On October 21, 1981, a submarine C-178 was killed in the Japan Sea near the Bosphorus Strait (Vladivostok). A refrigerator vessel crashed into it, which was led by an untreated starter, and the sober captain rested... lying. After receiving a deadly impact, the submarine lay on the ground at a depth of 32 meters with a huge gap in the sixth compartment.
In large part, the emergency situation was created by the operational duty brigade of the ships of the Primorsky Fleet, allowing the exit of the "Refrixerator-13" from the bay, and his assistant, arriving from the dinner, without thinking, gave a good at the entrance of the "S-178" in the golden horn bay, for some reason forgetting to transmit to it the information about the exiting ship.
After the fatal blow, seven people who were on the bridge, including the commander of the aircraft – captain of the 3rd rank Valery Marango, were on board. The personal composition of the feed compartments died almost immediately. A few officers and two dozen sailors remained in the noses. The command was taken by a senior assistant – Captain Lieutenant Sergey Kubynin.
Together with the commander of BCH-5, Captain Lieutenant Valery Zybin, they decided to take the surviving portion of the crew through the torpedo tube. However, the people in the torpedo compartment were much more than the staff and the rescue sets of the IDA-59 to get out of the sunken submarine were not enough... Meanwhile, the command of the TOP launched a rescue operation, and there was hope that the rescuers would be able to transfer the missing "sweepstakes" on board.
I had to wait three days. The darkness, the cold, the poisoned air... Time lasted deadly long. The forces of the submarines were melting, despite the fact that they were young strong guys 19-20 years old. Kubynin was the oldest – he surpassed 26 years. As the senior in age, rank and position, he was simply obliged to inspire the subordinates, to restore them hope for the best... Having built a staff in the outer darkness, Kubynin read the order to raise all titles and classness to one level, not lenient to make the corresponding record in the military tickets and fix it at the dim flashing light of the emergency lamp with a ship stamp...
After this, each sailor was awarded a sign "For the long journey" (a box with them was accidentally found in the second compartment). The mood in the semi-inundated compartment rose sharply, everyone immediately forgot about the temperature and inflammation of the lungs, which on the third day all were sick.
Finally, after receiving the missing IDA sets from rescuers arriving at the scene of the tragedy on the rescue submarine Lenok, Kubinin and Zybin began to release sailors. Three men plunged into the torpedo, which then drifted, filled with water, and then opened the front cover. And at the exit of the device, the boys waited for the dives, conducting them to the decompression chamber on board the neighboring Lenka lying on the ground. Those who, for one reason or another, went up to the surface, were subjected to the same procedure in the barocam of the surface vessel.
The last, as the commander of the ship, left the "S-178" Sergey Kubynin. And to do this for one person was fucking difficult! It was to flood the first compartment and, waiting for the water to reach the treasury part of the torpedo apparatus, to dive into it and pour 7 meters of iron pipes calibre 533 mm... Gull in the inflamed brain, work at the limit of human forces and revelation at the exit of the apparatus - around no one! As it turned out later, rescuers could not even assume that the last remaining on board could leave the submarine on their own and... put a cross on it, overturning the operation! Kubynin went on to the superstructure, deciding to get to the rubbish, and then jump to the surface. He failed – lost consciousness, and the water costume brought him to the surface... He was miraculously noticed among the waves from the rescue boat.
Sergei came to himself in the barocamera on the rescue "Giguli". In the vein of his right hand was wrapped the needle of the dropper, but the pain he did not feel - was in full spread. The doctors made him seven diagnoses: carbon dioxide poisoning, oxygen poisoning, pulmonary rupture, extensive hematoma, pneumotorax, bilateral pneumonia, broken drum membranes... He really recovered when he saw in the barocamera illuminator the faces of friends and co-workers: they soundlessly shouted something, smiled. Without being afraid of the strict medical generals, the boys broke into the Baroque Chamber.
Then there was a hospital. Seafarers, officers, nurses, completely unfamiliar people came to Kubinin’s chamber; they pressed their hand, thanked for the endurance, for the endurance, for the saved seafarers, gave flowers, carried grapes, melons, peppers, mandarins. It was in Vladivostok in October. The chamber where Kubynin lay was nicknamed "Citrus" in the hospital.
Sergey Kubynin has made at least three feats in his life. The first, officer – when he headed the surviving crew on a sunken submarine; the second – civilian, when years later managed to that the abandoned memorial of the dead sailors “C-178” was brought in order at the Maritime Cemetery of Vladivostok. Finally, the third, purely human feat – he took care of the surviving fellow servants.
Today, they have been a lot of years, and that overdose with all its medical consequences hit the body in the most devastating way. Former sailors and senior officers refer to him as their lifelong commander, to whom they believed then, at the death line, to whom they believe today, knowing that only he and nobody else will save them from the soullessness and arbitrariness of military commanding and medical officials. And he rescues them, writes letters to the highest instances, messes... forces the state to do what it is obliged to do without additional appeals to the president and the highest justice.
Today, especially after the tragedies of the nuclear submarines Komsomolets and Kursk, it became clear: what committed by Captain Lieutenant Sergey Kubynin and his mechanic Valery Zybin in October 1981 was not repeated by anyone. Except for the captain of the 1st rank Nikolai Suvorov, who organized the exit of his crew from the flooded K-429 atomic vehicle.
The award letter for the title of Hero of Russia, signed by prominent admirals of our fleet, including the former Chief Commander of the Navy of the USSR, Admiral of the Fleet Vladimir Chernavin, and remained under the costume of officials of the award department.
Today few people know about this feat... And yet we remember our heroes. We know Sergey Kubynin! Now our Hero serves in the Ministry of Emergencies, carries his guards in the position of the operational service of the Ministry of Emergencies of the South-Western District of Moscow. He still remains a Saviour in the full sense of the word!