Vyacheslav Simonov - Remember this! Don’t let it sink into oblivion! Second edition. The life and death of the Pioneer Base «Oceanrybflot»

© Vyacheslav Fjedorovich Simonov, 2021

ISBN 978-5-0053-6726-6

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

Dear reader! This is the second edition of the book of the same name. It contains significant additional material and describes the history of the appearance in the Soviet Union of one of the largest in the west of the country, the modern at that time fishing organization “Pioneers base “Oceanrybflot”. The country’s leadership appreciated the team’s labor achievements. Perestroika destroyed the city-forming enterprise to the ground. However, people’s memory cannot be erased. Read it, dear reader, and remember this. Excuse me for my poor English translation of this book.

The ship turning on the opposite course through the left side on a huge wave.

Ships swoop on reefs because of someone’s fault

And perish in the deep of the sea forever.

The memory of them dies on the century sometimes

By our fault, of our fault with you.

In order not to feel guilty, I will leave some trace in the memory of the young generation of the fishing town of Pioneersk Kaliningrad region, whose grandfathers and great-grandfathers worked in this base. While my memory is still alive, I publish my memories of my work in this largest fishing organization in the West of the Soviet Union – the Pioneersk base of the Ocean Fishing Fleet (PBORF).

On July 30, 2014, a film about the city of Pioneersk Kaliningrad region was published in the Internet. The author and presenter of this film is a Yulia Bondareva. Who has not seen it, I advise you to see.

The author found on the pages of history many interesting things about Neukuhren (the past name of Pioneersk). Here, at one time, prepared pilots category “A” fascist Luftwaffe, agents-telegraphist to throw in our deep rear during the Great Patriotic War.

Reminding about the pilots of Luftwaffe, Julia made me take out from the piggy bank of my memory remote 1942. I don’t let it sink into oblivion. I will remember for the rest of my days on August 23, 1942. On August 10, 1942, I was four years old. My father was at the front, my mother still continued to work at the factory, which instead of tractors for collective farms, produced and repaired tanks for the front. People worked in the workshops, but the pilots of the Luftwaffe of fascist Germany constantly bombed the recalcitrant city. When was bombings, my grandmother and I were holed up in the basements of our four-floor house. My mother was going through bombings in the workshops of the tractor factory. On that day we were not destined to perish, as many old people, women and children of our house, who, like us, did not have time to evacuate and lived in the house. The house was completely destroyed. The grandmother somehow managed to get out wich us from the scorching heat.

Hitler’s aces (perhaps graduates of the Neukuhren School), performing the tasks of their Fuhrer, turned my native Stalingrad into solid ruins and deprived us of shelter over our heads. They wiped our settlement in the Tractor factory district of the city. These actions have not sunk into oblivion in our minds. I believe there are still, besides me, living witnesses to those terrible events. My great-grandson and I will have a lot to say about that terrible August 1942. Hundreds of fascist vultures dropped tons of bombs on wound and destroy, but still the resisting city on the banks of the great Volga. Old people, women and children who did not die under the ruins of collapsed houses tried to escape this nightmare. There was only one escape route, along the factory fence away farther from the tractor factory towards the Meshetka River, which stream into the right bank of the Volga River.

My mother drags me with torment through the burning settlement. And she drags me a long time. Of course, I am terrified and roaring loudly. Previously, such a run ended in a dark, damp cellar, where there were already many people. We were given a place somewhere, and we sat quietly together with everyone. Waiting for the end of the bombing. And now I am being dragged somewhere far away. Children’s feet tired, but my mother does not take me in her arms. I have a bottle of liquid in my hand. It is sunflower oil or something. Ordered to carry. And I am to carry. However, you can see it is so destined. Underfoot is not clean asphalt, and broken bricks of destroyed houses, which are also burning. The bottle is broken. I am starting to cry even more. Did not comply with the request of my mother, did not bring a precious liquid. Half-minute calms and run again somewhere.

I see clubs of fire in almost all window openings and on the roofs of burning houses. Sheet-irons which are covered the houses, collapses into some intricate spirals on their roofs. And there is a terrible heat and some rumble from this fire. You can even feel the wind.

When I began to sort through the surviving sheets of documents that had survived those horrors with us, I understood why my mother could not take me in her arms at that moment. After all, it would be more convenient and faster to escape, I thought. The wound has not healed yet, the splinter also makes itself felt. In one hand she has to hold a knot with some things and documents, and the other sick hand to drag a roaring child. It will be understood later. My mother was able to register her disability only in April 1946. Moreover, in April 1963, when an X-ray appeared in the clinic, the mother’s sanitary passport made a note: “Right at the level of the 1st rib there is a other body (splinter).

And Hitler wanted so much to take over this city. But Stalingrad, which became a stronghold, stopped the advance of the enemy. Soon allowed the Soviet Army to drive him west to his lair, to finally get rid of this fascist plague.

When Julia was finishing her very short story about the Pioneersk base of the ocean fishing fleet, she said usual phrase: “The past achievements have sunk into oblivion.” And that’s where I break through, as she say. Julia did not live in Pioneersk. And even more so, did not work in the Pioneersk base. She is still very young. That’s why she doesn’t know anything about the achievement of the base. Or the formats of the film did not allow her to learn about them. But it was necessary only to pass with the operator to the piers of the port. Here still continue to work for pennies as guards former captains of ships of the base. They could tell a lot about the former achievements of the base. In their memory, these achievements have not sunk into oblivion. Perestroika times destroyed the fishing fleet. And the captains now have to guard empty mooring berths to.

These are the frightening inscriptions installed by the new owners of the empty port.

Once there were three or four hulls of fishing vessels.

And for young people to know about the achievements of the Pioneers Base of the Ocean Fishing Fleet, I am for Romke – my great-grandson, leave a simple chronicle of those years. It was saved by the oldest employee of our base Zinaida Aleksandrovna Golik. Her first husband perished in the shipwreck of our ship SRTR – 9005 “Deer” in the North Atlantic off Shetland.