Evpatoria's pointing finger

(autotranslated, could have mistakes)

Image removed from public review package. Local review only · not public no-info · image1.jpegOn a gently sloping sandy cape in the western part of the resort city of Evpatoria stands a fifty-two-meter lighthouse tower. For better visibility from the sea, the reinforced concrete finger directed to the zenith, topped with a glass lantern compartment, is painted with alternating red and white transverse stripes. The lighthouse is not only a landmark for ships heading to the Evpatoria port, but also a fencing sign of a shallow rock reef stretching from Cape Evpatoria to Cape Karantiny - the northwestern tip of the Kalamitsky Bay.

[Insidious Kerkinitida]()

At the beginning of the 4th century. BC The Greeks - Chersoneses - subjugated Kerkiitida (from the 8th century AD - Gezlev, from 1783 - Evpatoria), and for many centuries predetermined it the status of the main Crimean port of agricultural trade in salt, bread, lard, and leather. During the heyday of the sailing fleet, autumn fairs brought together up to 150 ships under the flags of many countries of the Black and Mediterranean Seas to the raid of the vast Evpatoria Bay. But already the first sailors fully understood the capricious nature of Kerkinitida. When there were fresh winds, ships were often torn from their anchors, and suddenly violent storms came, playfully throwing ships loaded with merchant goods onto the shore and rocks of the reef.

On November 2 (14), 1854, during the Crimean War, an unprecedented hurricane that covered the peninsula destroyed more than two dozen ships of the coalition fleet in the Yevpatoria roadstead alone. The sea swallowed up the supplies of winter clothing and medicine sent to the Allied landing corps. In the Kara-Tebe-Oba area (the present-day village of Pribrezhnoye, Saki district), the French hundred-gun battleship Henry IV washed up on the shore. On the rocks of the Evpatoria reef, a Turkish oyster was crushed to pieces! just to the top of the battleship "Peiki-Messeret". A British naval officer, in a letter to his homeland, spoke with a shudder about his experience: “Imagine a terrible wind, torrents of rain flooding the atmosphere, frequent hail, fiercely striking everything it meets on the way, and finally, a troubled sea, the waves of which are equal to the mountains, and you will not yet have a complete understanding of the terrible hurricane.” Historians equate enemy losses from the disaster that took place off the coast of Crimea to defeat in a major naval battle. Emperor Nicholas I, having learned about the Crimean disaster, wrote on November 19, 1854 to the commander-in-chief of the Russian troops in Crimea, Prince Menshikov: “Thank you to the storm, it served us well, it would be desirable

still like this!”...

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[We need a beacon here!]()

The need for a lighthouse on the Evpatoria Cape was first seriously discussed at the beginning of the 19th century. At the suggestion of the chief commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Admiral I.I. Traverse On May 4, 1803, the Admiralty Board decided to build a stone daylight lighthouse in Kezlev, but the outbreak of wars with Persia (1803-1813), France (1804-1807), Turkey (1808-1812) and England (1807-1812), and then the Napoleonic invasion did not allow implementation planned. By the middle of the 19th century. The area of ​​the Evpatoria Bay and the adjacent western capes was considered one of the most dangerous on the entire Crimean coast. Annual disasters (in other years up to a dozen ships) required urgent measures to be taken. And again the war interfered. On September 1, 1854, more than a hundred enemy ships entered and anchored in the Evpatoria Bay. The rowboat brought two staff officers of the English and French fleets to shore. There, the parliamentarians, through an interpreter, handed over a stamped paper to the commandant of the port, informing: “... since Evpatoria is a disarmed city,” they declare that, “without intending to cause any harm, they only have to enter and occupy it with their troops for quartering.” As reported by arch

