Unique Soviet School

Two weeks ago, a new feature movie, called “North Pole”, was released in Russia.

Based on real facts, it is dedicated to the crew of the first Soviet nuclear-powered submarine K-3. Nearly 63 years ago, in mid-July of 1962, it became Soviet Navy’s first submarine to surface in the North Pole area. The vessel was commanded by Lev Zhiltsov, a graduate of the Moscow-based Special Naval School No. 1.

On July 22, 1940, 11 months before the start of the Great Patriotic War, the Soviet Government made a decision to create such innovative educational institutions in Moscow, Leningrad, Vladivostok, Gorky, Kyiv, Odessa and Baku. This was suggested by Nikolai Kuznetsov. A year before at the age of 34 he was appointed to the position of People’s Commissar of the Navy. Education in such schools had to be conducted according to regular programs of the three senior grades of Soviet secondary schools, supplemented by naval training.

A very popular song of that time had a line about the air smelling of thunder (World War II was about to break), and the Soviet leadership was in a hurry to use any opportunity to strengthen the country’s defense capability which required the training of relevant specialists. Thus, on September 2, 1940, just 6 weeks after the aforementioned government decree was issued, the Special Naval School No. 1 opened its doors.

Highly dedicated, creative teachers were allocated to the Moscow-based school. They were led by Dmitry Taptykov, a graduate of the Physics Department of Moscow State University. He proved himself to be an outstanding builder of innovative school education. After the war Dmitry Nikolayevich got one more exceptional task from the government with which he coped in a brilliant way, too. In 1949 he launched the first Soviet secondary school with in-depth teaching of English. Two years later I had the luck of joining it.

For the youth of land-based Moscow, the creation of a special naval school was an outstanding event. Lots of boys at that time dreamed of serving in the Navy. No wonder that 5,000 applications were submitted for 500 vacancies, nearly all of them by stellar students.

The Moscow-based Special Navy School lasted for 4 years (by the end of the war it changed its status drastically).

Great many of its 1,000 graduates had outstanding careers.

Sergei Akhromeyev became a Marshal of the USSR and Chief of the General Staff of the Soviet Armed Forces. Fourteen more graduates got military ranks of admirals and generals. One of them, Admiral Vladimir Akimov, in 1982-83 led a round-the-globe Antarctic expedition, following the example of the discoverer of Antarctica, Ivan Kruzenshtern.

Four more graduates of the said school got the Hero of the Soviet Union awards. (Two of them were Lev Zhiltsov and Arkady Mikhailovsky, commander of another nuclear-powered submarine which in September 1963 made the first ever transition under ice from the Arctic to the Pacific Ocean).

Numerous graduates of the same naval school distinguished themselves in civilian professions. 3 got the Hero of Socialist Labor awards, 8 won important state prizes. Viktor Kirillov-Ugryumov became a member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences and a founder of the world-famous Moscow Institute of Physical Research.

On June 20, 1941, two days before the start of the Great Patriotic War, Igor Spassky was enrolled in the said school, too.

He was destined to become an outstanding designer of submarines. Out of 1,000 such vessels, built in Russia, 260 (including K-3) were related to his name.

I just don’t know of any other school that could have trained so many outstanding specialists in just 4 years.