Russian version

Gennady Golyadkin, Stanislav Dmitriev.

    In 1967, the Oceanography Institution of the USSR Academy of Science was ready for the maiden trip of its new flagship - Research Ship Academician Kurchatov. As part of the celebrations an order was placed for special matches for the new flagship and the old one (RS Vityaz). In the same year Vityaz was to make official visits to several Japanese ports and plenty of cheap souvenirs were required. But 1967 was the year of the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution and such an event could not be ignored. The solution was that instead of just special matchboxes there would be special sets. Such sets had never before been issued in the USSR and would not be produced again.

The first set (Jubilee matches) consisted of two front and three back labels that were glued to handmade non-standard, larger than usual boxes (52 x 56 x 14 mm). Each box had one of the front labels - '50 years since October' or '50 years of Soviet Power' - with bronze overprinting and one of the back ones ('The USSR academy of Science ship Vityaz', 'The USSR academy of Science ship Academician Kurchatov' and 'Part of the monument to Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in Kaluga'

    The boxes were filled with coloured matches with coloured heads (red, yellow and green). The packing was also unusual - 8 boxes formed a two-layer briquette, looped around with coloured tape bearing the Russian text 'Jubilee matches' and wrapped in cellophane. This was not the usual souvenir packing, as most briquettes were made of boxes with the same labels.

The second set/Souvenir matches' consisted of one face label '50 years since October', with bronze printing) and three back labels ('The USSR academy of Science ship Vityaz', 'The USSR academy of Science ship Academician Kurchatov' and 'Museum of Cosmonautics in Kaluga'). This set was used on standard three-quarter size boxes (50.5 x 37.5 x 16.5 mm), also with coloured matches and heads. The boxes were packed in briquettes (16 boxes in two layers) wrapped in coloured

tape (embossed lilac or rose with Russian text 'Souvenir matches') and cellophane (also, as a rule, one kind in a briquette).

    The briquettes were produced at the Gigant match factory in Kaluga. The labels were printed in the lithography shop of Balabanovo experimental match factory and the side packing tapes in the Kaluga region lithography shop. Judging from the quality of paper, drawing and printing, the labels with the pictures of the ships were printed first (matches with labels of similar quality and without factory data were usual for Soviet cruise liners at that time), and then, in a great hurry, all the others.

            Souvenirs

    It is obvious that the majority of these matches were made as souvenirs for Vityaz. We do not know if the Academician Kurchatov made official visits to foreign ports in 1967, but some must certainly have been sent there, as the ship at least made bunkerage stops. And some of the matches went to the Academy of Science as gifts to foreign guests visiting in the jubilee year.

    Today Vityaz is the main exhibit in the World Ocean museum in Kaliningrad. Her first name was Mars and she was built in Germany in 1939 as a fruit transporter. The ship had a crew of 38 and 12 passenger places. During WWII she carried cellulose from Sweden. Later she became a hospital ship with 600 berths.

    After the war the ship was handed over to the UK as part of German reparations, but later she was transferred to the USSR.

    At the end of 1946 the USSR Academy of Science established an Oceanography Institution. Mars was put at its disposal and after rebuilding was renamed Vityaz. This was a name used by many well-known Russian corvettes. The first Vityaz was a steam corvette, which in 1870 brought Miklukho-Maklay to the shores of New Guinea. The second Vityaz was a sail and steam corvette on which the well-known Russian scientist and shipbuilding admiral, Makarov, made his first round-the-world trip in 1886.

    The ship was large (109 metres long with a 5,719 metric ton displacement) and had nearly 100 cabins on all four decks. But taking into consideration the 14 laboratories, collection repositories and library, there was hardly room for a 66-man crew and 77 researchers. The ship had a super-deep capstan, allowing anchorage at 11,000 metres deep. Vitayz still holds the world's record for the deepest anchorage (over the Mariana depression). She made her maiden trip in May 1949. From 1949 till 1979 Vityaz went on 65expeditions in all Ocean waters and covered over 800,000 miles. It last cruise was made in 1979, and in the same year she moored for the last time in Kaliningrad. Her name was passed on to the new Vityaz.

    For almost 20 years she was the biggest research ship of the USSR Academy of Science, but in 1967 the right to be called a flagship went to Academician Kurchatov. And that event is commemorated in these old labels.

This version of the article was first published in № 325 of the "Match Labels News" journal
Full Russian version was first published in № 9 of the "Nevsky fillumenist" magazine
© Gennady Golyadkin, Stanislav Dmitriev, 2005