"The emperor was small in stature, his features were ugly, with the exception of his eyes, which were very beautiful, and their expression, when he was not angry, had attractiveness and infinite softness ... He had excellent manners and was very kind to women ; he possessed literary erudition and a lively and open mind, was inclined to joke and merriment, loved art; he knew the French language and literature perfectly; his jokes were never in bad taste, and it is difficult to imagine anything more elegant than brief gracious words with which he addressed others in moments of complacency. This description Pavel Petrovich, written by the Most Serene Princess Daria Lieven, like many other reviews of people who knew him, does not fit too well into the image of a stupid, hysterical and cruel despot familiar to us. And here is what one of the most thoughtful and impartial contemporaries wrote ten years after the death of Paul - Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin: "... The Russians looked at this monarch like a formidable meteor, counting the minutes and impatiently waiting for the last one ... She came, and the news of that in the whole state was the message of redemption: in houses, on the streets, people cried with joy, hugging each other, as on the day of the bright Resurrection."
Many other equally contradictory testimonies could be cited. Of course we are used to historical figures seldom receive unanimous admiration or unconditional condemnation. Estimates of contemporaries and descendants depend too much on their own predilections, tastes and political convictions. But the case with Pavel is different: as if woven from contradictions, he does not fit well into ideological or psychological schemes, turning out to be more difficult than any labels. Perhaps that is why his life aroused such a deep interest among Pushkin and Lev Tolstoy, Klyuchevsky and Khodasevich.
The fruit of hate. He was born on September 20, 1754 in a family ... But it was very difficult to name the couple Sophia Frederica Augusta of Anhalt-Zerbst and Karl Peter Ulrich Holstein, who became Ekaterina Alekseevna and Peter Fedorovich in Russia. The spouses were so hostile towards each other and had so little desire to demonstrate mutual fidelity that historians still argue who was the true father of Paul - Grand Duke Peter or Chamberlain Sergei Saltykov, the first of a long line of favorites Catherine. However, the then Empress Elizabeth Petrovna waited so long for the appearance of the heir that she left all doubts to herself.
Immediately after the birth, the baby was unceremoniously taken away from his mother: the empress did not intend to take risks, trusting her unloved daughter-in-law with the upbringing of the future Russian monarch. Catherine was only occasionally allowed to see her son - each time in the presence of the empress. However, even later, when the mother got the opportunity to engage in his upbringing, she did not become closer to him. Deprived not only of parental warmth, but also of communication with peers, but overprotective of adults, the boy grew up very nervous and shy. Showing remarkable learning abilities and a lively, mobile mind, he was sometimes sensitive to tears, sometimes capricious and self-willed. According to the notes of his beloved teacher Semyon Poroshin, Pavel's impatience is well known: he was constantly afraid of being late somewhere, in a hurry and therefore even more nervous, swallowed food without chewing, constantly looked at his watch. However, the regime of the day of the little Grand Duke was really severe in the barracks: getting up at six and studying until the evening with short breaks for lunch and rest. Then - not at all childish court entertainment (masquerade, ball or theatrical performance) and sleep.
Meanwhile, at the turn of the 1750s-1760s, the atmosphere of the St. Petersburg court was thickening: the health of Elizabeth Petrovna, undermined by violent amusements, was rapidly deteriorating, and the question of a successor arose. It seemed that he was there: was it not for this that the Empress sent her nephew, Pyotr Fedorovich, from Germany, in order to hand over the reins of government to him? However, by that time she recognized Peter as incapable of governing a vast country and, moreover, imbued with a hated spirit of admiration for Prussia, with which Russia was waging a difficult war. Thus arose the project of enthronement of little Paul under the regency of Catherine. However, it never materialized, and on December 25, 1761, power passed into the hands of the emperor. Peter III.
