About travel to lighthouses as part of the program “Across the Universe” with Maria Alexandrova on the radio “Russian News Service”

(autotranslated, could have mistakes)

On September 24, 2016, Maria Alexandrova invited to talk about traveling through lighthouses as part of the “Across the Universe” interview with Vasily Korablev on the Russian News Service radio (broadcasts in Moscow at 107.0 FM). Thanks again to Maria for the invitation and interesting broadcast!

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Maria Alexandrova

• Good afternoon. This is the program “Across the Universe”, in the studio of Maria Alexandrova. And today our guest is Vasily Korablev, the president of the Russian Lighthouse Society Foundation.

• Good afternoon, Vasily!

Vasily Korablev

• Good afternoon!

Maria Alexandrova

• It’s cold outside. The rooms are cold, the heating has not yet been turned on in the rooms, and today we will talk about a very warm, warm trip - a trip to the lighthouses. Very romantic. I think this is such a wonderful theme for autumn.

Vasily Korablev

• Absolutely agree.

Maria Alexandrova

• Yes, Vasily, tell us how you can travel through lighthouses?

Vasily Korablev

• Well, actually people come to lighthouse trips in a variety of ways. And these can be like targeted trips, when a person directly goes to the lighthouse to see it. Many people simply end up at lighthouses as part of some kind of travel or cruise. Let’s say, because we are engaged in yachting, willy-nilly we pass by lighthouses, one way or another, we sail by, so we see them. Therefore, there are a lot of ways to get to the lighthouse.

Maria Alexandrova

• But here it’s not easy to get to the lighthouse, but you want to go inside. Do you need to make special arrangements for this, to build your own route?

Vasily Korablev

• If we take Russia, then yes, almost all the lighthouses here are under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Defense and Hydrography, so it’s often impossible to just get to the lighthouse. Abroad it is much easier, because there are lighthouses that are objects of cultural heritage, and there are even many organizations here that provide travel, help with getting to the lighthouse, even living in the lighthouse, that is, it is easier abroad. Unfortunately, we do need permission.

Maria Alexandrova

• What kind of permission is this, how to get it and what needs to be done for this?

Vasily Korablev

• As a rule, you contact either the central hydrography or the regional one, in some cases this is an application to the local department of the fleet and, accordingly, you justify there why you need to get to the lighthouse. In some cases, this is filming a film or interview, and so on. More often they come to make a film or conduct an interview, because not everyone wants to go through this whole bureaucratic procedure just for a single trip.

Maria Alexandrova

• Probably, for single trips, go on some kind of organized tour with those people who will solve all their problems in advance.

Vasily Korablev

• Yes.

Maria Alexandrova

• Have you ever lived at a lighthouse, just stopped and spent the night?

Vasily Korablev

• Yes, probably the most interesting experience was when we stopped

• at the Ai-Todor lighthouse in Crimea. What was unique was the house at the lighthouse, it was located directly on the cliff, and in fact the bed also stood near the cliff. When you open the window, you see that there is an abyss below you. There are also wonderful, various cases when you wake up, open the window - someone is talking behind it...

Maria Alexandrova

• And who could it be?

Vasily Korablev

• It was a shock for us, because below there were only stones and the sea. It turned out that there was an observation deck not so far away, which was simply not visible, and people were just talking on it.

Maria Alexandrova

• And the wind just brings sound, right?

Vasily Korablev

• Yes. Well, naturally, this is romance, that is, an incomparable impression, because people tend to go to lighthouses for solitude, for contemplation, to get away from people. Indeed, this is such a wonderful, comfortable place for self-discovery.

Maria Alexandrova

• What is life like at the lighthouse? Who even lives in a lighthouse, let's start with this.

Vasily Korablev

• There is a group of people called “lighthouses”. Lighthouse keepers are virtually all the people who live and work at a lighthouse, that is, not only lighthouse keepers and lighthouse managers. And life, in fact, is quite harsh, because lighthouses are divided into several categories: there are those that are located on the open sea - these are “hell” type lighthouses, where living conditions are very harsh.

