"Had a moral right to leave the ship"
Radio operator Rinat Gabidinov went to Bulgaria after a long break - once the man was a sailor in the Far Eastern Shipping Company.
After the crash, he again went to work on land - a specialist in the maintenance of radio and television equipment.
“I was a radio operator when there was still Morse code on the ships.
And on this flight I went to remember the past, - Rinat recalls.
- Remembered ... In full.
On "Bulgaria" I quickly recovered from the shock - I had to fulfill my duties.
But then I came to my senses for several years. "
The radio operator's cabin, Rinat recalls, was on the upper deck, next to the wheelhouse and the captain's cabin.
It was this part of the hull, according to him, that was for some time above the water, when the water poured into the cabins.
At the time of the crash, Gabidinov was alone on the boat deck.
“In the cabin, I was collecting shards of a glass shelf that fell and shattered. I was still surprised - where did the steamer have such a heel when I heard the captain shout "Everyone go to the port side!" - says the radio operator. - The captain did not escape. He stepped out of the wheelhouse onto the port side bridge, looked down, and entered the wheelhouse again. I never saw him again. Then I already had the moral right to leave the ship without the captain's order. Until now, we have to make excuses to those who claim that the crew saved their skins. "
According to the man, no one sent out distress signals - the days of the "Morse code" are long gone, and on the "Bulgaria" he only served the equipment.
The captain, who was on watch, was also unable to convey anything - the ship's power was cut off, and there was no emergency on the old ship.
And since no one received distress signals from the sinking ship, passing ships could only notice the people on the rafts.
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Gabidinov recalls that immediately after the Bulgaria crash, the survivors climbed onto aluminum life rafts.
Approximately 40 minutes later, two vessels passed them without stopping, the dry cargo ship "Arbat" and the pusher "Dunayskiy-66".
All were picked up by the Arabella cruise ship, which was in third place and on which there was a place for the victims.
“After two motor ships passed by us, we sailed to the canal to stop passing ships.
The first thing, as I got on board, asked for a phone number to call my relatives, ”explained Gabidinov.
"At a depth of 12 meters lay a dirty white ship"
According to the memoirs of employees of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, at that time it was the largest operation to find bodies under water.
For the first time, the divers who were called to the scene were faced with such a number of victims and such a high percentage of women and children among them.
“Above the place where the Bulgaria lay there was a lifeboat.
When the ship sank, some length of the cable from the boat was unwound, and partly the stern of this boat remained sticking out of the water.
The place of the ship's wreck became apparent by itself, ”recalls Vadim Gatilov, head of the diving search and rescue unit of the Centrospas detachment of the Russian Emergencies Ministry.
Boat from the motor ship "Bulgaria"
© Photo from the personal archive of Vadim Gatilov
The place where the ship sank was 2.5 kilometers from the coast.
The area of work was blocked by large bulk barges - they were anchored around, covering the rescuers from the waves - navigation on the Kuibyshev reservoir did not stop.
“Below me, at a depth of about 12 meters, lay on its side an off-white motor ship with round porthole windows.
On the first dive, the inscription was readable.
And in some places the window was covered from the inside by a human body, ”said the head of Tsentrospas about the first dive.
According to Gatilov, under its own weight, the ship gradually sank into silt, and visibility in the muddy Volga water did not exceed two meters.
The divers' work was complicated by the fact that they had to work in cramped and cluttered rooms.
For this, the plan of the vessel was raised and dried from the wheelhouse of the sunken "Bulgaria".
Vadim Gatilov (right) and Andrey Novozhilov, Commander of the 328th Naval Expeditionary Rescue Squad
© Photo from the personal archive of Vadim Gatilov
“Everything that could swim - everything was displaced from its place, everything that was made of cloth was soaked and swollen.
There was a risk of just getting stuck, and nowhere to emerge, - added the diver.
- As a rule, none of the operations of this scale is complete without the death of divers.
Miraculously, no one among us died. "
At the time of the ship's crash, Alexey Duras worked in the North-West search and rescue unit of the Russian Emergencies Ministry.
He owns the longest dive on the "Bulgaria" - the diver spent 6 hours in the water, lifting the bodies of the dead passengers to the surface.
On the first descent, Douras found seven bodies and spent more than three hours in the water, and during the second dive, when nine bodies had to be lifted, he had to stay for six hours - it was Aleksey Douras who discovered the room where a crush began due to life jackets during the crash ...
“It was a room from the main side entrance to the stern, something like this.
And so I find this little room, and the door was over my head, the ship was lying on its side.
From there to the surface, we passed nine people along a chain, it seems, - recalls the diver.
"Mostly women and children."
Alexey Durass (left) breathes oxygen after his heroic descent, lasting over six hours
© Photo from the personal archive of Vadim Gatilov
Found guilty
Criminal cases were initiated on the fact of the crash.
The main persons involved were five people: Svetlana Inyakina, director of Agrorechtur LLC, Yakov Ivashov, senior expert of the Russian River Register branch, Ramil Khametov, surviving senior assistant to the captain of Bulgaria, Irek Timergazeev and Vladislav Semyonov, head and chief state inspector of the Kazan branch of Rostransnadzor.
According to the memoirs of lawyers, in the criminal case opened after the crash, there were more than 140 volumes, not counting material evidence, examinations and other documents.
The case also used the Rules of the Russian River Register.
Svetlana Inyakina, the director of the AgroRechTour agency, a company that leased Bulgaria, is still called the main defendant in the shipwreck case.
