Sea Tales

Revolt of the Potemkin

It all started with bad meat. When it was over, more than 5,000 had died and the pride of the Russian Black Sea Fleet lay beneath the waters, scuttled by her crew. REVOLT ON THE POTEMKIN is a detailed account of one of the strangest incidents in maritime history. When his crew refused to eat soup made with tainted meat, Commander Giliarovsky treated their actions as mutiny, and ordered that a number of randomly selected crewmen be shot! When the shooters failed to carry out his order, Giliarovsky killed one himself, and a real mutiny ensued. Formerly classified documents, accounts from men who were there and interviews with maritime historians chronicle the chaos that followed. Giliarovsky and several other officers were killed, and when the ship docked in Odessa, rioting sparked by the display of the dead crewman's martyr-body claimed more than 5,000 lives. Eventually, the mutineers took the Potemkin back out to sea, where they scuttled the mighty ship.