Shipping was painfully hit during the depression period of the late 1920's and early 1930's. A large number of merchant ships were laid up as idle tonnage in docks all over the world and solid, seaworthy vessels were sold at substantially deflated prices. Some Estonian shipowners were able to take advantage of the situation, and obtained excellent second-hand tonnage in the expectation that better days would soon follow.

While advanced western countries suffered from the depression generated by their over-extended free enterprise system, the Russian economy was more protected by its centralized decision-making, state ownership and relative industrial backwardness. The Soviet forest industry, run with state funds, continued to sell lumber to western countries as the foreign currency was needed to obtain western goods and know-how, and to improve the Soviet balance of trade. A significant aspect of these sales was that they were almost always stipulated in cost-plus-freight terms, that is with a sale contract including delivery costs at the port of destination. This allowed the Soviet trade agencies to profit from the prevailing low cost of sea transportation. As the Russian sea-going tonnage was small at that time, it was natural for their trade agents to engage suitable ships from among the idle tonnage in foreign ports on time-charter contracts. Estonian shipowners were willing to charter their ships on those terms as the Estonian seamen accepted lower wages than those that prevailed in some other, larger maritime countries.

In the summer of 1933, the S. S. "Sulev", on which I was Second Mate and Radio Operator, was engaged on a time-charter basis by Sovfragt, the Russian agency responsible for making such contractual arrangements.

Towards the end of July, the "Sulev" was requested to proceed to Igarka, which was on the lower reaches of the Yenisey (Yenisei) River, one of the major rivers of central Siberia, which flows into the Kara Sea. There we were to take on a full cargo of lumber. Voyages in the Arctic area, for distances as far as the Yenisey, were normally restricted to a short navigation period from the end of July to early September, as only vessels built specifically to withstand ice pressure could operate with any margin of safety at other times of the year in these regions.

The powerful icebreaker "Lenin" patrolled the Kara Sea during this short navigation season and served as the headquarters for the leader of the Kara Sea expeditions, the one responsible for supervising all convoys, marine radio communications and other matters concerned with navigation in these waters. The "Lenin" normally had its anchorage at the small inlet of Yugorsky Shar, between Vaigach (Vaygach) Island and the mainland, in the strait that joins the Barents and Kara Seas.

Our vessel was the first to arrive at the assembly point in Yugorsky Shar strait, so we were obliged to break our journey and wait for the arrival of the rest of the convoy. As we had anchored close to the "Lenin", the master of the "Sulev" was invited on board to receive his instructions. I accompanied him, as I had earlier received an invitation from the icebreaker's radio operator to visit his station. He proved to be also an Estonian, and with the absence of language barriers, the visit turned out to be a very informative one for me, particularly as ships flying the Soviet flag were usually shrouded in secrecy and something of a mystery to all but those who served on them or controlled them. I learned that the "Lenin" was to remain at her station in the Arctic Ocean without a break for a period of nine months and for that reason had been provided with nearly every imaginable item in the way of materials and spare parts to ensure her continued efficient operation during that period. I could see for myself that the ship's personnel were not expected to go hungry during their long tour of duty. On the afterdeck, there were tethered cattle for providing fresh milk and, eventually, meat, and pens containing some hogs and noisy hens.

On this voyage, the Igarka-bound convoy consisted of only four ships. When the last one had arrived, we formed a single line behind the leading ship which carried the Russian pilot, and proceeded eastwards, making fairly good progress with favourable weather conditions. There were ice floes all around us but no dangerous situation arose, which would have caused us to reduce our speed. The drifting ice, if anything, probably encouraged more efficient ship's operations by sharpening our sailors' vigilance during their lookout duties.

When we arrived at the estuary of the Yenisey River, we were greeted by the sight of a lighthouse on the small island of Dickson, just off the eastern bank of the river. There were no other navigational aids, such as lighthouses, lightships, beacons or buoys, to help in the safe passage of ships through these waters. We observed Dickson Island to be low and rocky and covered with a green mat of lichens and moss. As we sailed southwards up the Yenisey, the plant growth became richer and of a deeper shade of green, and there were even a few stunted trees, some of which, in the approaches to Igarka, reached heights of about twenty feet.

Ocean-going vessels did not go beyond Igarka, about 700 kilometers from the estuary, although the river was said to be navigable by barges and smaller ships for some distance upriver. The small community of Igarka was then in its infancy and was strategically placed as the centre for the lumber industry in north-central Siberia. Logs were floated downriver from vast distances inland, from logging-camps along the banks of the Yenisey, which has its source practically on the Chinese border, in the region inhabited by the Mongolians, and probably also from the secondary watersheds of a number of its accessible tributaries, some of which flow for hundreds of miles before joining the main river. The timber consisted mainly of what appeared to be good quality pine, which was said to grow abundantly in areas south of the tundra which extended sometimes in pockets deep into the deciduous forests of Siberia. The heavy logs were sawn into boards and planks in Igarka numerous sawmills, then loaded onto ships for export to the outside world.

