A series of shipwrecks in the Sea of ​​Azov threatens an environmental disaster. Azov anomaly. Terrible secrets of the gentle sea

The crews of two ships that were in distress during a storm in Kerch Strait, hospitalized in a hospital in the city of Taman. As RIA Novosti reports, an employee of the press service of the regional department of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia reported this on Monday. According to him, 13 people from the Volgoneft-139 tanker that broke in half and 11 from the sunken bulk carrier Kovel were hospitalized.

Three crew members of the sunken bulk carrier Nakhichevan are in intensive care in a Ukrainian hospital, a representative of the Ministry of Emergency Situations added. The search for eight more Nakhichevan crew members continues.

The storm on Sunday caused an unprecedented emergency in the Azov and Black Seas - five ships sank in one day, including three bulk carriers with sulfur and a tanker with fuel oil, and several more ships ran aground.

The day before it was reported that two crew members were killed as a result of the crash of a dry cargo ship loaded with metal in Sevastopol.

The first shipwreck was reported to the Ministry of Emergency Situations Krasnodar region on Sunday around half past five in the morning. The Volgoneft-139 oil tanker, which was moored in the Kerch Strait, was torn in half as a result of a storm. About 2 thousand tons of fuel oil from five or six tanks spilled into the sea.

At 10.25, the dry cargo ship Volnogorsk sank near the port of Kavkaz, carrying more than 2.6 thousand tons of sulfur. The crew of eight people left the ship on a life raft and managed to land on the same Tuzla spit. No sulfur leakage has yet occurred because the cargo was sealed.

At 11.50, the most modern of all the wrecked ships, the bulk carrier Nakhichevan, with 2 thousand tons of sulfur on board, sank in the strait. According to the Ministry of Emergency Situations, at the beginning of the crash, until the deck buildings went under water, all 11 people were on them. As Tatyana Burmistrova, a representative of the Krasnodar headquarters of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, told Kommersant, only three crew members of this dry cargo ship were saved - sailors Alexander Gorshkov and Roman Radonsky and cook Anna Rey. “There is no information about the remaining crew members yet, and searches for them are being carried out only from tugboats,” she said.

The fourth ship that crashed near the port of Kavkaz was the dry cargo ship Kovel, also with sulfur on board and a crew of 11 people. During a storm, he came across the already sunken Volnogorsk, received a hole and sank. Rescuers managed to transfer the cargo ship's crew to a tugboat.

At the same time, in the area of ​​the port of Novorossiysk, due to hurricane winds and broken anchor chains, the Turkish motor ship Ziya Kos and a Georgian ship were thrown aground. The crews of both ships were not injured.

Environmentalists say a series of shipwrecks pose a serious threat to the region. environmental disaster. “Tankers with sulfur that sank in the Kerch Strait pose, in my opinion, less of a threat to the environment than spilled fuel oil, for several reasons,” says Alexey Kiselev, head of the toxic company Greenpeace Russia. “Firstly, sulfur is poorly soluble and much more inert material. Secondly, as far as I know, it was transported in sealed containers and has not yet leaked."

It would seem, what could happen on the world’s shallowest, warm and calm Sea of ​​Azov? Alas, tragedies recent years, including the current swimming season, confirm that the Sea of ​​Azov, despite the external silence and grace, is fraught with a lot of mysteries and dangers.

More recently, in the village of Yuryevka, located on the shore Sea of ​​Azov fifty kilometers from Mariupol, a tragic incident occurred, which is called out of the ordinary. At a depth of only about a meter, twenty meters from the shore, a twelve-year-old boy almost drowned. Two adult, physically strong thirty-year-old guys who came to his aid were able to push the boy out of the water, but they themselves became victims of the depths of the sea.

It was nine o'clock in the morning, the adults were sober, relaxing on the beach with their families. How such a tragedy could happen is beyond comprehension. The surviving boy says that he was playing ball with his uncle in the Sea of ​​Azov and suddenly the sand began to suddenly disappear from under his feet. He began to scream, and his uncle rushed to help, who at that time went away to pick up the ball that had flown to the side. The uncle arrived in time, pushed the boy aground, but began to drown himself. Seeing such a picture, another man rushed to help. They and the rescuers who arrived in time pulled the boy out of the water, but unknown sea forces pulled two adult men under the water. How could this happen? What is the cause of the tragedy? Is this a one-of-a-kind case? Let's try to understand these questions in order.

