Soviet Battleship

ancient enough to remember the Tsar, resurrected by five-year plans, Gulag labor, and leftover steel, christened Admiral Vodkaslav, assigned to the Baltic Fleet ship so outdated and poorly maintained it leaks more oil than it burns fuel, smoke plume so big, german pilots use it as a navigation landmark crew paints it white with melted snow and crushed chalk, documents it as “field camouflage experiment No. 23” gets bombed anyway, several times adds bedsheets and despair for enhanced survivability bedsheets burn, despair remains repairs done under heavy fire during the Siege of Leningrad using scrap metal, tram rails, potatoes, and sheer willpower crew runs out of shells, switches to firing bricks and Stalin portraits fires them manually because the electric system requires a signed approval from Moscow last emergency rations are melted to seal bullet holes half-sunk, half-frozen, still refuses to die reclassified as “stationary coastal fortification” after becoming part of the riverbank somehow resurfaces 500 km inland near Kursk after the war no one questions it paperwork now lists it as “terrain-integrated defense vessel” still technically on active duty today, guarding a potato field and terrifying nearby geese with random engine noises at 3 AM