Biography of Vladimir Kostenko

Vladimir Polievtovich Kostenko was a scientist and rebel, he participated in sea battles and arranged conspiracies, wrote scientific works and designed shipbuilding plants, managed to suffer both from the royal authorities and from the Stalinist regime. However, Kostenko was lucky - he met death at the summer at home, in bed. And he became one of the main characters of the popular novel, which is reprinted and read for more than eighty years.

Says Vladimir Veretennikov. The nugget from the province of millions of people knew him under a different surname. His head was sitting straight, and short-cut hair on her-a hedgehog-gave her the character of some kind of alertness. He spoke in a pure and pleasant voice, which is the people who were nonsense and non -smokers, and his thoughts and words were accurate and rosary as a drawing.

The extraordinary external delicacy, accompanied by some kind of inner attentiveness to others, sharply distinguished him from the rest of the officers, ”the writer Alexei Novikov-Priba described one of the main characters of his“ Tsushima ”-engineer Vasiliev. Many readers of the famous novel do not know that the real name of Vasiliev was Vladimir Pauliktovich Kostenko.

He was one of the most gifted Russian shipbuilders. And practically none of the first readers of Tsusima knew that engineer Vasiliev was currently sitting in a Chelyabinsk prison ... Kostenko’s life path began on September 20 - he was born in a large family of a modest zemstvo doctor, in the village of Velikiy Buda, now the Poltava region in Ukraine. After graduating from a gymnasium in Belgorod with a gold medal, a talented young man entered the shipbuilding department of the Marine Engineering School of Emperor Nicholas I in Kronstadt.

This choice was not accidental: from the earliest years, Volodya showed hot interest in everything that was connected with the sea and ships. And at that time, the profession of a military shipbuilder was extremely in demand in the Russian Empire - due to the fact that the state participated in the naval arms race that began in the second half of the 19th century. In St. Petersburg, one after another, more and more ambitious programs for replenishing the fleet were accepted, in which hundreds of different ships were built on Russian and foreign shipyards: armadillos, cruisers of various classes, destroyers, gunboats, submarines, and military transport.

Someone had to design all these ships and manage their creation. The passion for technology in their family was distinguished not only by Vladimir - his younger brother Mikhail later became an outstanding electrical engineer. Vladimir, studying at the shipbuilding, demonstrated a remarkable talent, evidence of which his thesis was. In it, he proposed an advanced project of high-speed armored cruiser at that time, which was supposed to surpass all similar ships of foreign powers in his tactical and technical characteristics.

Feel freely going to increase the main caliber from mm to mm and bringing the number of mm guns from fourteen to sixteen, V. Kostenko first used the linear-exiled arrangement of gun towers in the global shipbuilding. Thanks to this placement of guns, the diploma cruiser V. The thesis work of a novice engineer was so impressed by the examination commission that the walls of the Summer Vladimir left with the gold medal and entering the honorary board.

The young specialist who survived in Tsushima was soon appointed to the latest squadron battleship "Eagle", who, as part of the 2nd Pacific squadron, had to go to the Far East-to fight with the Japanese. Kostenko knew this ship very well, as he was appointed assistant to the chief builder of the battleship. Due to the rush with sending a squadron, which, according to the initial plan, was supposed to help out Port Arthur, which was blocked by the Japanese, went on a campaign in virtually unfinished.

Numerous shortcomings had to be eliminated right on the road - and a lot of work fell on Kostenko’s shoulders. He coped with his duties with honor, offering many practical tips on how best to prepare the ship for battle. And these tips came in handy: the “eagle” turned out to be the only of the five strongest battleships of the squadron, which survived the daytime battle with the Japanese under Tsushima on May 27 on May 14 according to the old style of the year.

The meeting with the Japanese fleet under the leadership of Admiral Haikhatiro was for the squadron of Zinovy ​​Rozhestvesky fatal - it is literally bold from the surface of the water. A significant number of hits were also on the "eagle".

The ship received terrifying damage: according to Kostenko himself, a mm, mm and mm shell entered the “eagle”. But if they died, and “Alexander” and “Borodino” before flooding turned upside down, then the “eagle” survived. A floating ruin, into which a beautiful and majestic ship turned on, retained on the surface of the water, retained, unlike its counterparts, stability and did not turn over.

This happened due to the fact that at the stage of the construction of the battleship, Kostenko supplied the “eagle” with a special system of quick alignment of Kren and Diffherent.The day after the battle of May 27, the broken “eagle” and three more Russian ships, due to complete futility of further resistance, were handed over to the Japanese - and Kostenko, along with other surviving crew members, was captured.

The sailor and future writer Alexei Novikov, with whom Kostenko, despite the estate-caste partitions, made friends, indicates that he looked at the prospects of the campaign in advance very gloomy. The young engineer accurately recorded the numerous mistakes made by Admiral Rozhestvensky - and his sad forecasts came true. But what could a modest ship engineer do?

And each time he surprised me with his irrefutable evidence, criticizing the combat missions of the squadron. I learned to think differently from him. Sometimes the question arose before me: what would happen if this young man commanded instead of the Rozhdestoye squadron? And it seemed to me that he would not have done such nonsense, ”said Novikov. By the way, he gathered a lot for his future “Tsushima” from the book of Kostenko - to such an extent that the daughter of Vladimir Polievtovich later saw in some passages from the creation of Novikov a clear plagiarism.

Returning to his homeland from captivity in the year, Vladimir Polievtovich was under arrest. Suspicions addressed to him were not least because of Rozhestvensky, who gave an unfavorable review about Kostenko: they say, Troubles, a potential rebel. During the search in the apartment of Vladimir, they found records he made for himself and accused of "writing an anti -government composition, but not widespread." Polievk Ivanovich Kostenko came to Petersburg, rushing to trouble for his son.

