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SS ''Indigirka'' (, ) was an American built
steamship A steamship, often referred to as a steamer, is a type of steam-powered vessel, typically ocean-faring and seaworthy, that is propelled by one or more steam engines that typically move (turn) propellers or paddlewheels. The first steamships ...
that served in the Soviet
Gulag The Gulag was a system of Labor camp, forced labor camps in the Soviet Union. The word ''Gulag'' originally referred only to the division of the Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies, Soviet secret police that was in charge of runnin ...
system and transported
prisoner A prisoner, also known as an inmate or detainee, is a person who is deprived of liberty against their will. This can be by confinement or captivity in a prison or physical restraint. The term usually applies to one serving a Sentence (law), se ...
s. Launched in 1919 as ''SS Lake Galva'', it served under the names ''Ripon'', ''Malsah'' and ''Commercial Quaker'' between 1920 and 1938, when it was renamed ''Indigirka''.Entry in Plimsoll Ship Data
/ref> On its final voyage in 1939 over 700 prisoners perished.


Pre-Soviet career

The ship was built at the
Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company, located in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, was a major shipbuilder for the Great Lakes. It was founded in 1902, with the purchase of the "Burger & Burger Shipyard," a predecessor to The Burger Boat Company, and made mainly s ...
in
Manitowoc, Wisconsin Manitowoc ( ) is a city in Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, United States, and its county seat. It is located on Lake Michigan at the mouth of the Manitowoc River. According to the 2020 census, Manitowoc had a population of 34,626. History Purporte ...
as one of the ''Lake'' series
cargo ship A cargo ship or freighter is a merchant ship that carries cargo, goods, and materials from one port to another. Thousands of cargo carriers ply the world's List of seas, seas and Ocean, oceans each year, handling the bulk of international trade. ...
s. It was launched on 29 December 1919 as ''Lake Galva'' and completed in May 1920 as ''Ripon''. It served as an American
merchant ship A merchant ship, merchant vessel, trading vessel, or merchantman is a watercraft that transports cargo or carries passengers for hire. This is in contrast to pleasure craft, which are used for personal recreation, and naval ships, which are ...
under various owners as SS ''Ripon'' (1920–26), SS ''Malsah'' (1926–28), and SS ''Commercial Quaker'' (1928–38). In 1938 it was sold to the government of the
Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
.


Prison ship of the Dalstroi

With some modifications the ship was placed in service by the Dalstroi as the ''Indigirka'' (Индиги́рка) – named after the
river A river is a natural stream of fresh water that flows on land or inside Subterranean river, caves towards another body of water at a lower elevation, such as an ocean, lake, or another river. A river may run dry before reaching the end of ...
in
Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...
– for the transport of prisoners. With a tonnage of 2,689 and a length 77.3 m it was the smallest ship of the Dalstroi fleet and had a cargo hold of 4,700 m³; Bollinger estimated that it could hold 1,500 captives, while Tzouliades indicates that up to 5,000 prisoners might have been transported. That seems to conflict with evidence that the ship was fully loaded when it departed on its final journey with less than 1,500 crew, passengers and prisoners, forcing Soviet authorities to leave behind many others who were supposed to have made the trip. The ''Indigirka'' belonged to a fleet of steamships operated by Dalstroi to transport prisoners from
Vladivostok Vladivostok ( ; , ) is the largest city and the administrative center of Primorsky Krai and the capital of the Far Eastern Federal District of Russia. It is located around the Zolotoy Rog, Golden Horn Bay on the Sea of Japan, covering an area o ...
, endpoint of the Transsiberian railway, to
Magadan Magadan ( rus, Магадан, p=məɡɐˈdan) is a Port of Magadan, port types of inhabited localities in Russia, town and the administrative centre of Magadan Oblast, Russia. The city is located on the isthmus of the Staritsky Peninsula by the ...
and
Kolyma Kolyma (, ) or Kolyma Krai () is a historical region in the Russian Far East that includes the basin of Kolyma River and the northern shores of the Sea of Okhotsk, as well as the Kolyma Mountains (the watershed of the two). It is bounded to ...
across the
Sea of Okhotsk The Sea of Okhotsk; Historically also known as , or as ; ) is a marginal sea of the western Pacific Ocean. It is located between Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula on the east, the Kuril Islands on the southeast, Japan's island of Hokkaido on the sou ...
. Travel time was about six days to two weeks to Magadan. A steamer would make about ten trips a year. Conditions were horrendous and many people did not survive. Prisoners were held in the
cargo hold 120px, View of the hold of a container ship A ship's hold or cargo hold is a space for carrying cargo in a ship or airplane compartment. Description Cargo in holds may be either packaged in crates, bales, etc., or unpackaged (bulk cargo). Acc ...
s where criminals ruled; the guards stayed outside and above and would spray the holds with ice-cold ocean water if things became too unruly. Female prisoners were abused.


Final voyage

On 8 December 1939 the ''Indigirka'' left Magadan to return to Vladivostok under Captain Nikolai Lavrentevich Lapshin. It contained 39 crew, 249 fishermen and their families, 50 prisoners under guard, and 835 prisoners with technical skills who had been released to work for the war effort. On 13 December 1939 at 2:20 am (other reports place the event on 12 December 1939) the ship ran aground in a
blizzard A blizzard is a severe Winter storm, snowstorm characterized by strong sustained winds and low visibility, lasting for a prolonged period of time—typically at least three or four hours. A ground blizzard is a weather condition where snow th ...
off the Japanese coast near Sarufutsu while trying to enter the
La Perouse Strait LA most frequently refers to Los Angeles, the second most populous city in the United States of America. La, LA, or L.A. may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music *La (musical note), or A, the sixth note *"L.A.", a song by Elliott Smit ...
. As the ship turned over, the guards prevented the escape of the prisoners from the holds, and the ship came to rest in shallow water on its side. The Japanese rescued the captain and most of the crew, guards, and fishermen, but it took three days for any rescue of the trapped prisoners to begin. 16 December, when the Japanese rescue team then opened the hull with
acetylene torch Principle of burn cutting Oxy-fuel welding (commonly called oxyacetylene welding, oxy welding, or gas welding in the United States) and oxy-fuel cutting are processes that use fuel gases (or liquid fuels such as gasoline or petrol, diesel, bio ...
es, only 28 survivors (one of whom later died) were found among more than 700 dead prisoners. Overall 741 people perished. According to
Sergey Korolyov Sergei Pavlovich Korolev (14 January 1966) was the lead Soviet rocket engineer and spacecraft designer during the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1950s and 1960s. He invented the R-7 Rocket, Sputnik 1, and w ...
's oral statements, he missed the Indigirka convoy and was sent from Kolyma to Vladivostok on the next ship on 23 December. Captain Lapshin was tried and executed for abandoning the ship; chief of NKVD convoy who locked the prisoners in a sinking ship was sentenced to eight years., chapter 32 A
cenotaph A cenotaph is an empty grave, tomb or a monument erected in honor of a person or group of people whose remains are elsewhere or have been lost. It can also be the initial tomb for a person who has since been reinterred elsewhere. Although t ...
at Sarufutsu commemorates the tragic end of the ''Indigirka''.Monument to the victims of the Indigirka at Sarufutsu
/ref>


See also

* SS ''Dzhurma''


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Indigirka Design 1074 ships Lake ships 1919 ships Passenger ships of the Soviet Union Maritime incidents in December 1939 1939 in the Soviet Union Ships of the Gulag Prison ships Soviet Union–United States relations Maritime incidents in the Soviet Union Ships built in Manitowoc, Wisconsin