(autotranslated, could have mistakes)

FIRE ON THE ROCK (FEODOSIA LIGHTHOUSE)

No. 10, 2008

Candidate of Technical Sciences S. AKSENTIEV (Sevastopol). Photo by the author.

Over the centuries-old history of mankind, daring engineering thought has created many outstanding creations, but sea lighthouses are undoubtedly one of the pinnacles of technical creativity. Erected on rocks, in hard-to-reach places on the coast or on tiny artificial islands, lonely towers vigilantly protect sea travelers from the treachery of Neptune, and if trouble happens, the people living on them are the first to come to the aid of the victims.

In May 1890, by decision of the Russian government, the main base of the Black Sea Fleet was transferred from Nikolaev to Sevastopol. The city received the status of a 3rd class military fortress and was closed to foreign ships. The question arose about moving the commercial port. After much debate, they decided to relocate him to Feodosia. There they urgently began to erect mooring structures and build a railway line.

The Feodosia Bay juts out in a wide semicircle into the southern coast of eastern Crimea, forming a bay convenient for mooring ships. The western part of the bay ends with the rocky Cape of St. Elijah. The steep cape, protruding far into the sea, makes it difficult for ships coming from the west to approach the Feodosia port. Squally variable winds are frequent here, sudden fogs are common in autumn and spring, torrential rains in summer, and numerous reefs bordering the cape make sailing along its shores extremely dangerous. Not a year passed without a maritime accident or disaster in this place. Neptune collected another tribute from sailors in 1890: on February 16, not far from Cape St. Elijah, the steamship “Grand Duke Konstantin” crashed on the reefs and sank, and soon the steamship “Vladimir” suffered the same fate. Local newspapers wrote bitterly: “Feodosia, having become a commercial port, is deprived of even port lights... steamships enter the bay along the lights of the Feodosia Yacht Club.”

Indeed, at that time there was no reliable navigation fence along the entire Crimean southern coast from Ai-Todor (the lighthouse was built there in 1835) to Chauda (the lighthouse began operating here in 1888). True, as is clear from the historical information that has reached us, attempts to place a warning sign were made more than once, but these messages are more like legends. So, according to one of them, a certain merchant sailor Ilya Tamara, who was twice shipwrecked on the reefs of a treacherous cape, but survived, at his own expense, built a church on the highest place of the steep shore in the name of the holy prophet Ilya - the manager of rains, thunder and lightning. What it was and how long it lasted is unknown. There is information that in 1816, the chapel of St. Elijah was consecrated in its place and sailors, when approaching the port, were guided by the domed cross during the day, and by the light of candles burning in the altar at night. However, in the 80s of the 19th century, the cape was pristinely empty.

The catastrophes of 1890, which alarmed everyone, forced the Directorate of Lighthouses of the Black and Azov Seas to urgently consider the issue of building a lighthouse on Cape St. Elijah. With the approval of the Hydrographic Department, specialists examined the cape in 1894, and the commander of the hydrographic vessel Ingul chose a place to install a lighthouse. But due to lack of funds, the start of construction was postponed...

It is not known how long the search by naval officials for funds for the construction of the lighthouse would have lasted and how many human lives this inaction would have cost if disaster had not befallen the family of the Moscow leader, the famous philanthropist Konstantin Vasilyevich Rukavishnikov - their only son, nineteen-year-old Nikolai, who had just entered Moscow University, fell ill with tuberculosis. A council of doctors recognized the situation as serious, but the opinions of medical luminaries on methods of treatment were divided. Zakharyin proposed to immediately take the patient to Bashkiria for kumys, but Ostroumov categorically opposed this, insisting on a trip to Crimea. After a prayer service performed at the patient’s bedside by Bishop John of Kronstadt, the family decided to take Nicholas to Feodosia. There, the founder of the family, gold miner Vasily Nikitich Rukavishnikov, back in the 60s of the 19th century, acquired an estate in which his household loved to spend the summer.

The sun, sea and air, filled with the aromas of steppe herbs, little by little returned strength to the body weakened by the disease. Health was improving. Having gotten a little stronger, Nikolai began to take walks to the port. There, an inquisitive young man was noticed, and he soon met many ship captains who became frequent guests at the Rukavishnikovs’ dacha.

Seeing how her son was getting better before her eyes, the touched mother, Evdokia Nikolaevna, decided to thank the city of Feodosia. Listening to the captains' stories about frequent shipwrecks off Cape St. Elijah, which claimed hundreds of lives, and about the futility of numerous attempts to knock on the doors of maritime officials, she became more and more convinced of the idea of ​​​​building a much-needed lighthouse at her own expense. The captains with whom Evdokia Nikolaevna shared the idea warmly supported the noble intention and willingly gave advice on where to go and what steps to take to resolve this issue.

In the fall of 1897, Rukavishnikova submitted an application to the Directorate of Lighthouses about her desire to take over the construction of a lighthouse on Cape St. Elijah. After some time, a response came in which the Lighthouse Directorate recommended that she take a “Swedish fire” light installation for the future lighthouse. The plan and drawings of the tower were attached to the letter, and the officials ordered the lighting apparatus from Finland. Evdokia Nikolaevna entrusted the management of the construction of the lighthouse to the technician Alexei Alekseevich Polonsky, whose brother she knew, and without hesitation she began collecting money: she mortgaged the dacha, sent a letter to her husband in Moscow. Konstantin Vasilyevich approved the planned enterprise and sent the missing funds.

