The sea is not for everyone: "We caught only three. Everyone else drowned."

On November 12, 2017, at 19:30, the Moscow Planetarium will host a screening of the documentary play "Moments of the Sea" directed by Viktor Alferov. The play is based on the monologues of the crew members of the Kruzenshtern — the last active sailboat from the series of legendary "flying P". The text of the monologues is read by the actor, People's Artist of the Russian Federation Sergey Garmash.

We publish an excerpt from the monologue of the boatswain of the second mainsail of the barque "Kruzenshtern" Alexander Lesnikov.

"I remember the most terrible storm that was deposited in my memory — on the transition from Nakhodka to Canada. I was still working in the Far East at that time. Well, it was probably more than 12 points. The wave descended and rose so that it overwhelmed the cabin.

We then received an SOS from a Korean ship — they had a fire. Caught fire in the holds of the corrugated container. They started to put out — they couldn't. With what fright, I do not know, the covers of the holds were opened, they were covered by a large wave. We approached them, but we can't catch up with the boat — everything is tearing up. The Koreans lowered the first boat with the boatswain, we chased her, covered her from the wave and pulled the boatswain up. And when the captain saw that we had pulled out a man, he put the others in the second boat — there were 26 people in total, he stayed.

And then a big wave rose between us and the boat. They're all scared, half burned. The boat capsized. We only caught three. Everyone else drowned. And half of it turned out like this… that they got between the boat and the side, and the boat was already upside down with water, and the head was like a watermelon only. Slap — and blood. So several people were crushed right in front of my eyes. And we still managed to pull out four of them — we pulled them out purely by accident. One caught, the rest by the hand…

It was a very big storm. We have five people written off immediately after this storm. This is one of the storms that I survived and stayed working.

Therefore, the sea is not for everyone. Not everyone can stand it. I feel good at sea. And I'm glad that I'm alive, and not like many on the shore. And I love this ship very much. Captains change, go and come, boatswains come and go. But the love that was born between us and Kruzenshtern, we pass on to others, then they pass on. Sometimes you talk — and goosebumps run through. The undying spirit of this vessel. It's like a legend. Not just iron with sails. It's all in some kind of aura of love."

"Moments of the Sea" is the author's project of the Mikhail Kozhukhov Travel Club. For three years in a row, the Travel Club has been conducting expeditions "Under the sails of the Kruzenshtern". The participants of the expeditions return completely different people after their travels. Trying to figure out why the bark affects them so much that it clicks inside each person, we wrote a longrid with the revelations of the expedition participants.

Now we offer you to listen to the stories of the crew members of the immortal barque. The music for the performance was written by composers Nikita Reznik and Serafima Katz. During the entire action, videos taken during the expeditions on the barge will be projected on the dome of the planetarium. Tickets can be purchased online. And the day before the performance, on November 11, a face-to-face meeting with crew members will take place in the Radisson Ukraine conference hall.

Just be careful. As it turned out, once you hear about a sailboat, it's very difficult to stop dreaming about getting on it yourself.