Zhvania, George Silvestrovich

Early years

Born on April 23, 1880, in the suburb of Senaki, in the village of Teklati, Kutaisi province of the Russian Empire, in the family of teacher Sylvester Zhvania Konstantinovich. He was left an orphan at the age of six months. Together with two brothers: three-year-old Vissarion and seven-year-old Peter, he was brought up in the impoverished family of his aunt, the sister of his father, the wife of the priest Matthew Kalandarishvili. As a teenager, the older brothers saved money and sent 11-year-old George to study at the Novo-Senaki Normal School, themselves left without education. He studied in the town of Poti in the School of Naval Ensigns, after which he was awarded a diploma number 4215 for the title of navigator of the first category, issued from the Department of Merchant Shipping on June 30, 1905 on the basis of the examination sheet of the Poti Test Commission in 1902. While studying at the School of Naval Ensigns sailed sailor on Russian ships. After graduating from the Poti Sea School, he sailed as a long- time navigator on Russian merchant ships of large tonnage in various positions both in coastal and overseas navigation on the Odessa-Vladivostok line.
In Odessa, he married a Russian girl Anna Georgievna Mayeva. November 28, 1908 in Odessa , the son Dmitri was born. On April 9, 1910, daughter Tamara was born.

Merchant Marine Service

• From February 28 to October 1, 1905 - the third assistant captain on the steam vessel "Baron Drizen" of the Northern Steamship Company of the St. Petersburg port.
• From February 18, 1906 to February 23, 1907 - the third assistant captain on the steam vessel “Otto Borg” of the Northern Steamship Company of the St. Petersburg port.
• From April 16, 1907 to March 15, 1908 - second assistant to the captain on the Amur steam vessel of the St. Petersburg port, owned by a merchant of the 1st guild and the owner of the Radau and Co coal sales office to Vasily Albertovich Radau.
• From December 15, 1908 to March 12, 1909 - Second Assistant Captain of the steamer “Peter Melnikov” of the Northern Steamship Company of the St. Petersburg port.
• From June 20 to December 2, 1908 - Senior Assistant Captain of the ship “Peter Darcy” of the Company for shipment of the Mineral Fuel from the Donetsk Basin Produhol of the Port of Odessa.
• From September 10, 1909 to March 1, 1911 - senior assistant to the captain of the steamer “Peter Darcy” transferred into the possession of the Odessa merchant I guild Sh. N. Bespalov.
• From March 1, 1911 - Senior Assistant Captain on the steam vessel “Elena-D” assigned to “I. P. Klyuchnikov and the Partnership "Port of Odessa served as a senior assistant.
• From 1911 until the beginning of the First World War, he served as navigator and sea captain on merchant ships assigned to the Black Sea ports.

On July 12, 1911, Georgy Silvestrovich, on the basis of the law of October 31, 1909 “On the Establishment of New Rules for Boatmen on Maritime Ships”, was awarded diploma No. 3780 for the title of navigator from the Department of Merchant Shipping of the Ministry of Trade and Industry.

World War I

April 9, 1912 entered the service in the Main Hydrographic Office . Soon he was sent to Helsingfors by a 1st class pilot to escort sailing ships on the Finnish skerries .
Active naval service began to be held in the rank of non-commissioned officer (Highest order for the fleet and naval department of August 23, 1916 No. 1620) ^[1] , being called up on April 14, 1916 from the stock, during the First World War , to the Baltic Sea fleet . In the same month, through the General Headquarters, he was sent to the Fleet Warrant Officer School , from which he graduated on August 23, 1917 as part of the first graduation of an educational institution in the Tsar Stavka in Oranienbaum .
After graduating from the Navy Ensign School, he was appointed to the expedition expedition of the Gulf of Bothnia (May 15 to November 30, 1917). As part of the expedition he was engaged in hydrographic work on the surveyed hydrographic vessel "Sextan" belonging to the "Finnish Lotsmanskiy Department" , in the capacity of producer of hydrographic works.
The rank of chief officer — second lieutenant for the admiralty — was received exactly on the day of the October Revolution , on the last day of the Provisional Government , October 24 (Order of the army and the fleet about the military ranks of the fleet and the naval department of October 24, 1917 No. 265 (787) ^{[2 ]} .