One of the versions is the sea currents of the Sea of ​​​​Azov and the whirlpools caused by them. Yuryevka is located between two spits of Belosarayskaya and Berdyansk. When two currents meet in Yalta Bay, a vortex is formed sea ​​water, which often leads to whirlpools. Fishermen say that sometimes the boats spin so that it is difficult to row them out. Local residents do not remember any cases when boats sank due to a whirlpool; in the worst case, they were carried out to sea. That is, there is no need to talk about any huge whirlpools in the Sea of ​​Azov.

According to the head of the recreation department of the regional landscape park "Meotida" Andrey Kiyanenko, currents and whirlpools in the Sea of ​​Azov are strong not only in the Yuryevka area, but especially at the ends of the Azov spits - on the Belosarayskaya, Berdyanskaya, Dolgaya, Sedov Spit, and other unique according to its formation, the Azov braids. Tragic cases where people were carried away into the Sea of ​​Azov not only on inflatable mattresses, but also without them, have happened before. They drowned on the spits even when they were fully prepared for big water athletes.

So, exactly twenty years ago, if you count from the day of the tragedy in Yuryevka, on July 15, 1989, the crews of 9 ships of the city Young Sailors Club left Mariupol for the Sea of ​​Azov. After a twelve-day voyage, the training ship "Orion", 2 motorboats and 4 boats returned back, and two ships with seven adult crew members and five cadets had to sail further to circle the Sea of ​​Azov, calling at Yeysk, Kerch and Berdyansk. At noon on July 28, the executive committee of the Mariupol City Council received the first alarming information: the ships were at the Dolgaya Spit, the crews were missing. Without delay, an emergency commission of the city executive committee was created. Vessels of the Azov Sea and Volga-Don River Shipping Companies located in the sea, rescue vessels of the emergency rescue service were involved in the search for the missing Black Sea Fleet, life-saving equipment fishing collective farms of the Krasnodar region, military aircraft and helicopters, aviation of the traffic police of the Donetsk region.

On the evening of July 31, military pilots from Rostov-on-Don reported: in the area of ​​the village of Kamyshevatskaya, not far from Yeisk and the Dolgaya Spit, bodies washed ashore by the waves were discovered. Soon - a new message: 5 more bodies have been found. And only in the second half of the next day the tenth dead crew member was discovered. The surviving two passengers of the yacht - an eight-year-old boy and a seventeen-year-old girl - did not clarify the course of events. When they were asked where the others were, they said that they were sleeping and did not see anything. At the dawn of perestroika, this mysterious incident was discussed for a long time in the press and did not leave the lips of ordinary people. Some considered UFOs to be the culprit for the death of the entire crew, others considered poachers, whose illegal fishing was allegedly witnessed by young sailors.

We will not comment on the first assumption... The other is unlikely. If poachers had so easily destroyed ten young boys, then in those days they would definitely have been found and simply drowned somewhere nearby. It is unlikely that anyone would raise their hand to commit such a blatant atrocity. It remains to look for the cause of the terrible mystery in the Sea of ​​​​Azov.

As the two surviving guys later said, they woke up simultaneously in the middle of the night with a feeling of inexplicable anxiety. The sailors' clothes were randomly scattered on the deck. The depth in that place was insignificant - the yacht was sitting aground, where the bottom was visible from any side. The yachtsmen with whom we spoke believe that the reason for the death of the boys could have been strong sea currents running along the tip of the Dolgaya Spit, caused by a surge wave. Most likely, the guys got into the water to push the boat off the shoal, got caught in the current, the others rushed to save them and were also carried out to sea one after another.