Maria Alexandrova

• They are called “hell”?

Vasily Korablev

• This is a conditional classification.

Maria Alexandrova

• So it’s a real classification, right, with that name?

Vasily Korablev

• Yes. Of course, few people want to work on them, but they are the most spectacular photographs...

Maria Alexandrova

• These are the same photographs when the lighthouse, the spray of the waves, the lighthouse is practically invisible..

Vasily Korablev

• Yes, this is exactly this situation. It’s easier when the lighthouse is somewhere in the coastal zone, and even better when it’s in some comfortable conditions: the tropics or, say, a warm sea. Our case is the southern coast of Russia, here the climate is a little better. If we take Primorye, the Far East, any typhoon passes there, there are strong winds.

Maria Alexandrova

• And the “hell” category is just beginning.

Vasily Korablev

• Already even on the shore, because we periodically communicate with lighthouse workers who live on the Kuril Islands, and for them a wind of 25 m/s is such a comfortable opportunity to leave the lighthouse. If it blows 60, of course they sit and don’t go out.

Maria Alexandrova

• For comparison, it’s simple, 25 m/s - our trees are already starting to fall, branches are already falling.

Vasily Korablev

• Yes. And if this is an island on which there are no trees, then this is simply a non-stop flow of air, and naturally those lighthouses that are in such harsh conditions need to be repaired and painted every year. Returning to everyday life, it is practically divided into two parts. The first is preparation for the night watch, when you check all the equipment, conduct radio communications with ships, with other lighthouses, etc. And at night it is monitored that lighthouse equipment, radar equipment, radio beacons are working.

Maria Alexandrova

• How many people usually live at the lighthouse? Or how many people work at the lighthouse? They can't necessarily live there.

Vasily Korablev

• Now we are in the age of automation, so some beacons operate completely automatically. There are countries in which there are no beacons on lighthouses as such, these are: Japan, Great Britain. There are still caretakers in Russia; this profession remains. And you have to constantly monitor the lighthouse.

Maria Alexandrova

• I read on your website an absolutely fantastic story about how, in my opinion, in the Kuril Islands there lives a family of lighthouse workers who live directly on the lighthouse and described it to you in a letter, you corresponded with them by letters, because it is almost impossible to get there, how for six months they basically do not contact anyone, because there is no Internet. The only connection is only with those who give the signal, right?

Vasily Korablev

• Yes, this is the Kurbatov lighthouse on Shumshu Island. In fact, the nearest large city is Severo-Kurilsk.

Maria Alexandrova

• How many kilometers to the nearest city? Or miles?

Vasily Korablev

• I’m afraid to lie now, but the problem is that they do not have direct visibility with this coast, so there is no connection whatsoever. If they need to make a call, they go to the part of the island that still has cell service. And even despite the fact that there are not cosmic distances between their island and the mainland, there is a problem with shipping, that is, ships are often not allowed to reach them to bring the same provisions.

Maria Alexandrova

• Why don’t they release it?

Vasily Korablev

• Let’s say that last fall there was a problem that those ships that usually brought food to them did not pass through, did not receive a certain permission to leave, and actually stood idle for several months. The lighthouses were in a state of hunger, that is, they ate everything they could, so to speak, they smoked tea. But they had to get to the shore themselves, somehow transport them to the shore with border ships, take provisions and return back. And then, also on all-terrain vehicles, on snowmobiles, it was there in winter, to transport all this provisions to the lighthouse.

Maria Alexandrova

• I’m just wondering: who are the people who live in lighthouses? You have to love the lighthouse, the sea, and the wind so much to endure all these difficulties.

