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Instructor compares rescue of tourist on boat and Soviet soldiers on barge
The rescue of tourist Mikhail Pichugin on a boat in the Sea of Okhotsk can be compared to the rescue of Soviet soldiers who went out to sea on a barge in the 1960s. Dmitry Aleshkin, an instructor in extreme situations survival at the Volk tourist club, told RBC about this.
"Well, everyone [along with the soldiers on the barge] survived, but the situation was similar, plus and minus. So, from the point of view of survival, I think this story will later be included in the descriptions of many books," he told RBC.
In 1960, four Soviet soldiers were drifting aboard the T-36 self-propelled barge. They were on a boat off Iturup Island in the Gulf in January 1960 when a storm hit the Kuril Islands. Their barge was torn from its moorings and carried out to sea. Drifting, they covered a distance of 49 days and 1,700 km. On board, Sergeant Major Askhat Ziganshin, Private Anatoly Kryuchkovsky, Private Filipp Poplavsky and Private Ivan Fedotov took several things from the barge: several cans of potatoes, 1.5 cans of stewed meat, a loaf of bread, 1.5 kg of pork fat and other supplies. After the drift ended, they began eating leather belts, soap and toothpaste, and the soldiers were picked up by an American aircraft carrier and taken back to the Soviet Union.
According to Aleshkin, the book mentions "many stories of survival." This is because Mikhail Pichugin's discovery in the boat was "a real miracle." Roughly speaking, the current would take him and that's it."
Mikhail Pichugin survived 67 days adrift in an inflatable boat in the Sea of Okhotsk. His brother Sergei Pichugin and his teenage son Ilya sailed with him from Sakhalin to the Shantar Islands. During the trip, the engine stalled, and later my cell phone with GPS stopped working. Pichugin was found by trawler crews on October 14. Sergei Pichugin and his son Ilya died during the voyage.
Mikhail Pichugin lost 50 kg by swimming. He also said that he saved his life by collecting rainwater and warming himself in a camel wool sleeping bag. The tourists were searched for by crews of four aircraft, including an An-74 of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, but the search yielded no results.