"Vanya-Kommunist" — a paddle-wheel tugboat steamer, converted in the summer of 1918 near Nizhny Novgorod into a gunboat of the Volga Military Flotilla; in the flotilla's documents the vessel was listed as armed vessel "Vanya" No. 5 [1][2]. It served as the flagship of Nikolay Markin, the flotilla's commissar, who perished together with the vessel on 1 October 1918 near Pyanyy Bor on the Kama [2][3].
A Tugboat from the Volga
The steamer was built in 1905 in Saratov at the plant of engineer Bari, on order from the trading house of Borel. The hull was steel, the engine was an inclined compound steam engine of 300 horsepower, steam was supplied by two fire-tube boilers; the engine and boilers were manufactured in Switzerland. Propulsion was provided by two paddle wheels, each with nine wooden floats [2].
Before the Civil War the vessel hauled barges along the Volga. On 29 June 1918 the Nizhny Novgorod District Water Transport Administration transferred the tugboat to the disposal of the commissar of the Volga Military Flotilla, and the steamer was assigned hull number 5 [2].
How a Tugboat Was Turned into a Gunboat
"Vanya" No. 5 was refitted and armed at the Nizhegorodsky Teplоkhod plant in Bor. The tugboat steamer "Matvey Bashkirov" went through the same process, becoming the gunboat "Volgar-Dobrovolets" [2].
The scope of the work is evident from the invoice that the joint-stock company "Teplоkhod" submitted to the Main Shipbuilding Directorate [2].
…the interior spaces were broken out to install foundations, foundations for the guns were laid, foundation fastenings were installed, quarters and bunks for the crew were fitted out, the deck wheelhouse was rebuilt, iron armor was laid over the wooden superstructure, shell racks were made, the guns were mounted in place, and the hull and deck superstructures were painted [2]
Armament and Protection
The towing arches and the entrance hatch vestibule to the stern compartments, which obstructed firing, were removed from the vessel. The initial armament consisted of two 75-mm and one 37-mm naval guns and six Maxim machine guns on tripods. For a time, two 27-mm rapid-fire wheeled guns were also carried aboard — for arming landing parties [2].
Additional steel plate protection for the machine-gun crews was proposed by the vessel's senior machine-gunner, N. Kartashov. The plates were fabricated in the workshops of the Paratsky backwater, and the same protection was later fitted to all vessels of the flotilla [2].
After the taking of Kazan, "Vanya" returned to Nizhny Novgorod to have her engine repaired. The order for urgent repairs was issued to the Krasnoye Sormovo Plant: within five days the engine was overhauled, a rangefinder was installed on the wheelhouse, and an anti-aircraft gun was mounted on the main deck [2].
| Characteristic | Value |
|---|---|
| Maximum length | 60.20 m |
| Length at design waterline | 53.32 m |
| Maximum beam | 15.15 m |
| Beam at design waterline | 7.32 m |
| Freeboard height | 2.57 m |
| Minimum draught / with fuel | 0.708 / 0.885 m |
| Steam engine power | 300 hp |
| Artillery | two 75 mm naval guns, one 47 mm anti-aircraft gun |
| Machine guns | six 7.62 mm Maxims on tripods, plus pintle-mounted guns for landing parties |
| Armour | bullet-proof, plates approx. 8 mm: wheelhouse, boiler casing, casing cabins |
| Crew | 78 men |
Sviyazhsk and Kazan
On 21 August 1918, *Vanya* No. 5 departed Nizhny Novgorod for the front, and two days later joined the flotilla's main forces near Sviyazhsk [2].
On 28 August, the enemy broke through the front line and launched an advance on Sviyazhsk, where the headquarters of the 5th Army was stationed. The gunboats *Vanya* and *Dobry*, together with the fort-barge *Syoryozha*, arrived in the thick of battle, opened artillery fire, and landed troops in the rear of the advancing enemy; the attack was halted [2].
On 9 September, four gunboats raided the Kazan wharves. A landing party removed the sentries and seized eight heavy guns on shore, but reinforcements failed to break through and the detachment withdrew. The following day the landing was repeated under destroyer cover, and on 10 September Kazan was taken [2][3].
For the fighting near Kazan, the crew was awarded the Red Banner of the VTsIK. On 13 September, the order of the Revolutionary Military Council was read to the crew, announcing that the ships' former names were to be replaced with new ones; the flagship was to be renamed *Vanya-Kommunist*, but the name was never officially conferred [2].
The Final Battle
On 1 October 1918, aerial reconnaissance spotted six enemy steamers not far from the flotilla's anchorage. The command decided against attacking without infantry support or information about shore batteries, and sent forward a combat reconnaissance: first a volunteer detachment, then *Vanya* and the destroyer *Prytky* [2].
Off Malinovskiy Cape, a concealed battery opened fire. The very first salvo struck the gunboat: one hit destroyed the stern gun along with its crew, a second exploded in the engine room, and the vessel lost way and steerage. *Prytky* twice attempted to come to her aid and was driven off both times by enemy fire. *Vanya*'s surviving gun continued to fire; when the ship's own shells began to explode in the blaze, Markin ordered the crew to save themselves by swimming. Forty-eight men were pulled from the water by the destroyer — the commissar was not among them [2].
Markin's death was discussed on 3 October 1918 at a joint session of the VTsIK, the Moscow Soviet, and representatives of factory committees and trade unions [2].
At every session we are obliged to honor the memory of comrades who have just perished… His loss is undoubtedly an irreplaceable one; he was the first to undertake the organization of the flotilla. [2]
Crew and Memory
The future playwright Vsevolod Vishnevsky served as a machine gunner aboard the Vanya. After the vessel was lost, part of the crew — machine gunners Vishnevsky and Kartashov, gun crews Freyman and Kvashinskiy, stoker Kravchenko — transferred to an armored-train unit [2].
The commissar's name is borne by the square near the River Station on the Nizhne-Volzhskaya Embankment, as well as by a children's club in the city [4].
The name was passed further along the river. The flotilla's next vessel was named Vanya-Kommunist: it took part in the fighting near Tsaritsyn, worked on the Volga after the war, and was lost in 1942 near Stalingrad [2]. Models of the gunboat are kept in museums in Moscow, Leningrad, Kazan, and Gorky, and the vessel's drawings were analyzed in a journal publication of 1982 [1][2].
The name is also carried by a present-day river tugboat: the pusher Vanya Kommunist, Project 81200, was built on 17 December 1987, is registered in Kazan, and remains in service [5].
Sources
- modelist-konstruktor.com — Modelist-Konstruktor — Contents of Issue No. 11, 1982: V. Bogdanov, V. Pronchatov. Mobilized by the Revolution, p. 17; insert — gunboat "Vanya" No. 5, drawing by N. Rozhnov (archive)
- communist-ml.ru — Cominform — V. Bogdanov, V. Pronchatov. Mobilized by the Revolution. Scientific consultant — river fleet captain A. A. Usov. Full text of the Modelist-Konstruktor publication (archive)
- militera.lib.ru — Military Literature — The Civil War in Russia: The Struggle for the Volga Region. Chapter "The Volga Military Flotilla" (archive)
- names52.ru — Nizhny Novgorod Biographical Encyclopedia — Markin Nikolay Grigoryevich (archive)
- korabel.ru — Korabel.ru — Vanya Communist — pusher tugboat, Project 81200, registration number 219310 (archive)