This man is about to live a nightmare

in 2000 a handwritten note was discovered at the bottom of the ocean up in the arctic circle and it revealed this absolutely horrifying true story but before we get into that story if you're a fan of the strange dark and mysterious delivered in story format then you come to the right place because that's all we do and we upload once or twice every week so if that's of interest to you please invite the like button to go on a long bike ride with you but make sure before you step off you replace the water in their water bottles with hot dog water also please subscribe to our channel and turn on all notifications so you don't miss any of our weekly uploads alright let's get into today's story [Music] on the morning of august 12 2000 33 of russia's best naval warships stopped inside of a particular section of the barren sea the barren sea is this 800 mile stretch of freezing water up in the arctic circle just northwest of russia and these 33 ships were in this stretch of water for this huge military training exercise basically they were going to run through some war game scenarios where for example one ship would pretend to be an enemy combatant and the other ships would work on locking onto that ship and firing at them but of course they wouldn't use real missiles or torpedoes they would use duds that didn't actually explode and so around 9am the man who was in charge of this entire operation his name was admiral popov and he was actually on board one of these 33 ships he authorized one of the submarines that was out there to shoot two of their dummy torpedoes at a target an enemy combatant which was actually just one of the other ships and so as soon as he did this he was authorizing the start of this multi-day long exercise and so all day and all night they're doing these war game scenarios and by the following morning so 24 hours into this exercise admiral popov stepped away from the action to speak with russian reporters on the phone and during this interview he tells them that so far the training exercise is going exactly to plan and that it looks like it will ultimately be a huge success however there was a problem at the same time admiral papov is giving his remarks to the reporters about how well this exercise is going the family members of some of the crews that were out there as part of this exercise they heard a rumor that the exercise was not going to plan that in fact something bad had happened to one of the ships but none of the family members had any more information beyond that even though this rumor was just that a rumor the family members of these crews that are participating in this exercise they naturally became very worried and so they all that morning began calling the naval base where the 33 ships had originated asking for more information and the phone operator on the base that was receiving all of these calls that morning at first was telling these family members that no nothing's going on i haven't heard anything there's there's no issues but eventually this phone operator let slip that in fact they too had heard the rumor that something bad had happened and they think it actually might be true but when this family member who heard this pressured the phone operator for more information the operator clammed up and said you know i can't give you anything else and so at that point the family member hung up the phone and called the media and told them what was going on and the media as soon as they had the story they went right to admiral popov and they said hey can you address this rumor and he didn't he did not respond to any of the media's inquiries and in a weird way that was kind of reassuring to the family members of these crews because they're thinking you know if admiral popov is just kind of ignoring this rumor and he's staying out there out on the barren sea still conducting this exercise then certainly nothing bad could have happened right and so for the rest of that day sunday the family members of these crews and the media just kind of did nothing because there wasn't anything else to do besides wait to see if there was any new news coming out of this exercise and the following day on monday the 14th so 48 hours after the start of this training exercise there would be news russian officials would go on tv and they would address the rumor by saying well yeah it is true something did happen out during this exercise the kursk which was the name of one of the submarines that was one of the 33 ships that was part of this exercise they experienced some minor technical difficulties that forced them to ground their vessel at the bottom of the barren sea but don't worry this is normal we're in touch with them through the radio everybody is fine we are pumping air and power into their submarine and before long we will have them back on the surface there is nothing to worry about now naturally the family members of the cursed crew specifically they panicked when they heard this because even though the government is acting totally confident that everything is fine they did not feel confident that everything was fine their family members are trapped on the bottom of the ocean but at the same time they remembered the kursk the actual submarine was a very special and very safe submarine the kursk was quite literally russia's best ship they had spared no expense on it it was extremely expensive and it was massive it was bigger than two football fields put together and it was constructed out of this very specialized highly reinforced steel that allowed it to take a direct hit from a torpedo and just keep on going no problem it was also outfitted on the inside with all the latest and greatest technology and so if you were going to be stuck at the bottom of the ocean inside of a submarine you would want to be stuck inside of the kursk and so the families took solace in that but over the next couple of days despite the government reassuring everybody in the news that everything was fine it's totally minor we're gonna have the curse cup in no time despite all that the kursk still had not been raised to the surface and the government was not giving the families or the media any new information and so in this kind of void of no real information the families began to panic and the media began to speculate did the curse really suffer from minor technical difficulties like the government was saying or was this something more serious this question would be answered on august 21st so nine days after this training exercise had begun when a norwegian dive team they were out there to assist in the recovery effort they were able to dive down to the kursk and they actually got inside of the submarine through an escape hatch an escape hatch is like this watertight closet that kind of sits on the outside of the submarine and it allows people to