Vasily Korablev

• Yes, it’s amazing. For a city person, it is almost impossible to understand the need for this. We are all accustomed to comfort, but here there are no actual comforts, we rely only on ourselves and often this is really survival. People take this risk, they accept it. But there really is a property of nature here, a person who lives, firstly, next to the sea, directly next to the elements, and he changes, and is probably closest to some basic values, which are universal human values. And they allow these people to live quite successfully. You just need to make a reservation that, as a rule, it is quite difficult to live alone in lighthouses, which is why families live most and longest in lighthouses. Therefore, the concept of “lighthouse dynasty” is, in principle, not uncommon, but rather the rule.

Maria Alexandrova

• Tell this story about the lighthouse dynasty. It’s very interesting: that is, people live there, children are born, and they grow up there. Where do they get their education, I immediately want to ask. Some kind of medical help?

Vasily Korablev

• Often, of course, there is no special structure at lighthouses, so children who start going to school have to travel, often not even travel, but walk quite far, to some rural schools, etc. There is a good example on the White Sea - the Zhuzmuysky lighthouse. There were several dynasties. One of the longest that worked there was the Akulov family. With some interruptions, they worked there for about a hundred years. Moreover, the lighthouse is significant in that there is such a fairly well-known hydrographer who devoted a large amount of time to describing the lighthouse - Bashmakov - he was also actually born on this lighthouse, then received a good education on the mainland and left such a mark on lighthouses. And this lighthouse itself was a kind of small village, in which there was a small school.

Maria Alexandrova

• That is, at the lighthouse, right?

Vasily Korablev

• It’s a small one, probably about a dozen houses. And when we made a model diagram of this lighthouse, that is, we actually recreated it in the form in which it operated when it was still in service, it was really surprising for us that on some small island, not the most expressive lighthouse, stone, metal - what is now working, for the sake of such a simple lighthouse they made such an infrastructure.

Maria Alexandrova

• We will find out about this later, but now the news, advertising. We'll see you after this.

• This is the program “Across the Universe”, in the studio of Maria Alexandrova. And today our guest is Vasily Korablev, the president of the Russian Lighthouse Society Foundation. And we talk about how to travel through lighthouses, how you want to warm up, to find something so bright, real, where people are real, where some travel is real. Vasily, tell us, what does the lighthouse look like inside? What's there?

Vasily Korablev

• There is usually some kind of entrance at the bottom, a staircase, usually a spiral staircase that you climb up, and at the top there is a lantern structure where the lens is located. And here’s a small interesting note about the stairs. We visited two types of lighthouses: one was the kind made by the French, and the other was built in the Soviet Union. Moreover, the first lighthouse was Kyzaulsky, and the second was Evpatoriya. And on Yevpatoriya, the flight of stairs is quite solid, like in large houses, and indeed you just climb with difficulty, like you climb a high-rise building.

Maria Alexandrova

• That is, there is no elevator anywhere.

Vasily Korablev

• No. At that moment, the lighthouse that the French were building, Kyazaulsky, we took off and didn’t even notice. And they asked the caretaker what was special, he said: “You know, it’s just an ergonomic step.” That is a flight of stairs as you walk. People still cared about the caretakers, who need to go up and down every day, and still made it much easier.

Maria Alexandrova

• But all the trips that are advertised, you can spend the night at the lighthouse. where to stay there?

Vasily Korablev

• There are actually different lighthouses. even those that stand on the open sea, for example, the Roter Sand lighthouse is accessible to travelers.

Maria Alexandrova

• Where is this?

Vasily Korablev

• This is in Germany. It’s really a very beautiful building and there are no free places there, so you need to make an appointment in advance. You live in very ascetic conditions, there are rations: bread, canned food, etc. If you need to go to the toilet, it’s 70 steps up the stairs, there’s no alcohol at all and there’s no end to it. The cells are quite ascetic. There are lighthouses that have been converted, where one might say there is a five-star hotel, or if we take the yacht classification, then a five-anchor hotel. These are nice, large apartments.

