Gelendzhik Lighthouse

(autotranslated, could have mistakes)

Vladimir PASYAKIN, “Red Star”.

Photo by the author.

At the Black Sea lighthouses

     The whole life of Larisa Nikolaevna Yurchenko, as they say, from the cradle was connected with the Gelendzhik lighthouse. Father - Nikolai Grigorievich - was the head of the lighthouse for 37 years! Two years ago he passed away. And there is nothing surprising in the fact that Larisa followed in her father’s footsteps, because she did not see any other life other than the lighthouse one. However, she did not come to this troublesome position right away. The naval base has been operating in the hydrographic region of Novorossiysk since 1992. At first she worked regularly as a technician at the radio navigation station “Mars-75”, which is located next to the lighthouse, then as a senior technician, and only after graduating from the Gelendzhik Institute of Management, having received a diploma of higher education, she took up her current responsible position.

Larisa’s mother, Zoya Mikhailovna, has been working as a technician at the lighthouse for 36 years. Larisa's brother - captain 2nd rank reserve Anatoly Yurchenko - graduated from the hydrographic department of the Higher Naval School named after M.V. Frunze. A professional hydrographer, he, having retired to the reserve, became the head of the Gelendzhik forward (main) lighthouse, but this is a separate conversation. And her husband, captain 3rd rank Evgeniy Mazhurin, is also a professional hydrographer, o

graduated from the same university as Larisa’s brother. He served at the Tuapse site, and since February 2005 - head of the lighthouse service of the Novorossiysk region.

Even during our first meeting, Larisa showed me the book “Lighthouses of the Black Sea” with a dedicatory inscription from one of its authors - the legendary head of the hydrographic service of the Black Sea Fleet, Candidate of Sciences, Rear Admiral Lev Mitin. He was the leader of a round-the-world expedition to the shores of Antarctica on the oceanographic research vessel Admiral Vladimirsky, and compiled a unique map of ships and vessels that sank in the Black Sea.

     Among the lighthouses there are no random people. They are people of a special type, I would say, a special state of mind and increased responsibility. Despite any storms, bad weather or even cataclysms, the lighthouse light must flare up at the appointed time and be a guiding star for passing ships and vessels.

Nothing can replace the light of a lighthouse for a sailor. Even now, in the age of an extensive global system of orientation in space with the help of space communication satellites, which provide orientation not only to ships and vessels at sea, but even to cars in cities.

Modern electronics are as perfect as they are vulnerable. It may fail. And, if necessary, during military operations it can be blocked or disabled, making ships and vessels “blind.” Therefore, the role and importance of lighthouses for the military cannot be overestimated.

By the way, I think this is one of the reasons why today, like for many decades, they are under the jurisdiction of the military, as part of the country’s Ministry of Defense. These are rightfully strategic objects on which the safety of navigation of thousands and thousands of domestic and foreign ships and vessels of various purposes directly depends. And it’s not without reason that in a conversation with me, Evgeny Mazhurin emphasized that there is a decree of the Government of the Russian Federation on recognizing lighthouse towns as closed military camps. With all the ensuing consequences.

The territory of the lighthouse town on Tolstoy Cape is also fenced because next door there is another important facility of the Black Sea Fleet hydrographic service - the Mars-75 station, whose team is headed by captain 3rd rank Sergei Makarenko. Three such stations, located in different areas of the Black Sea coast (on Tarkhankut, Genichesk and Gelendzhik), form a system. It does not depend on satellites

communication devices, operates autonomously and turns on when necessary. With its help, ships and fleet vessels can navigate the Black Sea without a global satellite system. These stations are used during exercises and mass departures of ships and vessels to sea.

And next to the lighthouse town there is a border post. Lighthouses and border guards are friends and know each other well. So this important area is under special control and supervision. Such a triumvirate of military sailors, lighthouse workers and border guards benefits the common cause, since the “alien” here will be immediately identified.

My “pass” to enter the town was the head of the lighthouse service, with whom we came here after visiting the Penai lighthouse. It is located in Kabardinka, just below the well-known battery of Captain A. Zubkov - an open-air museum where there are 100-mm naval guns that defended the city during the Great Patriotic War. To the right of the road leading to the lighthouse there is a well-kept monument with the inscription “Eternal glory to the hydrographic sailors who died in the battles for the city of Novorossiysk in the Great Patriotic War.” And the names of 15 sailors in alphabetical order, including sailors, foremen, and officers. Boss

lighthouse Anatoly Nikolaevich Shinkarenko is a hereditary lighthouse maker. His father Nikolai Ivanovich, the former head of the lighthouse, worked there since 1952 and died in September 1985, two months short of retirement. Since then, the son has continued his father’s work shift. This year it will turn 60 years old, and the Penai lighthouses (there are two of them, the second in alignment with the first at a distance of 500 meters) are 130 years old. In 1943, the lighthouse's lantern structure was blown up because it served as a good landmark for enemy aircraft. But after the war the lighthouse was restored. True, they built equipment on it from logs that was appropriate for that time.

