This Russian Navy Ship Is Over 100 Years Old And Is Still In Service Today

The yr was 1912. The world was nonetheless a number of years away from the Great War and 5 years previous to the Bolshevik Revolution. In March, the primary individual ever jumped from a airplane (with a parachute) over St. Louis, Missouri. The following month, the RMS “Titanic” hit an iceberg and sank off Newfoundland. 

And in November, in Saint Petersburg, Russia, the keel of the “Volkhov” was first laid, starting its official building. The Russian Imperial Navy initially meant for it to be a submarine tender, which in landlubber phrases means a ship that gives providers and provides to submarines. It first launched in 1913 and was commissioned in 1915, serving with the Baltic fleet that included rescue and salvage operations.

The “Volkhov’s” design borrowed closely from the same U-boat salvage tug constructed by the Germans known as the SMS “Vulkan.” It sailed on double-hulled catamarans with two heavy-duty lifting frames straddling above that would raise submarines up and out of the water and have it relaxation neatly between the hulls to be labored on. 

The “Volkhov” sat 315 toes lengthy with a crew of 99. When totally loaded with provides — similar to 50 tons of gasoline, a number of torpedoes, and extra crew members for the subs — it had a displacement of three,100 tons. In December 1922, she was renamed “Kommuna” and reclassified from a “salvage ship” to a “rescue ship.”

While one would possibly assume {that a} ship that first set sail 110 years in the past would have lengthy since been scrapped or be sitting in a naval museum someplace, such is just not the case with the “Kommuna.”

[Image by George Chernilevsky via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC BY-SA 4.0]

Not solely is the “Kommuna” nonetheless floating, but it surely’s nonetheless utilized by the Russian fleet to this very day, making it the oldest energetic naval vessel on the planet. It has sailed underneath each iteration of Russia (the Imperials, Soviets, and Russian Federation) since her building and survived each World Wars and a revolution. 

When Nazi Germany invaded Russia in 1941, the “Kommuna” was instrumental through the 900-day siege of Leningrad. While receiving appreciable injury, she nonetheless recovered tanks, autos, and provides that had both sunk on different ships or fallen by the ice. Furthermore, she is credited with elevating dozens of submarines and ships through the course of the battle.

In 1967 she was retrofitted, geared up with small deep-dive submersibles and ROVs (Remotely Operated Vehicles), and despatched to the Black Sea for restoration and salvage missions. In 1974 the “Kommuna” was geared up with a DSRV (Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle) and has rescued over 150 subs, ships, and even the occasional airplane.

In April 2022, the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet (the “Moskva”) could or could not have been hit by Ukrainian Neptune missiles. The Russians claimed a fireplace began on board which brought on the injury however regardless of the case, the “Moskva” sank and the Russian Navy despatched the over-a-century-old “Kommuna” out to salvage what it may.