Maria Alexandrova

• Right in the lighthouse? That is, is this an active lighthouse, where is it really, or is it a former lighthouse?

Vasily Korablev

• It happens both ways. Sometimes they are combined, there are active lighthouses, there are former ones. which are no longer in use for one reason or another. Moreover, abroad, the transfer of lighthouses from operating to tourist ones is quite widespread. Naturally, like ours, there are closed lighthouses that are impossible to get to. At least there is more choice and in terms of cost there are lighthouses where you can live for 40 euros, and there are lighthouses, the same “Roter Sand”, which is about 550 euros.

Maria Alexandrova

• 24 hours?

Vasily Korablev

• In my opinion, for a week’s stay. There are lighthouses where accommodation costs about 1800 euros, but for us this figure was a little surprising because...

Maria Alexandrova

• This is a figure per day, I just want to understand?

Vasily Korablev

• In a week.

Maria Alexandrova

• Oh, also in a week.

Vasily Korablev

• Yes. We have a lighthouse on Pirogovo, also an architectural structure, we once asked how much it costs to live there, it turned out that it’s some kind of cosmic money and it’s cheaper to live for a month abroad in some lighthouse than here on Pirogovo.

Maria Alexandrova

• I see. What is included in accommodation in such places for 1800 euros? An opportunity to chat with some passing ship?

Vasily Korablev

• The one over 1800, it stands in the open sea and is actually a cast-off to the lighthouse.

Maria Alexandrova

• This is already more interesting. The casting probably occurs in some even critical conditions, when there is really a big wave there?

Vasily Korablev

• Yes, the casting process itself is often a kind of acrobatic show. True, I have not seen how this is done at this lighthouse, but I have seen examples. What does this mean: as a rule, there is some kind of excitement, naturally they try to wait according to the weather and still get there when the excitement is more or less slight. but it happens that a sufficiently large wave causes a rope to be dropped from the lighthouse, it is pulled between the ship and the lighthouse, and then an exchange of people and things occurs with a system of blocks.

Maria Alexandrova

• That is, they raise and lower, right?

Vasily Korablev

• Yes.

Maria Alexandrova

• Wow.

Vasily Korablev

• It is impossible to climb onto many lighthouses from the level of the ship; for obvious reasons, they are raised relative to sea level, because they are overwhelmed by waves. And accordingly, it’s impossible to climb just like that, even up a ladder. Let's say there is a lighthouse in the United States called Minot's Ledge, it is also called “Lighthouse of Love” because its light code is 1-4-3 - I love you. And it is very popular with local newlyweds.

Maria Alexandrova

• And everyone probably comes there and declares their love, and they have some kind of weddings, right? Is this topic popular?

Vasily Korablev

• Yes, absolutely popular. Although he is not particularly expressive in appearance, he is quite dark, like a pencil sticking out into the sea.

Maria Alexandrova

• Who gives this code?

Vasily Korablev

• light, light code, that is, it flashes in this way. Once they appropriated it, and romantic people believed that it was I love you.

Maria Alexandrova

• I see. Okay, interesting. What are lighthouses called anyway? Surely each one has its own name?

Vasily Korablev

• Yes, either these are some kind of geographical names, or by the names of Saints. Let's say in Russia there is a wonderful lighthouse on the Solovetsky Islands, it is made in the dome of a temple.

Maria Alexandrova

• A functioning temple?

Vasily Korablev

• Yes, active. Moreover, the temple was built first, and then after some time a lantern structure was built on. These lighthouses are also lucky because they are looked after by monks. And from the point of view of church services, this is bringing light, this is, in principle, such work, it is good, so the monks do it with pleasure.

Maria Alexandrova

• So the lighthouse there is an active monk?

Vasily Korablev

• Yes.

Maria Alexandrova

• This also happens. Do lighthouse workers receive any special education?