I would not like to turn to mysticism, but in all these accidents there are still several fatal coincidences and magic numbers. The boat, which, perhaps indirectly, became the cause of the death of the crew in 1989, at that time it was called "Arktos", exactly 13 years later, and, more incredibly, again on July 25, converted by this time into a yacht with a new name " Mariupol" drowned five passengers and sank itself. In the area of ​​the village of Melekino, she gave rides to vacationers. Despite the fact that it was designed for only 10 people, the captain took 38 passengers on board. A small wave one and a half kilometers from the shore caused the yacht to capsize. The ship fell on its side and began to slowly sink. Of the 38 passengers, 33 were rescued. Interestingly, after the tragedy, the yacht was lifted from the bottom by a floating crane of the Mariupol port, stored in the port for about a year, and then taken out in an unknown direction, further fate it is unknown to us. Will it be restored and launched again? It is quite possible, although the yachtsmen with whom we spoke believe that such an unlucky yacht still needs to be looked for, and the best thing would be to simply destroy it, burn it, and scatter the ashes over the Sea of ​​Azov. But let's return to the topic of our main question.

Dolgaya Spit, if anyone doesn’t know, is located on the opposite shore of the Sea of ​​Azov, on the territory Russian Federation. In the Soviet years, when there were virtually no borders between our countries, Mariupol yachtsmen often sailed on the other side of the Sea of ​​Azov. If you look at the map of the Sea of ​​Azov, it is noticeable that the Dolgaya Spit is located almost directly opposite the Belosarayskaya Spit. Thus, the flow of water mass in this place passes through the neck of a bottle and accordingly intensifies. With a surge caused by western and southwestern winds, the level of the Azov Sea in the Taganrog Bay area sometimes rises to two meters. When the winds weaken, the water rushes back, and in a fairly rapid flow.

An acquaintance of the author of these lines just recently became personally convinced of how dangerous the ends of the Azov Spit can be - he saved a girl of about twelve years old at the tip of Belosarayka. While her parents were chatting enthusiastically on the shore, she went into the shallows about fifty meters from the shore, there is no other way to say it - into the open sea, because at the tip of the spit there is sea on almost all sides. The depth for her height was just above her waist, but at the same time she could not get out of the sea on her own. She happened to fall right at the junction of two currents, this was clearly evidenced by the waves rolling onto each other from different sides at an angle of about fifty degrees. “At first she didn’t understand that something was wrong and calmly jumped on the waves, but then horror appeared on her face,” said a friend. “She tried to go to the shore, and the sea dragged her back. Surely in such an unequal struggle she would have had enough strength not for long, especially since physically the girl was clearly not an athlete. When I approached her, despite the relatively calm surface of the water, I felt a mighty river flowing along the bottom. The current was so strong that I could hardly stand on my feet. I was seriously scared. I told the girl to hold on to my hand and so, step by step, we gradually got out into the shallow water, and then onto the shore. If it had been a little deeper, I wouldn’t have been able to overcome the current...”

This kind of power lives in the “gentle” Sea of ​​Azov. The author of these lines, as an admirer of holidays on the Belosarayskaya Spit, has himself tested the strength of this current on himself more than once. At the very end of the spit it is better not to swim at all, but before reaching its last point you can. The main thing is to stay no more than ten to fifteen meters from the shore at all times, and so that the depth is no higher than your waist. You can get interesting sensations. You just need to relax, lie on your back, and the current itself will carry you along the shore at approximately the speed of a person walking at a fast pace, it’s been tested. Although such a strong current does not always happen. Such a river in the sea - exotic! But this exoticism would be good if it didn’t kill so many people.

According to Andrei Kiyanenko, there are fewer cases of drowning on the spits than in other places only for the reason that the number of vacationers on them is much smaller. And on the Sedov spit there are guards Landscape park"Meotida" generally does not allow vacationers to go to the tip of the spit; they guard the nesting places of birds. Things are worse on the Belosarayskaya Spit. More and more vacationers come here to the tip of the spit every year, but many of them do not even suspect the danger that this beautiful place on the Sea of ​​Azov poses.

