A fire in the hotel "Leningrad" on February 23, 1991. Stories of eyewitnesses

1991 was not very successful for Leningrad. On the eleventh of January, a flood took place in the city, and the Neva , which came from the banks , caused great material losses. No sooner had the capital survived the water element, as happened another incident - the largest hotel was burned down. It was the hotel "Leningrad". The fire of 1991 killed many people.

Have the fire regulations been observed in the construction of the hotel building?

The hotel "Leningrad" was built in 1970 on the Vyborgskaya embankment. The main goal of the designers and builders was to quickly surrender the facility. The construction was to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of the great leader of the proletariat, VI Lenin. During the construction, few people were interested in creating safe conditions for people. A real crime can be considered the use of flammable toxic materials in finishing work. They were located on the ways of evacuation of people.

Carpets and tracks did not have a special impregnation, preventing the spread of fire. The wallpaper was also exposed to a slight fire. They gave off suffocating smoke and gas. Imperfect was the system responsible for removing smoke. As a result, during the fire, a lot of gas was generated, which resulted in poisoning people.

Open openings made it possible for fire and smoke to easily spread to neighboring floors and increase the number of dead. What consequences did the fire bring to the hotel "Leningrad"? 1991 was a fatal year for the building. The key events of the tragic day will be discussed in this article.

The Soviet fashionable hotel

The hotel accommodated foreign citizens, as well as party, trade union and Komsomol leaders, high-ranking officials, actors and singers. Deluxe rooms have always been occupied.

In 1986, the construction of the second hotel building began. For certain reasons, the local construction trust suspended its work, after they were continued by a joint Yugoslav-Austrian company. The contract amount was 48.5 million dollars. According to the agreement, the second building was to start operating two years after the transfer of the construction site in May 1989. It was called a "puck". By the way, at the time of the fire, most foreign builders lived in this building.

A lot of people found a fire in the hotel "Leningrad". Among them there were well-known personalities: the correspondent of the magazine Ogonyok, the famous French actress Marina Vladi, the Russian actor Andrei Sokolov and other artists who shot in a new film near Leningrad.

Who reported the fire?

The fire in the hotel "Leningrad" began at 8 o'clock in the morning. The call to the fire department, as stated later, was made with great delay. According to official data, the first person who reported the accident happened was the person on duty on the floor. Other sources claimed that the porter called.

How did the hotel "Leningrad" burn out? The fire of 1991 began from the seventh floor, which in height corresponded to the tenth floor of ordinary houses. The hotel staff initially tried to put out the flame on their own. By that time the fire had managed to cover the entire floor and block the escape routes for those located on the two above-mentioned floors. The heat caused a burst of glass in the rooms. They flew with a crash. And bursting into the building sharp gusts of wind from the side of the Neva River exacerbated the situation. The upper floors of the hotel were shrouded in clubs of thick black smoke.

How quickly responded to firefighters?

Six minutes later, the fire -fighting car drove up to the building surrounded by a fire , then other cars with tanks, pumps, stairs, GZDS and other equipment began to approach one after another. Soon all the detachments of the fire protection of Leningrad were pulled to the place of the tragic event.

Her staff immediately assessed the situation. The hall and staircase of the hotel were filled with lodgers and employees who had fled from floors below the fire. To get to the top, a group of firefighters decided to use the service elevator. It was necessary to quickly assess the situation and provide assistance to those who needed it, and then proceed to extinguish the fire.

What was the difficulty in saving people?

Folding stairs only reached the fourth floor of the building, and people in the windows begged for help on the seventh floor and above. There were shrill screams, thick smoke from the rooms, since there was a fire of synthetics.

The only ladder in the panic ran lodgers who managed to escape from the heat. Many of those who got out of the rooms, being poisoned with smoke, fell down in the corridor. Before the firemen had time to climb to the place of fire on the elevator, the melted plastic managed to ruin the life of a man. On the tenth floor, a hotel employee was killed. When burning, this material emits up to a hundred poisonous substances.

The fire (23.02.91) in the hotel "Leningrad" spread instantly, which contributed to the wind. Within a very short period of time, the seventh, eighth and ninth floors were blazing with bright fire, and the occupants were blocked. One of the women could not stand it, jumped out of the window and died.

Offices of defenders from gas and smoke conducted a hasty evacuation of the hotel in the stairwell. Rescuers carried people on their shoulders on their clothes. The victims were immediately transferred to ambulance doctors. Other firefighters were engaged in laying a fire hose and entered into an unequal fight with fire.

How many people were saved?

A total of 253 people were rescued by firefighters, 36 of whom were taken in their arms. Among the rescued there were also small children. However, not all received help. Six guests and a militiaman Alexander Faykin, who helped in the rescue of people, were killed.

How many firefighters died?

There were more dead among the firefighters. A fire in the hotel "Leningrad" took the lives of nine employees. Several of them burned and suffocated. The rest were killed with an attempt to get out of the burning hotel.

Was there a chance to escape?

According to Leonid Belyaev, the ex-head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of St. Petersburg, if there was the slightest opportunity to escape, the firefighters would have taken advantage of it. Some firemen from the 7th part jumped out of the windows. Belyaev notes that the sight of the dead guys lying on the ramp was terrifying. Nine employees of the fire service were killed.

