The fate of Sergey Preminin, an ordinary peasant guy at first didn’t differ much from the lives of his peers. He was born on October 18, 1965 in the village of Skornyakovo, located near Veliky Ustyug of the Vologda Region and was brought up in a working family. His father, Anatoly Efimovitch has worked as an electrician in the local state farm all his life. His mother, Valentina Egorovna, bleached linens at the Krasavino Flax plant. Since childhood Sergey learned peasant customs and was accustomed to labor? His parents taught the children to choose good over bad. After finishing school Sergey Preminin began studying at the Naval Vocational School in Veliky Ustyug. In 1984 the time came for Sergey to fulfill his military duty – he was called up as a sailor on a submarine “К–219”. First he was trained at a special detachment in Severodvinsk and then he was appointed to a missile armed submarine cruiser. The crew of the sub gave a warm welcome to Sergey the crew trusted him and he excellently coped with his duties. That is why when there was incontinency on the submarine the crew expressed the unanimous opinion to send Sergey Preminin to the damaged compartment. And Sergey made his step into Eternity… On October 18, 1986 he would be 21, only some days separated him from this date.

It happened over the Atlantic Ocean early in the morning on October 3, 1986. The crewmembers of the Soviet Nuclear Submarine fought the danger that lasted on the sub for 16 hours already. The situation was caused by depressurization of one of the submarine. The shaft was filled with water. It crushed the body of the missile with liquid fuel. Gas escape occurred. There was a powerful explosion in the shaft. The fire started. After several hours of struggle the fire was put out. The explosion caused one more serious damage – the leak of the poison oxidizer of the missile fuel. Because of the damaged gas mains the gas level in the compartment of the sub many times exceeded permissible concentration. The captain of the 3rd rank Petrachkov, sailors Kharchenko and Smagliuk perished on their battle post, many crewmembers were poisoned with the steams of the nitric oxide.

But the troubles were not over… An alarm signal came from the reactor compartment, where the nuclear heart of the sub beat. The poison gas percolated there, the steam tube was damaged and the lighting went off. The reactors had to be urgently stopped… Otherwise the disaster would lead to the death of the crew and to the enormous contamination of water and air area near the shores of North America… But it was impossible to make it, the energy plant remote control system was rut out of action senior lieutenant Nikolai Belikov and sailor Sergey Preminin managed to curb the revolting reactors by hand. They entered the nuclear “stoke-hole”, overcame the unbearable heat and pressure and lowered 3 absorbing gratings and began to lower the last conscious. But Nickolai Belikov lost conscious. The sailor Sergey Preminin was left face-to-face with a reactor. We can only guess what he felt, choking with sweat and overcoming breast pain, when doubled up he was rolling the handle. But he reached his aim…

When the last grating was lowered, Sergey Preminin managed to reach the interphone and reported the commander about the fulfillment of the compartment. The door was deadly locked by the pressure, his comrades tried desperately to unlock the door with an extensible lug, but could not do anything. He was growing weaker with every minute, but he was knocking the bulkhead: “I’m alive, alive, alive”. But soon the signals stopped. Everything was quiet in the reactor compartment… Sergey rescued his comrades and the whole world from a terrible disaster, but he himself remained on watch in the deep waters of the ocean forever.