Vasily Korablev

• At different periods of development. At first there were completely different people there. Then they tried to hire naval people, that is, those who are somehow connected with the fleet, understand navigation, etc. And they even trained, specialized, prepared for service in lighthouses. Nowadays this is treated much more simply; it can also be civilians who do not have specialized education. Unfortunately, this has gone negative in some places, because people who end up at lighthouses are no longer from dynasties, but people who treat it as some kind of object, like a private security company; a person came to the lighthouse and seemed to be guarding it. And often this affects the quality of the content. Those people who, from generation to generation, worked at the lighthouse, maintained it, they treat it with a certain soul and defend it. Let’s say one of the dynasties that was forcibly interrupted in the North, the Shoina lighthouse, there is the Shishelov dynasty. They worked on many lighthouses for several decades. The Shoina lighthouse was put out of service by simply cutting the cables, destroying the equipment inside, and this lighthouse could have worked for another 10-15 years.

Maria Alexandrova

• And who decides that the lighthouse needs to be closed? After all, the navigation doesn’t change.

Vasily Korablev

• Unfortunately, those who own it decide. Either local fleet services, or the Ministry of Defense, or hydrography. It should just be noted that the lighthouse industry in Russia has always been difficult, even since the times of Peter the Great.

Maria Alexandrova

• Why?

Vasily Korablev

• The territory is huge and covering it with navigation facilities has always been difficult. There are a large number of hard-to-reach places, and financing has always been different. We can say that as long as Russia has existed, the first serious surge in lighthouse construction was under Peter. Then after Peter there was a recession, because we didn’t have many monarchs who were interested in the fleet and this economy. Therefore, in fact, lighthouses have always been financed on a residual basis. Now, unfortunately, hydrography also gets a lot of money; however much money is actually allocated, they have to spend so much on maintenance.

Maria Alexandrova

• How did you first come to the lighthouse? Why did you start working on this topic?

Vasily Korablev

• It happened by accident. On the one hand, the surname is Korablev.

Maria Alexandrova

• Already calling to the sea, right from childhood.

Vasily Korablev

• Then we were yachtsmen, we were engaged in yachting, and we always saw lighthouses, like any structures that accompany yachtsmen, it was always interesting to get there, to look at it in Russia or abroad. The first lighthouses we saw were the lighthouse in Dubna, because we were leaving Moscow on a trip to Lake Onega and Lake Ladoga. Naturally, we came across this lighthouse along the way.

Maria Alexandrova

• Is this the first lighthouse on the way to deep water?

Vasily Korablev

• Yes. The Volga lighthouse, which shines on the Ivankovskoe reservoir. There is a fake lighthouse in Moscow, a fake lighthouse, in the Scarlet Sails complex. Moreover, at first we thought that he was absolutely unreal, but the story was interesting. Guys approached me and said: “We urgently need a lighthouse. We need to shoot a short documentary for a documentary film festival in Europe. Tell me which one.” I say: “There is a fake one and there is a real one.” He says: “The fake one will suit us.” But, unfortunately, it is not turned on, because when it was turned on, local residents complained that the light was disturbing, and it was turned off. No question. A few months later they send me a link to a film that took some good place at this festival. It was dedicated to one of the articles of the Constitution on freedom of speech. The plot of this video is when a group of people goes to this lighthouse, recites poetry and eventually gets there - they turn it on.

Maria Alexandrova

• This is how it happens. They turn on the beacon, which was not working. We'll be back in the studio in a few seconds.

• This is the program “Across the Universe”, in the studio of Maria Alexandrova. And today our guest is Vasily Korablev, the president of the Russian Lighthouse Society Foundation. And we are talking about the most, in my opinion, romantic trip - a trip to lighthouses. Vasily, tell us, what does your society do? I know that you help lighthouses.

Vasily Korablev

• Yes, it so happened that abroad there is a maritime national society of lighthouse lovers in almost every large country. One of the oldest in the UK, “Trinity House”.

Maria Alexandrova

• Well, this is understandable, because Great Britain is, after all, a trendsetter in maritime fashion.