The 1917 Revolution and the Civil War

February 23, 1918, while in Helsingfors as part of the crew of the yacht "Standart", G. S. Zhvania joined the Red Army .
During the offensive of Kaiser Germany , in the spring of 1918, being the navigator and second lieutenant of the yacht Shtandart, he volunteered to take part in the famous Baltic Fleet Ice Campaign from Helsingfors to Kronstadt (thanks to the Ice Campaign, the Baltic Fleet was saved from enemy capture.)
Then he participated in the Civil War on the ships of the Baltic Fleet: the yacht "Standart", the yacht "Zarnitsa", the legendary rescue ship "Volkhov" (now the s / c "Commune", the oldest ship in the world Navy, and the oldest in the world in service to this day) in the posts of senior assistant commander and commander.
He was the last commander of the famous imperial yacht "Standart" in its original form (in 1918 the vessel was mothballed, laid up in the military harbor of Kronstadt, in 1933 it was re-equipped as mine mine "Marty", in the 60s it was written off and destroyed).
During the Civil War, he entered the intelligence list of the White Army sent to France, in which the commanders of the Baltic Fleet were noted (approximately, after October 21, 1919 and no later than January 30, 1921), who went over to the Red Army. In it he was listed in the post of assistant commander, second lieutenant. By the way, this list, which is stored in the State Archives of the Russian Federation (Foundation R-5903), represents one of the models of the intelligence work of the white army. ^[3]
After the Civil War, he actively participated in the development of Soviet naval cartography.
During the Soviet-Finnish War of 1939, he was head of the Koporsky section of the Hydrographic Service of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet.

Great Patriotic War

During the Great Patriotic War, he worked as the head of the hydrographic unit of the Kronstadt hydrographic region of the headquarters of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet in the rank of captain II rank . The service was held under the heading "Secret . " This was due to participation in the development of military hydrographic maps of the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Finland. In his book “The Balts Fight,” Admiral and Commander of the Baltic Fleet during the Great Patriotic War - Tributs Vladimir Filippovich - recalls:

Excessively difficult conditions that year were for our ships in the area of ​​Kronstadt and especially in the Neva Bay. These areas were fully viewed and shelled by the enemy. The movement of ships and auxiliary vessels was provided by actions, in aggregate representing a whole range of activities. First, for the small-sitting ships, a channel was laid in the northern part of the Neva Bay. The hydrographic commanders G. S. Zhvania, F. Vodnev, and V. I. Gerasimenko coped well with this task. Subsequently, the hydrographic service was ordered to lay the channel from the closed part of the Sea Channel to the north specifically for submarine crossings. The execution of this task took place in an extremely difficult situation. For complete reliability, hydrographic trawling was required.

- V.F. Tributs ^[4]

In the book "Hydrographs in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945," Captain I rank Georgy Ivanovich Zima recalls the following:

By the autumn of 1941, many different tasks were assigned to the fleet, which in the current halt had to be solved in very difficult conditions. Among such tasks were: the transportation of various army units, submarine exits to positions, artillery support for the flanks of armies, anti-mine trawling, setting up minefields and the redeployment of ships. All of them demanded navigational and hydrographic support, and in the first place, the creation of a favorable navigational regime that guarantees safe navigation through the newly created fairways. Responsibility for this was assigned to the personnel of the Kronstadt hydrographic region ... with such a load, the personnel of the Kronstadt hydrographic region together with the officers from the hydrographic department of the fleet seconded to it successfully coped, which undoubtedly contributed to the fact that along with the young officers in the region served hydrographists -Veterans of the 3rd rank V.Ya. Goppe and G.S. Zhvania, who knew the navigation area and navigation barriers, which they had been exhibiting for several decades.

- G. I. Winter ^[5]

Captain 1st Rank Zima G. I. in his memoirs confirms the words of Admiral V. Tributs V. F. about one of the official exploits of G. S. Zhvania:

It was necessary in a short time to transfer from the islands of the Gulf of Finland and from Oranienbaum a number of formations and units intended for the defense of Leningrad. In this regard, the fleet commander ordered to equip the fairway for small-sitting ships in the northern part of the Neva Bay, in order to unload the Sea Channel and to some extent secure the voyage. The task was to deliver floating and manipulated coastal fencing, preliminarily performing hydrographic trawling on the fairway found. The implementation of this extremely urgent and important work was entrusted to hydrographs by Captain 3rd rank G.S. Zhvania, Lieutenants F.S. Vodnev and V.I. Hermasimenko, who were provided with the hydrographic vessel Bussol. They coped with the task successfully. The fairway was fenced with 30 milestones, 5 buoys and equipped with 4 luminous manipulator points. At the end of October 1941, six rifle divisions with artillery and other military equipment were transported along the new channel and the Sea Channel. Our small-board ships made 180 trouble-free flights.

