The Black Sea Fleet says goodbye to one of its last two large ships
The large anti-submarine ship "Kerch", one of the two large combat units remaining in the Black Sea Fleet along with the cruiser "Moscow", is sent for disposal - the BOD cannot be restored after a fire.
Eyewitnesses filmed it; today the Kerch was taken to Inkerman, where it will be prepared for cutting into scrap metal.
The ships of the Black Sea Fleet were accompanied on the last passage of “Kerch” with long whistles, and the orchestra played the march “Farewell of the Slav”.
As retired captain of the first rank Sergei Gorbachev explained to PolitNavigator, the idea to turn the ship into a museum came too late, when the decision about its fate had already been made.
“The damage that was caused by the fire was quite significant, and therefore the decision was made not to continue the repairs. The fire occurred due to the fault of personnel. The volume was such that a decision was made not to carry out the work.
The veteran community raised the issue of having this ship exist in the format of a museum, but, according to our senator from Sevastopol, Vice Admiral Valery Vladimirovich Kulikov, these proposals were untimely - by this time all the fundamental decisions on this matter had already been taken.
It was not possible to leave the ship as a museum. But the senator, who was the deputy commander of the Black Sea Fleet, served on the 30th division of anti-submarine ships, which included the Kerch, he is a patriot of Sevastopol, the Black Sea Fleet, he did everything to ensure that there was a museum ship in the city.
This failed with the Kerch, but the patrol ship Smetlivy, which turned 50 last year and was withdrawn from the Black Sea Fleet, will become a museum ship.
It has a smaller displacement, but in this situation we proceeded from what was possible. Plus, Kulikov stated that he is working to ensure that another ship appears in the foreseeable future, so that the ocean zone ship, the second-rank ship of Project 1135, is not scrapped. The fleet currently includes two ships of this project - the Vazhny TFR and TFR "Inquisitive", they are still part of the fleet, but at some time they will have to lower the flag, they will be withdrawn from combat service. One of them, according to Kulikov, will also become a museum,” Gorbachev said.
Let us remind you that the Kerch BOD underwent restoration repairs in June-November 2014. On November 4, a fire occurred on the ship, significantly damaging a number of aft compartments. The commission that examined the ship decided not to continue restoring the ship, and as a result, in 2015 it was removed from the fleet.
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