There was a church in the Caspian Sea in 1910-1915.
Few people know that in the Caspian at the beginning of the twentieth century. not only passenger and fishing vessels, warships, oil tankers, barges, etc. Its waters plowed and … floating temple.
Before the October Revolution, the Floating Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker was the only ship in the Russian Empire on which a full-fledged Orthodox church was located. There was a church in the Caspian Sea in 1910-1915.
The idea of building the first floating temple on the Volga and the Caspian Sea belonged to the Astrakhan petty bourgeois N. Ye. Yankov - a pious and devout man. In the winter of 1903, he turned to the diocese with a proposal to build a mobile church for the needs of fishing artels working in the lower reaches of the Volga.
Yankov, who bought fish, was familiar with the difficult life of these people firsthand.
It was a whole "floating city" located on the Caspian Sea, 220 km from Astrakhan. It consisted of hundreds of ships, barges, schooners, floating offices with a staff of employees who controlled the movement of goods, with a "population" of up to 100 thousand people.
The shallow water at the mouth of the Volga did not allow ships to reach Astrakhan, therefore the majority of the "population" did not set foot on the coast for 7-8 months a year. And, of course, they needed a temple.
Although the idea was approved, the first good attempt ended in vain. In the fall of 1907, the intercessor for the second time turned to the church leadership with his proposal.
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This time Yankov proposed to build not a floating temple, but two collapsible churches, for the transportation of which it would be possible to use "a sailing wooden ship 17 m long and with it a flat-bottomed boat for setting up a temple." At the same time, a project for the construction of a church steamer was discussed, but it, as it turned out, required large financial costs.
The next year, a special commission, formed by the council of the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood of the Churkinskaya Pustyn, decided "for the sake of saving money" to buy one of the ready-made steamers in order to adapt it to a floating temple. After inspecting more than 30 vessels, the specialists involved in the work opted for the Pirate tug-passenger steamer, which belonged to the Astrakhan petty bourgeoisie PM Minin. The ship was purchased in January 1910, and the Astrakhan Diocesan Gazette did not fail to inform about this.
Before turning into the "Pirate" church he worked on the Volga for exactly half a century. In 1858, the Shipping Company "On the Volga" ordered a tug paddle steamer with a shallow draft for sailing in the lower reaches of the river at the Rovengil-Zalkeld plant in England. Two years later, the disassembled ship was delivered to the Kriushinsky backwater not far from Simbirsk.
Here, in the workshops of the society, the steamer was assembled and after testing it set off on its maiden voyage across the vastness of the great Russian river.
The ship had an iron hull and a wooden deck. The length of the vessel was 44.5 m, width a little more than 7 m (with 13 m sweep), height along the side of 2.2 m and draft with a load of about 1 m with a carrying capacity of 32 tons. The paddle wheels were driven by a steam engine of the Pena system with a capacity of 60 h.p.
The ship's speed reached 20 versts per hour (21.3 km), and the crew consisted of 18 people.
The steamer was named Kriushi. Under this name, he sailed until the beginning of the XX century, until it was sold to a certain Minin, who renamed the ship "Pirate". True, the new owner did not possess his acquisition for long, giving up the steamer at a reasonable price to equip the camp church.
Immediately after the acquisition, a project was drawn up for the re-equipment of the vessel, which required cardinal changes in the external appearance and internal structure of the former "Pirate". Orders were placed at local factories.
In just two months, the ship was completely redesigned. During this time, most of the machine's parts were replaced, the hull of the ship was lengthened by several meters, a chapel-belfry was erected, combining it with the wheelhouse, and the temple itself was built.
The equipment of the "spiritual" vessel was worth a lot of trouble and considerable financial costs. Many believers donated funds for a good cause. Thus, the local administration of the Volga-Caspian fish and seal fisheries allocated 6 thousand rubles for the construction of the temple, and the local medical department sent a pharmacy for the church hospital with medicines and medical instruments.
Priests, merchants, officials and ordinary people contributed as much as they could to the arrangement of the floating church. In total, the cost of the purchase and re-equipment of the steamer was at least 28 thousand rubles - a considerable amount at that time.
The premise of the temple was built in the bow of the ship's hull. Excluding the altar, its area was over 40 square meters. In addition to the church, the choir could accommodate up to 100 worshipers during the service.
According to the project of the architect Karyagin, the master Solomonov made a beautiful ornamented iconostasis. Valuable old icons made in one of the famous Moscow icon-painting schools were installed there. The walls of the temple were richly decorated with decorative elements and icons of old letters, and the church was crowned with gilded onion domes with crosses.
At the expense of voluntary donations, the temple was equipped with everything necessary for the performance of divine services and could send any requirements - from christenings to weddings and funerals. There were up to 220 valuable church items, including expensive brocade vestments for the deacon and priest.
The dominant superstructure of the "spiritual" steamer was the belfry, it is also the wheelhouse, made in the form of a chapel and crowned with a dome with a cross. The ship's equipment and six bells, weighing from seven pounds (114.6 kg) to 12 pounds (4.9 kg), peacefully coexisted here. Behind the belfry, a bell-message was installed weighing 15 poods and 20 pounds (253.9 kg). In the stern, three additional cabins were built for the clergyman - the priest, the deacon and the headman. There was also an infirmary for parishioners and a refectory-dining room for the poor. All church premises had electric lighting, since the ship was electrified on the occasion of the refurbishment.