During a visit to the gendarme administration, the assistant prosecutor Akkirta told Kostenko Sr.: “In his composition, your son spoke badly about the government and mentions some military union ...” As a result, the father made a bail for his son at three hundred rubles - and they were released. Communicating in St. Petersburg with naval officers and the authorities of shipbuilding plants, Kostenko, according to him, was convinced that “the most misunderstandings” about the reasons for the defeat spread there.

He himself, in the explanations of the causes of the defeat, launched the reverse picture before his superiors: “It is not the quality of our ships that led to the defeat of the squadron, but it is advisable to use the combat properties of the best ships and the enemy’s infancy and provide the enemy with all the initiative in battle.” After viewing the note, the head of the committee, Xaverei, wished Kostenko to make a report for the entire leading and command personnel of the fleet with the participation of responsible workers of the shipbuilding part.

This report sounded in the conference hall of the St. Petersburg Admiralty in the presence of almost a hundred sailors and shipbuilders. The broken attempt soon Vladimir received a new appointment: the assistant to the chief builder of the squadron battleship “Andrey the First -Called”. The design of the battleship had to hastily make changes dictated by sad Tsushima experience - and Kostenko in this matter turned out to be indispensable.

And in the summer he was sent to the UK, where a talented specialist overtook the completion of the Rurik armored cruiser ordered for the Russian fleet. Of course, the naval authorities could not know that Kostenko lives a double life - and his second life was associated with participation in an underground organization. The revolutionary Kostenko became not under the influence of the dominant fashion, it was believed that no truly thinking person could be a supporter of the “rotten regime”, but for high ideological considerations.

Being a technologist to the brain of bones, he evaluated the then state system of Russia in terms of efficiency - and found it to degenerated, not subject to "repair". Kostenko thought as follows: “We all waited for defeat and severe losses, but no one could allow such a contrast in the fate of two fleets fighting in a deadly battle. And only now a broken squadron suddenly suffered what an unprecedented crime was committed over her by those who so recklessly threw her into the abyss, despite all the warnings.

Yes, the old, decrepit and degenerated tsarist monarchy, who believed in the protection of the divine providence, was waiting for a miracle in her blindness and received Tsushima. It was precisely to her that the admiral of Togo struck! This falls on her all shame on an unprecedented defeat! The Tsushima catastrophe was a kind of line between the two periods of Russian history. This was the last and most convincing lesson, proving the complete failure of the government system of serfdom and bureaucratic absolutism.

” Hell Tsusima, from which he miraculously came out alive, strengthened Vladimir in the thought that this is not about a separate private failure, but about the systemic rot of the state regime, which urgently needs to be changed. And he joined the famous Party of Socialist Socialist Socialist Revolutionaries. His underground nickname was Cicero. For several years, Kostenko managed to combine the intense operation of the shipbuilder with underground activities.

He later said that he managed to create an extensive revolutionary organization from the Rurik crew sailors, which included about two hundred people. The propagandists were: former infantry officer Warshamov, a former sailor from the squadron of Adm. Rozhestvensky, rubbed under this pseudonym, was hidden by Alexei Novikov, who was subjected to police persecution due to suspicions of revolutionary activities and fled from Russia.

In the spring of Kostenko, during the meeting, it was about organizing an assassination attempt on Nicholas II, which, as expected, was supposed to visit the cruiser after his arrival in Russia. The initial plan was to secretly lead any of the members of the Socialist-Revolutionar combat organization in Glasgow on board the cruiser-so that, hiding in any deserted premises, he made the path to Russia on the ship.

It was assumed that the single terrorist would blow up the Admiral Cauline “Rurik” taken with him with him-at the moment when the king enters there. However, this idea had to be discarded, since it was recognized as too difficult to execute. Then one of the members of the Rurik team volunteered to shoot the king, the driver Gerasim Avdeev, who was sincerely passionate about the idea of ​​overthrowing the autocracy.

He wrote to Savinkov in exaltation: “I only now began to understand what I am. I have never been and will never be a propagandist worker ... I now think deeply, seriously, I imagine the fulfillment of the task entrusted to me. This is really a joy ... I say that I am a gun, which charge it and fell out of it, and on the ship they say to me: go, trembling with your tongue ... I have to submit it because of the need.

How to submit? I feel that I had tempered the spring and now this spring has to bend a lot, I'm afraid how to not break it ... Or maybe ... no, one minute will allow more months. Then it is better to see ... ”He also expressed a desire to take part in the murder of the autocrat and another sailor of Rurik - Vestov Capteelovich ... both Avdeev and Kaptelovich received revolvers.

Both Avdeev and Kaptelovich met with the king face to face. None of them shot. I consider it unfair to suspect Avdeev of a lack of courage. He had to experience all the fluctuations in terror too quickly and too intensely. Interestingly, participating in the preparation of the assassination attempt on the emperor, Kostenko was sincerely preoccupied with the combat readiness of the fleet, which, as he was sure, would soon need renewed Russia, which dropped the tsarist regime.

And he showed exceptional abilities of the shipbuilder. The case is indicative. In the year, Vladimir Polievtovich visited the Belfast factory, where giant transatlantic liners “Olympic” and “Titanic” were built. Having familiarized themselves with their models and drawings, Kostenko told the director of Harland End Wulf that large flaws crept into the design of the liners - and they can die even from one small hole in the corps.

The words of Kostenko were considered “tactless” and did not take into account. Returning from England, Vladimir Polievtovich on March 23 was arrested a second time. This time, the police collected enough data with the main evidence was a pack of anti -government proclamations found in Kostenko’s apartment so that the engineer is sentenced to six years of hard labor. The rebel was put in preliminary imprisonment in the Trubetskoy bastion of the Peter and Paul Fortress.