ABRAMOVSKY LIGHTHOUSE

(autotranslated, could have mistakes)

The first fishing settlements in the White Sea region arose in ancient times - around the third millennium BC. e.

The tribes that lived along the banks of the Volga and Oka, moving north by waterways, reached the shores of the Icy Sea, settling them all the way to the Kanin Peninsula.

At the end of the 9th - beginning of the 10th centuries, fleeing hard work, taxes and hunger, Novgorodians moved north along the currents of the Northern Dvina and Pechora. They conquered the “Zavolotsk Chud” (Finnish tribes. - Author), ousted the Vikings who were engaged in violence and robbery and settled along the shores of the White Sea.

Novgorodians quickly became accustomed to the conditions of navigation on the seas and learned to build and operate ships. Soon they became complete masters of the White Sea waters. In the 15th century, Russian Pomors were already “hunting and wintering” on Grumant (Spitsbergen - Author), Novaya Zemlya, Kola and Pechenga.

At the end of the 15th century, Pomorie became part of the centralized Russian state with its center in Moscow. In 1584, the city of Arkhangelsk (until 1613 Novokholmogory) was founded at the mouth of the Northern Dvina. From then on, trade relations with England, Holland and other countries began to develop.

Along with Arkhangelsk, in the 16th century one of the trading centers was a settlement at the wide mouth of the Mezen River. Not only Pomeranian fishing vessels, but also foreign merchant ships came here. They exported timber, resin, furs, wax, leather, lard, fish, honey, Siberian wheat from the Mezen, and imported salt, cloth, sugar, glass, iron products, etc. The English navigator Stefan Borro counted twenty ships in the Mezen Bay in the 1550s. The route of Russian sailors to the trade center of the Ob region, Mangazeya, founded on the Taz River in 1601, ran through Mezen. From here, Russian fishing vessels sailed to Spitsbergen.

There were no special navigation signs here until the 20th century. When approaching the Mezen, sailors were guided solely by the identification of natural landmarks, mainly noticeable capes and hills. One of them was Cape Abramov - high, steep, with ice layers in the lower layers of the soil. From a distance, the cliff of the cape is noticeable as a gray mass with huge black landslides of peat and tundra. Since the last century, there has been a chapel on the cape, which served as a distinctive sign for sailors.

Pomors were also helped by unique artificial lighthouses—gurias and large wooden crosses—to navigate the seafarers when sailing in the Mezen Bay, as well as in other places of the White and Barents Seas. Gurias were cone-shaped piles of stones or bones of sea animals, and crosses were made from local driftwood and served, as a rule, as funerary monuments. Some crosses had bas-reliefs, carved icons, and canopies for protection from rain and snow. The cross shape of such a sign and special signs allowed sailors not only to identify the area, but also to clarify their course, since the crossbar on all crosses was necessarily directed “from the night to the flyer,” that is, from north to south.

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Navigation cross. Drawing from the handwritten sailing guide of the Pomors “Navigation Schedule”

The famous polar explorer P.K. Pakhtusov noted in his diary during work on Novaya Zemlya in 1832: “Industrialists who do not know the use of compass declination mistake compass points for true ones and therefore the crosses they put up are always directed along the compass meridian” [6].

The locations of crosses, gurievs, and their appearance were recorded in handwritten sailing directions, popularly called “nautical books.” These directions in the form of notebooks appeared at the end

XVI century. They were kept in great secrecy, rewritten many times and passed down from generation to generation, from father to son.

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Mayak Abramovsky

There is a well-known sailing guide for the Pomors, entitled “Navigation Schedule” [7]. The introduction to it began like this: “This nautical description has been compiled in the most accurate order by which sailors find, that is, recognize all dangerous places and thereby save their lives.” This is followed by a prayer, which, apparently, was read before each departure: "We come in your holy name, our Savior Jesus Christ, the son of God, on the journey. Bless your creation and have mercy; in our days, midnight and at all 24 hours, we place all our hope in you, Lord, and in our case, from sea storms or evil people occurring, disasters and misfortunes, send, Lord, your luminary and speedy assistant of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker for the deliverance of us sinners. Amen.”

In the Pomeranian sailing guide of the 18th century, “Nautical Book with the designation of places, how much distance from one to another and signs of encampments,” the following entries are found: “To enter the ship’s mouth: point the lighthouse (i.e., a gury or a cross. - Author) point at the branches or bring it down a little from the east, you should look at the cormorant flag; and when the lighthouse comes between the branches, the polnoshnik... go straight to the lighthouse...” [8].

This is how they swam in the Mezen Bay until the beginning of the 20th century. In 1909, the Special Commission on the construction of lighthouses and other warning signs in the White Sea and the Arctic Ocean recognized the need to build a lighthouse light on Cape Abramov, "... since on the way to the Mezen Bay there is a fast current and there are banks. A beam from the lighthouse should be cast on these banks."

The lighthouse began operating in 1910. It was a small wooden house, on the iron roof of which was erected a wooden turret with a pointed dome. As reported in the “White Sea Route” of 1913, from a distance the lighthouse building was “of such insignificant size” that the chapel, which had stood there for a long time, opened before it.

Initially, a temporary diopter lighting apparatus of the 6th category was installed at the lighthouse. A few years later it was replaced with a stronger one - 4th category with a kerosene burner.

In 1931, the lighthouse was rebuilt, largely maintaining its appearance. In 1989, it was transferred to automatic operation from an isotope power plant.

Currently, the lighthouse shines with a white flashing light, illuminating the entire horizon for a distance of up to 12 miles from a height of 31 m from sea level. Along with the light beacon, there is a radio beacon on the cape.