Mutiny: The True Events That Inspired The Hunt For Red October (18 page)

Sablin is approachable, friendly, cracks jokes, even smiles. But he is the
zampolit,
and he believes in the Party line and does his job well, so the officers and sailors must still attend political indoctrination classes, but somehow with Sablin the mumbo jumbo isn’t quite as boring. Things start to look up.

The officers and crew lived in housing outside of Kaliningrad, about twenty minutes by tram from the shipyards and thirty from downtown.

It wasn’t a very large area, and it was protected by a tall fence. Guards were stationed around the clock at the front gate, and anyone wanting to get inside had to show his papers. In the middle of the compound was a three-story redbrick building that housed all two hundred of the officers and men, plus some classrooms where everyone took their political training, just like aboard ship.

The place was something like a cross between the ship and a military jail, although there was a small general store where you could buy a few things if you had the money. Canned food, candy, cookies, milk, cigarettes. The store also sold navy uniforms and insignia, so everyone was expected to look his best at all times. They had a basketball court to use in their spare time, whenever there was spare time, and a park where they could relax.

Captain Potulniy, his
zampolit,
and his
starpom,
the three senior officers, had rooms of their own. The other officers all bunked in the same room, and the rest of the crew lived in one big
cubrick.

When a ship was built in the yard, his crew was assembled from throughout the fleet and was housed in this compound until it was time to move aboard. Then, when the next ship started construction, the new crew would take over the redbrick building until it was their time to move aboard their ship.

Gindin’s typical routine during these months was morning exercise and breakfast, political training, and then down to the ship with the sailors in his section. There he would continue their training while overseeing the installation of his gas turbines, diesels, and other mechanical equipment. They ate lunch at the compound and then in the afternoon would return from the ship for more training and dinner.

Gindin was off duty the evening of every third day, which meant he could take the tram into the city and perhaps see a movie or eat at a nice restaurant. In his estimation Kaliningrad wasn’t much of a city, plain and a little drab compared to his hometown of Pushkin with its trees and flowers and parks and palaces, but it was better than the compound.

The shipyard, which was also surrounded by a fence and patrolled by guards, was like a small city of long one-story buildings, called
cekhs,
in which were produced the equipment and parts that went into building a warship.

Hundreds of machinists, welders, lathe operators, and engineers worked around the clock, six days per week. The pace always seemed alive, even frantic, and very messy, with noise and smoke. The entire shipyard smelled like a combination of seawater, oil, gasoline, paint, and rancid grease, but inside each
cekh
the overriding smell almost always seemed to be that of sweat.

Building a ship was a long, hot, very hard job, done by men and women, who in those days weren’t very keen on bathing regularly. Nor did Moscow care. Ships needed to be produced as fast as humanly possible to defend against the enemies of the Soviet Union.

Inventory depots of spare parts that had been manufactured elsewhere were contained in two- and three-story buildings scattered throughout the shipyard. And there were two buildings, both of them three stories tall, that housed the medical staff, a complete dispensary, and a hospital. Building ships at the pace Moscow wanted them built was not only a difficult business; it was also a risky business.

Railroad sidings crisscrossed the entire yard where not only warships were being constructed but also civilian ships such as tankers and transport ships of every kind were built or repaired. Six long piers stretched out to deep water at Yantar Zavod, and each could accommodate two or three ships at the same time.

The shipyard was a busy place.

“I was very excited to be doing my job,” Gindin recalls. “To me it was one of the most prestigious jobs an officer could have. I was part of a great experience. I was part of not only building the
Storozhevoy
from the keel up; I was on the first crew that would take him to sea.

“We were giving birth to our ship. We had a feeling of pride, excitement, contentment, and a sense of accomplishment.”

Even after the mutiny and its consequences, Gindin will consider
these months at Yantar Zavod the most satisfying, gratifying times of his life. A period, in fact, that he would live over again without a moment’s hesitation. Powerful stuff for a kid in his early twenties. A Russian Jew from Pushkin.

