Saint Petersburg, Aug 12: Russia marked the third anniversary of the Kursk submarine disaster today by unveiling a memorial with a quote from a note found on one of the 118 sailors who died in the tragedy: "do not despair." The memorial was due to be unveiled later in the afternoon in Saint Petersburg, the home of Russia's Baltic fleet and the city founded by peter the great 300 years ago so that Russia could have an outlet to the sea and build a navy.

The memorial consists in a large black granite cube at the Serafimovskoye cemetery in the north of the city. On one side is engraved "in memory of the Kursk crew" and on the other are words from a note found on Dmitry Kolesnikov, one of the sub's doomed sailors: "do not despair." The Kursk sank August 12, 2000 after a volatile fuel caught fire inside one of its torpedoes, leading to an explosion that eventually detonated all of the ammunition on board what was then Russia's most modern nuclear submarine.

Some sailors survived the blast and died later of suffocation.

The disaster was the worst in Russia's naval history and Russian authorities were widely criticized for the lethargic, soviet-style response to the sinking.

Bureau Report