During the 186 days of his reign, he managed to do a lot. Conclude an inglorious peace with Prussia with the concession to her of everything conquered and abolish the Secret Chancellery, which for decades terrified all the inhabitants of the empire. To demonstrate to the country a complete disregard for its traditions (primarily Orthodoxy) and free the nobility from compulsory service. Eccentric and trusting, quick-tempered and stubborn, devoid of any diplomatic tact and political intuition - with these features he surprisingly anticipated the character of Paul. On June 28, 1762, the conspiracy, headed by Catherine and the Orlov brothers, ended the short reign Peter III. As the Prussian King Frederick the Great, so beloved by him, so aptly remarked, "he allowed himself to be overthrown from the throne, like a child who is sent to sleep." And on July 6, the Empress, with bated breath, read the long-awaited news: her husband is no longer alive. Peter was strangled by drunk guards officers guarding him, led by Fyodor Baryatinsky and Alexey Orlov. They buried him quietly, and not in the imperial tomb - the Peter and Paul Cathedral, but in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. Formally, this was justified by the fact that Peter was never crowned. After 34 years, having become emperor, Paul shocks everyone with the order to remove the decayed remains of his father from the grave, crown him and solemnly bury him along with the remains of his mother. So he will try to restore the trampled justice.
The upbringing of a prince. The order of succession in Russian Empire was still extremely confused Peter I, according to the decree of which the reigning sovereign must appoint the heir. It is clear that the legitimacy of Catherine's stay on the throne was more than doubtful. Many saw her not as an autocratic ruler, but only as a regent with her young son, sharing power with representatives of the noble elite. One of the convinced supporters of limiting the autocracy in this way was the influential head of the Collegium of Foreign Affairs and educator of the heir, Count Nikita Ivanovich Panin. It was he who, right up to the age of Paul, played a decisive role in shaping his political views.
However, Catherine was not going to give up the fullness of her power either in 1762 or later, when Paul matured. It turned out that the son turns into a rival, on whom all those dissatisfied with her will place their hopes. He should be closely monitored, warning and suppressing all his attempts to gain independence. His natural energy must be directed in a safe direction, allowing him to "play soldiers" and think about the best state structure. It would also be nice to occupy his heart.
In 1772, the Empress persuaded the Grand Duke to postpone the celebration of his coming of age until the wedding. The bride has already been found - this is the 17-year-old Princess Wilhelmina of Hesse-Darmstadt, who received the name Natalya Alekseevna in baptism. Amorous Pavel was crazy about her. In September 1773, the marriage is solemnly celebrated, at the same time, Count Panin is removed from the crown prince with numerous awards and awards. Nothing else happens: the heir, as before, is almost completely removed from participation in public affairs. Meanwhile, he is eager to show his ability to be a worthy sovereign. In his 1774 Discourse on the State in General, Concerning the Number of Troops Required for Its Defense and Concerning the Defense of All Limits, Paul proposes to abandon the conquest of new territories, to reform the army on the basis of clear regulations and strict discipline, and to establish "a long peace that brought We would have perfect peace." In the Empress, in whose mind just at that time a grandiose plan for the conquest of Constantinople was being formed, such reasoning, at best, could only cause a condescending smile...
In his memoirs, the Decembrist M. A. Fonvizin recounts a family tradition about a conspiracy that formed at that time around Paul. The conspirators allegedly wanted to elevate him to the throne and at the same time promulgate a "constitution" limiting the autocracy. Among them, Fonvizin names Count Panin, his secretary - the famous playwright Denis Fonvizin, Panin's brother Peter, his cousin Prince N.V. Repnin, as well as his young wife Pavel, known for her independence and waywardness. Thanks to the scammer, Catherine found out about the idea, and Pavel, unable to withstand her reproaches, confessed to everything and was forgiven by her.
This story does not look very reliable, but it undoubtedly reflects the mood that reigned around the Grand Duke in those years, the vague hopes and fears experienced by him and his relatives. The situation became even more difficult after death in the first childbirth Grand Duchess Natalia (there were rumors that she was poisoned). Paul was in despair. Under the pretext of consoling her son, Catherine showed him the love correspondence of her deceased wife with Count Andrei Razumovsky. It is easy to imagine what the Grand Duke went through then. However, the empire needed to continue the royal family, and the bride, as always, was found in Germany, glorious with an abundance of crowned persons.
"Private family"? Sophia Dorothea Augusta of Württemberg, who became Maria Feodorovna, was the exact opposite of her predecessor. Soft, supple and calm, she fell in love with Pavel immediately and with all her heart. In the "instruction", specially written by him for his future wife, the Grand Duke frankly warned: "She will have to arm herself first of all with patience and meekness in order to endure my ardor and changeable mood, as well as my impatience." Maria Fedorovna successfully fulfilled this task. long years, and later even found an unexpected and strange ally in such a difficult matter. The maid of honor Ekaterina Nelidova was not distinguished by her beauty and outstanding mind, but it was she who began to play the role of a kind of “psychotherapist” for Pavel: in her company, the heir, and then the emperor, apparently received what allowed him to cope with the phobias that overwhelmed him and outbursts of anger.
