Andrey Ivanovich Belodvortsev (1906–1982) — Captain
When young Andrey Belodvortsev first stepped onto a deck in 1920, the Volga River seemed crowded with vessels. Those were the harshest of times — turbulent, hungry, with the Civil War not yet over — yet navigation opened as scheduled, and paddle steamers plied the Volga reaches, still called by their old names out of habit rather than their new ones: Velikaya Knyazhna Olga Nikolayevna (Volodarsky), Bayan (Mikhail Kalinin), Boyaryshnya (Rabochiy), Knyaginya (Kommunistka). Rafts and flat-bottomed barges drifted down from upstream; ferryman's boats darted to and fro; the wharves buzzed with waiting passengers and surly stevedores. The Volga flowed on without pause, not forgetting its laborious "Dubinushka," enduring hardship, deprivation, poverty, brutal killing, and even cannibalism born of a famine that drove men to madness.
Young sailor Belodvortsev had his share of trials aboard the tug Sluchaynyy, but he was fortunate in his captain, Ivan Pavlovich Shumilov, who looked after young Andryusha like a father, teaching him not only the mysteries of river navigation but also instilling in him that particular warmth, courtesy, and moral fastidiousness that mark true Volga rivermen. Year after year passed as the young sailor mastered the trades of helmsman, river pilot, navigator, and first mate, all while completing a river-navigation technical college without leaving work. Then, once again, great disaster scorched his life as it scorched the life of the whole country — the Second World War. In 1942 Belodvortsev was appointed captain of the steamship Goncharov. His crew transported the defenders of Stalingrad. Standing his fiery watch under bombing and shelling, the seasoned captain never lost his composure even in what seemed like hopeless situations — he acted decisively, yet without fuss or haste. From the Stalingrad Front, the ST-54 (as the Goncharov had come to be called) evacuated nearly fourteen thousand wounded Red Army soldiers and officers, the majority of whom returned to service. Many crews learned from Belodvortsev the art of evading air attack. In 1952, the distinguished captain made an experimental voyage aboard the motor vessel Sergey Kirov along the newly opened Volga–Don Canal; three years later, aboard the steamship Volga, he inaugurated regular vessel traffic through the locks of the Gorky hydroelectric complex; he then took part in the acceptance trials of the three-deck motor vessels Dmitriy Donskoy and Dobrynya Nikitich at the German Baltic port of Wismar. In 1959 he began his eighteen-year captain's watch aboard the diesel-electric ship Sovetskiy Soyuz, built by the workers of Sormovo. That distinguished watch ended with the handing of the vessel's wheel to his younger son Boris — an unforgettable moment. The orchestra struck up, the march "Farewell of the Slavianka" rang out, and involuntary tears streamed down the veteran's face. He was no doubt recalling his whole life from the very beginning: from his native selo of Kriushi, where he was born into the family of river pilot Ivan Belodvortsev, and from where he had found his way to his destiny, to his inseparable Volga River, to her broad reaches and wharves, to her wondrous beauty and grandeur, to the love with which she binds Volga rivermen to herself forever. Yet the old captain could not bring himself to part with the Volga at that moment, and for several more years he worked as a supervising captain with the Volga United River Shipping Company. It must be said that Andrey Belodvortsev was a remarkable family man. Together with his wife Serafima Grigoryevna he raised four children, all of whom linked their lives to river transport. The eldest daughter Valentina, after graduating from the Astrakhan Medical Institute, sailed on river-fleet vessels. Sons Aleksandr and Boris graduated from the Gorky Institute of Water Transport Engineers. Aleksandr was one of the senior executives of the Volga–Don and Volga shipping companies. Boris worked for many years as navigator and captain of large passenger vessels. The youngest daughter Nina, after graduating from the water-transport institute, worked at the Krasnoye Sormovo Plant plant. In addition to his own children, Andrey Ivanovich Belodvortsev also raised his nephew — the son of his elder brother Aleksandr, who had died young. Evgeniy Aleksandrovich became a captain in the high-speed fleet; his sons, it may be noted, are working on the Volga to this day. The working watch of the celebrated Volga riverman dynasty of the Belodvortsevs goes on.