Just Treading Water : Stranded Russian Sailors Enjoy U.S. Hospitality but Yearn to Go Home

After spending more than a month bobbing at anchor off Terminal Island, things were looking grim for the 24 Russian seafarers aboard the oceangoing tug Gigant.

There was no money in the coffers to fix the broken-down engine that had left their ship disabled in Los Angeles Harbor since April. Food supplies were dwindling, and morale was getting low. The stranded Russians did not know when they would see their home port of Murmansk again.

But ever since Memorial Day, when a group of American pleasure boaters heard about their sad tale of mishaps on the high seas and decided to help out, the stranded Russians have been treated to a barrage of American hospitality: barbecues, beer, food of every description, even flowers.

The Russians still don’t know when they will get to go home. But until they do, they certainly are not going to go hungry.

“The people of America are extremely good,” Tanya Fedoseeyeva, 36, one of two women in the crew, said through an interpreter.

“We had not anticipated this kind of help,” she said last weekend as she and some of her shipmates headed ashore for what was billed as a “ glasnost barbecue” at the Al Larson Marina on Terminal Island. “It is something we are not used to. It is fantastic!”

“I had never met Americans before,” said crew member Vladimir Glukheno, 48, who was sporting a name tag that said, “Hello! My name is Vlad.” “My impressions are most wonderful, most excellent,” he said.

“We thought the least we could do was to help them out,” said Joe Beason, 54, a Long Beach attorney who has befriended the Russian sailors. “We figured they’d probably do the same for us if we ever got stuck in Murmansk.”

According to the captain, Nikolai Finogenov, 45, the Gigant’s saga began in December, when the 225-foot salvage tug--whose name means giant in Russian--left Murmansk on the northern coast of Russia near Finland bound for the U.S. West Coast. After crossing the Atlantic Ocean and transiting the Panama Canal, the Gigant arrived in San Francisco and picked up two World War II-era Liberty ships that were to be towed across the Pacific Ocean to China for scrap.

But soon after leaving San Francisco with the Liberty ships in tow, the 20-year-old, Dutch-built Gigant developed engine trouble. It limped two-thirds of the way across the Pacific before it had to let another Russian ship take over the Liberty ships, and the Gigant headed for Hawaii for supplies.

The engine problems got worse, however, and before reaching Hawaii the Gigant was ordered to rendezvous with another Russian tug, the Umka, which towed the Gigant into Los Angeles Harbor, where it dropped anchor April 22.

It has been there ever since, waiting for the ship’s owner, a Murmansk company called Sevrybholotflot, to send money to repair the disabled engine--at an estimated cost of at least $300,000--or perhaps to have the Gigant towed back to Russia.

Speaking through a volunteer interpreter--a Long Beach city employee named George Skvor, who has been helping the Gigant crew members communicate with Americans--Capt. Finogenov seemed a little embarrassed to find himself and his ship in such a predicament.

“This is not typical,” he said.

Lacking money to buy supplies, living conditions aboard the ship had deteriorated during the ship’s first month in Los Angeles. But then on Memorial Day weekend Beason and some friends cruised by the rusty, orange-colored ship in a small motor launch. The Americans waved, the Russians waved back. The Russians invited the Americans aboard and, over beers and some homemade Russian wine, they learned of the Russian sailors’ plight.

The Americans began organizing relief efforts, providing the crew with food and other necessities, including a couple of hundred dollars in cash.

“They’re wonderful people,” said Jim Sutton, a Long Beach police sergeant who was among the group that first contacted the Russians. “During the Cold War I guess there was a lot of mistrust on both sides. But when you get to know them you find out how alike we all are.”

Despite the warm reception, the Gigant crew members are eager to return home after more than six months away, seven weeks of it riding at anchor in Los Angeles. But no one knows when they will be able to leave.

From the captain on down, the crew members seemed reluctant to criticize the ship’s owners, at least to an American reporter. But Peter Whittington, president of Transmarine Navigation Co. of Long Beach, which is acting as agent for the ship, said the crew members are worried that they could be stuck here for a long time.

“They feel they’ve been abandoned (by the ship’s owners),” Whittington said. “I don’t think morale is very good.”

Whittington said he has repeatedly tried to get the ship’s owners to make a decision. Although the company did send some money to buy provisions and pay the crew members some of their back wages--a Russian sailor makes about $90 per month, Gigant crew members said--Whittington said that economic problems in Russia could make it difficult for the company to pay for the ship’s repair.

Whittington added that he has suggested that the Gigant’s crew be sent back to Russia and a skeleton crew be put aboard the ship until a decision about its future is made. He has not gotten an answer from the company, he said.

The Rev. Kelly Crawford of the Seaman’s Church Institute in San Pedro, which provides aid to sailors, said that although mechanical breakdowns happen relatively often to ships, it is unusual for a ship owner to leave a ship sitting in harbor for this length of time. Crawford also has been providing assistance to the Russian sailors, helping them obtain supplies and to call home to their families in Russia. He also distributed some Russian-language Bibles to some crew members, which he said were eagerly accepted.

“It’s wonderful that so many people have tried to help them,” Crawford said. “They can’t get over how friendly Americans are. But they’re homesick. They’re ready to go home.”