Civilians get close-up look
at visiting Russian destroyer
More than 100 Defense Department civilian workers as well as service members and their dependents got a rare glimpse yesterday of life on a Russian anti-submarine destroyer.
While the 300 Russian sailors from the Udaloy-class destroyer Marshal Shaposhnikov and 58 merchant mariners from the Dubina-class light oiler Pechenga explored Oahu, a few civilian workers, service members and their families climbed aboard the two Russian ships anchored at Pearl Harbor.
Juri Bogun: The Russian officer says the Oahu stop is the only one for the deployment
Twelve-year-old Tyler Renigar, who was visiting with his family from Forest City, Ark., was impressed by the destroyer's eight torpedo tubes. "It was really neat," Tyler said.
His dad, Anthony, a Forest City fire captain, said he met several Russian sailors while his family was touring the USS Missouri on Sunday. "They told us to come and visit their ship," Renigar said.
"We decided to do it," Renigar added, "since it's something that you seldom get to do."
The only other Navy vessel Renigar has visited was the USS Alabama -- the sister battleship of the USS Missouri -- now a floating museum in Mobile, Ala.
Visitors to the Russian destroyer were broken into groups of nearly a dozen, and each had a Russian sailor and a U.S. military interpreter as guides. The visit -- lasting about 15 minutes -- was limited to the deck of the 531-foot Russian warship. The guides spent their time showing off the destroyer's two surface-to-air missile launchers, four Gatling anti-aircraft guns, eight multipurpose missile launchers, 24 anti-submarine rocket launchers and two 100 mm cannons, which the sailors said could fire "100 rounds per minute."
Capt. 2nd Class Juri Bogun, speaking through a U.S. Army interpreter, said the Shaposhnikov participated in the 1991 Gulf War, "but just as an observer.
"This is because at the time the Americans and Russians had just become friends."
The Shaposhnikov's only stop during its two-week deployment from its home port in Vladivostok is Pearl Harbor, Bogun said.
The last time the Russian Federation Navy dropped anchor at Pearl was in 1995 during a maritime disaster relief exercise. That time, the Shaposhnikov's sister ship -- Admiral Panteleev -- was accompanied by another anti-submarine destroyer and an amphibious landing ship, Bogun said. Two U.S. Navy warships paid a reciprocal visit to Vladivostok a year later.