Vasily Korablev

• Moreover, large societies number more than 5,000 lighthouse lovers. And in Russia, for obvious reasons, this topic was a little unorganized; there were some disparate groups of people who were engaged in various projects related to lighthouses. And we have been working on this topic for more than 8 years, at some point we decided that, after all, in order to communicate with the same official structures, it is easier to have some kind of official status and officially register a fund that would be able to provide targeted support, first of all, to lighthouses. Engage in some actions aimed at popularizing lighthouses, so that they become objects of cultural heritage. That is, one way or another, we can reverse this situation with our feasible contribution. Well, it’s clear that official status allows you to do more than a group of interested parties.

Maria Alexandrova

• And who is in this society: yachtsmen, farologists, lighthouses, who else?

Vasily Korablev

• We thought of two models of organization. The first is an open public society, when anyone can do something. In principle, there is no great need to create such a society, because a huge number of people still work in Russia. But we wanted, first of all, to attract those people who are actually doing something for lighthouses, and in a variety of areas. They could be artists, they could be filmmakers, documentarians, just farologists, caretakers. And we have a board of trustees, in which we include those people who actually do something for lighthouses. And there is a club at the foundation that anyone can join for free and receive information, know what we are doing, again where it is possible to make a contribution of their own with time, some kind of work, etc.

Maria Alexandrova

• How can you help lighthouses and lighthouses? Just a trip, I think. Traveling, looking, telling, helping, maybe tidying up something somewhere, being on duty, right?

Vasily Korablev

• Yes.

Maria Alexandrova

• So this kind of help is also really needed by the caretakers?

Vasily Korablev

• Let’s say, if we take lighthouses, then there are completely abandoned lighthouses.

Maria Alexandrova

• For example?

Vasily Korablev

• The saddest story is the Aniva lighthouse on Sakhalin. One of the most beautiful lighthouses, it was built by the Japanese, and it is a truly complex architectural structure, nine stories high inside. Moreover, the emperor was even presented with a model of this lighthouse; he highly appreciated the architect who built it. Now, despite the fact that this is a fundamental lighthouse that needs to be preserved, it is in very poor condition. And there are volunteer groups in the Far East that constantly ring the bell, draw attention to ensuring that this lighthouse is at least properly preserved, and are cleaning it. People just come, if only just to clean up this lighthouse.

The caretakers themselves naturally need targeted financial assistance, for example, problems with communication, or with food. We communicate with Kurbatova, did some action, produced a limited edition of postcards, which made a special cancellation at the lighthouse and then we distributed them.

Maria Alexandrova

• Do they have the right to make a special cancellation? Special cancellation - what is it? Is this a stamp saying that a postcard came from the lighthouse?

Vasily Korablev

• Yes, this is done by a stamp of the local post office, in this case it was Severo-Kurilsk, and a decorative seal of the lighthouse, because there was a tradition at lighthouses, lighthouses often had postal codes, and they did such a special cancellation in the old days. Now we and several other groups of people are trying to revive this tradition, and often this special cancellation is, one might say, a special operation. When we tried to cancel these postcards, the lighthouses printed them, but the question arose of how to send them to the mainland.

Maria Alexandrova

• You practically need a helicopter drop, yes, in order to get postcards.

Vasily Korablev

• Yes, they spend most of the time at the lighthouse, and they are not always allowed to go on vacation yet.

Maria Alexandrova

• Because there is no one to replace him simply.

Vasily Korablev

• And with postcards in general there was a unique case, around December of one year a call: “Vasily, we have brought you postcards.” It turned out that these were travelers, Viktor Molostov, they traveled around these islands and wandered into this lighthouse. The lighthouses said: “Are you from Moscow?” - “From Moscow” - “Can you tell Vasily?” - “We can.” And they brought this printed edition, moreover, canceling it in Severo-Kurilsk, because they needed a stamp. It's been a huge long journey for these postcards.