Finally it’s time for the officers and sailors to move from the compound to the ship. They’ll be living aboard, even as work is still being done, but now just about everyone is happy and in good spirits. They are the crew who are building this ship, and they are the crew who are the first to sleep and eat and work in the compartments, and they are the crew who will take him to sea for his trials, and they are the crew who will sail on his first rotation.

Painting still needs to be finished, and trim work needs to be completed, though on Soviet warships there is very little of that sort of nonutilitarian nonsense. Adjustments need to be made on every single system aboard; that includes all the electrical wiring and equipment, all the weapons systems, all the electronics, all the plumbing and fuel tanks and piping, and the four main gas turbine engines as well as the small diesel engines that provide electrical power. The cabins and galleys and mess halls and
cubricks
and the bridge all need finishing. When that’s done, the ship is sailed to his base at Baltisk where the missiles and mines and ammunition for the guns need to be loaded aboard so that during sea trials all the weapons systems can be tested.

It’s this mix of civilian shipbuilders and navy crew aboard at the same time, working around the clock to finish the ship and take him to sea, that creates some moments of frustration but other moments of sometimes black humor.

Nikolai Lisenko, who is the civilian manager for all the painting jobs on the
Storozhevoy,
needs Boris’s signature certifying that work done in the machinery spaces has been finished to strict military specifications.

Fifteen huge fuel tanks hold 175,000 gallons of diesel oil low in the hull, divided port and starboard. They supply the fuel for the four big gas turbines and for the diesel auxiliary engines. Gas turbines and
diesel engines do not run if the fuel is dirty. That means that the
insides
of the big tanks need to be painted thoroughly. No spot can be missed, and that includes dozens of small connectors, valves, and piping through which the fuel is distributed.

Lisenko comes to Boris to report that the tanks and piping have been painted. He wants the lieutenant’s signature on the compliance certificate.

It’s what Boris has been waiting for, because he watched the entire process. Lisenko hired women to climb through the access hatches and do the painting. But the women Boris saw doing the work were big, heavy boned, even fat. There is no way that they could have done a good job. They don’t have the agility.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t sign the certificate,” Boris says.

Lisenko’s face falls. He wants to argue, but Boris is firm.

“There is one condition, however,” Boris tells the supervisor.

“What is it, Lieutenant?”

“I need paint.”

Lisenko is to deliver to the ship three barrels of fresh paint and a very large bag of new, clean brushes. Boris will have his own sailors finish the job.

Within the hour the paint and brushes are delivered and Boris signs the certificate. How Lisenko will explain the missing supplies is his own business, but Boris is certain that his engines will get clean fuel.

About two weeks later Lisenko is back for another signature. His crew has finished painting the bulkheads and decks in the machinery spaces. Boris is doing some paperwork in his cabin when Lisenko shows up. The man is in his forties, short, stocky, always moving fast, his eyes shifting. He tries to smile, but it never looks sincere. His blue coveralls don’t fit, his hair is always a mess, and he’s usually spattered with paint.

“How are you, Boris?” he says. He has a small, round face and beady eyes. He’s clutching some papers in his hand. “We’re finished painting your spaces. Is everything okay? I’d like you to sign—”

Boris cuts him off. “You must be kidding? Do you see my cabin?”

“I’m not sure I understand you,” Lisenko says. He’s looking around Boris’s cabin, trying to figure out what he’s missing. But so far as he can see, the paintwork looks pretty good.

“Well, let me explain something to you, Nikolai. I’ll be going out to sea on a six-month rotation. But you already know this.”

Lisenko nods.
“Da,
I’m aware.”

“I don’t know how it’ll be possible for me to relax in here on my off-duty hours. I have no place to put my shoes, for instance. Not even a drawer. And my bed is damned uncomfortable. It would be so much better if I had a nice sofa with a good mattress. It would make my life defending the Rodina so much easier to bear.”

Lisenko’s smile is suddenly genuine. “I don’t think that will be a problem, Boris,” he says. “Could you please leave your cabin and come back in … let’s say two hours?”

