The Mysterious Sinking of the Kursk: How Many Hours Did the Crew Survive at the Bottom of the Sea?
On August 2, 2000, the nuclear submarine Kursk sank in the Barents Sea. All 118 people on board perished. But the most remarkable aspect of this story is not the explosion—it is the fact that part of the crew survived the disaster and remained alive for some time at a depth of 100 meters. Meanwhile, their own country dragged its feet for five days before sending help.
Twenty-three sailors gathered in the ninth compartment after the explosions. Among them was Lieutenant Commander Dmitry Kolesnikov. In complete darkness, feeling his way by touch, he wrote a note: “It’s too dark to write here, but I’ll try by touch.” 37kp
This note would be retrieved from the seabed two months later. And it would prove: the men were alive. Meanwhile, official reports were already claiming a line of communication that did not exist.
Norway and the United Kingdom had been offering assistance since August 13. They waited three days for a response from the Russian side. In the end, Norwegian divers opened the submarine—where their own country had failed to do so in eight days.
The Kursk is not an isolated disaster of 2000. It is the final chapter of the same scenario that the navy repeated throughout the Soviet era: K-19, K-8, K-219, Komsomolets. The pattern was the same everywhere—people survived the accident itself, and then the state dragged its feet, remained silent, and covered things up. The USSR ended in 1991. The scenario did not.
From this investigation, you will learn:
— How many hours the crew in the ninth compartment remained alive—and why the exact number has still not been disclosed
— What was actually in Kolesnikov’s note and why the original was not even given to his widow
— Who is Rashid Aryapov, and how did he prevent the disaster from becoming a nuclear one?
— Why was assistance from Norway and Britain rejected for five days?
— What caused the “Kit” torpedo to explode—and why did the British decommission such torpedoes as early as 1955?
— Which theories regarding the sinking of the Kursk remain unanswered
— Why the criminal case was closed without identifying those responsible
Sources: materials from the Main Military Prosecutor’s Office (2002), publications by Lenta.ru and RIA Novosti, seismic station data on the two explosions, reports from the Norwegian rescue operation, transcripts of interviews on kremlin.ru, and memoirs of members of the government commission.
Somewhere in the Serafimovskoye Cemetery in St. Petersburg lies a man whose final letter to his wife was never delivered—it was taken as evidence in the case. The clock was ticking in that compartment. How long—no one will ever say for sure. But it was ticking.
00:00 — It’s too dark to write here
00:44 — Something even Komsomolskaya Pravda didn’t have
05:06 — Pride that was deemed invulnerable
10:31 — Eleven twenty-eight
18:25 — The man who nailed the bulkhead shut
27:38 — A day of lies
36:49 — The Norwegians on the phone
45:19 — A piece of paper in the pocket
54:26 — The clock no one will tell us about
01:03:44 — The “Whale” that wasn’t supposed to go out to sea
01:13:04 — She Drowned
01:22:06 — Witnesses Who Were Not Questioned
01:29:20 — The Clock That Kept Ticking
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