The Tomsk nuclear-powered ship passed the last meters of the thousand-kilometer route accompanied by tugboats. Softly, almost inaudibly, he touched the dock wall.

"Got it!" Finally! We've reached it! Cheers rang out from the crowd. Flowers, tears of joy... Anyone who has ever seen the meeting of a submarine returning from a campaign will never forget these solemn moments. And this meeting is special. The crew of the nuclear-powered submarine cruiser Tomsk under the command of Captain 1st Rank Sergey Yarkin made a full transition from the Northern to the Pacific Fleet under the ice of the Arctic.

This unique and unprecedented transition of courage lasted for a whole month. Yes, Russian submarines have plied the wayward Arctic more than once. Each such trip is a test of the highest degree of complexity. And in the navigational logs and in the memory of submariners, there will always be notes about invisible encounters with treacherous icebergs in the waters of Svalbard and Novaya Zemlya, the passage near the North Pole and over the Lomonosov Ridge, the jewelry work of the team in the terrible ice tunnel in the Chukchi Sea, when there is a little more than ten meters of "clean" water under the bottom of the ship, and the wheelhouse almost scratching the ice blocks hanging from above, Today all this is over. The brilliant result of the underwater hike is a fait accompli.

But in addition to accurate instruments, a powerful propulsion system and professional skills, the sailors had another powerful support. For the first time, apart from pre - revolutionary times, a priest-bishop of Petropavlovsk and Kamchatka, Father Ignatius, participated in the campaign on a warship.

The Fleet command did not choose it by chance. Father Ignatius (in the world Sergey Gennadyevich Pologrudov) is a man who sincerely loves the army. From the first days of his activity as bishop of Kamchatka, he established close ties with military units and wholeheartedly favored the military. Preparing for the campaign, Father Ignatius completed a full course of special training, a military medical commission, and only after that was he able to become a full member of the crew.

Of course, performing religious rituals on a boat has its own specifics. No candles were lit during the services due to security concerns. But this is not the main thing... Father Ignatius did a great deal of educational work, served the liturgy, and performed baptismal rites. And when the most important stage of the campaign began, the priest, as is customary since the days of Sevastopol and Port Arthur, like other crew members, took up a combat post.

- This is an extraordinary person and a subtle psychologist, whose work during the campaign was simply necessary, - Captain of the 1st rank Sergey Yarkin later told reporters. - In addition, Vladyka demonstrated his resilience and endurance: he easily coped with all the hardships of the campaign, even the sea rolling did not take him.

The campaign ended. Now it is up to military scientists and historians to evaluate it. But for officers and midshipmen Sergei Vasilevsky, Anatoly Tyurbeev, Dmitry Maslov, Vladimir Grishechkin, Igor Prokopchin, Alexander Polishchuk and many others, he became a part of the biography, one of the main events of military life. And looking at these people, I remembered the words of the legendary naval sailor MV Motsak: "Ice is harder than iron, and the submariner's will is harder than ice."