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Cruiser ⌠Aurora■, what are you dreaming about?

Approximately since the 1930-ies the cruiser ╚Aurora╩ was began to be sung of thanks to painters, poets, journalists, stage directors and some writers. The ship was especially praised in Stalin▓s times. The cruiser ╚Aurora╩ and a sailor with machinegun belts became emblems of the Great October Revolution and it seemed that the ship did not exist before the revolution at all.

In 1958 an ex-member of Tsentrobalt (Central Committee of the Baltic Fleet) and a sailor of the battleship ╚Republic╩ (named ╚Emperor Pavel I╩ up to February 1917) wrote memoirs. They were not published. The eyewitness of the events of 1917 wrote: ╚So called writers compose different tales and their books are edited in hundred thousand copies and nobody says anything. The party work in Baltic fleet is forgotten, fight and deeds of revolutionary sailors are left behind and a blank shot of ╚Aurora╩ turned into salvo.╩

Let▓s address to archives that were collected by a son of the last captain of ╚Aurora╩ (as a battle ship) L.L. Polenov for many years.

Heaving off after the ronstruction. 1987 [zoom (55k)]

In the middle of October 1917 the repair of some ╚Aurora╩ devices was completed. The cruiser lied up at Admiralty plant and was preparing for trials. Lieutenant N.A. Erickson commanded the ship. The senior artillery officer lieutenant B.F. Winter was elected the senior officer.

On October 24 ╚Aurora╩ ship committee got a dictation from Petrogradskii Soviet to send two representatives to Smolny. One of them, the engine driver, 1st class A.V. Belishev returned to the cruiser with a mandate of the VRK (War-revolutionary committee) Commissar signed by N.I. Podvoyskii. The cruiser had to accomplish the following task ≈ to bring together the bays of Nikolaevskii bridge that had been parted by junkers on the eve. Belishev told that to Erickson who turned out to be in a difficult situation. The cruiser did not obey to VRK and Erickson did not get any orders from naval command to move the ship to Nikolaevskii bridge. On the other hand if they had not obeyed the Petrogradskii Soviet dictation the part of the crew that held extreme views in politics could have avenged the officers. Erickson well remembered that the former captain of ╚Aurora╩, commodore M.I. Nikolskii was killed in February 1917. However Erickson refused to move the cruiser to Nikolaevskii bridge. He said that the cruiser rode out for a long time and deepnesses around the ship could have changed greatly because of river drifts.

Belishev went out of the captain▓s salon and soon returned with two armed sailors. He ordered them not to allow anybody to enter the salon. Then he addressed to the senior officer Winter and added: ╚To avoid incidents I am to place guards here as I could not answer for the crew when it knows the captain▓s decision.╩

However Belishev shared captain▓s apprehension and assigned boatswain S.P. Zakharov to make dipping of deepnesses in the zone of the riding. Having turned out that the deepnesses let the cruiser leave Belishev addressed to Erickson once more. The crew decided to navigate all alone but Belishev bewared that the cruiser could get serious damages being navigated by sailors. This argument made Erickson change his original decision.

The cruiser safely reached Nikolaevskii bridge and anchored about 470 meters downsteam. Junkers guarding the bridge stepped back at the sight of the cruiser. The ship electricians brought the bridge together. In the afternoon ╚Aurora╩ was visited by V.A. Antonov-Ovssenko. He precised the ship▓s tasks and arranged that ╚after the signal shot of Peter-and-Paul▓s Fortress ╚Aurora╩ will make a pair of blank shots from its 6 inches gun.╩

At 7 p. m. a summons was delivered to the Provisional government. It was declined and shots from Peter-and-Paul▓s Fortress and a blank shot from ╚Aurora╩ were made.

The Winter Palace was shelled from machineguns and rifles for 10√15 minutes. After that a part of the palace defenders gave way and the rest got the summons again. They declined it and the fire was brought down from 3 inched field-guns that finally demoralized the defenses. VRK forces entered the palace almost unhindered and arrested ministers of the Provisional government. Antonov-Ovseenko recalled: ╚During the assault on the Winter Palace five sailors and one soldier were killed; there were a lot of minor wounded ≈ it is not too large. The defenders of the government were not any the serious worse for it.╩

In a few days they gave it out in Petrograd that ╚Aurora╩▓s guns fired the Winter Palace on with live ammunition. Belishev had to write to the Pravda newspaper (the letter was published on October 27): ╚Press writes that ╚Aurora╩ started shelling the Winter Palace but do the honourable reporters know that if it had been the truth, the fire would have taken the Winter Palace and adjacent streets to pieces? (┘) only one blank shot from a 6 inches (15 cm) gun was made and it was a signal for all the ships riding out on the Neva, it called them to be vigilant and ready.╩

╚Aurora╩ Visit to Norway. 1920-ies [zoom (26k)]

Still the Soviet propaganda needed a bright image, a symbol. It was the blank shot of ╚Aurora╩ that played the symbolic role having announced the beginning of the new era. And the very shot made ╚Aurora╩ forever famous.

