Article "At the edge of light and hope"

(autotranslated, could have mistakes)

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Our article was published in Barnaul magazine. Download in PDF. zhurnal_barnaul_nomer_2_mayaki.pdf

Transcript

• “Lighthouses are shrines of the seas. They belong to everyone and are inviolable, like the plenipotentiaries of the powers" Konstantin Paustovsky

• The first lighthouses appeared with the birth of navigation more than six thousand years ago. What has not been used to warn about dangerous places: nearby buildings, boats, fires, “cow beacons” (wandering beacons), lamps, lanterns, pipes, gongs, tom-toms, bells, sirens, cannons! Natural sound beacons were also used: at the extreme ends of some rocky reefs in Great Britain, on Novaya Zemlya, on the Kuril Islands and other places, countless seabirds gather - they raise such a cry that it can be heard several miles out to sea.

• In the La Perouse Strait in the Far East there is a rocky island called Danger Stone. Before installing an automatic beacon on it, the location of a dangerous island was determined by the cry of sea lions. Having stuck to all the rocks, they raise such a roar that it can be heard for many miles in any weather. Such a natural sound beacon as roaring caves is also known.

• In some coastal cliffs there are caves that, in stormy weather, are filled with water for a short time with huge waves breaking into them. In this case, the air from the caves is forced into a small hole located at the back and facing the ground. The sound that arises in this case can hardly be tolerated by the person nearby. Until now, despite the high level of modern equipment on ships, natural sound beacons continue to be used as an additional means of orientation.

• Many beacons have left their light in history. Of the most famous, the Lighthouse of Alexandria (Pharos) is one of the Seven Wonders of the World, 120–180 meters in height, which stood for about 1600 years. Currently, only the base of the lighthouse has been preserved, completely built into a medieval fortress in Egypt. Technically, the tallest lighthouse in the world is now the Yokohama Sea Tower. The building is located in Japan's largest port city, Yokohama. Yokohama Marine Tower was opened in 1961 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Port of Yokohama. It has a height of 106 meters and is officially recognized by the Guinness Book of Records as the tallest lighthouse in the world. The tower was built in 13 months in the city's Yamashita Park and is intended to symbolize the character of Yokohama.

• A lot of information is available about foreign lighthouses and their history, but with Russian lighthouses, unfortunately, everything is much more complicated. Russia began building lighthouses from the end of the 17th century, from the time of the founding of the regular Russian fleet. The first Russian lighthouse is considered to be the fire lit on April 4, 1704 at the Peter and Paul Fortress. The official date of creation of the Russian lighthouse service is considered to be June 8 (May 27), 1807, when Emperor Alexander I approved the “Regulations on the maintenance of lighthouses and the staff of the lighthouse crew.” The regulations provided for the introduction of oil lighting and uniform staffing at all lighthouses (one keeper and 5–8 maritime department servants at each lighthouse), and the position of director of the Baltic lighthouses was introduced. All issues of lighthouse construction in Russia, and then in the USSR, were dealt with by the Hydrographic Service of the Navy, formed in 1827.

• One of the oldest lighthouses in Russia can be considered Mudyugsky on the White Sea, built in 1705. During the Soviet era, there were a number of projects for lighthouse monuments of cyclopean sizes, which for one reason or another were not implemented, for example, the competition project for a lighthouse monument to V.I. Lenin in the Leningrad port. According to the terms of the international competition announced in March 1932, the height of the lighthouse was 110 meters.

• Many people know the Rostral columns on the Spit of Vasilyevsky Island in St. Petersburg. They were built according to the design of J. F. Thomas de Thomon simultaneously with the building of the Exchange in 1805–1810. At the tops of the columns there are metal tripods with bowls: in the 19th century. oil was poured into them, which was lit at dusk. One of the columns was a lighthouse for ships on the Malaya Neva, the other pointed the way to the Bolshaya Neva. The lighthouses served until 1885. Nowadays, fires are also lit on the Rostral Columns, but this only happens during special celebrations. Today, instead of oil, gas is used, which is supplied to metal tripods through a special pipe.

• By the way, the Statue of Liberty in the USA was also used as a lighthouse from 1886 to 1902. The tallest lighthouse in Russia is considered to be the Lesnoy Mol Svorny Zadny lighthouse in St. Petersburg. Its height is 73 meters. Surprisingly, there are record-breaking lighthouses on Russia’s inland waterways. On Lake Ladoga, for example, the Osinovetsky lighthouse (on Cape Storozhevoy) and Storozhensky (on Cape Storozheno at the entrance to the Svir River) are notable. The Storozhensky lighthouse (unofficially called the Seventh Heaven) is said to be the second tallest lighthouse in Russia and the seventh tallest stone lighthouse in the world. Its height is approximately 72 meters, which is 399 steps. For comparison: participants in the race to the Ostankino TV tower climb 1,706 steps, but climbing it is a one-time procedure, while here the lighthouse keeper had to climb to the top of the tower thousands of times in total. There are also lighthouse churches in Russia. One of the most famous is the Solovetsky Lighthouse Church on the White Sea.