Boris grabs the papers that he’s been working on and heads up to the officers’ dining hall. When he returns to his cabin two hours later, a drawer has been installed for his shoes and sitting against the wall is a very comfortable-looking sofa.

Lisenko hands the compliance papers to Boris, who signs them, and leaves. It’s another of the systems in the Soviet navy that work.

A few days later Potulniy happens to walk past Boris’s cabin and knocks on the door. Potulniy wants to discuss the progress that has been made aligning the main gas turbine engines. He notices the changes immediately.

“Very nice, Boris,” he says.

“Thank you, sir,” Boris replies, wondering what’ll happen next. What he has done is not strictly by the book, and the captain has a reputation for following Soviet naval regulations pretty closely.

“You seem very cozy in here. Not bad for a senior lieutenant. I guess if I were to ask you how you got this sofa in your cabin it would sound silly, so I won’t ask.”

“Yes, sir,” Boris says. He’s not even going to try to explain.

“It looks like only you and I among all the officers got sofas.” Potulniy smiles.

He knows that Boris has been putting in some very long hours getting the work done belowdecks, and he’s guessed that Boris has made some good connections with the contractors, which means the jobs that Boris oversaw have been done right. Potulniy decides to cut his senior lieutenant some slack.

The captain smiles again. “Good work.”

It’s five months now that Boris has been aboard ship. He is an engineer by education at the academy, but perhaps even more important, he is an engineer by birth. He loved and respected his father, who was an engineer. Some things run deep in a man’s blood. Especially a Russian man’s. Which translates to mean that Senior Lieutenant Gindin knows the machinery and machinery spaces aboard this ship better than anyone else aboard, except perhaps for Potulniy, the precise captain. In fact, that’s one of the reasons both men have a building respect for each other.

Make no mistake, this is
the captain’s
ship, no matter how Gindin already feels about him. So when it it’s time to send the
Storozhevoy
down the ways, launch him into the water, it is Potulniy’s wife, Nadezhda, who is given the honor of breaking the bottle of champagne against the bow.

The entire crew is gathered on the dock, along with the shipyard workers and managers, plus a lot of navy dignitaries. It’s a crisp late-fall day, with a sharp blue sky and fast-moving white clouds. A fairly good breeze is kicking up small whitecaps in the harbor, and everyone
is in high spirits. The
Storozhevoy
not only looks like a deadly Soviet warship of the line, but also is beautiful, with graceful lines and a design that U.S. Navy analysts would later call “neat, workmanlike, and elegant.” He bristles with weapons systems, rocket launchers, torpedo tubes, deadly-looking guns, rotating radar antennas, and dozens of systems that many of the visitors can only guess and marvel at.

“It was the true moment of the
Storozhevoy’s
birth,” Gindin recalls. “We felt like parents about to see their first kid taking its first steps. I was new, but still I sensed that I was a part of what would be a significant event in my life. I was very proud of
my
ship and
my
crew, that we were going to be serving in this state-of-the-art vessel.”

The port side of the ship rises sharply above the crowds. Nadezhda climbs four steps up to a wooden platform that puts her within swinging distance of the sharply flaring bow, her husband at her elbow to make sure she doesn’t trip and fall, and some admiral and his aide next to them.

Potulniy hands his wife the bottle of champagne that is suspended by a thin rope from a truss above the platform. She is to swing the bottle in an arc so that it will break against the hull. “God bless this ship and all who sail on him,” someone in the crowd is bound to mutter as the bottle breaks.

Nadezhda raises the bottle over her head and swings it as hard as she can toward the
Storozhevoy’s
bow. The bottle makes its short arc, slams against the thick steel plating of the bow, and bounces off.

All those gathered for the ceremony on the dock heave a collective sigh. Such missteps are not unknown at ship launchings, but Gindin feels goose bumps on his skin.

“I can’t explain,” he remembers. “But something inside of me tightened up. My gut clenched and I felt a terrible uneasiness. It sounds silly, I suppose, but I had the feeling that maybe the
Storozhevoy
was a cursed ship.”