Most of those who watched this unusual connection, of course, considered it adultery, which, of course, could hardly shock the battered court society of Catherine's times. However, the relationship between Pavel and Nelidova, apparently, was platonic. The favorite and the wife probably appeared in his mind as two different sides of the feminine, which for some reason were not destined to unite in one person. At the same time, Maria Fedorovna was not at all delighted with her husband's relationship with Nelidova, but, resigned to the presence of a rival, in the end she was even able to find a common language with her.
The "small" grand-ducal court was initially located in Pavlovsk, a gift from Catherine to her son. The atmosphere here seemed to be filled with peace and tranquility. "Never a single private family has met guests so naturally, kindly and simply: at dinners, balls, performances, festivities - everything was imprinted with decency and nobility ..." - the French ambassador, Count Segur, was delighted after visiting Pavlovsk. The problem, however, was that Pavel was not satisfied with the very role of the head of a "private family" imposed on him by his mother.
The fact that he himself does not fit into the "scenario of power" created by Catherine should have become completely clear to Paul after the birth of his son. The Empress unequivocally demonstrated that she connected far-reaching plans with her firstborn, in which his parents simply had no place. Named Alexander in honor of two great commanders at once - Nevsky and Macedonian - the child was immediately taken away from the grand ducal couple. The same thing happened with the second son, named even more significant name of the founder of the Second Rome, Constantine. "Greek project" of the Empress and Grigory Potemkin was to create a new Byzantine Empire under the scepter of Constantine, which would be connected, according to the apt definition of the famous historian Andrei Zorin, by "bonds of fraternal friendship" with the "northern" empire of Alexander.
But what about Paul? Having coped with the task of "supplier of heirs", it turned out that he had already played his role in the performance "staged" at the will of Catherine. True, Maria Fedorovna was not going to stop there. “Really, madam, you are a craftswoman to bring children into the world,” the empress told her with mixed feelings, amazed at the fertility of her daughter-in-law (in total, Paul and Mary had ten children safely born). Even in this case, the son turned out to be only second ...
"Poor Paul" It is not surprising that it was vital for Paul to create his own, alternative "scenario" of what was happening and establish himself as an indispensable link in the chain of rulers, as if revealing the providential meaning of the Russian Empire. The desire to be realized in this capacity gradually becomes for him a kind of obsession. At the same time, to the transparent enlightenment rationalism of Catherine, who prescribed to treat everything with irony and skepticism, Paul contrasts a different, baroque, understanding of reality. She appeared to him complex, full of mysterious meanings and omens. She was a Book to be both read correctly and rewritten at the same time.
In a world where Paul was deprived of everything he was entitled to, he persistently sought and found signs of his chosenness. During a trip abroad in 1781-1782, where he was sent by his mother under the name of Count Severny as some kind of compensation for everything taken away and not received, the Grand Duke diligently cultivates the image of a "rejected prince", whom fate doomed to exist on the verge between the visible and the other worlds. .
In Vienna, according to rumors, the performance of Hamlet, at which he was supposed to attend, was hastily canceled. In France to the question Louis XVI about the people devoted to him, Paul declared: "Ah, I would be very annoyed if there was even a poodle in my retinue, faithful to me, because my mother would have ordered him to be drowned immediately after my departure from Paris." Finally, in Brussels, the Tsarevich told a story in a secular salon in which his mystical "search for himself" was reflected like in a drop of water.
It happened once during a night walk around St. Petersburg with Prince Kurakin, Pavel told the audience: “Suddenly, in the depths of one of the entrances, I saw the figure of a man of rather tall stature, thin, in a Spanish cloak that covered his lower face, and in a military hat pulled down over our eyes... When we passed him, he stepped out of the depths and silently walked to my left... At first I was very surprised; then I felt that my left side was freezing, as if a stranger was made of ice..." Of course , it was a ghost, invisible to Kurakin. "Paul! Poor Pavel! Poor Tsarevich!" he said in a "deaf and sad voice." death, live honestly and justly, according to conscience; remember that remorse of conscience is the most terrible punishment for great souls. Before parting, the ghost revealed itself: it was not the father, but Pavel's great-grandfather - Peter the Great. He disappeared at the very place where Catherine later installed her Peter - Bronze Horseman. “But I’m scared; it’s scary to live in fear: this scene still stands before my eyes, and sometimes it seems to me that I’m still standing there, on the square in front of the Senate,” the crown prince concluded his story.
