them.

The cruiser was able to take on board up to 150 mines - mine weapons were widely used in the Baltic and proved their effectiveness. And in the winter of 1915-1916, a new product was installed on the Aurora - anti-aircraft guns. But the glorious cruiser might not have lived to see the second modernization...

Armored cruiser "Aurora" in 1916

The Aurora met the First World War as part of the second brigade of cruisers of the Baltic Fleet (together with Oleg, Bogatyr and Diana). The Russian command expected a breakthrough of the powerful German High Seas Fleet into the Gulf of Finland and an attack on Kronstadt and even St. Petersburg. To counter this threat, mines were hastily laid and a Central Mine and Artillery Position was set up. The cruiser was entrusted with the task of carrying out patrol duty at the mouth of the Gulf of Finland in order to promptly notify of the appearance of German dreadnoughts.

The cruisers went out on patrol in pairs, and after the patrol period expired, one pair replaced the other. The Russian ships achieved their first success on August 26, when the German light cruiser Magdeburg landed on rocks near the island of Odensholm.

The cruisers "Pallada" (the older sister of the "Aurora" died in Port Arthur, and this new "Pallada" was built after the Russian-Japanese War) and the "Bogatyr" arrived in time and tried to capture the helpless enemy ship. Although the Germans managed to blow up their cruiser, at the scene of the accident Russian divers found secret German codes, which served both the Russians and the British well during the war.

But a new danger awaited the Russian ships - in October, German submarines began operating in the Baltic Sea. Anti-submarine defense in the fleets of the whole world was then in its infancy - no one knew how and with what it was possible to hit the invisible enemy hiding under water, and how to avoid its surprise attacks. There were no traces of diving shells, much less depth charges or sonars. Surface ships could only rely on a good old ram - after all, one should not take seriously the anecdotal instructions that were developed, which instructed to cover spotted periscopes with bags and roll them up with sledgehammers.

On October 11, 1914, at the entrance to the Gulf of Finland, the German submarine U-26, under the command of Lieutenant Commander von Berkheim, discovered two Russian cruisers: the Pallada, which was finishing its patrol service, and the Aurora, which had come to replace it. The commander of the German submarine, with German pedantry and scrupulousness, assessed and classified the targets - in all respects, the new armored cruiser was a much more tempting prey than a veteran of the Russian-Japanese War.

The torpedo hit caused the detonation of the ammunition magazines on the Pallada, and the cruiser sank along with the entire crew - only a few sailor caps remained on the waves...

"Aurora" turned around and took refuge in the skerries. And again, one should not accuse the Russian sailors of cowardice - as already mentioned, they did not yet know how to fight submarines, and the Russian command already knew about the tragedy that happened ten days earlier in the North Sea, where a German boat sank three English armored cruisers at once. "Aurora" escaped destruction for the second time - fate was clearly protecting the cruiser.
In the fire of revolutions and wars

There is no need to dwell too much on the role of the Aurora in the events of October 1917 in Petrograd - more than enough has been said about this.

Let us only note that the threat to shoot the Winter Palace from the cruiser’s guns was pure bluff. The cruiser was undergoing repairs, and therefore all the ammunition was unloaded from it in full accordance with the current instructions. And the stamp “Aurora salvo” is purely grammatically incorrect, since a “volley” is simultaneously fired shots from at least two barrels.

The Aurora did not take part in the civil war or battles with the English fleet. An acute shortage of fuel and other supplies led to the fact that the Baltic Fleet was reduced to the size of a bunker - an "active detachment" - consisting of only a few combat units. The Aurora was put into reserve, and in the fall of 1918, some of the cruiser’s guns were removed for installation on homemade gunboats of river and lake flotillas.

At the end of 1922, the Aurora - by the way, the only ship of the old imperial Russian fleet that retained its name given to it at birth - it was decided to restore it as a training ship. The cruiser was repaired, ten 130-mm guns were installed on it instead of the previous 6-inch ones, two anti-aircraft guns and four machine guns, and on July 18, 1923 the ship began sea trials.

