In July 26, 2011, Bulgaria was raised from the depths of the Kuibyshev reservoir near the village of Syukeyevo of the Republic of Tatarstan in 2011 . A motor ship that keeps a gloomy and sad memory of the terrible tragedy that occurred on July 10.
This crash is the largest river transport accident in the history of modern Russia.
A bit from the history of the ship before the tragedy
The ship was built in 1955 in Czechoslovakia. Since then, it has never been overhauled. The initial name of the ship is “Ukraine”.
It can be noted that the sailors have one superstition: you can not change the name of the ship, under any circumstances. However, in 2001, the ship was given a new name - "Bulgaria".
Coincidentally, the Kuibyshev reservoir was also organized in 1955, when the Zhigulevskaya hydroelectric power station, which overlaps the Volga, was built. At that time, hundreds of villages with the remains of residential buildings remained under water.
The crash site of the "Bulgaria" was the same unfortunate place where once this ship was already in trouble.
This is another terrifying fact - “Bulgaria” once drowned in the same place and under similar circumstances. This was told by one of the former navigators at one of the press. This happened in 2007. During a severe storm, the lower cubicles were flooded (water penetrated into the premises also from open windows). At that time, the crew found a way out of this situation and did not allow the ship to sink.
Day of the tragedy - the wreck of the ship "Bulgaria"
July 9 is the first day of the usual Bulgaria cruise along the Volga ... No one could even imagine that this trip would turn into a terrible tragedy for all of Russia.
After a safe arrival in Bulgaria, on the second day (July 10, 2011), closer to dinner, at about 15 minutes past eleven the ship headed for the return trip. In total, there were 201 passengers on it.
A message was received from radio operators about the worsening weather. Wind gusts were supposed to be up to 18 m / s, and this is a completely tolerable normal phenomenon. However, after some time, the wind began to intensify and gradually turned into a storm. The ship began to roll.
As a result of increasing the slope of the vessel, the volume of incoming water into the compartments of the vessel through open windows reached 125 tons per minute. In the next few seconds, the starboard roll increased sharply to 20 degrees. At about half past one day an irreparable happened - the ship “Bulgaria” sank.
About technical malfunctions of the vessel
At that time, engineers in the ship’s engine room, as usual, worked on troubleshooting in one of the engines that broke at the very beginning of the tour. This is almost a normal, fearless and fixable situation for sailors.
And yet this indicated that the “Bulgaria” was a motor ship that had long been in need of major repairs. And with all this, tickets for the next few cruises were sold out long ago, and no one was going to cancel them.
Rescue of victims, assistance
Unfortunately, two vessels sailing past the sinking ship, the dry cargo ship Arbat and the pusher Dunaysky 66, did not render the necessary assistance to Bulgaria and its passengers.
The first to respond to trouble was the cruise ship "Arabella". In addition, the crew provided rescued and first aid.
The captain of the "Bulgaria"
The captain of the cruise ship was Alexander Ostrovsky. According to eyewitnesses, he tried to put the ship aground, but the ship did not reach it at all.
Perhaps the captain at that time realized that the ship was inevitable disaster. Although the speed was maximum, the ship did not reach a shallow depth of only 40 meters. According to the calculations of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, if the ship was stranded, the results and consequences of the tragedy would not be so terrible and tragic.
Captain Alexander Ostrovsky, along with many passengers, died. On the same ship was the captain's sister, who also died.
The senior electrician of the ship Vasily Bayrashev said that the captain hoped until the very end to save the ship and passengers and tried to do something.
Consequences of the disaster
This happened offshore three kilometers. The ship “Bulgaria” suffered a terrible catastrophe. The dead - 122 people. A total of 79 passengers were saved, 14 of them were immediately hospitalized. The rescued were delivered to the city of Kazan aboard another cruise ship, the Arabella.
Immediately after the shipwreck, operations continued for several days to raise the "Bulgaria" from the bottom of the reservoir and to search for the bodies of the dead, involving a huge amount of equipment and rescuers.
Crash investigation
In early 2013, the criminal investigation into the incident with "Bulgaria" was completed.
The general director of the company, the sub-tenant of the ship, Inyakina Svetlana subsequently received a mitigated punishment: 11 years were replaced by 9 and a half years in prison in a penal colony.
