Muzey Istorii Kol'skikh Saamov

MEMORY ... ALEXANDER VASILIEVICH KOLCHAK Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak was born on November 16, 1874 in St. Petersburg. His father, an officer of the Naval Artillery, instilled in his son from an early age a love and interest in naval affairs and scientific pursuits. In 1888, Alexander entered the Naval Cadet Corps, which he graduated in the fall of 1894 with the rank of midshipman. He sailed to the Far East, Baltic, Mediterranean seas, participated in the scientific North Polar expedition. During the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, he commanded a destroyer, then a coastal battery in Port Arthur. Until 1914 he served in the Naval General Staff. During the First World War, he was the chief of the operations department of the Baltic Fleet, then the commander of a mine division. Since July 1916 - Commander of the Black Sea Fleet. After the February Revolution of 1917 in Petrograd, Kolchak accused the provisional government of the collapse of the army and navy. In August, he left at the head of a Russian naval mission to the UK and the United States, where he stayed until mid-October. In mid-October 1918, he arrived in Omsk, where he was soon appointed Minister of War and Naval Minister of the Government of the Directory (a bloc of Right SRs and Left Cadets). On November 18, as a result of a military coup, power passed into the hands of the Council of Ministers, and Kolchak was elected the Supreme Ruler of Russia with the promotion of full admirals. In the hands of Kolchak was the gold reserve of Russia, he received military-technical assistance from the United States and the Entente countries. By the spring of 1919, he managed to create an army with a total strength of up to 400 thousand people. The highest successes of Kolchak's armies fell on March-April 1919, when they occupied the Urals. However, after this defeat began. In November 1919, under the onslaught of the Red Army, Kolchak left Omsk. In December, Kolchak's train was blocked in Nizhneudinsk by Czechoslovakians. On January 14, 1920, in exchange for free travel, the Czechs extradite the admiral. On January 22, the Extraordinary Commission of Inquiry began interrogations, which lasted until February 6, when the remnants of Kolchak's army came close to Irkutsk. The Revolutionary Committee issued a resolution to execute Kolchak without trial. On February 7, 1920, Kolchak, together with Prime Minister V.N. Pepeliaev was shot near the Znamensky Monastery in Irkutsk. Their bodies were thrown into a hole in the Angara. In memory of Kolchak, a monument was erected in Irkutsk in 2004. #romanov_on_murman