It is not known whether Pavel was familiar with Hamlet (for obvious reasons, this play was not staged in Russia at that time), but the poetics of the image was masterfully recreated by him. It is worth adding that the Grand Duke impressed the sophisticated Europeans as an absolutely adequate, refined, secular, intelligent and educated young man.
Gatchina recluse. He probably returned to Russia in the same way as one returns from a festive performance, where you unexpectedly got the main role and thunderous applause, to a familiar and hateful home environment. The next decade and a half of his life was spent in gloomy expectation in Gatchina, which he inherited in 1783 after his death. Grigory Orlov. Paul tried his best to be an obedient son and act according to the rules set by his mother. Russia fought hard Ottoman Empire, and he was eager to fight at least as a simple volunteer. But all he was allowed to do was engage in harmless reconnaissance in a sluggish war with the Swedes. Catherine, at the invitation of Potemkin, made a solemn journey through Novorossia, annexed to the empire, but the participation of the crown prince was not envisaged.
Meanwhile, in Europe, in France, which so admired him, a revolution was taking place and the king was executed, and he tried to equip his little space in Gatchina. Justice, order, discipline - the less he noticed these qualities in the outside world, the more persistently he tried to make them the basis of his world. The Gatchina battalions, dressed in Prussian-style uniforms unusual for Russians and spending time on parade grounds endlessly honing their drill skills, became an object of irony at Catherine's court on duty. However, mockery of everything that was connected with Paul was almost part of the court ceremonial. Catherine's goal, apparently, was to deprive the crown prince of that sacred halo, which, in spite of everything, was surrounded by the heir to the Russian throne. On the other hand, the empress's rejection of the oddities for which Paul was famous, his "non-politicism" growing in seclusion from year to year, was completely unfeigned. Both mother and son remained hostages of their roles to the end.
Under such conditions, Catherine's plan to transfer the throne to her grandson Alexander had every chance of being translated into real actions. According to some memoirists, the corresponding decrees were prepared or even signed by the empress, but something prevented her from publishing them.
Prince on the throne. On the night before the death of his mother, the Tsarevich repeatedly had the same dream: an invisible force picks him up and lifts him to heaven. The accession to the throne of the new Emperor Paul I took place on November 7, 1796, on the eve of the day of memory of the formidable Archangel Michael - the leader of the disembodied heavenly host. For Paul, this meant that the heavenly commander had overshadowed his reign with his hand. The construction of the Mikhailovsky Palace on the site indicated, according to legend, by the Archangel himself, was carried out at a feverish pace throughout the short reign. The architect Vincenzo Brenna built (according to the sketches of Paul himself) a real fortress.
The emperor was in a hurry. So many ideas had accumulated in his head that they did not have time to line up. Lies, devastation, rot and covetousness - he must put an end to all this. How? Order can be created out of chaos only by the strictest and strict observance by everyone of the role assigned to him in a grandiose ceremonial performance, where the role of the author is assigned to the Creator, and the role of the only conductor is to him, Pavel. Each wrong or superfluous movement is like a false note that destroys the sacred meaning of the whole.
Paul's ideal was least of all reduced to martinet drill. The daily parade grounds, which he personally conducted in any weather, were only a partial manifestation of an obviously doomed attempt to improve the life of the country in the way that a mechanism is set up for smooth operation. Pavel got up at five o'clock in the morning, and at seven he could already visit any "public office." As a result, in all St. Petersburg offices, work began to begin three or four hours earlier than before. An unprecedented thing: the senators have been sitting at the tables since eight in the morning! Hundreds of unresolved cases, many of which had been waiting for their turn for decades, suddenly got moving.
In the field military service the changes were even more dramatic. “Our way of life, as an officer, has completely changed,” recalled one of the brilliant Catherine’s guardsmen. “Under the empress, we only thought about going to theaters, societies, we went in tailcoats, and now from morning to evening we sat in the regimental yard and taught us as recruits." But all this was perceived by the elite as a gross violation of the "rules of the game"! “To turn guards officers from courtiers into army soldiers, to introduce strict discipline, in a word, to turn everything upside down, meant to despise the general opinion and suddenly violate the entire existing order,” says another memoirist.
