Mayakovsky (ship)

On August 13, 1950, the paddle steamer Mayakovsky (named for Soviet poet Vladimir Mayakovsky) sank at around 12:00 pm local time due to overloading of the vessel with too many people. Mayakovsky sank in the Daugava River that bisects Riga, not more than 15 m from the present day site of the Stone Bridge. A total of 147 people died, including 48 children. It was the deadliest peacetime disaster in Soviet Latvian history. At the time, Latvia was a republic within the Soviet Union, under the rule of Joseph Stalin, and news of the disaster was not published in the state-controlled press. On August 19, 2011, almost 20 years after the breakup of the Soviet Union and Latvia regaining its independence, a memorial plaque was dedicated at the Stone Bridge (the Akmens tilts) in memory of the victims.