Then, for ten years - from 1923 to 1933 - the cruiser was engaged in a task that was already familiar to him: cadets of naval schools were practicing on board.

The ship made several overseas voyages and took part in the maneuvers of the newly revived Baltic Fleet. But the years took their toll, and due to the poor condition of the boilers and mechanisms, the Aurora, after another repair in 1933-1935, became a non-propelled training base. In winter, it was used as a floating base for submarines.

During the Great Patriotic War, the old cruiser stood in the harbor of Oranienbaum.

The ship’s guns were once again removed, and nine of its “one hundred and thirty” mounted on a coastal battery defended the approaches to the city. The Germans did not pay much attention to the decrepit veteran, seeking first to disable the best Soviet ships (such as the cruiser Kirov), but the ship still received its share of enemy shells. On September 30, 1941, the half-sunken cruiser, damaged as a result of artillery shelling, sat on the ground.

The cruiser "Aurora" in Oranienbaum, 1942

But the ship again - for the third time in its more than forty-year history - survived. After the blockade of Leningrad was lifted in July 1944, the cruiser was brought out of the state of clinical death - raised from the ground and (for the umpteenth time!) put in for repairs. The boilers and onboard engines, propellers, brackets for the side shafts and the shafts themselves, as well as some of the auxiliary mechanisms, were removed from the Aurora. They installed the weapons that were on the ship in 1915 - fourteen 152-mm Kane guns and four 45-mm salute guns.

Now the cruiser was to become a monument ship and at the same time a training base for the Nakhimov School. In 1948, the repairs were completed, and the restored Aurora stood where it stands to this day - on the Petrogradskaya embankment opposite the building of the Nakhimov School. And in 1956, a Ship Museum was opened on board the Aurora as a branch of the Central Naval Museum.

The Aurora ceased to be a training ship for students of the Leningrad Nakhimov School in 1961, but it still retains its status as a museum ship. Long voyages and naval battles are a thing of the past - the time has come for a well-deserved and honorable pension. A ship rarely meets such a fate - after all, ships usually either perish at sea or end their journey at the wall of a factory, where they are cut for scrap...

Veteran all-rounder

In the Soviet years, naturally, the main (and, perhaps, the only) attention was paid to the revolutionary past of the cruiser. Images of the “Aurora” were present everywhere possible, and the silhouette of the three-pipe ship became as much a symbol of the city on the Neva as the Peter and Paul Fortress or the Bronze Horseman. The role of the cruiser in the October Revolution was extolled in every possible way, and there was even a joke: “Which ship in history had the most powerful weapons?” - "Cruiser "Aurora"! One shot - and the whole power collapsed!"

In 1967, the 50th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution was widely celebrated in the Soviet Union. In Leningrad, near Smolny, fires were burning, near which, leaning on rifles, stood people in soldiers' greatcoats and pea jackets of revolutionary sailors of the seventeenth year with an indispensable attribute - with machine gun belts crossed on the chest and on the back.

The cruiser "Aurora" follows the location of the filming of the film "Aurora Salvo", 1967

It is clear that the deserved ship simply could not be ignored. For the anniversary, the film "Aurora's Salvo" was made, where the cruiser played the main role - itself. For greater authenticity of the events depicted, all filming was done on location. "Aurora" was towed to a historical site to the Nikolaevsky Bridge, where the episode of the Aurora's capture of the aforementioned bridge was filmed. The spectacle was impressive, and thousands of Leningraders and city guests watched the gray three-pipe beauty slowly and majestically sail along the Neva.

However, it was not the first time for Aurora herself to act as a movie star. Back in 1946, during repairs, the Aurora played the role of the cruiser Varyag in the film of the same name. Then the Aurora, like a true actress, even had to put on makeup for her character - the shields were removed from the guns (there were none on the Varyag), and a fourth false pipe was installed to ensure the truthfulness of the image of the most heroic cruiser of the Russian-Japanese War.