A year later, the construction of the lighthouse and the keeper's house was completed. Soon they received a lighting apparatus, and the lighthouse began to operate. In “Notice to Mariners” No. 5 dated February 17, 1899, an official notice appeared: “The Directorate of Lighthouses and Pilots of the Black and Azov Seas informs sailors that in the Black Sea, near Feodosia, on Cape Ilya, at the south-eastern cliff, an often variable light with white and green flashing is installed in a wooden booth on top of a wooden trestle... The height of the fire at sea level is 214 feet and above the surface of the earth is 32 feet.”

In order to equip the lighthouse with a bell to give signals in bad weather, Evdokia Nikolaevna had to take up knitting and the charity sale of colored woolen wallets. Residents of Feodosia and vacationers enthusiastically supported Rukavishnikova. The purses were in great demand, and most of them were returned to the performer filled with gold coins. Soon a fog bell was installed at the lighthouse.

Grateful townspeople and sailors of the Feodosia port persistently suggested that Evdokia Nikolaevna name the lighthouse built after her, but she resolutely refused, declaring that this was a selfless gift to the city of Feodosia for the miraculous healing of her beloved son from a terrible illness, and the lighthouse should be called Ilyinsky, after Cape St. Elijah, on which it was installed. Then the captains of the ships, no less excited than the donor, told her that every time they passed the lighthouse they took off their caps and prayed for her. From these words, as the eldest daughter Evdokia testifies, “mother could not stand it and burst into tears...”.

The wooden lighthouse, built at the expense of Rukavishnikova, served sailors regularly until 1912. Then it was rebuilt: the trestles and the lighthouse were made of metal, the lighting apparatus was replaced with a more powerful one, and a pneumatic siren was installed instead of the bell. After the reconstruction, the visibility range of the beacon light and the audibility of the foggy nautophone increased significantly. In this form, the lighthouse survived both the revolution and civil strife and met the Great Patriotic War. But in December 1941, during the Kerch-Feodosia operation, during the liquidation of an enemy battery dug in on the cape, the lighthouse was destroyed by artillery fire from the destroyer Zheleznyakov. After the liberation of Feodosia from the fascist invaders (April 13, 1944), a temporary navigation light was installed on the cape. A permanent lighthouse and a camp for staff were built only in 1955.

The lighthouse has survived to this day. The round fifteen-meter white stone tower with light three-tiered windows, topped with a cylinder of a lantern structure, captivates with its grace and austere beauty. Spacious flights of stairs lead to the lighthouse room, decorated with oak panels. This is the place of the watch keeper. From the windows you can clearly see the entire area of ​​​​responsibility - from Cape Kiik-Atlama with the pointed rock-island of Ivan Baba in the southwest to Cape Chauda in the east. From the lighthouse room, a vertical ladder leads to the holy of holies - a lantern structure. There, in the center of a faceted glass cylinder, in 2006, a modern light-optical module assembled using bright LEDs was installed, and electronics were entrusted with maintaining the lighthouse’s operating mode. There was no longer any need for hourly meteorological observations. The mini-computer included in the control system displays all the necessary synoptic data on the monitor screen in real time without human intervention. In a word - technical progress, and one should rejoice, but for some reason, looking at the night flashes of dazzling white cold light, you experience a feeling of losing something alive. Until you realize: there is no beam, etc.

pulling its warm saving hand into the darkness of the night... And, understanding with your mind that clinging to the old is stupid, you still feel sad, seeing how, giving way to pragmatic modernity, the centuries-old secret of lonely lighthouse towers is quietly dying before your eyes.

...And the story of the construction of the lighthouse on Cape St. Elijah was carefully preserved in her diaries and after the end of the Great Patriotic War she told it in a letter (dated October 21, 1947) to the head of the Hydrographic Service of the Black Sea Fleet, the daughter of the Rukavishnikovs, Evdokia Konstantinovna. At the end of the touching story, she reported that all these years she had been closely following the fate of the dear Ilyinsky lighthouse: “Back in 1902,” she wrote, “my late husband and I climbed with emotion onto the lighthouse along its steep openwork staircase and were interested in the fate of the lighthouse in 1944 after the liberation of Feodosia from the German occupiers.” Without this letter, we would never have known about the noble deed of a wonderful Russian woman...

***

As for the Rukavishnikov family, they continued to selflessly do good. Son Nikolai, following his mother’s example, also made his contribution to ensuring navigational safety of navigation along the Black Sea coast. The report of the Main Hydrographic Directorate for 1901 states: “... the Sukhumi guiding lights, installed by the support of the hereditary nobleman Nikolai Konstantinovich Rukavishnikov, opened their operation, instead of wooden leading signs that had fallen into disrepair.”

Evdokia Nikolaevna, having a hard time experiencing the defeat of the Russian fleet in the Battle of Tsushima, in 1905 set up an infirmary for those wounded in the Russo-Japanese War in her Moscow house on Bolshaya Nikitskaya, which was later transformed into an exemplary surgical hospital. The daughters, Evdokia and Ekaterina, were guardians of the Krestovsky City Primary and Maryino-Slobodsky Women's Schools for many years.

Source: SCIENCE AND LIFE