go in and out of the submarine without flooding it and once these norwegian divers got inside of the curse and had a look around they were totally shocked at what they saw while the exact details of what happened inside the kursk are still debated today and probably will be for some time there is one aspect of the story that is more or less universally accepted and that is what happened inside of compartment number nine the kursk was divided into nine water-tight segments called compartments number one was at the front of the submarine and then it went two three four all the way down to nine in the very back of the submarine and the reason we know what happened inside of compartment number nine is because a 27 year old kursk crew member dmitry kolesnikov told us dimitri was born into a family of submariners his father was a submariner and his father's father was a submariner and dimitri idolized them and so growing up that was all he ever wanted to be and in the late 1990s his dream would become a reality when he commissioned as a naval officer in the russia navy and was given orders to serve on board the kursk four months before this training exercise out in the barren sea dimitri met and very quickly married a high school teacher named olga and right after their wedding one of the first things he did is he brought her on board the kursk for a tour and olga brought along a video camera and filmed her tour through the ship and on this video dimitri is all smiles he's so happy to be leading her around the ship and introducing her to people and showing her all the cramped spaces on board the submarine it's really obvious that dimitri was so proud of his job not only of his job but also just so proud to be sharing this part of his life with his wife fast forward to august 12 2000 and dimitri along with 117 other crew members on board the kursk had just arrived at their designated section in the barren sea for this training exercise and at 11 27 am the captain of the kursk came over the radio and he told admiral popov who was not on the curse he was on a separate ship he told the admiral that the kursk was about to fire their two dummy torpedoes after this call was made the man in the first compartment of the kursk so at the very front of the kursk this is where all the torpedoes both fake and real are stored they began loading these two dummy torpedoes meanwhile dimitri was all the way back in the seventh compartment the engine room that was where he was stationed he was actually in charge of everybody who worked in the seventh compartment and so as these two dummy torpedoes are being loaded dimitri and his men there weren't that many of them they were twisting dials and pulling levers when all of the sudden there's this really loud crashing sound and then the ship shudders and then jolts hard to one side as if someone had grabbed the front of the submarine and just forced it to one direction what dimitri and the men in the seventh compartment could not have possibly known was that one of the real torpedoes in the first compartment had malfunctioned and it exploded but because of how well built kursk was how strong the exterior walls were this torpedo as advertised did not puncture through it it did a lot of damage and caused a massive fire but the sub was not sinking so back in the seventh compartment dimitri he stands up from being jostled to the ground and the alarms are going off and everything is totally chaotic everyone's asking what's going on and dimitri he takes charge and he tells his men to follow the emergency protocol which was to seal the watertight doors of your compartment and so in this case he sealed both the doors one leading to the sixth compartment and the other leading to the eighth compartment there's a lot of reason for why they do this but in essence if there's a leak somewhere in the submarine by sealing off your compartment you protect yourself from being flooded as dimitri and his men are sealing these two doors they would have begun to see and smell smoke as it came in through the ventilation docks because there was now this uncontrolled fire raging at the front of the submarine they also would have felt these submarines suddenly pitch upward at a very steep angle as the captain of the kursk desperately tried to surface but before they could reach the surface that uncontained fire reached the other live torpedoes and it set off this almost instantaneous chain reaction of explosions this second collective blast killed virtually everyone in the front half of the submarine either the blast itself blew them apart or once this hole in the front of the submarine because the second blast did puncture the walls once that hole was created all this arctic water began flooding into the submarine so if you didn't get killed by the blast you very quickly drowned the only people who survived the first and second explosions were anyone in the sixth compartment going backwards so six seven eight and nine and so dimitri and the other men in the seventh compartment they would have been definitely badly shaken up from that second explosion that completely rocked the submarine and sent them tumbling all over the place but they would have been very alive and very aware of the terrible situation they were in and so i would imagine that dimitri and the others tried to grab onto any of the piping or anything they could as the submarine because the control tower has been destroyed just angled straight down and began careening downward at 11 32 a.m just four minutes after that initial explosion the kursk slammed nose first into the ocean floor 350 feet below the surface and then the back half of the curse came down to rest we don't know exactly what happened on board the kursk for those first two hours after they hit the ocean floor what we do know is they had power so there was light inside of the submarine also the air purifiers were still working so despite the chemicals and smoke that was in the air it was relatively easy to breathe during those first two hours we also know that at some point dimitri and the other men in his compartment must have heard banging coming from the sixth compartment because remember they had sealed off the doors both to the eighth and the sixth compartment and so dimitri decided to break emergency protocol and he opened the door to the sixth compartment to allow any of the survivors that were banging on the door to come into their compartment and when dimitri and his men opened that door and looked into the sixth compartment they would have seen that it was rapidly flooding and most likely anybody forward of that compartment of 54321 they were already dead by 1 30 p.m dimitri and his men in the seventh compartment and the other survivors from the sixth compartment they were forced to retreat from the seventh over to the eighth compartment and then