The following defendants in this case also deserved punishment: Khametov R. (assistant captain of “Bulgaria”) was sentenced to 6.5 years; Irek Timergazeev, head of the Kazan department of the Volga department of the Gosmorrechnadzor, 6 years in prison; former chapters. State Inspector of the same department Vladislav Semenov - 5 years; Yakov Ivashov, a senior expert at the Rosrechregister (Kama branch), was released from the sentence and released right in the courtroom, under an amnesty (he was initially sentenced to 5 and a half years).
However, the prosecutor's office of the Republic of Tatarstan appealed the verdict, considering it too lenient. The state prosecution asked to change the above
sentence of the court of the Moscow region of Kazan and reappoint four more severe sentences to the four defendants: Inyakina S. - 14 years 6 months, Timergazeyeva I. and Semenov V. - 8 years each; Y. Ivashov - 7 years in prison.
Captains "Arbat" and "Danube-66" were punished with fines in the amount of 130-190 thousand rubles.
Reasons for the tragedy
The main reasons for the collapse of the "Bulgaria" are the severe deterioration of the vessel, its overload by passengers and gross violations during operation, as well as a severe storm.
Among other things, the ship’s sub-tenants did not have the necessary permits to use it specifically for tourist cruises.
233 people as much as possible under the construction project should have accommodated “Bulgaria”. The ship is designed for 140 seats for passengers. On that cruise, there were 201 people with a lot of children on board the ship. Among the passengers were pregnant women.
Many reasons accompanied such a tragic outcome of the journey of "Bulgaria".
One of the reasons was the insufficiently correct technical equipment of rescue equipment. Many of the bodies of drowned men recovered by divers had vests. However, they did not save anyone. And this means they did not meet the necessary requirements.
Many people were in the interior of the "Bulgaria". They did not even have time to run out onto the deck. Everything happened very quickly. According to eyewitnesses, the ship went into the water in just two or three minutes. During this time, there were no chances for passengers to get out of the cabins and holds.
Most importantly, the ship was technically faulty and went with a big roll to the starboard side. Just this side scooped up a large volume of water during the turn, which became the main reason for the ship to go under water.
The causes of shipwrecks of this kind are always not isolated, complex. The most plausible in this disaster look above or a combination of various reasons: the congestion of the vessel; technical issues; adverse weather conditions; lack of rescue equipment. All this as a whole led to a terrible disaster - the deaths of more than a hundred people (of which 28 are children).
The cause of death of a large number of children
All cruise ships have a special animator program during the worsening weather conditions during the trip. Bulgaria had it too. The ship contained a game music room for such occasions. All children were invited to the holiday. The oldest child was 12 years old.
At a time when the ship began to roll, the children enjoyed the performance. Frightened children screamed, called for help from their parents. Due to the fact that adults rushed to save their children, a stampede began. In this situation, only 79 out of 201 passengers were able to escape, 28 children died.
With all this, only seven children found bodies in the playroom itself. The rest were in the corridor and in other rooms of the ship. They did not have time to get out.
Rescued, survivors
Relatively happy were those who, at the time of the tragedy, were upstairs, on the deck - they were simply washed away with water. Those who survived were able to stay on rafts and other objects on the surface of the water. Many just held on to something. Many did not even have time to realize what happened.
Their hope of salvation increased when Arbat and Danube-66 appeared on the horizon. Awful - they passed by.
Survey survivor testimonials
Rescued testify that the "Bulgaria" sank in a couple of minutes. They did not even have time to lower the boats, only two inflatable rafts opened.
One of the survivors said that he was resting on the ship together with his wife. At that moment, when the "Bulgaria" began to roll, he grabbed his wife's hand and ran out onto the deck. Many passengers were already crowding there. The man found a lifebuoy and, tying it to his wife, threw her overboard. After her, he was able to send there a man with two children, and then he himself jumped into the water. They were saved by local fishermen in boats.
Another man told how he saved a 5-year-old baby who lost his mother and grandmother, and then saved a woman. However, to save his wife, and pregnant, he failed.
Each surviving passenger of “Bulgaria” has many such heartbreaking stories. And almost all of them claim that many crew members tried first and foremost to save themselves.
The Kuybyshev reservoir has witnessed a terrible tragedy that brought death to people on a pleasant journey. This disaster is the result of unforgivable irresponsibility.