On Sunday, April 11, 1910, the pier of the famous Astrakhan fish merchant, Bezzubikov, filled up the people. In the morning, people began to gather here, wishing to take part in the consecration of the floating temple. The huge area of the pier was filled with a motley crowd of inhabitants, workers from the pier, representatives of the clergy and merchants. At the landing stage stood, shining with fresh white paint, the ship-church - "St. Nicholas the Wonderworker".
In the rays of the spring-like bright sun, seven gilded church chapters dazzlingly sparkled - a spectacle never seen before on ships. A triangular white flag with a cross in the middle fluttered from the mast.
The beginning of the solemn service was marked by the ringing of the gospel and the ringing of all six bells of the church belfry. Hundreds of worshipers filled the church, choir, and steamer decks. The consecration was performed by Bishop Georgy of Astrakhan and Enotaevsky, who said after the liturgy: “We know that there are churches on naval ships for naval military commands, but we have not heard that anywhere we have temples of God floating to meet the religious needs of riverside or seaside inhabitants … Our floating church is the first experience of this kind."
On the maiden voyage, the church of the steamer-temple was in charge of Archpriest Pyotr Gorokhov, and he was assisted by Hieromonk Father Irinarkh, Hierodeacon Father Seraphim, Paramedic Father Domian, Sexton Father Lavrenty, three choristers and the monastery cook Kuzma Yezhov - all from the Churkinskaya Hermitage. The secular team consisted of 9 people.
The maintenance of the floating church cost from 6 to 8 thousand rubles a year. The main sources of replenishment of the budget, in addition to the sale of candles and postcards, were donations from individuals and churches of the diocese.
The innovation did not go unnoticed. The press of that time noted: "In the lower reaches of the Volga there was everything that constituted the inevitable need of the port and just human existence, but there was no temple for the satisfaction of the soul." And the need for this among the Orthodox people has always existed, which prompted the diocese to build a floating church.
On Friday, April 16, 1910, "St. Nicholas the Wonderworker" weighed anchor in the Astrakhan roadstead and, after several hours, arrived in the lower reaches of the Volga. And in September, on the 6th, the service of this unusual vessel began.
The church served not only private scows, but also the coastal villages of Korduan and Krivobuzansk, Surkovka and Alexandria, whose residents took part in its construction. In addition to the Russians, the activities of the floating church were also aimed at the Christianization of the unbaptized Kalmyks (the seconded hieromonk Irinarkh knew the Kalmyk language).
According to the compiled timetable, during the first and subsequent navigation, the floating temple visited certain parts of the water area, which were approximately 50 versts apart from each other. At each place he stood for one or three days. From the beginning of the season until autumn, everyone was waiting for his arrival. Then the ship got up for the winter in the Astrakhan port in the Eling area or at the Admiralty backwater.
The ship withstood more than one storm and was never damaged. After serving five navigations, the floating temple in the navigation of 1916 did not go out to the fishing people who were waiting for her …
Why did this happen? The fact is that by the autumn of 1915 all icon cases, icons, church books, utensils were removed from the ship and transferred, according to some information, for storage in the Churkinskaya Nikolaevskaya hermitage, but perhaps some of the most valuable icons could have got to some museum.
In February 1916, the newspaper Moskovskaya Kopeyka wrote: “Right Reverend Filaret arrived in Astrakhan, he found that the floating temple was dilapidated, and admitted that its maintenance was expensive. And since According to no canonical rules, the sale of the church is not allowed, then Bishop Filaret did the following: the floating church turned into a “worn-out steamer” and, according to “Astr. L. ", sold for scrap, like old fire pumps and other junk are sold."
The intention to sell the floating church provoked protests, and Bishop Filaret (Nikolsky) himself was dismissed on May 24 (June 1), 1916 at the complaint of the hegumen of the Churkinsky monastery.
By the end of September 1916, the unrest caused by the sale of the floating church had subsided - life forced people to solve other problems, because at that time Russia was experiencing the grief of defeats on the fronts of the war with Germany. Under these conditions, it was impossible to expect the collection of large funds for the construction of a new floating temple. The February events, and then the October Revolution, finally buried the idea of a new floating temple.
The times came when not only did they not create new churches, but, on the contrary, destroyed the old ones under various pretexts and used them for household needs. So, it is not clear where the domes of the floating temple went. It is only known that the Bolsheviks removed them.
According to the manuscript of the local historian P. S. Lebedev, in 1918. The floating church was turned into a sea rescue ship "Nechayanny" with a postscript to the Baku port. For some time he managed to work there, but according to the Register the ship did not go to sail at sea and was returned to Astrakhan at the disposal of Rybtrest.
Then it was converted into a floating theater (such a mockery of fate!) And placed at the disposal of fishermen, receiving the name "Joseph Stalin", and later "Moryana". In the 60s it housed a hostel in the village of Oranzhereiny. True, according to other sources, the ship was dismantled for scrap as early as 1924 in Astrakhan after returning from Baku.
