8 NAVY NEWS, JULY 2007
Albion’s tsar turn
YOU might remember the scene
While the media were drawn to the visit
from Apollo 13.
of bigwigs, Albion’s ship’s company (well,
With his advisors telling him the stricken
the male contingent) were strangely drawn
spacecraft will run out of oxygen or its
to Russian actress Liza Boyarskaya (she
batteries will expire long before the
appeared inter alia in Downfall, the film
astronauts reach the sanctuary of
about the last days of Hitler which
Earth, flight director Gene Kranz
was made in St Petersburg).
dismisses their protestations with
The actress was onboard for a
a rallying cry: ‘Failure is not an
fashion shoot by the Russian edition
option.’
of Vogue magazine (it won’t appear
So when the port guide for St
until the November edition) and
Petersburg told the bridge team
was escorted by Royal Marines
of Britain’s amphibious flagship
and sailors throughout her
they would never squeeze the
stay; she responded to Albion’s
18,500 tonne vessel into the
hospitality by providing the
historic city of Peter the Great,
volunteers with front-row seats
they took it not as an admonition
at her production of King Lear.
but as a challenge.
On a more sombre note, sailors
But how do you sail HMS Albion
paid their respects at Piskarovskoye
into the heart of St Petersburg?
Cemetery, under the ever-watchful eye
Very carefully.
of Mother Russia.
● Albion alongside at Lt Schmidt pier in central St
And backwards.
More than half a million victims of the
Petersburg and (right) Albion’s sailors pay their
The 176-metre (578ft) ship arrived at Lt
siege of Leningrad – as the city was known
respects at a ceremony honouring the city’s WW2
Schmidt Pier in the centre of the ‘Venice of
under Soviet rule – are buried in huge mass
dead
the North’ having turned around with inches
graves (each one contains 10,000 dead). ● Tsargazers... (Below) Russian actress Liza
to spare at either side of the River Nevsky.
Albion paraded an unarmed ten-man Boyarskaya draws admiring looks from sailors and
Albion is the largest foreign warship to
guard in a ceremony of remembrance Royals during a photoshoot for Vogue
, hms albion
visit St Petersburg – and the Russians made
attended by the ship’s CO Capt Tim Lowe,
a suitable fuss of her accordingly.
Mr Brenton and Capt Newton.
● (Main picture) Tugs guide Albion past St
“It was clear from the moment that you
Similarly humbling was a visit to a
Petersburg’s dockland towards the heart of the
turned into the Bolshaya Neva, filling the
special needs school in the city, where 20
famous city
field of view across the river, that Albion’s
sailors volunteered to fit equipment in a
visit to St Petersburg was going to have a
new gymnasium and generally giving the
significant impact,” said Capt Gary Newton,
building a fresh look.
Britain’s Naval Attaché in Moscow.
As a ‘thank you’, pupils performed a short
A military band serenaded the assault ship
concert and presented the sailors were
as she berthed with Heart of Oak and once
various pictures they had produced.
safely alongside 40 media swarmed aboard,
“We all left wishing that we had had
drawn, in part, by the presence of Britain’s
longer to get more done for them,” said
Ambassador to Russia, Anthony Brenton.
POLOGS(CS) Hasler.
(Albion’s visit coincided with the Foreign
“What the children did for us far
Office’s request for the extradition of a
outweighed what we were able to do for
suspect in connection with the poisoning of
them.”
es: la(phot) dan hooper
former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko.) That charitable work brought the curtain
Among other dignitaries hosted by Albion down on Albion’s three-day stay on the
during her stay was The Iron Lady, not Nevsky.
Mrs T, but Valentina Matvienko, Governor Barely 24 hours later, the assault ship
of St Petersburg, who happens to share a found herself in Helsinki, where she was
pictur sobriquet with the former British premier. greeted by Finnish assault craft.
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