Masha and taxi drivers: the story of how Ziganshin's barge was carried off to the Pacific Ocean

Today is a story from a taxi driver who, according to him, drank in the same company with Askhat Ziganshin, the foreman of the T-36 self-propelled barge, which in 1960 drifted 49 days in the Pacific Ocean.

“- Yes, they are making a fool, Maria, our people, as elsewhere! Deception is everywhere! So I somehow ended up in the Kuriles in the same company with Ziganshin...

- "Ziganshin-boogie, Ziganshin-rock, Ziganshin ate his second boot"?

- He's the most, exactly! And then I did not know how this brave hero looks. In general, the peasants and I got into conversation, drank hard, and remembered that story.

And this one sits at himself and somehow looks strangely, only smiles. Then he introduced himself. It turned out he was Ziganshin! Well, and told how it really was.

You, come on, listen to me now carefully, I am reporting, then.

Dry cargo ships came to Kasatka Bay to the shores of Iturup Island. As usual, they brought food for the military trade department, because the military mostly lived there.

It means that the barge was loaded - a displacement, by the way, 70 tons, to the eyeballs. Half a barge of pure alcohol, half a barge of stew.

And what did the sailor boys usually do there? That's right: a bottle - a splash, a bottle - a hit, - and they poured it into a bucket. It seems like it broke during loading operations, and nothing strange about it, such things happen.

And they collected a bucket of pure alcohol in such a way. The boys are overwhelmed. And then they gave it, it means, a storm one. When the guys woke up - hello, Vasya! Hello Pacific Ocean!

The barge was torn from anchor. The storm was serious, no joke.

While the diesel fuel was, of course, they tried, which means, half drunk and frightened, to decide and find the shore, but it was already carried far away and nothing happened.

They had to suffer hardship for 49 days and eat this stew with alcohol. In short, if the Americans had not removed them then, ours, if found them - would have shot the boys.

And so - according to the Order of the Red Star they stuck them in the teeth and made them national heroes - they say, look, there they are, they are Russian, staunch guys!

- Yes, then it was, of course, a difficult time... But it’s a good luck that they were rescued in the end. In any case, they were really persistent "boys" - not everyone will be able to live out so much time on alcohol and stewed meat in the open ocean, not to mention the belts and boots, as we were told at school...

- Yes, they were rescued... Well, you, ugh, you do not understand anything!"