But the tragedy that occurred in Yuryevka cannot be clearly blamed on sea currents. Firstly, near the shore at shallow depths they are not strong enough to drag and drown two young, physically strong men who can swim. Secondly, Yuryevka is located practically in the Yalta Bay and the currents here are extremely weak. For some reason it's not marked similar cases in the neighboring villages of Yalta and Urzuf. Moreover, there were none not according to official data, but precisely according to local residents, including Meotida employees. The most dangerous place, according to Yuryev residents, is located on the outskirts of Yuryevka, on the Urzuf side, in an area with a self-explanatory name - Cape Zmeinny.

The head of the Mariupol public environmental organization "Clean Coast", sailor and yachtsman Yulian Mikhailov, also does not believe that currents were the cause of the tragedy in Yuryevka.

“It’s a muddy bottom, almost a swamp, what kind of strong currents could there be?” he asks. “I’ve been involved in yachting for many years, I know the Sea of ​​Azov like my own and, believe me, I’ve never seen one even on the open sea, let alone about the Yalta Bay of sinkholes that can pull an adult man who knows how to swim under water.In sea directions (reference books for sailors) also about strong currents not mentioned in this area. I can only guess about the reasons for the natural anomalies in Yuryevka, but sea currents are not to blame for them."

The head of the nature department of the Mariupol Museum of Local Lore, geologist Olga Shakula, also agrees with the opinion of the yachtsman-ecologist. According to her, the reason lies most likely in the fact that just in the area of ​​​​Cape Zmeinny there is a global geological fault between the bedrock plates at a depth of about one kilometer. It crosses the entire Sea of ​​Azov and creates seismic activity in Crimea. During geological movements, the plates overlap each other, crumble, and shift the upper soil layers. By the way, the release of fragments of these rocks appears on the surface in the ill-fated, widely known radioactive “black” sands, the basis of which is radioactive thorium. In addition to the release of sand, the geological instability of the area also contributes to massive movements of the upper part of the earth's surface, including leading to mudflows and landslides that occur not only on land, but also under a layer of sea water.

According to Olga Shakula, it is possible that the cause of the tragedies in Yuryevka was precisely these features of changes in soil conditions. Mud mudflows are a low-density mass solid consisting of silt, clay and sand. This mass cannot support the weight of a person. Soil activity, faults and cracks also contribute to the formation of underground rivers. Where these waters wash out the bottom surface, sinkholes form. Locals say that during the construction of one of the buildings of the boarding house in Yuryevka, during the driving of the first pile, it simply fell somewhere deep underground, and the idea with piles had to be abandoned.

“Five years ago we vacationed in Yuryevka with families and employees of our museum,” says Olga Shakula. “Our colleague almost drowned at a shallow depth, before our eyes she began to fall into the sand, screamed, from her face we realized that she was not "He jokes that my husband wouldn't have had time to swim, so he threw her a children's inflatable ring. Everything happened in a matter of seconds, a colleague still believes that the circle thrown by her husband saved her life."

Another phenomenon also occurs in Yuryevka - the release of gas to the surface. Locals say that in winter, when the Azov Sea is covered with a crust of thin clear ice, accumulations of gas bubbles under the ice are very clearly visible. Children even have fun - drilling a small hole in the ice and igniting the gas that comes out of it.

Experts note that volumetric scientific research no studies have been carried out on the influence of the geological fault on the ecology of the Sea of ​​Azov in its northern part. The shore of the Azov Sea is fraught with a lot of unsolved mysteries. Unfortunately, some of these mysteries lead to dire consequences, and therefore, in our opinion, deserve closer, more detailed scientific study. The number of tragic incidents in Yuryevka has already passed the point when it’s time to deal with the issue like an adult. After all, a significant part of drowning cases are still attributed to their drunken state and careless behavior in the water. What percentage corresponds to the real state of affairs, no one can say today. Now the beaches of the Azov coast are being checked by the Commission for Technogenic Safety of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Ukraine. The beaches of the village of Yuryevka also came into her sphere of attention. According to representatives of the local Ministry of Emergency Situations, there are no official results of the investigation yet. Meanwhile, vacationers are dying at sea under the most mysterious circumstances.

Vadim NOVOSELOV

Back to home page about

IN last days The Sea of ​​Azov is in the center of attention of the world media due to another aggravation of Russian-Ukrainian relations. However, tragedies have occurred in these waters for centuries. From this material you will learn about the most terrible events that happened in the waters of Azov.