Awarded posthumously

How do people who gave their lives revere the fire in a hotel in Leningrad? " The dead were posthumously awarded with orders in August of the same year. Do not forget about the surviving heroes who distinguished themselves in saving people staying in the hotel. According to eyewitnesses, the number of victims would be much higher, if not for the courage and dedication of the rescuers.

In memory of the dead firefighters, a mini-football tournament is held every year in St. Petersburg. All major competitions in fire and applied sports in this city are marked by the laying of funeral wreaths at the Seraphim Cemetery.

According to eyewitnesses, the funeral procession with the bodies of the dead firemen stretched for 10 kilometers. She moved under the howling of the sirens of fire trucks. To pay tribute to thousands of people.

Day of memory of the lost comrades of firefighters is considered to be February 23.

Did the firemen make a mistake?

The fact that the elevator was chosen by firemen became the reason for speculation that it was a fatal mistake. Employees were credited with arrogance. But Valery Yankovich, who in 1991 occupied the post of chief of the 1st fire department of Leningrad, many years later noted that in that situation to act otherwise would not have been possible. To get on burning floors it was possible only by means of lifts to pass a crowd of people which in a panic rushed to a ladder.

The military regulations at that time allowed the use of elevators. By the rules should land on the floor below the burning and produce quenching through the trunks. And the fact that the elevator stopped on a burning floor, according to experts, was caused by a closure caused by high temperatures. Undoubtedly, the human factor can not be denied either. Firefighters fell into the worst, no one could foresee such an outcome of the events.

In a moment, the smoke-fired firemen made an attempt to descend, but at that moment the elevator was no longer working. People tried to break through to the stairs and windows located on the edge, to break the elevator car and go down the shaft. However, the time was wasted, for many firefighters who found themselves on the seventh floor, the situation was predetermined.

At this time, the guests of the upper floors gathered at the open windows. They waved towels, and some tried to get out on their own. They bound the sheets and used other objects that came under their arm. This resulted in a fall and death. Fire consumed the room number, reducing the chance of survival.

As the participants in the events note, at that time the fire brigades were not equipped with special equipment designed to evacuate people from a great height, and there were no rescue helicopters either.

A fire in the hotel "Leningrad" (February 23, 1991), a photo of which is presented in this article, found the well-known actress Marina Vlady. According to her memoirs, she would have died, if not a firefighter, a wonderful brave man. He held a ladder on his hands, which did not reach the seventh floor. The actress had to jump straight at her from the window.

Witnesses of events

According to eyewitnesses, a fire in the hotel "Leningrad", a photo of which permanently depicted the tragedy, represented a terrible sight. It killed all the people of Leningrad festive mood. It was celebrated on 23 February. And although the scale of the tragedy was still unknown, it immediately appeared that the rally in honor of the significant date would not be held as usual.

At that time there were no mobile phones and no internet. How did people know about such an incident, like a fire in the hotel "Leningrad" (1991)? Stories of eyewitnesses who were passing by a burned-out hotel, contributed to the spread of as yet unclear rumors.

Journalist Alexander Nevzorov, who received the floor at a rally in support of the preservation of the USSR, reported on the disaster in Leningrad. The event was held at the Palace Square. Nevzorov managed to visit the scene of the incident in the morning as a reporter. He noted that there are victims. However, even he did not know the details of the incident at that moment. There was no exact report on the victims yet. The townspeople learned about the incident only on Monday.

The official version of what happened

The fire in the hotel "Leningrad" has an official version. According to the expertise, the fire was the 774th room in which Swedish tourists lived. They included a semiconductor TV "Record V-312". Later, the guests went down to the dining room and did not turn it off. The ignition of the transformer occurred at 8 o'clock in the morning. After the fire was eliminated, in the room 774 were found melted wires, indicating a short-circuit occurred. The plastic decoration inside the hotel contributed to the instant spread of fire. In addition, when melting, it began to release toxic substances.

Unconfirmed versions

The fire in the hotel "Leningrad" (February 23, 1991) was considered ambiguous. There were other versions that were not officially confirmed.

One of the victims in the fire was the editor of the magazine "Ogonyok" Mark Grigoriev. He was found in his room. The head of the deceased was badly damaged. But experts came to the conclusion that, most likely, the skull burst under the influence of high temperature.

A few years later the detained member of the gang of Yuri Shutov, Airat Gimranov, confessed to law enforcement officers that he had participated in the liquidation of the journalist and the arson of the hotel to obscure the tracks, but there was no evidence for the words.

Often it was possible to hear other versions. Many assured that the tragedy was the result of the work of Western special services, the redistribution of the hotel business, attempts to undermine the reputation of Mikhail Gorbachev, the attempt on the actress Marina Vladi, etc.

The version was also disclosed that it was a terrorist act, the purpose of which was the failure of the rally on Palace Square, which was held before the All-Union referendum for the preservation of the USSR. But the rally, despite the fire, was held.

How did the television fire in the hotel "Leningrad"? The documentary "The Saved" Leningrad "fully illuminated the event, as well as possible causes of the fire.

Destiny of the hotel

Four months after the incident, the fire department of Leningrad was given permission to temporarily use the affected building. Management intended to complete the completion of the second part and accept tourists, and the first was supposed to be reconstructed. Four floors were seriously damaged.

Then, for unknown reasons, the construction was suspended, and the building fell into the hands of various people. His fate is still unclear.