It was not in vain that Paul laid claim to the laurels of his great great-grandfather. His policy echoed in many ways " general mobilization"the times of Peter I, and it was based on the same concept of the "common good." Just like Peter, he strove to do and control everything himself. However, at the end of the 18th century, the nobility was much more independent, and the heir had much less charisma and intelligence compared to his predecessor. And despite the fact that his undertaking was akin to a utopia, it was not devoid of either peculiar grandeur or consistency. Paul's intentions met at first with much more sympathy than it might seem. The people treated him as and it was not a matter of symbolic benefits (such as the rights granted to them by serfs to take an oath and complain about the landlords) and not in dubious attempts to regulate relations between peasants and landowners from the point of view of "justice" (which was manifested in the well-known law on the three-day The common people quickly perceived that Paul's policy was essentially egalitarian in relation to all, but the "masters", since they were in plain sight, suffered from it the most. temperature. One of the representatives of the “enlightened nobility” recalled that once, hiding (just in case) from Pavel passing behind a fence, he heard a soldier standing nearby say: “Here’s a hundred of our Pugach is coming!” - "I, turning to him, asked:" How dare you speak like that about your Sovereign? him." There was nothing to answer."
Paul found the ideal of a disciplinary and ceremonial organization in medieval knightly orders. It is not surprising that he agreed with such enthusiasm to accept the title of grandmaster offered to him by the Maltese knights of the ancient Order of St. John, not even embarrassed by the fact that the order was Catholic. Discipline the lax Russian nobility, turning it into a semi-monastic caste - an idea that could not even imagine the rationalistic mind of Peter! However, it was such an obvious anachronism that the officers dressed in knightly robes evoked smiles even from each other.
Enemy of the revolution, friend of Bonaparte... Paul's chivalry was not limited to the sphere of ceremonial. Deeply offended by the "unjust" aggressive policy of revolutionary France, offended by the seizure of Malta by the French, he could not stand his own peace-loving principles, getting involved in the war with them. However, his disappointment was great when it turned out that the allies - the Austrians and the British - were ready to enjoy the fruits of the victories of Admiral Ushakov and Field Marshal Suvorov, but they do not want not only to reckon with the interests of Russia, but simply to comply with the agreements reached.
Meanwhile, on 18 Brumaire of the 8th year according to the revolutionary calendar (October 29, 1799 - according to the Russian one), as a result of a military coup, General Bonaparte, who almost immediately began to look for ways of reconciliation with Russia. Eastern empire seemed to him a natural ally of France in the struggle with the rest of Europe, and above all with England. In turn, Paul quickly realized that revolutionary France was coming to an end, and "a king would soon be established in this country, if not in name, then at least in essence." Napoleon and Russian emperor they exchange messages, with Paul expressing an unexpectedly sober and pragmatic view of the situation: “I do not speak and do not intend to discuss either the rights of a “man” or the different methods of government that exist in our countries. corresponding to the immutable laws of Providence. I am ready to listen to you..."
The turn in foreign policy was unusually steep - quite in the spirit of Paul. The emperor's mind is already seized by plans to establish by the forces of Russia and France a certain "European balance", within which he, Pavel, will play the role of the main and impartial arbiter.
By the end of 1800, relations between Russia and Britain escalated to the limit. Now the British are occupying the long-suffering Malta. Pavel in response forbids all trade with Britain and arrests all British merchant ships in Russia along with their crews. The English ambassador, Lord Whitworth, was expelled from St. Petersburg, who declared that the Russian autocrat was crazy, and in the meantime, actively and without skimping on money, rallied the opposition to Paul in the capital's society. Admiral's squadron Nelson was preparing for a campaign in the Baltic Sea, and the Don Cossacks were ordered to strike at the most vulnerable, as it seemed, place of the British Empire - India. In this confrontation, the stakes for foggy Albion were unusually high. It is not surprising that the "English trace" in the conspiracy organized against Paul is easily discernible. But still, the regicide can hardly be considered a successful "special operation" of British agents.
"What I've done?"“He has a smart head, but there is some kind of machine in it that is held on by a thread. If this thread breaks, the machine will wrap itself, and then the end of the mind and reason,” once said one of Pavel’s educators. In 1800 and early 1801, it seemed to many people around the emperor that the thread was about to break, if it had not already. “Over the past year, suspicion in the emperor has developed to monstrosity. The tiniest cases grew in his eyes into huge conspiracies, he drove people into retirement and exiled arbitrarily. Numerous victims were not transferred to the fortress, and sometimes all their fault was reduced to too long hair or too short caftan ... "- recalled Princess Liven.