Maria Alexandrova

• How long did it take them to get to you, postcards?

Vasily Korablev

• From the moment of cancellation, after 3 months, we probably got there.

Maria Alexandrova

• Wow. This is how far it takes postcards to get from the lighthouse to the ground. How many people live at the lighthouse, at least two, right? Or more? Four is already normal.

Vasily Korablev

• There is usually a shift. When one goes on vacation, the other must cover him. On heavy lighthouses, where conditions are harsh, there are, of course, 2-3 people - this is the required minimum. Moreover, Kurbatova is a good example. The family of the caretaker, Elena Barbashova, she is a female caretaker, which is, in principle, unique for lighthouse workers, and they periodically change the techniques that help them, because indeed the conditions are extremely harsh and not everyone can withstand it. Because many people come to the lighthouse for lighthouse romance, and it usually ends within the first week. People understand where they are.

Maria Alexandrova

• That is, such a tourist trip ends, real life begins. What are they doing? After all, the light turns on automatically, right? Or am I misunderstanding something?

Vasily Korablev

• Now, as a rule, yes. But there is also meteorological equipment, radar equipment, which needs to be monitored so that it simply functions. Then you need to cook your own food, fish, go pick berries, bake bread, that’s also a necessity. Repair diesel engines. Diesel is the heart of the lighthouse. And if it stops, then this is an emergency, because the beacon stops working properly. At many lighthouses, the diesel engines are almost left over from the Japanese and they are treated like shrines, because they are sorted out, they are collected from several other diesel engines, etc. People try to look after them as if they were sacred objects.

Maria Alexandrova

• Well, in the end, the beacon can receive an SOS signal?

Vasily Korablev

• Yes.

Maria Alexandrova

• And when you were at the lighthouses, did you hear such signals or maybe some kind of negotiations?

Vasily Korablev

• Thank God we always found ourselves in comfortable weather. But it’s good that lighthouse workers work at lighthouses, because sometimes they really have to. With the advent of automation, if there is some kind of shipwreck in the immediate vicinity of a lighthouse, and if it is automatic, then people often rely only on themselves. Lighthouses can also provide coastal communications, call the Ministry of Emergency Situations or other services that will carry out a rescue operation. When time ticks by the minute, having a caretaker is critical. Therefore, on the one hand, I am glad that we still have such people at lighthouses, we have such a profession, because there are a large number of hard-to-reach places that you cannot quickly reach by helicopter, even due to the weather, and the ship will not reach quickly. There is at least someone where you can come to warm up, just wait out the bad weather.

Maria Alexandrova

• Vasily, please advise where is the best place to go on a trip to the lighthouses if a person, say, wants to go for the first time and immediately see something interesting?

Vasily Korablev

• We have the best available places - the North-West region, the same St. Petersburg. There are a large number of lighthouses: the Gulf of Finland, the Baltic, Ladoga, Onega lakes. In St. Petersburg, the most beloved lighthouse by many is the Rostral Columns. In principle, they are also lighthouses, and they are lit on holidays, so you can see them.

Maria Alexandrova

• And if you want something more complicated, somewhere far away?

Vasily Korablev

• Kronstadt, it is also not far away and there is also a large concentration of lighthouses there. Plus the island of Kotlin itself has such a history, it’s very old and famous, it’s just great to go there for an excursion, plus there’s also the opportunity to see these lighthouses. If you are ready, then of course go to St. Petersburg. In Crimea there are also many worthy lighthouses that you can see.

Maria Alexandrova

• I think in Crimea, and in St. Petersburg, and on Ladoga, and on Onega, and we have many different other places where you can see lighthouses and visit. And, in the end, go abroad on yachts and just by car. Therefore, friends, choose a trip to the lighthouses, travel, stay warm, do something romantic this fall!

• Maria Alexandrova was with you. Vasily Korablev was our guest. it was the “Across the Universe” program.