1779: explosion on the frigate "Third"

In 1779, in the harbor of the city of Kerch, repairs were carried out on the sailing frigate "Third" - one of the best ships Russian fleet, which was built six years earlier. Workers were upholstering the crew chamber, a room for storing flammable substances, with canvas. An accidental fire caused the explosion of 149 barrels of gunpowder. The ship was literally blown to pieces, killing 20 sailors.

1781-82: incidents with Taganrog

In the winter of 1781, ice pushed the newly invented ship Taganrog out of Taganrog harbor. Having received a hole, the ship sank. At the same time, 39 crew members died, dozens of survivors suffered frostbite. A year later, the ship was raised from the bottom and began to be used again. However, in November 1782, when trying to enter the same bay, the Taganrog again encountered ice and was partially flooded - this shipwreck claimed the lives of 32 sailors.

1914: catastrophic storm

In the year the First World War began, the level of the Azov Sea in the southeastern part rose by 4.3 meters during a storm. The reason for this, according to researcher Evgenia Shnyukov, was an unusual phenomenon - surge waves. Many people were swept out to sea, and 3,000 people died. Yeisk and Temryuk were destroyed. About half of the victims occurred in the Achuevskaya Spit area. Near Primorsko-Akhtarsk, 150 railway workers drowned during a storm.

1927: terrible tornado in Yenikal

The tornado that rose on the shores of the Kerch Strait on September 20, 1927 was so strong that it lifted two fishing boats into the air and carried them over a distance of 150 meters. One of the fishermen died, three were left crippled.

1944: landing on Cape Tarkhan

During the Great Patriotic War The Red Army carried out a landing at Cape Tarkhan in the Kerch Strait with huge losses. The operation took place from January 9 to January 11, 1944. 51 ships of the Azov flotilla went to sea in the evening, but during the passage to the cape the storm intensified, the wind rose to 7 points, because of which 5 landing motorboats sank.

At 8 a.m. on January 10, the infantry began to land in the icy water, losing weapons and ammunition. At the same time, German planes fired at the flotilla from the air. Soviet aviation, which was supposed to cover the operation, never showed up on the spot.

The number of casualties during the landing was 177 paratroopers - they drowned or were killed. In addition, crew members of several sunken boats, tenders and motorboats were killed.

1969: tsunami on the Kuban coast

One of the most destructive disasters in the history of Azov was the rampant disaster in October 1969. Due to a sharp change in wind, a wave 4 meters high hit the coast of the Temryuk district of the Krasnodar Territory. The tsunami destroyed the fishing villages of Chaikino, Achuevo, Perekopka and Verbenaya; in Temryuk, buildings in the port, ship repair and canning factories, and resort buildings were damaged. A strip of land 10-12 kilometers wide was flooded. The exact number of deaths was not announced, however, according to experts, the number is in the hundreds. Thousands of people lost their homes, and the area's fishing industry was completely destroyed.

1988: plane crash over the Yeisk Estuary

On August 8, 1988, an An-12 laboratory aircraft, flown by pilots of the 535th separate mixed aviation regiment, fell into the Sea of ​​Azov. There were 50 passengers on board the aircraft. During the landing approach over the Yeisk Liman, the plane's engines suddenly turned off and it crashed into shallow water. The hull hit the bottom and split. Of the 25 dead, some received fatal injuries on impact, others drowned. Half of the passengers managed to escape, not without the help of local residents who swam to the scene in small boats. The cause of the disaster was the use of aviation fuel mixed with water.

Today, due to a strong storm in the Sea of ​​Azov, an oil tanker and two dry cargo ships carrying several tons of sulfur sank. Environmentalists say that sulfur entering the sea is an even greater environmental disaster than an oil spill.

At night, the Russian tanker Volgoneft-139 broke in two in the Kerch Strait. According to official data, as a result of the accident, 1.3 thousand tons of petroleum products spilled into the water.

After some time, the bulk carrier Volnogorsk with 2.5 thousand tons of sulfur on board sank near the port of Kavkaz. True, again according to official data, as a result of the shipwreck, no sulfur entered the sea; the crew members of the dry cargo ship left the ship in a timely manner and were rescued.