Yes, the character of Pavel was skillfully played by a variety of people and with different goals. Yes, he was easy-going and often pardoned the punished, and this trait was also used by his enemies. He knew his weaknesses and struggled with them all his life with varying success. But towards the end of his life, this struggle clearly became unbearable for him. Pavel gradually gave up, and although he did not reach the line beyond which the “end of reason” begins, he quickly approached it. A fatal role, probably, was played by the rapid expansion of the habitual and since childhood very limited horizon of perception to the size of the real and infinite world. Paul's consciousness could not accept and order it.
Not without the influence of true conspirators, the emperor quarreled with his own family. Even before that, Nelidova was replaced by the pretty and narrow-minded Anna Lopukhina. Paul's environment was in constant tension and fear. A rumor spread that he was preparing to deal with his wife and sons. The country is frozen...
Of course, from murmuring to regicide is a colossal distance. But the second would hardly have been possible without the first. The real (and unnoticed by Pavel) conspiracy was led by people close to him - von Palen, N.P. Panin (nephew of Pavel's teacher), and his old enemies - the Zubov brothers, L. Bennigsen. Consent to the overthrow of his father from the throne (but not to murder) was given by his son Alexander. Forty days before the coup, the imperial family moved to the barely completed, still damp Mikhailovsky Palace. It was here that on the night of March 11-12, 1801, the final scenes of the tragedy were played out.
The crowd of conspirators warmed up by wine, which had fairly thinned out on the way to the emperor’s chambers, did not immediately find Paul - he hid behind the fireplace screen. His last words were: "What have I done?"
Igor Khristoforov, Candidate of Historical Sciences
Local historian, historian, employee of the Museum of the city of Novosibirsk Konstantin Golodyaev spoke specifically for the site about the anniversary of the event in Novosibirsk, which became a "supermeme" in social networks after many years.
Friday, June 4, 1965 was cloudy but very warm. Some of the idle townspeople were sitting on the banks of the Ob, opening the beach season, some were driving along the Communal Bridge, and some were walking along it. And around noon, they all heard a terrible roar, and saw how waves grew from under this bridge (and, some argued, from under the water), a large silvery “something” emerged and swiftly rushed into the distance. A tsunami hit the coast.
By evening, almost the entire city was quietly discussing what had happened. No one doubted that the swift "something" was the plane. True, the stories diverged from the passenger Tu-104 that lost control (notorious for its accident rate) to the testing of the latest aviation weapons. Not without a favorite rumor "Cherchez la femme". The radio network remained silent, the newspapers the next day did not clarify anything either. But the owners of VHF receivers, through the crackle of jammers, managed to hear Western reflections on the future of strafing flights and hysterical Maoist cries about the development of new tactics by the Russians to destroy Chinese bridges and crossings. Only years later did the city learn that its Communal (officially Oktyabrsky) bridge is now neither more nor less, but a world landmark.
And it remains so to this day, because no one in the world has yet repeated the flight under the bridge on a JET.
Yes, the truth was that this “underwater” silver fireball turned out to be a MIG-17 jet fighter, on which, out of “boredom and hopelessness”, thirty-year-old captain of the Soviet Air Force Valentin Vasilyevich Privalov flew into the arch of the bridge. His superiors did not notice, did not assign the next rank, the report on sending him on a business trip to help fraternal Vietnam was rejected twice. And he is a good pilot and his character is groovy - he is boiling, it is not for nothing that his colleagues called him "Jack". Here it is.
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A pilot was assigned in Kansk, and here four Krasnoyarsk fighters were located at the location of the 712th Guards Aviation Regiment in Tolmachevo. They arrived at the exercises of the district. And so, returning from the Yurga training ground, from working out the "conditional target" for anti-aircraft gunners, Privalov saw our handsome bridge in front of him. And it must be said that chance has nothing to do with it: the pilot was already eyeing him, having recently been with the guys on the beach.
Standing in the river bed, Privalov extinguished the speed to 700 kilometers per hour, descended to the water, then slowed down again and sent the car into the central arch of the bridge.