She was found guilty under the articles "Provision of services that do not meet safety requirements" and "Violation of labor protection rules."
According to the version of the investigation and the state prosecution, it was Inyakina who insisted on leaving the faulty ship to pay off the debts, and obtained permission to operate the "Bulgaria".
In July 2014, the Moscow District Court of the city of Kazan sentenced a woman to 11 years in a colony, this term was reduced to 9.5 years.
In total, Inyakina spent 7 years in a pre-trial detention center and in a colony and was released thanks to the amnesty for the 70th anniversary of the Victory in September 2018.
A year before that, the AgroRechTour company was also liquidated, the general director and founder of which was Inyakina.
According to unofficial data, first Svetlana returned to Kazan, and after a while, tired of public attention, she could go to a monastery.
Thanks to the amnesty in honor of the 70th anniversary of the Victory, the senior mate of the captain of the "Bulgaria" Ramil Khametov also left the colony ahead of schedule.
After the wreck of "Bulgaria", the former senior assistant to the captain of the ship was treated in a psychiatric clinic - according to data from open sources, his common-law wife died in the shipwreck.
Despite the initial status of the victim, he was subsequently found guilty of violating traffic safety rules and the operation of sea transport by a person who, by virtue of his position, was obliged to comply with these rules.
The court sentenced Khametov to 6 and a half years in prison, he was released after 4 years and 7 months.
According to data from his page on social networks, he returned to Kazan, where he lives with his wife Tatyana and two children - a son and daughter.
At the time of the ship's crash, Yakov Ivashov was a senior expert of the Kama branch of the Russian River Register, who issued a certificate of suitability for Bulgaria to the Argorechtur company.
Under the article "Production, storage, transportation or sale of goods and products, performance of work or provision of services that do not meet safety requirements" Yakov Ivashov was eventually acquitted, but was found guilty under the article "Abuse of official powers" and sentenced to 5 years in prison.
Thanks to the amnesty, Ivashov was released on parole in the hall of the Motovilikhinsky court in Perm.
© Photo from the personal archive of Vadim Gatilov
“The conclusion of the Rostransnadzor commission revealed the involvement of the first assistant mechanic of Bulgaria, Konstantin Puzankov (who appeared in court as a witness -
RT
), in respect of whom the preliminary investigation body for some reason did not make a procedural decision.
At the time of the crash, the windows were opened in the engine room, where Puzankov was, despite the demand to batten them down, '' lawyer Robert Khaliullin explained to RT.
- The same mechanic, without the command of the captain, turned off the ship's engine, and because of this, the ship did not have enough speed to reach the shallows only 13.2 seconds.
The lawyer also suggested that if the ship had time to run aground, most of the passengers could survive due to the fact that most of the Bulgaria's hull would remain above the water.
According to investigators,
Irek Timergazeev
,
head of the Kazan Line Department of the Volga Department of the State Municipal Supervision Service
, signed a pre-license check act, which stated that Bulgaria had all the necessary documents for work, thanks to which it was possible to obtain a license and launch the ship on a voyage. He and his subordinate - the chief state inspector of the same department Vladislav Semyonov - were convicted of abuse of office. Timergazeev was sentenced by the court to six years in prison, and Semyonov - to five. To date, both have been released.
Yuri Tuchin, the captain of the dry-cargo ship "Arbat", the first ship that passed the survivors of the "Bulgaria" along the Volga, was charged under Article 270 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation "Failure to provide assistance by the ship's captain to those in distress." The court awarded Tuchin a fine of 130 thousand rubles.
According to the source, after the Bulgaria case and the payment of the fine, Tuchin left the river fleet.
The former captain has retired and lives with his family in the Astrakhan region.
Alexander Egorov, the captain of the tugboat "Dunaysky-66", which passed the people from the "Bulgaria" in front of the motor ship "Arabella" and also did not pick up the survivors from the water, received a 190 thousand rubles fine.
"Words of gratitude are still spoken"
Roman Lizalin is the captain of the ship "Arabella", which eventually lifted on board all the surviving passengers and crew members after the shipwreck.
Rescuers work at the ship wreck site
© Photo from the personal archive of Vadim Gatilov
In an interview with an RT correspondent, Roman admitted that even ten years later the survivors would recognize him and thank him for their salvation.
“To be honest, I am still embarrassed to accept words of gratitude,” admitted Roman Lizalin.
- Because I still remember the eyes of one woman - a mother who handed me her child from a lifeboat.
This is not forgotten. "
After rescuing people from the sunken "Bulgaria", the captain of "Arabella" was awarded the Order of Courage, moved to work in the All-Russian Popular Front, and then headed the enterprise for the repair and construction of civil ships.
Thanks to the efforts of Lizalin, the construction of a new educational building of the Kazan branch of the Volga State University of River Transport is underway.
Also, according to him, it was possible to build several new passenger ships and for the first time in many years to revive navigation on the Kazanka River.
The collapse of "Bulgaria" is not the first tragedy that Roman had to endure.
On July 12, 2001, he received severe burns on 36% of his body after an explosion in the engine room of the motor ship "Konstantin Tsiolkovsky".
Despite injuries, operations and long rehabilitation, he continued to work on ships.
“I periodically meet with the Tsiolkovsky crew at work, because the river fleet is like a small village where everyone knows each other,” Lizalin explained. “Moreover, that ship, it seems, is still on the move, only it is already called“ Two capitals ”.”