In the bustling shipyards of Mykolaiv, Ukraine, in the autumn of 1912, a different kind of giant was taking shape. While the world’s newspapers were still filled with headlines about the Titanic disaster that had occurred just months earlier, a peculiar tribute—or perhaps a cautionary echo—was being laid down on the slipways. Her name was Tytanyk (Ukrainian: Титаник).
Within 45 minutes, the Tytanyk listed 30 degrees to port. Captain Borysko gave the order to abandon ship. But in a bitter twist, most of the lifeboats—unlike on the Titanic —were launched successfully. However, the freezing water killed 23 crew and soldiers who jumped before the boats were lowered, or who were crushed when the ship rolled. The Tytanyk sank at 3:08 a.m., just 52 minutes after impact—faster than the Titanic . Of the 187 people on board, 134 survived—a much higher proportion than on the Titanic . Yet the Tytanyk faded into obscurity. The war, the Russian Revolution, and decades of Soviet secrecy buried her story. It was not until 2002 that a joint Ukrainian-Turkish expedition found her wreck, lying upright in 90 meters of water near Tuzla Island. On her bow, the name Титаник was still legible, covered in rusticles. tytanyk
Her closest brush with disaster came in August 1914, just weeks after World War I began. While crossing the western Black Sea, lookouts spotted a periscope. The German submarine UB-7 had targeted her. The torpedo launched, but it was a dud—striking the Tytanyk ’s stern with a dull clang but failing to explode. The crew, many of them superstitious, began calling her “The Unsinkable Ukrainian.” But every ship has its date with destiny. On the night of January 17, 1916, the Tytanyk was carrying a controversial cargo: 3,000 tons of refined manganese ore, bound for a steel mill in Genoa, plus 200 Russian soldiers being redeployed to the Caucasus front. The Black Sea was frozen in patches near the Kerch Strait. The captain, a seasoned mariner named Ivan Borysko, decided to hug the coast to avoid ice floes. In the bustling shipyards of Mykolaiv, Ukraine, in