The width of the arch is 120 meters, the wingspan is less than 10. Twelve-fold margin. But taking into account the height of the bridge of 30 meters, and most importantly, the speed of the aircraft at the time of passage, estimated by experts at 400 km / h, and the time for the subsequent maneuver, the flight was sniper. Immediately after the passage, from which, according to eyewitnesses who were on the bridge, the bottom of the river was exposed, the car began to sharply gain height. Between the Communal and railway bridges 950 meters. And the second one is higher. 400 km/h. 111 m/s Given the acceleration in stock less than 8-9 seconds. They say that the plane passed almost tightly over the trusses of the second bridge.
By and large, and by and large, Privalov's trick was criminal. It would be nice if he risked only his own life, which was already in his biography. It would be nice if he destroyed one of the bridges, stopped the Trans-Siberian. But there were people, cars, public transport on the Communal Bridge.
The incident was immediately reported to Moscow. The entire Kansk group of pilots was arrested.
Privalov is urgently expelled from the ranks of the CPSU. Sitting in the guardhouse, he is waiting for parting not only with the sky, but also with freedom. On the third day something "clicked". The pilot was released, handed over the documents for the train and ordered to immediately depart for Kansk, to the location of the unit. No convoy. A telegram from the Minister of Defense of the USSR, Marshal Malinovsky, is already arriving there: do not punish the pilot, give him a rest. Privalov is reinstated in the party, but still they put in a stricter with an entry.
And after a while he was transferred to the Gorky region, in educational part, then they assign a major, then a lieutenant colonel, appoint a squadron commander, deputy regiment commander. Valentin Vasilyevich himself was never imbued with the dubious value of his act. He said: "The bridge is just an accident. If it weren't for the bridge, it would be something else of the same kind."
The French opened the topic of flying under bridges. Even at the beginning of the last century.
Next we have Slavorossov, Fride, Gruzinov, Chkalov, Borisenko. The pilot Rozhnov went under the bridge from the persecution of the Nazis. Already in our time, we have repeatedly flown under bridges on a sports plane and a motor Yak. In Vilnius, even upside down. There are enough madnesses in the world, but no other pilot on the planet is in a hurry to repeat such a trick on jet plane.
Naturally, there is no photograph of the incident. Yes, it couldn't be.
Nobody even had time to pick up a camera. But there is a widely disseminated collage, which a few years ago was made by an employee of the museum of our city, Yevgeny Sotsikhovsky. In my opinion, very skillfully, although mathematically incorrect.
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There is probably no person in Novosibirsk who has not heard about the passage under our Communal Bridge. This act of different people causes different feelings. Some consider our “Siberian Chkalov” a hero, others a bully. Yes, and the then Minister of Defense of the USSR, Marshal Rodion Yakovlevich Malinovsky, forgave the pilot, ordering not to punish him, but to “let him rest.” Even the Communist Party was not expelled. He, of course, is an aviation hooligan, but after all, ours!
Photo collage on request
And although this story is absolutely true, it is already shrouded in a bunch of myths. This was also helped by the famous photo collage showing the very moment of the flight. But after all, in 1965 there was not a single one in each hand. mobile phones with cameras, no "instant" cameras, specially in an ambush no one sat and waited. This "photo" was made by order of the Museum of Novosibirsk, its designer Evgeny Sotsikhovsky. And deliberately with violations of proportions, so that no sane person could even think that this is a reality. The scale of the aircraft relative to the bridge is greatly increased, and the angle of flight suggests that it almost emerges from the water. And the embankment had not yet been built.
Nevertheless, some believed in photography, while for others, who were more attentive, the collage immediately evoked a feeling of untruth and the creation of another myth. But this real case, in contrast to the flight of Chkalov himself, allegedly invented for the film "Valery Chkalov". In any case, no such case was recorded in the ace's personal file. But during the filming of the film, pilot Yevgeny Borisenko actually made six takes of a flight under the Troitsky Bridge in Leningrad on a Sh-2 seaplane.
Tram number 13 and pilots under the bridges
But let's leave the dispute about Chkalov to Petersburgers. And our case was even recorded by the Soviet (!) press. We have two main legends in the city: avenging cars and pilots under bridges. In August 1965, the all-Union newspaper Izvestiya wrote in the article “They Stole a Tram”: “The incident in the tram depot really hurt the pride of Novosibirsk aviators. “Why are we worse than trams!” they exclaimed. And soon, on one of the hot days ... ”- well, and further in the text ...
