Vanya the Communist (gunboat)

In 1905, in Saratov, at the request of the Borel trading house, a wheeled towing steamer was built, which received the name "Vanya". Before the Civil War, he worked on the Volga . In 1918 he was sent to Nizhny Novgorod and re-equipped at the Nizhny Novgorod Motor Ship plant for conducting military operations as part of the Volga Military Flotilla. On the ship, some superstructures for installing foundations for naval guns were demolished and the wheelhouse was armored, and the boiler compartment was also covered with armor. When equipping the vessel, two 75-mm guns and one 47 -mm gun were installed, as well as 6 Maxim machine guns on tripods behind shields. The ship was assigned aircraft number 5 ^[1] .

On August 21, 1918, the gunboat Vanya, as a part of the flotilla, sailed near Kazan , which was occupied by white whales . On the gunboat Vanya, the flag was commissar of the Volga Military Flotilla Nikolai Markin . The future Soviet writer and playwright Vsevolod Vishnevsky served as a machine gunner in the carriage. Echelons with Red Army soldiers and sailors of the Baltic Fleet were sent to the Kazan region. All these forces were concentrated in a large transport hub Sviyazhsk . The White Guard Command decided to take this unit and the officer battalion of V.O. Kappel was sent there. In addition, White Guard armored trains operated in the same area, which managed to knock out two Red Army armored trains. The White Guards succeeded in breaking up a detachment of Kazan volunteers and crowding out the 1st Petrograd Regiment. At the critical moment of the battle, the vessels of the Volga Flotilla came ashore, opened artillery fire and landed troops in the rear of the White Guards. The enemy offensive was repelled. After that, preparations were made for the capture of Kazan.

On September 9, 1918, under the cover of artillery fire, the Volga Flotilla court, led by the flagship - the gunboat Vanya, suppressed machine gun battery calculations of white batteries and landed 60 troops on distant marinas of Kazan under the command of the flotilla commissar N. G. Markin ^[2] . The landing was so unexpected that the Red Army managed to capture 8 heavy guns. After that, the paratroopers, turning in a chain, went on the attack on the city. The detachment threw back the enemy’s forces, held the marina for an hour ^[3] , but after strong artillery fire was fired from the city’s Kremlin on landings and ships, the paratroopers returned to the ships, taking with them castles from six out of eight enemy guns. The losses of the landing were insignificant ^[4] .

On the night of September 9-10, 1918 , using fog, a larger landing was landed, the actions of which were supported by the destroyers Prytky and Retivy. The actions of the assault provided significant assistance to units of the Red Army ^[5] .

For participating in the capture of Kazan, the gunboat was awarded the Red Banner of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee ^[6] . By order of the Revolutionary Military Council, the ships of the flotilla were invited, taking into account the exploits they had accomplished, to assign new revolutionary names. The gunboat Vanya was supposed to be renamed Vanya the Communist. Officially, this name could not be assigned. For several days, “Vanya” returned to Nizhny Novgorod for repair and retrofitting ^[1] .

On October 1, 1918, the gunboat Vanya and the destroyer Prytky carried out reconnaissance in battle near the village of Pyanyy Bor on Kama (now the village of Krasny Bor). It was assumed that the White Guards had a battery of heavy guns in the forest, and there were armed steamers in ambush. Prior to this, reconnaissance vessels fired at the coast, hoping that the enemy would respond. Then the gunboat and destroyer headed for the Cape Malinovsky. The White Guards believed that the main forces of the Reds were moving towards them and opened artillery fire. The first salvo was covered with a gunboat. The stern gun was destroyed, and the bilge engineer was mortally wounded. Due to continuous fire, the destroyer could not break through to the wrecked ship. Flotilla commissar Markin himself stood up to one of the machine guns. When shells began to burst on a burning vessel, he ordered the crew to leave the gunboat, and he remained at the machine gun to cover his comrades. Rescue teams managed to save 48 people, the commissioner himself died with the ship.

A few years later, a powerful tugboat was built, which was called "Vanya the Communist." After the Civil War, the tug "Vanya-Kommunist" was raised, repaired and put into operation, having served until the mid-50s ^[7] .

• Depth - 2.57 m
• Armament:
  • 6 7.62 mm Maxim machine guns on tripods behind shields.
  • 2 75 mm cannons with a length of 50 calibres
  • 1 Air defense 47 mm gun Hotchkiss
• Reservation: Bulletproof, with steel sheets about 8 mm thick. Such sheets were used to close the wheelhouse, boiler casing, and casing cabins ^[1] .

• painting "The death of the ship" Vanya the Communist "( M. B. Grekov , 1927) ^[8]
• Olga Berggolz . “ Song of the Van Communist” (1953)
• In honor of the gunboat "Vanya the Communist" named the ship of the Volga Shipping Company, built in 1986.
• The tug of project 81200 is called “Vanya Communist”.

• Gunboat Vanya No. 5 (Vanya the Communist)
• REVOLUTION MOBILIZED. "Modelist-Constructor" 1982, No. 11, 12