The last repair of the Aurora took place in the mid-80s of the last century, and rumors about the “fake Aurora” are associated with this. The fact is that the cruiser’s bottom was completely replaced, and the old one was dragged into the Gulf of Finland and abandoned there. These are amputated remains gave rise to rumors.

The St. Andrew's flag was again raised on the ship in 1992, the cruiser is listed as part of the Russian Navy, and currently officers and sailors serve on the ship (even if there are ten times fewer of them than there once was). Of course, the Aurora itself will no longer be able to move away from its eternal mooring, but all auxiliary mechanisms and life support systems are maintained by the cruiser’s crew in working order. The ship's guns are also in working, well-maintained condition.

Today, the main occupation of the cruiser "Aurora", whose age has already exceeded one hundred years, is to serve as a museum. And this museum is very visited - there are up to half a million guests a year on board the ship. And honestly, this museum is worth a visit - and not only for those who are nostalgic for times gone by forever.

museum on “Aurora”

It’s great that “Aurora” has survived to this day. All over the world, similar ships-monuments can be counted on one hand:

" Victoria "

“Cutty Sark”

“Queen Mary”

“Mikasa”

"Victoria" and "Cutty Sark" in England, "Queen Mary" in the USA, "Mikasa" in Japan. All that remains is to wish the veteran good health for the next hundred years; after all, a blank shot in October 1917 is just one of many pages in the long biography of the glorious cruiser. And you can’t erase a word from it, like from a song...

Vladimir Kontrovsky

Cruiser "Aurora": historical background

The armored cruiser of the first rank, bearing the name of the ancient Roman goddess of the dawn, began its existence in last year 19th century and went through a number of significant events of the 20th century in its ship's fate. After finishing her combat life, the Aurora became a museum ship, one of the first in Russia.

Construction of the warship began in the summer of 1897 at the St. Petersburg shipyard “New Admiralty”. After the lost Crimean War, Russia lost the right to have a fleet in the Black Sea. In order to raise the prestige of the domestic fleet, they decided to strengthen it with a new type of ships that were already available in Western countries - so work began on three armored ships: Diana, Pallada and Aurora. Their prototype was the English cruiser Talbot.

In May 1900, the cruiser Aurora was launched under artillery salvoes. The honor guard standing on the upper deck included a 78-year-old sailor from the valiant sailing frigate Aurora. It was in honor of this ship, which courageously defended Petropavlovsk in 1854 during Crimean War and committed two circumnavigation of the world, a new cruiser was named.

In October 1904, the Aurora was sent to the Far East. The Russo-Japanese War flared up there. At that time, the ship was armed with 42 guns of various calibers and three torpedo tubes. The team consisted of 570 people, including 543 sailors.

End of May 1905. Battle of Tsushima. One of the most difficult battles in which the Russian fleet took part. In this last and decisive battle of the Russo-Japanese War, Russia lost 21 ships and 5,000 people. The cruiser Aurora managed to survive.

In 1906, having returned to its native shores after the Battle of Tsushima and healed its wounds, the warship temporarily became a training ship. In this capacity, the Aurora, with midshipmen and cadets of naval schools, made a number of long voyages, during which it visited the ports of various countries.

With the outbreak of the First World War, the cruiser went on patrol duty in the Baltic waters to protect and support fire Russian troops. In 1916, the ship was sent for repairs. And in 1917 the ship took part in revolutionary events countries: a blank shot from the Aurora's guns became the signal for the storming of the Winter Palace.

Since 1918, the cruiser was in reserve, and since 1923 it again became a training ship.

During the Second World War, Aurora guns were used to defend Leningrad. The cruiser was subjected to systematic bombing and artillery shelling and by the end of the war had more than 1,500 holes.

After repairs, in 1948 the legendary ship was installed at an eternal mooring near the Petrogradskaya embankment. Until 1956, the ship served as a training base for the Nakhimov School. Already in those years, a ship museum began to be organized here.

Cruiser "Aurora".

Note that at the moment the cruiser "Aurora" is a branch. Other branches of the museum include: Museum of the Baltic Fleet, Kronstadt Naval Cathedral, Cruiser "Mikhail Kutuzov", Submarine D-2 "Narodovolets".