• A church was built on the top of the 74-meter Sekirnaya Mountain in 1861. The two-story building without altar apses houses two churches: below is the Church of the Archangel Michael and on the second floor is the Church of the Ascension. In 1862, the dome of the church was built over the turret of a lighthouse, which began operating in 1867. The lighthouse is located in a light drum above the dome and is still the highest lighthouse on the White Sea (the highest point of the temple is at an altitude of 100 meters from the base of the mountain). The unusual appearance of this structure involuntarily attracted the attention of pilgrims, and they did not see anything seditious in it. The light coming from the cross and showing wanderers the right path to the Solovetsky monastery acquired a special symbolic meaning for them.

• It is noteworthy that one of the most famous lighthouses in Russia, Rudny, became so thanks to its image on the thousand-ruble bill of 1995 against the backdrop of the Two Fingers (Two Brothers) rocks. The construction of lighthouses is often fraught with great difficulties. The legendary French Ar-Men lighthouse was built on a rock right among the stormy waters of the Strait of Seine. At low tide this rock rises above the water only 4.2 meters. As soon as the weather allowed, workers drilled holes for the rebar. This didn't happen often, so they only drilled 15 holes in the first year. Over the next year there were more - 34. Construction of the lighthouse lasted 14 years.

• Of all the seas washing Russia, the most lighthouses are in the waters of the Bering, Okhotsk and Japanese seas (about 98).

• In Russia, hydrographers had to solve the most difficult problems in the seas of the North and Far East. 30 miles from Vladivostok, on the northwestern coast of the Sea of ​​Japan, is the island of Askold. It is an excellent landmark for ships heading to Vladivostok from the south and southeast. Due to its significant height (in the northern part it reaches 353 m), it was a natural lighthouse and on the first Russian maps it was called Mayachny. Ships heading to the port from the east could not pass about. Askold, therefore, it is natural that the island, lying on the sea route to the port, required a navigation fence. In the fall of 1881, the construction of a lighthouse on the island. Askold was completed. Despite the proximity to Vladivostok, the lighthouse workers' work was very difficult. The lack of communication with the shore was a hindrance, and due to the lack of fresh food and a very damp climate, the lighthouse personnel often fell ill.

• To this day, despite the rapid development and improvement of electronic and satellite navigation systems (GPS, GLONASS, etc.), which make it possible to accurately determine location and other navigation parameters regardless of the weather, lighthouses continue to be an important part of life and work at sea. There are several reasons:

• 1) determining the location using beacons gives the navigator greater psychological confidence when approaching the shore;

• 2) in remote, hard-to-reach regions not equipped with radio navigation aids, beacons are indispensable for fencing off dangers, because allow you to directly “see” the navigation situation, which gives additional confidence to seafarers;

• 3) not all ships and vessels are equipped with expensive radio navigation and satellite equipment. A huge number of small vessels have only compasses and logs, the use of which requires periodic clarification of coordinates using visual observation.

• The lighthouses themselves are also being improved. More and more beacons operate in fully automatic modes and represent complex complexes of light-optical, electronic, sound-signaling equipment and power supply systems.

• The light-optical system automatically turns on at dusk and turns off at dawn. Many lighthouses abroad have become objects of tourism and cultural heritage - after all, there has always been something romantic about lighthouses.

• “Love is a beacon raised above the storm, not fading in darkness and fog,” said William Shakespeare. Indeed, the theme of love goes side by side with lighthouses. Thus, the Minot’s Ledge Light, located in the US state of Massachusetts, is famous for being called the Lover’s Light, or the I-Love-You Lighthouse because of the light code 1-4-3. (the number of flashes corresponds to the number of letters in the words of the phrase I Love You). A large number of literary works are dedicated to lighthouses.

• At the same time, many famous people connected their fate with lighthouses in one way or another. The poet Joseph Brodsky was supposedly a lighthouse keeper at the exit from the Leningrad port in 1958. True, in his words: “It ended very badly: the fireman there loved the naval order, and we didn’t get along with him.”

• Many foreign lighthouses now operate as hotels - you can come and stay in the lighthouse building, although you usually need to take food with you. In particular, you can stay in one of the famous and architecturally original German lighthouses, “Scarlet Sand” (Roter Sand). The hotel has six spartan rooms with modest “camping” food - canned food, bread, vegetables, fruits. There is no alcohol at all, and to get to the toilet you need to climb 70 steps. Despite all this, booking a hotel room is nearly impossible because demand is high. And this with a considerable cost of living of 556 euros. If you wish, you can find lighthouse hotels for less money. Initial prices usually start at around 60 euros (Damman Lighthouse in Sweden), and the upper limit depends on the living conditions, the difficulty of getting to the lighthouse, etc. For example, the cost of living at the Phare de Kerbel lighthouse (France) can exceed 2,000 euros per week. Unfortunately, Russian lighthouses cannot yet boast of such an opportunity.

• You shouldn’t expect any official hotel or tourist services at lighthouses. The changes that have occurred in Russia over the past decades have also affected the lighthouse service. It is very painful to see how many lighthouses have become dilapidated and destroyed, and it cannot be said that the main reason was the development of progress associated with the advent of modern satellite navigation equipment.

• It is mainly affected by the lack of funding from organizations that include lighthouses. The only hope is that unused lighthouses as shrines of the seas will be recognized as cultural heritage sites and transferred to the management of responsible organizations or individuals interested in their preservation.

Vasily Korablev

• Project Manager “Lighthouse. Virtual Museum of Lighthouses of the World" www.mayachnik.ru

• Photo from the site http://masterok.livejournal.com/93842.html