The Last Years of the Steamship “Krasnaya Zvezda”: on Newspaper Materials

The uniqueness of the propaganda steamer "Krasnaya Zvezda" lies in the fact that the top officials of the Soviet state went on a propaganda voyage in 1919.In connection with this, this ship was spoiled by the attention of journalists during its work.At the end of its career, the ship was handed over to organize a recreation center for the Sarapul Radio Plant named after Ordzhonikidze, where it eventually died as a result of ice drift.The work is publishing four newspaper articles on the issue of preserving the steamship "Krasnaya Zvezda".The first note from the newspaper "Udmurtskaya Pravda", 1969.The question of the need to preserve the vessel does not arise here -the condition of the vessel, then still quite satisfactory, fully allowed for the possibility of its museumification.The second article from Komsomolskaya Pravda in 1976 came out hot on the heels of when the ship's hull began to be cut into metal.The last two notes from the Bolshaya Kama newspaper for 1987-1988 represent the reaction of readers when it became known that perhaps the Red Star had not been scrapped after all.This is a single cycle of response to an article in the magazine "Water Transport" dedicated to the "Krasnaya Zvezda".According to the ideological guidelines that existed in the Soviet Union, scrapping such a valuable artifact as the Red Star steamship seemed impossible.However, this was due to perhaps excessive departmental isolation.The decision makers in the management of the Sarapul Radio Plant simply did not understand the true ideological value of the steamship they had.And the reaction of public, Komsomol and party structures turned out to be too slow to save him.