An exhibition is underway in St.Petersburg Hermitage featuring objects from the legendary cruiser “Varyag” — the jack flag, service weapons of the Russian seamen, shell cases, and an album of drawings by a Japanese artist. The exhibits will go on display for Navy Day marked on July 26. All relics are exhibited in Russia for the first time –they were stored in a museum collection of the Korean city of Incheon.
The“Varyag” cruiser and the gunboat “Korietz” became famous during the 1904-1905 Russian-Japanese military campaign when in a losing battle in the Korean port of Chemulpo they shot down several enemy cruisers and sank a destroyer. But the Russian ships were seriously damaged and their crews suffered big losses. To prevent the enemy from getting the ships the Command ordered to scuttle them. Even the enemy army admired this deed and after the war the Japanese government established a museum in commemoration of heroes of the “Varyag” and awarded its captain Vsevolod Rudnew with the Order of the Rising Sun.
In Russia the whole crew was awarded with the highest orders. It is symbolic that a century after people will remember “Varyag” in St.Petersburg again –says the culture ministry official Alexander Kibovski:
“The exhibition takes place in Georgievsky Hall in Hermitage where officers and sailors were honored after the battle. That was the first time when the whole crew was decorated with St.George awards”.
The fate of the cruiser is also interesting. The Japanese lifted it and repaired. It served as a training ship till 1916 when Russia bought it back. But the ship never returned to service as it was sent to England for repairs and the Bolsheviks who came to power in 1917 had no money to pay for repairs so 4 years later the cruiser was sold to Germany as scrap metal. It ran a ground in the Irish Sea a few hundred meters from the town of Lendalfoot in 1920,as it was tugged to a shipyard.
A special commission was established to return the “Varyag” relics-negotiations with Korea lasted for a long 7 years. Finally on the 12th of July the collection arrived in Russia where it was met by the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill and the President’s wife Svetlana Medvedeva. The exhibits were transported to St.Petersburg in a bulletproof car . Now Russians have a chance to get a better idea of history of legendary cruiser “Varyag” whose name is familiar to anyone.
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