finally into the ninth compartment because of flooding even though they had sealed off their watertight doors the walls were no longer watertight because this huge explosion had sent shrapnel flying down the body of the submarine puncturing holes in all of the walls and so it didn't matter if you shut your water tight door eventually as one compartment would fill up it would begin leaking through all the cracks in the walls and so dimitri and all of the people he was with they would have been very aware of that and so by the time they got all the way back to the ninth compartment the very back compartment there was nowhere else to go the water was going to eventually reach them and they were doomed unless they got rescued or if they left out of the escape hatch despite how absolutely terrifying this situation must have been dimitri remained calm in fact he was so calm that he pulled out a piece of paper as he's sitting in this cramped ninth compartment with these 22 other men and he writes the date and time in the corner and then he begins to kind of describe what had happened he talks about there being an explosion and he thought he and these 22 men were the only survivors and he says they're now trapped in the ninth compartment and they have to wait for rescue he also talks about how they had considered going out the escape patch but apparently it hadn't worked after dimitri wrote this very neat very legible very organized note he folded it up and put it in his pocket and then for the next hour and a half he sat inside of the ninth compartment with the 22 others and the power went out which thrust them into absolute pitch darkness i mean completely black inside of there and the temperatures because the power was out suddenly began to plummet and then the worst part was the water began seeping through the walls and so dimitri and the other men they would have known that it's just a matter of time before this room fills completely with water and there is nowhere to go and so with the water rising all around them dimitri pulls that paper back out of his pocket and he adds to the note and this time his handwriting is barely legible and it's because he's probably suffering from hypothermia so he's shaking he can't see what he's writing in fact he writes the words i'm writing blind to indicate it's totally dark in the room and in this second note he leaves on this piece of paper which was dated and time stamped an hour and a half after the first one dimitri indicates that he does not think he's going to survive it's very clear none of them think they're going to survive then with the remaining space on this piece of paper dimitri writes this very loving and very thoughtful message to his wife and his family saying goodbye and then his final words on this note are regards to everybody no need to despair kalesnikov after he wrote this second message on this note he folded the paper up put it in his breast pocket and then in total darkness listening to the sound of water rushing into the room he and the other 22 damned souls prepared to die we don't know how long dimitri and the other 22 men survived in compartment 9 but experts say the entire kursk submarine was completely flooded 8 hours after the initial explosion one of the most heartbreaking aspects of this case is that dimitri and these 22 other men could have potentially been saved if the russian response was a little bit more urgent and coordinated despite two of these ships including the ship that admiral popov was on hearing and feeling the second explosion that the kursk experienced nothing was done about it it was reported but no one really did anything and then when no one could get in touch with the kursk after they had said they were going to fire those two dummy torpedoes everybody else all the other ships admiral pop-up they all just said you know what i'm sure it's just the radios and they're fine and they'll be in touch soon and so it wasn't until later that evening when the russian navy even figured out there was a major problem with the kursk that the kursk has vanished and then it would be several hours before they even got a rescue submersible in the water down to the kursk and then once it was down there they could not latch onto the escape hatch on the submarine and so even if there were survivors inside of the submarine they would not have been able to exit into this rescue submersible and so for days and days the russians struggled to try to get inside of the submarine and kept turning down foreign aid from norway from america from great britain and then finally nine days after the curse had sank the russians did accept foreign aid and that's when the norwegian dive team they went down and they were able to open up the escape hatch and when they went inside the submarine they saw it was completely flooded there were bodies floating everywhere and that's when ultimately dimitri's body was found and they found that note tucked in his breast pocket russia would go on to award the entire crew of the kursk with the order of courage which is a very significant military award and the families of the crew of the kursk were given 10 years salary each they were also given free housing in any russian city and their children would all have their college education paid for so that's going to do it guys if you found the secret in today's episode let us know in the comments section what it is and where you found it so give us the time stamp and if you're the first to do that we'll pin you at the top of the comment section if you got something out of today's episode and you haven't done this already please invite the like button to go on a long bike ride with you but before you step off make sure you replace the water in their water bottles with hot dog water also please subscribe to our channel and turn on all notifications so you don't miss any of our weekly one or two video uploads we are now selling merchandise like flannels and hats and sweatshirts and all sorts of stuff if you're interested go to shopmrballin.com if you want to learn about upcoming deals and promotions for our shop go to our shop's instagram 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Channel: MrBallen

Views: 5,548,658

Keywords: strange, dark, mysterious, true, story, scary, scary story, horror story, disturbing, narration, narrator, storyteller, storytime, storytelling, unsolved mystery, solved mystery, true crime, submarine, russian, russia, Russian navy, navy, ships, ship, Maritime, war, battle, Cold War, soviet union, disaster, sinking ship, sunken ship, secret note, secret, death, dying, tragedy, kursk, torpedo, explosion, trapped, claustrophobic, claustrophobia, terrifying, Dmitry kolesnikov, horrifying, Barents Sea, arctic circle

Id: Nz5Gw2vBtgs

Length: 20min 11sec (1211 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 08 2021