Khovrin, Nikolai

Born Oct. 7 (19), 1891, in St. Petersburg; died Jan. 10, 1972, in Kiev. One of the leaders of the Baltic Fleet sailors in the October Revolution of 1917. Member of the CPSU from 1915.

Khovrin became a seaman in the Baltic Fleet in 1912. He took part in the February Revolution of 1917 in Petrograd and was a member of the Helsingfors (Helsinki) committee of the RSDLP(B) and the Helsingfors soviet. Khovrin was one of the founding members of the Central Committee of the Baltic Fleet (Tsentrobalt) and a delegate to the Seventh (April) All-Russian Conference of the RSDLP(B) and to the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets. During the October Armed Uprising, he was a commissar of Tsentrobalt in the seaman detachments. He took part in the storming of the Winter Palace and in the defeat of the Kerensky-Krasnov Rebellion. Khovrin was a member of the Revolutionary Naval Committee and commissar of the seaman detachment that was dispatched on October 31 (November 13) to help revolutionary Moscow; the detachment later went on to combat the Kaledin Revolt. In 1918 he became commander of the Petrograd military port. He fought against the Petliura forces and the White Guards in the Ukraine and later became commander of the military port in Kerch’. Over a period beginning in 1932, Khovrin served in the Special Underwater-operations Group, the People’s Commissariat of the Navy, and the Soviet Army (as a colonel). He retired in 1951.

Khovrin was awarded the Order of Lenin, two Orders of the Red Banner, the Order of the Patriotic War First Class, the Order of the Red Star, and various medals.