Misfortune never comes alone

Around two o'clock in the afternoon, reports appeared that another ship carrying a cargo of sulfur, the bulk carrier Nakhichevan, sank in the Kerch Strait. IN this moment A search is underway for the sailors who disappeared during the cargo ship crash, but they have not yet brought any results, an employee of the press service of the main directorate of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia for the Krasnodar Territory told RIA Novosti.

According to him, three crew members of this dry cargo ship have now been rescued - sailors Alexander Gorshkov and Roman Radonsky and cook Anna Rey.

Also recently, information was received that the Volgoneft-123 tanker was damaged.

Despite the fact that about 50 ships have been removed from the Kerch Strait to safe areas, another ship is in critical condition. According to some reports, the SOS signal was sent by a ship whose anchor chain was broken. In addition, there is an unmanaged barge in the strait with 3 thousand tons of fuel oil, which is being carried towards Cape Tuzla.

And in the Black Sea too

Today it is not only the Sea of ​​Azov that is stormy. A difficult situation is also developing in the Black Sea. Thus, in the Sevastopol area, a Russian ship with a cargo of metal sank, which was traveling along the Mariupol - Istanbul route. Of the 16 crew members, 13 people were saved, two were killed, and one is considered missing.

The disaster area gathers all kinds of leaders. So, the head of the State Emergency and Rescue Coordination Service (Gosmorspasluzhba) Anatoly Yanchuk, deputy head Federal service maritime and river transport(Rosmorrechflot) Evgeny Trunin, Deputy Head of the Federal Service for Supervision of Transport (Rostransnadzor) Vladimir Popov.

Sulfur is more dangerous than oil

The cargo of sulfur on dry cargo ships that sank due to a storm in the Kerch Strait is more harmful to the environment than an oil spill, RIA Novosti quotes the President of the Russian Green Cross, Academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences Sergei Baranovsky.

"An oil spill is a big problem, but an even bigger problem is the sunken cargo of sulfur. Now the scale of possible environmental damage depends on the prompt actions of the Ministry of Emergency Situations and rescue services, but in any case this is a serious environmental disaster,” Baranovsky said.

Found a typo? Select the text and press Ctrl + Enter

Cape Takil is the southeastern tip of the Kerch Peninsula, the geographic border of the Azov and Black Seas. The place is amazingly beautiful and at the same time criminal. Here since Ukrainian times at the very edge of neutral water is flowing illegal transshipment sea ​​cargo. Grain, coal, fuels and lubricants and other goods are reloaded directly into the sea from side to side. This is how they bypass customs and sanctions bans. Plus they save a lot on port bunkering.

Often, entire rows of civilian ships are lined up abeam Taktil for “gray transshipment.” On the evening of January 21, south of the cape from the direction of Kerch, two gas carriers, Maestro and Kandy, caught fire. Both are flying the Tanzanian flag.

There are such “profitable” flags of African, Asian and island countries for which the shipowner practically does not pay. In fact, the gas carriers belong to Turkish businessmen. The crews are mixed - only 16 Turkish sailors and 15 Indian citizens. There are no Russians among the sailors.

By the morning of January 22, 10 dead and 12 rescued were known, the number of missing was being clarified.

“Maestro” arrived at the Kerch transshipment, loading at the gas terminal of the Turkish port of Marmara Ereglisi. "Kandy" was en route from Russian Temryuk to Lebanon. Formally, the tragedy occurred in the neutral waters of the Black Sea. But in fact - the arm of the Kerch Strait, 16 miles from the coast of the Krasnodar Territory. “Something terrible is going on there,” eyewitnesses reported.

The weather in the strait was rapidly deteriorating. Stormy winds, sea water temperature dropped to three to four degrees. Vessels standing nearby recorded a loud bang and a flash on one of the Tanzanians. A fierce fire instantly spread to the second side. Trying to escape, the burned people jumped into the icy sea.