- G. I. Winter ^[6]

The award list for the Order of the Red Star gives a brief account of the personal fighting feat and merit of George Silvestrovich:

Having given more than 20 years of his life to the Baltic Fleet and performing continuously a wide variety of hydrographic work throughout this period, Captain 2nd Rank Zhvania became a remarkable connoisseur of the Gulf of Finland. Therefore, since the beginning of the Second World War, when, due to the military situation prevailing in the theater, the conditions for navigation of the fleet turned out to be extremely difficult, the experience and knowledge of the 2nd rank captain Zhvania became especially valuable. He gave them completely, participating in the development of many combat operations, advising navigators on important trips, giving advice to commanders of different types of troops stationed within the Main Naval Base. But the captain of the 2nd rank Zhvania did not limit his activities to the transfer of experience, and some military operations, which, in his opinion, were particularly difficult and required his personal participation, he provided himself directly, regardless of his sixty-three years old. For example, the captain of the 2nd rank of Zhvania ensured a turn of the battleship in the Sea Channel during enemy shelling, the transfer of the October Revolution LC from Kronstadt to Leningrad in the vicinity of the enemy and the almost total absence of night fencing. Ensuring this transition of the battleship, he was forced to spend several October stormy nights in the sea, on a motorized boat, under the shelling of the enemy’s batteries. The success of these complicated operations depended to a large extent on the fact that the 2nd rank captain Zhvania invested his enormous experience, his devotion to the Motherland and love of the fleet to carry them out. By desiring to transfer their knowledge of the theater to the commanders who arrived in the fleet without a trace, Captain 2nd Rank Zhvania won deserved fame, authority and trust among the commanders of the Baltic Fleet and especially among navigators and hydrographers .

- ^[7]

Being a valuable and experienced officer, he personally participated in military operations at sea, but avoided serious injuries. Nevertheless, on October 5, 1942, during the shelling of Kronstadt, he received a shrapnel wound of a leg from a shell exploded nearby, the sailor sitting opposite him died.

Retired

Resigned with the rank of captain I rank . He died on January 22, 1956 of a heart attack in Leningrad in his apartment on ul. Glinka , d. 1. He was buried at the Red Cemetery , in the graves of officers of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation .

• Order of Lenin ^[8]
• Order of the Red Banner (twice) ^[9]
• Order of the Red Star ^[10]
• Medal "For the Defense of Leningrad" ^[11]
• Medal "For the victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945." ^[12]
• Medal "XX years of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army"
• Medal "30 years of the Soviet Army and Navy"

• Son - Zhvania Dmitry Georgievich (11.28.1908 - 08.11.1989) - Soviet cartographer, technical director of the Carthage Factory No. 1 of the GUGC of the USSR.
• Daughter - Brovtsyna (Zhvania) Tamara Georgievna (04/09/1909 - 01/06/2002) - translator at the Admiralty.
• Granddaughter - Zhvania Liana Dmitrievna (born May 20, 1949) - Soviet and Russian film and theater actress, Honored Artist of the RSFSR.
• Grandson - Zhvania Dmitry Dmitrievich (born August 01, 1967) - Russian journalist, candidate of historical sciences.
• Great-grandson - Zhvania Ilia Dmitrievich (born August 20, 1989) - research teacher, teacher of SZIU RANEPA under the President of the Russian Federation, member of the World Club of Petersburgers.
• Great-grandson - Zhvania Elguja Dmitrievich (born December 2, 1994) - film director, entrepreneur.

• List of commanders of the Baltic Fleet (second half of 1920)
• Tributs V.F. The Balts are fighting. - M .: Military Publishing, 1985.
• Hydrographs in World War II. 1941-1945. L., 1975.
• 150 years of the Navy Hydrographic Service. Histor. feature article. L., 1977.
• History of the Hydrographic Service of the Russian Fleet. Vol. 4. SPb., 1997.