For a ship the size of the "Sulev", loading a full cargo of about 900 standards, each 165 cubic feet of lumber, took from 10 to 12 days with workers employed in two shifts of 12 hours each, so that the work went on around the clock. The labourers were mostly of Ukrainian origin and had come to Igarka with their families as, what was sometimes officially described, "voluntary seasonal workers". As was later known, it was in fact a common practice to coerce people into "volunteering" to move from European areas to those parts of Siberia where new projects for resources exploitation were being established.

The normal workers' quarters were wooden barracks of light construction, with such restricted living space and comforts, that some workers preferred to dig caves on the higher slopes of the river banks where they lived with their families. We wondered how they would be able to survive the cold winters when temperatures of 50 to 60 degrees Celsius below zero are quite common. We concluded that some workers and their dependents were probably moved to more hospitable regions at the close of each navigation season.

The only practical way into and out of Igarka for much of the year was by the upriver route to Krasnoyarsk, where the trans-Siberian railway crossed Yenisey, eight days distance by rail from Moscow. Provisions, machinery parts, and all other supplies had to be brought more than 1,000 kilometers from Krasnoyarsk by barges and river-boats. Attempting such a journey during the coldest months of the year must have been a hazardous undertaking at best and there must have been times when Igarka ran low on essentials or had to make do without any supplies. During our stay in port, the wife of the Chief Engineer, who had accompanied him on the voyage, developed a fever. A doctor from the community came on board and prescribed medicines and fresh milk. Arrangements were made for the latter item to be supplied by a collective farm somewhere upriver. It was fortunate that the milk did not prove to be an essential part of the remedy, for when we sailed several days later, with the woman's health much improved, not a single drop had been received on board.

Among the vessels loading at Igarka was another Estonian ship, the S. S. "Kinnika", which, like ourselves, was employed on a time-charter basis by the Russian contracting agency. She, fully loaded, left port northbound on the first leg of her return journey, with a Russian pilot on board, some days before we were ready to depart. Our instructions were again to sail in a convoy which, at this time, consisted of only two ships: the S. S. "Sulev" was preceded by the Russian vessel "Msta" which had a pilot on board.

It was a normal procedure for ships docked in Soviet ports to have their radio stations sealed for the duration of their stay. A Russian officer had informed me that this regulation was imposed to prevent foreign seamen from clandestinely sending out, by radio, some classified information that might vitally affect the security of the Soviet Union! Once we were underway I was, however, permitted to open our radio station to make tests and ensure that the equipment was in good working order. When I had adjusted my receiver to the international calling frequency, I heard the Igarka coastal radio station attempting to contact the "Msta", which failed to respond. The station then asked me to alert the "Msta" to receive an urgent telegram. We managed to attract the attention of the ship's deck officers by blowing several blasts on our powerful steam whistle, and soon I was in radio contact with the "Msta's" young female radio operator. She was instructed to transmit to the pilot an order for the convoy to anchor and wait for the arrival of an official from Igarka, who was to join the convoy. A tugboat carrying the official reached us a couple hours later and he boarded the "Msta". In the meantime, we had learned that the official was obliged to accompany us on such short notice in order to make an early report on the circumstances surrounding the stranding of the "Kinnika", which had run onto the rocks near Yugorsky Shar strait in a blinding snowstorm. We soon received confirmation that the "Kinnika" had been badly damaged and was considered to be a total loss. The crew had been taken off without loss of life by the icebreaker "Lenin", which had fortunately been nearby at the time of the mishap. When we reached Yugorsky Shar strait, we stopped near the "Lenin" and took the stranded seamen on board, and they remained with us until we arrived at Loedingen, a small fishing village in the Lofoten Islands, one third of the way down the west coast of Norway. From there they were repatriated to Estonia by way of Sweden and Finland. The "Kinnika" was not considered to be worth salvaging. The rest of the journey proceeded uneventfully.

For a long time afterwards, I remembered that the exciting part had been the time spent sailing the Arctic Ocean and ascending the north-Siberian river. Memories also returned of the occasional calm days when the surface of the bleak Arctic waters appeared lifeless, and of clear cloudless days when the sun was with us for 24 hours, approaching the horizon on a low arc before midnight, hovering for a short while and then starting to rise again. I remembered as well the blinding snowstorms and high winds that combined to reduce visibility sometimes to near zero and caused us more than a few anxious moments.

