evening ring:
Brotherhood of the passing day On October 29, 1988, a breakthrough Soviet-American operation to rescue three whales trapped in the ice ended in the Arctic. The 20-day heroic efforts of the Eskimos from the village of Barrow did not help. Then the Americans called for help from the icebreaker Admiral Makrob and the diesel-electric ship Vladimir Arsenyev. Excerpts from the notes of Nikolai Shtelin, a hydrologist from Makarov, were published in the journal "Rodina". - "Closer" with Captain Sergey Rashtov (on the right side of the photo) was given a decisive role in destroying hammocks (if only there were enough depths!), and "Arsenev" laying a canal through shallow water for whales. Two poor souls remained - Futo and Siko. The smallest, the whale, died of exhaustion. - As expected, we failed to take the first honey in one go. After getting used to it, they plowed harder, loaded nine diesel engines to full power and changed the direction of the blow. Two hours of continuous grinding. - When they break through the frost, they crawled almost on their stomachs - 60 cm remained below the kid (the norm is 5 meters). "Having taken the baton from us, Arsnaev began to cut the trench. But 900 meters to the whale hole turned out to be inaccessible. The next morning we threw the last burden, almost to the point of losing stability. Now the smallest mistake threatened to backfire. - Harsnaev's captain, Ruslan Zainigabedinov (on the left in the photo), managed to lead the ship through the eye of a needle and reach the last lane. - When Futo and Siko appeared among the ice crumbs, they were greeted with applause. Carefully the whales moved towards the exit, accompanied by an enthusiastic crowd. - In the evening, President Reagan called Barrow and congratulated everyone on the successful completion of the operation. - On the return passage from Alaska to Vladivostok, "Makrov" and "Arsenev" were received as heroes by all the approaching vessels and ships. A year later, the "Three Whales" monument was erected in Vladivostok, created by Timati Dugan from Illinois. The American dockers who loaded the statue onto the ship, like Dagan, worked for free."