The true history of the Soviet naval anchorage at Socotra
Discussions about Moscow's plans to acquire naval bases outside the country were supplemented by one more - today we are allegedly showing interest not only in the Syrian port of Tartus, but also in the Yemeni island of Socotra. In Russia, Socotra has only recently become known as a place of pilgrimage for ecotourists. But in Soviet times, the island was well known first of all to our military (and to the author of these lines among them). The name of the island often flashed in the Western press when there was an uproar about the "Soviet military presence" in the Red Sea and Horn of Africa region.
Many even today - abroad and here - are sure: there was an important Soviet base here! As was the Soviet base in Berbera, on the northern coast of Somalia. Leaving Berber in 1977, the USSR lost a large port equipped with it - a place of entry and anchorage of warships, an important communications center (it was transferred to the vicinity of Aden, in what was then South Yemen), a tracking station, a storage for tactical missiles, as well as a large storage fuel and living quarters for one and a half thousand people.
However, even before the rupture of our relations with Somalia in 1977, Soviet warships preferred not to enter the port of Berbera, but to anchor northeast off the coast of the Yemeni island of Socotra in the same Gulf of Aden. At the same time, Socotra lacked not only a port, but even berths. There were no storage facilities and coastal facilities, there were no Soviet airfields or communication centers or anything like that. And yet, in February 1976, American intelligence noted: "Although Soviet warships, submarines and aircraft may stop in Berber, we do not see a large number of them there. Soviet ships are mainly anchored near Socotra Island at the entrance to the Gulf of Aden. and it looks like this practice will continue. " This, indeed, continued after relations between Somalia and the USSR were severed in November 1977, and the Soviet base in Berbera ceased to exist.
It is believed that the name of the island Socotra comes from the phrase "island of bliss" in the ancient Indian language Sanskrit. In the history of Socotra, according to medieval Arab sources, there was only one successful attempt to establish a "base" on the island: Alexander the Great resettled here some of the inhabitants from the Greek city of Stagir destroyed by his father. The great Aristotle advised his pupil to start harvesting the best aloe in the world on Socotra. The Arabs believed that the descendants of those ancient Greeks converted to Christianity when Socotra was visited by the apostle Thomas in 52 AD. According to legend, he was shipwrecked off the coast of the island on the way to India and preached among the locals. As a result, the island for a long time, apparently until the end of the 16th - beginning of the 17th century, was the southernmost outpost of Christianity. Then the entire population converted to Islam.
Under the pretext of protecting Christians from the Moors, Socotra was captured by the Portuguese in 1507. But after four years they abandoned the island, where there was not a single deep-sea harbor, not a single city. And nothing that could be turned into gold. The British appeared at Socotra at the very beginning of the 17th century in connection with the creation of the East India Company. Their ships, judging by the surviving logs, were stationed in Haulaf and Dilishiya bays - in the same place where the ships of the Eighth operational squadron of the Soviet Pacific Fleet would later be in the roadstead.
The profession of a military translator-Arabist provided the author with the opportunity to visit and work on Socotra many times in 1976-1980. Then the large landing ships of the Soviet squadron helped the leadership of South Yemen to deliver to the island, cut off from all the benefits of civilization, national economic goods. In December 1977, the entire South Yemeni mechanized brigade was transferred to Socotra. Its transportation (I also happened to participate in this) was carried out by a Soviet large landing ship.
A company of T-34 tanks from the brigade was also delivered to Socotra: the old tanks, even at that time, were supposed to be installed in trenches on the shore in important directions. So today's tourists are mistaken, mistaking the combat vehicles that have taken part in the Great Patriotic War and delivered to the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen in the early 1970s for traces of the presence of a "Soviet military base" here.
In subsequent years, the situation around Socotra has not changed. True, an attempt was made to build a maneuvering station for the Yemeni fleet in Haulaf Bay, but it did not advance beyond the project and hydrological surveys: if construction began, machinery, equipment, building materials and almost the entire staff of workers would have to be transported from the Soviet Union. And build on your own money too.
In May 1980, Socotra hosted a unique joint Soviet-South Yemeni exercise (the unification of South and North Yemen took place in May 1990) with the landing of amphibious assault forces on the northern coast. According to legend, the amphibious assault from the ships was supposed to "liberate" the island from the "enemy" who had captured it. The Yemeni garrison of Socotra (including two Soviet specialists and a translator) and the local people's militia, on the contrary, were supposed to defend the coast of the island from the "enemy landing".
I happened to observe the landing of our troops from the shore, from the command post of the defenders. The picture was impressive, the tactics of the ships and the amphibious waves forming afloat - flawless. And what is surprising: the entire horizon was simply lined with out of nowhere tankers and merchant ships of foreign countries, as if according to pre-purchased tickets!
Socotra was both lucky and unlucky at the same time. This completely unique fragment of the ancient continent of Gondwana has preserved for mankind more than 800 thousand relict plants, about two hundred species of birds. The coastal waters are home to over 700 species of fish, three hundred species of crabs, lobsters and shrimps. More than two and a half hundred reef-forming corals are found in coastal waters. In July 2008, the UNESCO World Heritage Committee inscribed the Socotra Archipelago (Socotra Island and all the adjacent Yemeni islands, two of which are also inhabited) in the UNESCO World Heritage List. This further enhances the attention of the Yemeni leadership to preserving the ecology of the archipelago and maintaining the now recognized important and prestigious status for it, designed to provide significant foreign aid.
Another thing is that Yemen, as before, is interested in strengthening its sovereignty over the remote archipelago. Especially now, when the activity of sea pirates from neighboring Somalia, torn apart by the civil war, has so dramatically increased near Socotra. To combat them, warships of the USA, France, Great Britain, Spain, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands and even India and Malaysia are already concentrated in the Gulf of Aden. At the end of October, the Russian escort ship Neustrashimy, having replenished supplies of water and food in the Yemeni port of Aden, also sailed to the shores of Somalia to ensure the safety of Russian shipping.
In such a situation, the traditional anchorages near Socotra, which have been remembered since Soviet times, can also be useful for Russian ships. On the one hand, it would scare off naval terrorists, which may be behind al-Qaeda, and on the other, displaying the Russian flag would counterbalance a powerful Western presence in these waters. But there was no "Soviet military base" - neither naval, nor air force or missile, whatever they say, on Socotra Island. And it couldn't be.