As chance would have it, I was to repeat the journey to Igarka and back sooner than I might have expected. In 1935, when I was serving as Chief Mate on the S. S. "Mall", I received, while at sea during a passage from Italy to London, England, a radiogram informing me that I was to take the command of the S. S. "Torni" upon arrival at the British capital. Bad weather delayed us at sea for a few days and the "Torni" had to sail without me to Archangel, on the White Sea, where she had to take on a load of lumber and then return to England. As I could not immediately take up my new command and had been released from my old duties on the "Mall", I decided to use the time at my disposal to go to Estonia and get married. In no time at all, I was back in England with my young wife to take on further responsibilities as master of the "Torni" which by then was in Garston Dock at Liverpool, on the north-west coast of England.

After unloading the ship's cargo, we sailed again for Archangel because the ship was employed on a time-charter contract with Sovfragt for the summer months. Soon after passing the Shetland Islands, well to the north-east of British mainland, I received a radiogram from Moscow requesting me to proceed to Bergen on the south-west coast of Norway, where the bottom of the ship was to be inspected in drydock and then to continue on to Murmansk in the Barents Sea for replenishment of the bunker coal prior to taking the Kara Sea route to Igarka.

When these maintenance and fuelling tasks had been attended to, we proceeded to Yugorsky Shar strait to receive local instructions from the leader of the Kara Sea expedition who, as on the previous voyage, was stationed aboard the "Lenin". This time we were instructed to continue on independently to Igarka and our journey through the Kara Sea was made quite pleasant by clear weather and southerly winds that pushed the ice floes to the north of our route. We passed through the estuary of the Yenisey and took on a Russian pilot at Karaul and proceeded upriver to Igarka where we loaded a full cargo of lumber for England. On our return journey we again sailed independently and after we had discharged the river pilot at Karaul, the weather became cloudy, but with light variable winds and fairly good visibility.

Early the next morning, we passed Dickson Island at the mouth of the Yenisey and set our course to the west. I decided to catch up on my sleep but within a couple of hours the chief officer woke me, informing that he had got a glimpse of the sun between clouds for his calculations and found that our compasses showed an error of 22 degrees. This meant that we were off course and heading too far to the north. There were also shallow banks without navigational markings to the south of us. As was customary, cargo ships in the 1930's had magnetic compasses and these were slow to respond in higher latitudes which sometimes led to mistakes in navigation and to some dangerous situations. But there was no other means to check our exact position or the errors of our compasses. Taking everything into consideration, I reduced the speed and altered the course of the ship accordingly. To add to our problems the weather then deteriorated and we had strong winds with heavy snowstorms for the next two days. The situation brightened as we approached the Yugorsky Shar strait and were able to obtain a radio bearing from the "Lenin". Soon afterwards the weather cleared and we were able to see the hulk of the "Kinnika" on the rocks of Vaygach Island, the exact position of which was well known to me. From there on, we could proceed again at full speed. When we had passed the icebreaker, I received a radiogram from the leader of the Kara Sea expedition, congratulating me on a successful voyage and expressing the hope that we would be able to work together again at some time in the future. By this time I had reached the conclusion that two voyages to north-central Siberia were enough for any sailor.

From Yugorsky Shar strait onwards we had no more problems, and with uneventful sailing arrived at our destination of Blackwater River, near London, where we unloaded our cargo onto the barges. My wife and I agreed that we had had a unique honeymoon.

The Royal Handshake

I was in Liverpool when Russia occupied the three small Baltic states in 1940 and, like most Estonian shipmasters, felt that it would not be appropriate to take an Estonian ship and her crew to a Soviet port. In time, the British government requisitioned our vessels and appointed managers from the British shipping companies who acted as agents for the Ministry of War Transport. The officers and crew were given the option of staying on board and serving under the British flag in compliance with the wartime rules, regulations and rates of pay. My ship's complement accepted this arrangement and we stayed together on this basis until 1949.

In the early years of the war, the British Merchant Navy suffered very heavy losses as a result of the activities of enemy submarines along the ocean shipping routes, attacks by torpedo-boats, aerial bombardments and the laying of magnetic and accoustic mines by the Germans in the waters adjacent to the east coast of the British Isles. The morale of the merchant seaman was considered to be high in spite of the battering that he was forced to take and the British authorities were determined to see that the morale did not slip.

There were novel ways of doing this, as I discovered during the hectic days of 1941-43. One day, when we were temporarily in dock at Liverpool, a high ranking British naval Officer requested permission to come on board and then invited me and the chief engineer to meet, on the following morning, with a person of renown. When the time came, an Admiral boarded our ship and asked us to accompany him to the front of the warehouse where, eventually, about 20 officers from different merchant ships were lined up together. At 10 o'clock King George VI arrived and moved along the line shaking hands with all of us. He thanked us for the excellent work that we were doing in keeping Britain supplied with the goods that it needed to defend itself, and wished us continued good luck, in view of all the destruction that had been thrown our way.

Later in that day, it was suggested by other Estonian seamen that any one of them who shook my hand should pay for a round of beer. The arrangement led to more rounds of laughter than beer, as we had little time to stand around quenching our thirsts.

Stephanie Bergman

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