However before the cruiser became a museum it had to be repaired, participated in far campaigns and took part in Leningrad▓s defense. In 1944 fleet admiral I.S. Isakov pushed through a proposal ╚to make ╚Aurora╩ a museum-monument forever connected with Leningrad, the Great October Revolution and Leningrad▓s defense╩ to the all-mighty member of Politburo A.A. Zhdanov. The very connection with the revolution played a pivotal role in the cruiser▓s fate.

At first ╚Aurora╩ was at disposal of Nakhimov Naval College but in 1960 it became a state protected monument and a filial of the Central Naval Museum before long. Everything was going on well but by the end of the 1970-ies it was manifested that the hull needs through repair. 80 years of constant staying in water, far campaigns, participation in battles left their marks on the metal plantings. In 1980 a special committee was set up to formulate a project of the reconstruction of the cruiser. Several variants were discussed among them the one to put the ship on a concrete pad. Japanese admiral▓s ship ╚Mikasa╩ of Admiral H. Togo and tow boats of Ladoga naval flotilla in Novaya Ladoga were preserved in this way ≈ it is a sad sight for a seaman.

Finally a decision was taken. Some people were inadequate about it. ╚Aurora is false!╩ ≈ declared some ╚brave╩ TV-journalists. That was the time when everything was going bad and nobody wondered at that statement. The Russians believed that there was something wrong with the cruiser. The famous poet E. Evtushenko wrote that it was a sale of a national shrine.

Of course, there is no smoke without fire. During the process of reconstruction of the cruiser some historic mistakes were made, some details (fastening in the main) made of base metal were sold for souvenirs. But the ship was kept ≈ and it is above all.

Unfortunately, people who shouted that ╚Aurora╩ was false understood little in engineering. The fact is that a battle ship ≈ a complicated organism performed for sea battles ≈ usually has a rather limited operating life that is defined by a complex of factors. They are an aggressive environment (sea water), wide temperature limits (from winterings at Gelsingforce covered with ice to navigation in tropical latitudes) and damages made by enemy missiles.

Later the ship was also time and again repaired ≈ in 1908, 1916√1917, 1922√1923 and 1944√1948. To convert the ship into a museum ╚Aurora╩▓s through repairs had to be realized ≈ the subsurface part of the hull got a watertight ╚jacket╩ of concrete. In 1946 the lower part of the hull was in such a bad state that is could have been completely replaced back then. But at that time another decision was taken ≈ the bottom was grouted concrete from within. The decision was economically proved for the postwar time. In the end of the 1940-ies they talked over the idea of using concrete, not metal for ships manufacturing. All at once with repair works ╚Aurora╩ was made up to represent the cruiser ╚Varyag╩ in shooting at East Kronshtadt roads. The shooting ended in the autumn of 1946 and ╚Aurora╩ again resulted defenseless to the destroying power of time.

In due time the cruiser was implated by wood and cooper sheets from outside to prevent the hull from being covered with different shell╛fishes and seaweeds. Electric engineering says that copper and steel should not be used together as their neighboring promotes faster corrosion.

By 1984 the only way to save the cruiser was to change the part of the old hull below waterline for a new one made according to old drawings. But many people spoke against the reconstruction. Some thought that not reconstruction but restoration should be done. When in 1984 ╚Aurora╩ was transported to the dock of ╚Northern Shipyard╩ (plant named after Zhdanov at that time) it was in a very bad condition ≈ kneepieces could be broken by a light punch. There was almost no metal as it was totally corroded. It showed that the decision to reconstruct the ship was right. In the summer of 1987 ╚Aurora╩ re-anchored at the place of its eternal riding.

In 1997 L.L. Polenov wrote: ╚┘and what could have happened if the supporters of the ⌠true■ restoration had outfaced in the spring of 1987? It is not likely that such a lasting, time-consuming, scrupulous work that needs rather big money costs had been finished at that time. There was no money to build and repair even battleships in perestroika period. And in respect that there are people who consider ⌠Aurora■ to be a fatal symbol of the October revolution and not a monument of native shipbuilding and a veteran of the Russian fleet money means for the repair works could have not been allotted at all.╩