atest stroke of luck was his friendship with the legendary captain Alexander Ivanovich Marinesco.

Deprived of a mother's affection from childhood and driven out by a stepfather, Zelentsov roamed the streets together with other homeless waifs like himself, ending up from time to time in orphanages, one of which was a grim children's home in the ransacked Makaryev Monastery. The Kanavino street gang taught him to steal and rob. Darting about railway stations, wharves, and markets, the boy would surely have come to ruin had a girls' commune at the then-under-construction Avtozavod not taken him in, where he finally ceased to be an outcast. From the automobile plant — where Gennady worked first as a fitter, then as a high-rise rigger at the Stroy-GAZ trust — he was called up for naval service. He began his service in the autumn of 1940 at the Order of the Red Banner Training Submarine Detachment named after S.M. Kirov. War broke out just before he was to be assigned to a submarine. Leningrad, where Zelentsov and his comrades were studying, found itself in danger, and the submarine cadets were transferred to the naval infantry. The sailors entered combat immediately. They had to fight against infantry and tanks, suffering heavy losses. Having received his baptism of fire right outside Leningrad, then served in reconnaissance on the Volkhov Front, and lain up in hospital after a serious wound, Zelentsov nonetheless became a submariner. However, the depths of the sea proved no less dangerous than dry land. Submarine Shch-303, nicknamed the "shchuka" (pike), was constantly operating in enemy waters, and more than once its risky missions came close to ending in destruction. But it was not on this submarine that the Baltic sailor Zelentsov met Victory — it was on another, one that was his "fellow countryman." Built at the Krasnoye Sormovo Plant, the "Stalinets"-class boat was known as an "S-boat" and bore the serial number 13. She was commanded by Captain Third Rank Alexander Ivanovich Marinesco. Once aboard S-13 — having ended up in a penal battalion through a twist of fate — Zelentsov quickly struck up a friendship with the ship's commander, who valued straightforwardness, courage, and… "worldliness" in people. The compatibility of their characters undoubtedly played a major part in the success of an extraordinarily audacious attack — later dubbed by historians "the attack of the century" — on the celebrated ocean liner Wilhelm Gustloff, sailing under heavy convoy escort. Throughout the battle, Gennady Vasilyevich stood unwaveringly at the helm beside his commander. The maneuver was carried out in darkness, in a storm wind and swirling snow. They caught the liner at maximum speed and, pressing the attack, approached from the shore side in shallow water. The risk was enormous — all the more so because they closed to very short range, and the escort vessels had already detected the submarine. In his memoirs, Zelentsov recalled: " – Bearing fifteen degrees, – Marinesco ordered me. – Aye! On bearing fifteen! – I reported, putting the helm sharply to starboard and holding the boat, which by inertia was trying to overshoot the ordered course. The target drifted into the crosshair of the night sight. – Fire! A sharp jolt. For a fraction of a second the boat seemed to press against something soft that slowed her momentum… Three powerful explosions rang out from the torpedoes fired. The massive liner shuddered, swayed, and, listing, began to plunge into the raging waves." By a miracle, S-13 escaped the pursuit of the escort vessels, which dropped more than two hundred depth charges on her. A few days later, Marinesco's crew sank another large German transport. Hitler declared three days of national mourning throughout Germany and named Captain Marinesco a personal enemy of the Reich. Regrettably, in our country the feat of S-13's crew was not properly recognized and was suppressed for a long time. As a result, in Nizhny Novgorod hardly anyone knew of Captain Marinesco, let alone of his helmsman, who after the war graduated from a maritime institute and went to work at the TsKB Volgo-Baltsudoproekt design bureau. Zelentsov's life's work became the creation of ships.

See also