Wife of Kursk Crew Members Has a Vision

Nov. 3, 2000 -- They were the words of a desperate man. “It seems there is no chance, let’s hope for 10 to 20 percent, that someone will read this.”

When Lt. Capt. Dmitry Kolesnikov wrote the letter in the frigid darkness of the Kursk as it lay listing 354 feet below the freezing Barents Sea, he probably had no idea the world would come to read his last written words.

Parts of the letter, which Russian divers on a recovery mission found on the body of the 27-year-old crew member, were released to the public last week.

On Thursday, a large copy of the letter was displayed behind glass in a hall in St. Petersburg where Kolesnikov’s funeral was held.

But for his widow, Olga Kolesnikov, there are questions still without answers. Russian authorities have not released the entire note. “They wouldn’t give it to me,” she told ABCNEWS’ Good Morning America in an exclusive interview. “The only conclusion I can come to, is there’s something in that note they don’t want me to see.”

Of the 118 crewmen who died in the explosion of the Russian submarine, only 12 bodies have been recovered; and for that, Olga is grateful.

Saying Goodbye

“I had the chance to say goodbye to him, to see him one last time, to embrace him, to kiss him, to hear his words of love for the last time.”

But there’s little else the new bride has to feel fortunate about.

Most Russians believe it was the Russian authorities’ reluctance to take on international offers for help that led to the disastrous chain of events.

Russia accepted international help on Aug.16, four days after the Kursk had sunk. But it was only on Oct. 25 that recovery teams found the first body in the inner hull of the sunken sub — five days after divers began the long-delayed operation.

Most of the Kursk’s crew apparently died instantly in the explosions that sent a giant fireball and shock wave ripping through the Kursk’s first five compartments. Within minutes, water roared into the submarine.

But as Olga watched the recovery mission on television and saw bubbles bursting out as divers opened the hatch of the submarine, she said she had a vision. “When all those bubbles came out, I saw the souls of the dead sailors ascending to heaven.”

Two Services

In the town of Kursk, after which the Oscar-II class submarine was named, the remains of Viktor Kuznetsov, another Kursk crewman, was laid in state today.

His body was one of the first to be raised. But hours before news arrived that Kuznetsov’s remains had been retrieved, his mother, Olga Kuznetsov, collapsed and died in her native Kursk.

“She was waiting to the very end,” Kuznetsov’s sisterAlbina said. “She never lost hope that they would find our brother and bury him in the Christian way, that we would return him to the earth. But she died about 9:15 and about two hours later we got a call that they had identified our Vitya (Viktor).”

Olga Kuznetsov’s body was taken to the town’s southern cemetery, while her son was to be buried close to the center of Kursk, near a memorial to the town’s dead of the Great Patriotic War.

Kuznetsov’s tearful wife laid red roses next to hermother-in-law’s remains and cried over the military cap andblood-red shroud covering the coffin of her 27-year-oldhusband.

Itar-Tass news agency today said the navy had identifiedeight of the 12 submariners brought to the surface since the recovery mission began. Divers began the operation on Oct. 20, but difficult weather conditions meant the first body was not recovered until five days later.

The ongoing recovery mission was temporarily suspended today due to stormy weather.