“I didn’t find equipment with kerosene-heat lamps,” says Anatoly Nikolaevich, “even the drawings were not preserved. But my mother, she is already 81 years old, remembers those times and sometimes talks about them. In the fall, insects appear in these places, they fly into the light and fall into the net, which eventually crumbles. To prevent this, we had to catch these insects. Then acetylene torches appeared and were replaced by electric ones. They worked from batteries. 60 large battery packs with huge capacity. When they were discharged, diesel generators were started and

charged the batteries.

All this was extremely troublesome and uneconomical. Anatoly’s father managed to get a kilometer of power electrical cable and supplied a stationary power supply to the lighthouse. But this did not mean abandoning autonomy. In case of accidents, this, as well as other lighthouses, has backup power sources - diesel generators. Beacons should not go out under any circumstances. This is an immutable rule. Now, as before, this beacon produces a green light that is pleasant to the eye for one and a half seconds and flashes again after one and a half seconds.

     I noticed that the territory of the Penai lighthouse is clean and well-groomed. Everything here is orderly, the material part, according to Captain 3rd Rank Mazhurin, is in good working order. You can feel the owner's firm hand. Obviously, because everything was passed down from father to son. The son became the successor to the business of his father and mother. One married couple replaced another. Yes, yes, Anatoly Nikolaevich’s wife, Tatyana Vladimirovna, works at the Penai lighthouse. Probably, such family continuity is one of the factors of a careful, prudent attitude towards property and equipment. There are no temporary workers here, there are vested interests here

dedication to improving business. And lighthouses are often located on the outskirts, where you don’t come every day from a city or town. You have to live here permanently. So people “build” family nests in lighthouses. Then lighthouse business becomes their life's work.

Many improvements at the Penai lighthouse complex were made by craftsman Anatoly Shinkarenko with his own hands. Let's say I replaced the same relays with electronics. And they are aimed at increasing the reliability of lighthouse equipment.

At lighthouses, where wages are very low, truly obsessed people work.

During my second visit to the Gelendzhik lighthouse, the position of its chief was filled by Viktor Terekhov, one of the oldest workers of the Black Sea Fleet hydrographic service. Viktor Mikhailovich began his career back in 1958 on hydrographic vessels (HS) as a radio operator, and ended as a senior assistant of the HS with a transfer in 1981 to the Gelendzhik lighthouse, where he has been working as a senior mechanic for more than a quarter of a century. Since Larisa Yurchenko is on maternity leave, Viktor Mikhailovich is acting as a lighthouse keeper.

• In 1985, a new lighthouse tower was built on Tolstoy Cape, one of the tallest on Cherno

sea ​​coast of Russia, says Terekhov. - The white light of the beacon lasting three and a half seconds with the new light-optical equipment is visible at a distance exceeding 20 nautical miles.

The lighthouse tower is so high that not everyone dares to climb the multi-section metal ladder to its “heart” - the rotating lantern. The feeling of fear of altitude is triggered. And the service personnel, although not often, have to climb to the very top. And do much more to ensure the smooth operation of beacons.

Born of the sea, shrouded in a haze of mystery, the word “lighthouse” never leaves the heart of a sailor indifferent. The saving ray either sees off or meets the sailor from distant travels, helps him in bad weather, gives him hope and confidence that his native land is waiting for him.

Many of the sailors more than once told the lighthouse men how, having safely moored, they had a keen sense of unspoken gratitude to this center of earthly fire, the symbol of the most faithful of all sea signs.

Leningrad writer Gennady Cherkashin, who loved Sevastopol very much, surprisingly aptly noted: “The light of a lighthouse... People took a star and placed it at the top of the night

, in order to show the sailor his home harbor in order to protect his life from risk. The lighthouse has become a symbol of Hope, Faith and Love.”

So I have more than once looked at the light of the Black Sea lighthouses both from the shore and from the boards of ships leaving and returning from the sea. And every time this light gave rise to warm, exciting feelings. The feeling of a close and native shore. Feeling of Motherland.

In the pictures: Gelendzhik lighthouse; Anatoly SHINKARENKO; monument to fallen hydrographers.

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