Air Force Captain Privalov is also already overgrown with legends. First, it is not entirely ours. Its part was stationed in the city of Kansk Krasnoyarsk Territory, and in Novosibirsk he was on a business trip. There is also some confusion about the date of the flight - they are called June 3, 4, and 14. The version about conquering the girl on the beach (or on the bridge) is also romantic.
But the main thing is that we still consider this flight under the bridge on a jet plane the only one in the world and has not yet been repeated. That's what I thought, and that's what I've told others. But with the help of a distant overseas friend Misha Yudanin, who was still living in Novosibirsk in the late 1980s, they managed to find out that, it turns out, there is life abroad, and there are also “reckless” pilots there.
And the first flight on a jet aircraft was made 6 years before ours, on April 24, 1959. True, it was not a fighter, but a jet bomber. This hooligan overflight was made by a successful, experienced US Air Force pilot, 39-year-old Captain John S. Lappo (John S. Lappo). And it happened in Michigan, under the Mackinac suspension bridge. Lappo was also getting ready. According to him, he planned to fly under the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, but another turned up.
Early in the morning, also returning to base after completing learning task, over Lake Michigan, Lappo dropped to a height of 23 meters and slipped on a reconnaissance bomber RB-47E Stratojet under the brand new Mackinac Bridge. A 60-ton aircraft was separated from the water and the span of the bridge by a couple of tens of meters.
The commander of the crew was given under a military tribunal. But the former military merits saved the captain from prison - 28 sorties in Korea on a B-29 bomber, four military awards, "Flight Cross" for several reconnaissance flights over the territory of the USSR. The court reprimanded Lappo and awarded a fine. At the same time, all American aircraft were prohibited from descending below 500 feet (153 m). John Lappo also received personal gratitude from the 1st Deputy Chief of Staff of the Air Force, Curtis LeMay: “I’m sorry that I don’t have a squadron of pilots like you,” but the hooligan could no longer sit at the helm of a military aircraft, although he still served in the Air Force 13 years old, having retired with the rank of lieutenant colonel.
The length of the main span of the Mackinac Bridge is 1158 m, the clearance from the carriageway to the water is 50 meters. The width of the span is 127 meters, the height is 30 meters. Agree that the eye of the needle is ten times smaller.
But the bomber has almost four times the wingspan - 35.4 meters against 9.83 MiGs. Almost 100 km higher stall speed -308 km/h against our 220-230. That is, it must fly faster, or it will fall, although cruising speed, of course, is a loser. But who is on the cruise and under the bridges!
"Subtle" English humor
Another jet overflight happened after ours in the heart of the old, good england. On the afternoon of April 5, 1968, an RAF pilot, regimental commander of the 1st Squadron, 32-year-old Alan Pollock flew a Hawker Hunter FGA.9 fighter at a speed of 300 miles per hour (483 km / h) under the top of the Tower Bridge . Before that, he separated from the led group of aircraft, went towards London, circled the Houses of Parliament three times with a thunderous roar and circled over the Royal Air Force memorial on the Victoria Embankment. The pilot did this to protest the decision of the Labor government not to hold an air parade over London in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the RAF.
The width of the Tower Bridge is more than two times less than the Communal Bridge in Novosibirsk - 61 meters, and the height of the upper gallery above the main bridge is 42 meters. The pilot was not stopped by the fact that a double-decker bus was moving along the bridge, pedestrians were walking.
After landing, Pollock was arrested, and then, despite the support of his colleagues, was dismissed from the Air Force for health reasons without the right to appeal, which allowed him to avoid a military court.
For clarity, I have summarized the characteristics of aircraft and bridges that are most interesting to us in tables.
Of course, flight conditions also depend on many other conditions (wind, the actual weight of the aircraft, the skill of the pilot). But, whatever one may say, the risk is huge in all cases - a slight movement of the steering wheel - and you are in the bridge support or in the water, and in our case you still need to climb correctly, because ahead, after 950 meters, the next obstacle is the railway bridge across the Ob.
I must say that all three pilots were preparing in one way or another. The Englishman even made a preliminary map of his flight over London. All three are proud of their deed and colorfully describe it. But what was it like for ordinary people who were at the time of the heroic flight on the bridges. Didn't have time to understand? Maybe. A spokesman for the London Metropolitan Police concluded in 1968: “We do not see this as a joke, it could have serious consequences. There were pedestrians and vehicles on the bridge." Dry and sober.