Magazine Lassoes a Fictitious Horse in the White Sea

Scan of Top Gear magazine page showing mysterious submarine

One of today's popular military news stories out of Russia was the "accidental" leak of a picture of a rarely seen piece of naval hardware: the "Losharik" nuclear-powered special-purpose submarine. The boat gets its name from a 1971 Soviet stop-motion film bearing the same name. The lead character in the children's film was named Losharik because it was a horse ("loshad") formed from balls ("sharik") used by a circus juggler (watch the 10-minute movie here).

Losharik - the juggling man's horse

Today's story first surfaced last Friday when a scan of page 149 from a past or future edition of the Russian version of Top Gear magazine was posted to the internet. When queried, the poster stated he wasn't sure which edition the page came from, but he had heard that Top Gear's office in Moscow had been visited on Friday by some government officials - possibly from the Ministry of Defense. After the story was picked up by the Russian press today, the source went back and deleted his posts and the original image. But it was too late as more than a hundred Russian and foreign news sites had already republished the picture.

It's not clear when or where the photo was taken. The article's title, "Water Spray of the White [Sea?]," would seem to suggest the White Sea was, in fact, the location. The background does look very similar to other pictures taken from the beach adjacent to Severodvinsk, on the southeastern corner of the White Sea.

Nikolay Ushanov

One of the people in the article is most likely Nikolay Ushanov (identified by the diminutive name "Kolyunya" and "K-U" within the article's text). Ushanov has penned articles for and been on the editorial staff of many car magazines in Russia, such as Car Shop, XXL-Auto, Trend, Top Gear, Car World, and most recently Classic & Sports Car. He lives in Moscow, but has occasion to travel to such hot spots as the White Sea in far northwestern Russia. Before he was a car magazine writer and editor, he served in the Soviet Navy aboard a Yankee-class nuclear-powered submarine. Apparently Ushanov has maintained some naval and shipbuilding industry contacts, as evidenced by his attendance at the roll-out of the third Dolgorukiy-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine "Vladimir Monomakh" in December 2012. The submarine was built at Northern Machine-Building Enterprise in Severodvinsk.

Given his background, the picture really could have been taken at any time over the past decade. A local Severodvinsk photographer believes the photo used in the Top Gear article was taken nine years ago. It's unclear if he knows that to be true, or if he, too, noted Ushanov's work history and guessed it was taken while he was working for Top Gear magazine between 2004 and 2010. One final possible clue to the photo's date is the vehicle being discussed in the article: the Mercedes-Benz GL 450. According to Wikipedia, the GL 450 was not sold until 2006.

It's amazing what the press will pick up on a slow news day.

"Orenburg" Stretches Its Legs Near North Pole

Delta Stretch "Orenburg" near the North Pole - October 16, 2014
(Image courtesy of Yngve Kristoffersen and Audun Tholfsen)

Two Norwegian scientists, Yngve Kristoffersen and Audun Tholfsen, who have been living and working on an ice drift station in the Arctic since August, had an unexpected visitor last week. The October 16 entry from their weekly blog update reads:

Position: 89 19′ N, 174 51′ W, temperature – 8 C, air pressure 1036 hPa, wind 5 knots from E. Ice drift 0.1 knots toward east. Started recovery of the thermistor string as it is only 5 meter away from a crack that has widened 3 meters. The thin ice on refrozen leads are likely sites of future pressure ridge formation. Having recovered half (150 m), we discovered that the hydrophone was about to be consumed by the pressure ridge south of the hovercraft. Started to melt out the hydrophone, but was not successful. The 12 kHz echo sounder is giving us problems with weak or no bottom returns – recovered the transducer. In the evening. we spotted lights at a distance. Turned out to be a submarine at the surface in position: 89 17.5′ N, 172 42.9′ W. We were not able to identify it.

Delta Stretch "Orenburg" near the North Pole - October 16, 2014
(Image courtesy of Yngve Kristoffersen and Audun Tholfsen)

The submarine surfaced about 3 nautical miles from the researchers' camp. The researchers decided to head toward the submarine. When they approached to within 100 meters, the submarine submerged.

Reviewing the photos, it appears the submarine in question was none other than Delta Stretch-class auxiliary nuclear-powered submarine "Orenburg".

Delta Stretch "Orenburg" in Olenya Guba - April 2010
(Image courtesy of topwar.ru)

"Orenburg", which primarily performs highly sensitive missions for the Ministry of Defense's Main Directorate for Deep-Sea Research (GUGI), last visited the North Pole in late September 2012 while participating in the Arktika-2012 geological survey expedition along the Mendeleyev Ridge.