It's absurd, but they have frostbite and burns at the same time. You understand what the water is like in winter,” says Sergei Olefirenko, head of the Crimean Center for Disaster Medicine. Many did not have time to put on life jackets or vests, and drowned right in front of the rescuers. Near the burning ships, they managed to raise 12 people alive, all in in serious condition. The sea tug “Spasatel Demidov”, equipped with a helipad, operated in the disaster zone. However, due to the storm, flights were impossible.

They were probably overloaded with LPG - liquefied hydrocarbon gas, propane-butane. The tankers are far from new, and the crew’s qualifications are also low. Experienced people wouldn’t go, it’s risky because of the same sanctions. And what happened, what happened, - Crimean media quotes expert assessment Mikhail Voitenko, a well-known specialist in maritime law, editor-in-chief of the Maritime Bulletin.

Judging by the information on the Marinetraffic website, “Maestro” really belongs to the Turkish Milenyum Denizcilik Gemi. The company is on the US sanctions list for violating the Syrian embargo. The last recorded position is the Turkish port of Zonguldak. That is, we continued on with the AIS system turned off. This is exactly how Black Sea smugglers work.

The current disaster has confirmed a fact known to almost all sailors. An illegal anchorage continues to operate in the Kerch Strait. The only excuse is that it is outside the customs control zone.

This transshipment, of course, was illegal,” a source of the Kryminform agency confirmed. “All legal transshipment operates in the roadstead of the port of Kavkaz, in an open border mode. And these vessels were located beyond the 12-mile zone, outside the territorial waters of the Russian Federation. Cargo transshipment and so on have been carried out there for many years. For example, there may be a need to mix different types goods that cannot be mixed Russian territory, in order to obtain a certain consistency of the cargo so that it has certain qualities and characteristics that are needed. This applies to petroleum products, gas and the like...

The press service of Rosmorrechflot stated that the burning tankers did not cause damage to the ecology of the Black Sea. investigative committee has already opened a criminal case into the death of sailors in the Black Sea. It is still unknown whether an investigation is being carried out into the “gray site” at Cape Taktil. Gossips claim that transshipment in the Kerch Strait has become an integral part of the so-called. "Syrian Express"

The survivors are taken to medical institutions Kerch. Turkish sailors gave their first testimony. According to them, the crews had strict instructions to do everything to avoid falling into the hands of the Naval Forces of neighboring Ukraine. Allegedly. It was for this reason that they decided to undertake the extremely risky transshipment of gas on the high seas.

The danger of independent captivity for such “Tanzanians” is quite real. For example, on January 1, the Ukrainian military opened artillery fire and detained a ship flying the Tanzanian flag. The missile boat “Priluki”, one of the most powerful combat units of the Ukrainian Navy, took part in the New Year’s special operation abeam the village of Kurortnoye, Odessa region.

Another characteristic fact. Last year, Ukrainian border guards detained another Tanzanian cargo ship, Sky Moon, at gunpoint. The captain of a ship that visited Crimea was found guilty in Ukraine of violating the rules for crossing the state border. Sky Moon transported scrap metal, flax seeds, soda ash and technical soda to Turkey and Moldova. The captured cargo ship was not returned to its owners and is now being used as an auxiliary vessel for the Ukrainian Navy.

The current tragedy in the Kerch Strait is compared to terrible disaster late autumn 2007. Then the storm strait became a real trap for tankers and bulk carriers. Waves 6 meters high and winds of 35 meters per second destroyed one ship after another. The Volganeft-139 tanker was the first to break in two at 4.55 am. 2 thousand tons of diesel fuel spilled from it into the sea. Next, the cargo ship "Nakhichevan" with 2 thousand tons of sulfur perished. At 10.25, the Volnogorsk sank in the waves with a cargo of 2436 tons of sulfur. Of the 11 crew members, six were rescued. The barge “Demeter” with 3 thousand tons of fuel oil was torn from its anchor and carried away to the Tuzla Spit. A little later, the head of the port of Novorossiysk, Vladimir Erygin, said that ships flying Georgian and Turkish flags had run aground nearby.

For several years in a row, the Kerch water area and the banks of Taman had to be cleaned of spilled fuel oil. Tens of thousands of seabirds, fish, and dolphins died. The consequences of the environmental disaster ten years ago are still being felt...