Exhibition and attractions

The modern life of the cruiser Aurora began in 2016. The overhaul of the ship was completed and on July 31, during the celebration of Russian Navy Day, an updated exhibition was solemnly opened on the museum ship, which was dedicated to the history of the Russian fleet.

Cruiser "Aurora".

The exhibition is located in 9 halls. The upper deck, engine and boiler rooms, and conning tower are open to the public. In the first hall presented brief overview the entire history of the cruiser. In addition, visitors here have the opportunity to get acquainted with the structure and architecture of the ship, its weapons and mechanisms.

Exposition second hall it is structured in such a way that, using the example of the Aurora, the life of Russian sailors at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries is shown, and the peculiarities of their service and life are described.

Having visited third hall You can learn in detail about the first years of the ship's existence from the moment of its construction until the First World War. Visitors here are introduced to the work of the maritime department in those years, and the collection of exhibits also illustrates in detail the Russian shipbuilding programs of the last five years of the 19th century. The exposition introduces the most important Russian enterprises related to shipbuilding, with an emphasis on the development of cruising forces. From the exhibits you can learn in detail about the design and construction of the Diana, Pallas and Aurora, and the combat service of these ships during the defense of Port Arthur in 1904.

Collection of exhibits fourth hall is dedicated to the time period between the two world wars. The story begins with episodes of the First World War. Then the main events of 1917 are described, Civil war, peaceful service of the cruiser Aurora.

Fifth hall dedicated to the time period of the Second World War from 1941 to 1945. A separate group of the exhibition consists of sections about post-war life ship: restoration of the cruiser, training of Nakhimov crew, conduct on the Aurora special occasions, the gradual transformation of the ship into a museum.

IN sixth hall models of modern ships and gifts that the legendary cruiser received are presented. Also, the space in this hall is periodically provided for the exhibition of temporary thematic exhibitions.

Somewhat unusual is the exhibition, which is located in halls seven and eight. It is dedicated to the history of medicine in the navy. In the seventh hall, the ship's doctor's office is reconstructed and his work is described. The eighth hall is decorated in the form of a ship's infirmary; all the medical equipment that the Aurora was provided with is presented here. The ship, in particular, pioneered the use of X-ray equipment in the navy.

On the museum ship you can book sightseeing or thematic excursions (in Russian or English), group and individual (from 1 to 5 people) or use an audio guide. What is noteworthy is that, despite its museum purpose, the famous cruiser is still on the move. The ship has a military crew consisting of officers, midshipmen and sailors.

Cruiser "Aurora".

On the famous ship, memorable dates related to history and history are solemnly celebrated annually. Russian fleet. In May: on the 11th they celebrate the launching day of the Aurora, on the 18th - International Museum Day, on the 23rd - the date of the laying of the cruiser, on the 27th - the day of the Battle of Tsushima. In July: the 16th is the day the Aurora entered service; on the last Sunday of the month, Russian Navy Day is celebrated.

Interactive tour of the cruiser "Aurora"

How to use the interactive tour window:
by briefly pressing the left mouse button on any of the white arrows in the tour window, you will move in the corresponding direction (left, right, forward, etc.), by pressing and holding down the left button - rotate the mouse in different directions: you can look around without moving from the spot. When you click on the black square in the upper right corner of the interactive tour window, you will be taken to full-screen viewing mode. Cruiser "Aurora" and Sampsonievsky Bridge.

The eternal mooring site of the cruiser "Aurora" is located in the Petrogradsky district, opposite the Nakhimovsky Naval School, which is located at the address: Petrogradskaya embankment, 2.

The fastest way to get to the cruiser Aurora is from the Gorkovskaya or Ploshchad Lenina metro stations. The 6th and 40th trams go from Gorkovskaya to Petrogradskaya Embankment. Tram number 6 runs from Lenin Square. If you wish, you can easily walk from both one and the other metro stations: the walk will take about 20-30 minutes.