willows, to this demand “the acting commandant of the city of Evpatoria, Major Bronitsky, did not make an objection and suggested retreating with the battalion entrusted to him from Evpatoria, to which the quarantine guards also joined.” On this occasion, the British newspaper The Illustrated London News wrote: “...Evpatoria will always attract historical interest, being the first port where troops landed. ... It would be desirable, having occupied Evpatoria, to subsequently receive supplies from it.” Having landed an army ashore (62 thousand soldiers, 134 field and 73 siege guns), the allies moved to the Alma River, where on September 20, in a fierce battle, they inflicted the first major defeat on the Russian troops. Thus began the famous Crimean military campaign (1854-1855), which cost Russia the lives of outstanding naval commanders P.S. Nakhimova, V.A. Kornilova, V.I. Istomin, tens of thousands of soldiers, sailors, officers, the practical destruction of the city of Sevastopol and the loss of most of the ships of the Black Sea Fleet... Soon after the end of hostilities and the signing of the Paris Peace Treaty (March 18 (30), 1856), which deprived Russia of the right to maintain a military fleet in the Black Sea, merchants of the Evpatoria Shipping Company

and trade petitioned the head of the Hydrographic Department for the construction of a lighthouse. St. Petersburg naval officials, imagining Crimea as an earthly paradise, where it is always warm and the sun is shining, and the sea is pure azure, without hesitation, at the end of 1859 they purchased a standard frame metal tower from England. It consisted of four iron posts connected by diagonal braces with four open intermediate platforms and an octagonal lantern structure topped with a copper dome. The lower part of the frame, covered with boards, served as a utility compartment. In France, they purchased a catadioptric light-optical apparatus (a refractive optical system with reflectors - reflectors) with an Argand lamp operating in rapeseed oil. And already on August 1, 1861, the 15 m high lighthouse began to operate. It shone with a constant white light with flashes every minute. On cloudless nights, the light of the lighthouse was clearly visible from the decks of ships at a distance of 8.5 nautical miles. A residential building and services, food and fuel storage facilities were built next to the tower for the lighthouses. The lighthouse town was surrounded by a strong stone fence. The measure was not superfluous, since at that time there were many miles around

There was no housing, and at night gangs of bandits hunted in the steppes. At the end of the 1870s. The famous naturalist and historian V.G., who came to Crimea from Central Asia, settled at the lighthouse. Pyankov. Here he began to conduct regular meteorological observations, teaching watchmen the intricacies of measuring temperature, pressure, air humidity, wind strength and direction, amount of precipitation and evaporation rate. The scientist carefully processed, analyzed and published the results in small brochures, later combining them into the book “Climate of Evpatoria. 1891-1902”, which immediately became a bibliographic rarity.

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There is no limit to perfection

However, it soon became clear that the lighthouse tower and optical system hastily purchased abroad were not suitable for Evpatoria conditions. On hot summer days, the metal became incredibly hot, sand, blown by the wind, filled into all the cracks, damaging expensive instruments and equipment, and in the fall and winter, piercing, lingering north winds with rain and sleet turned the climb to the lamp compartment along steep metal ladders into torture. The Argand lamp also created many problems. In the summer, the rapeseed oil liquefied and flowed like water, but in the winter it solidified, and the fire often went out. In addition, it turned out that the lights of the Evpatoria and Khersopes lighthouses have the same light characteristics, and it is difficult for ship captains to navigate. This drawback was quickly eliminated: from January 1, 1863, the light of the Evpatoria lighthouse was made permanent with white and red flashes. It turned out to be more difficult to resolve the issue of reconstructing the lighthouse tower. In the final report for 1867, the director of the Hydrographic Department, honorary member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Vice Admiral S.I. Zelenoy reported: “...in winter, proper lighting of the lighthouse is maintained with great difficulty, especially painful for Evpatoria, which grew year by year, and

The Hydrographic Department again petitions the Ministry of the Sea to allocate funds for the reconstruction of the lighthouse. The Minister of Marine promised to help, but then another (1877-1878) Russian-Turkish war happened.

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Argand lamp

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Doty lamp

Soon after Russia entered the war (April 12 (24), 1877), the Crimean lighthouses, including Evpatoria, were extinguished so that enemy ships could not use the lights during night passages. And already on July 27, 1877, four Turkish ships bombed Yevpatoria for three hours. The city was subjected to an even more fierce six-hour shelling on December 30th. The enemy managed to enter the port of Evpatoria and capture several merchant ships loaded with salt. The border cordon and residential buildings of the city were subjected to intense bombardment. However, during the entire siege of the port, the Turks did not fire a single shot at the lighthouse. There is only one explanation for this: in those days, lighthouses were considered among the “shrines of the seas” and an attempt on them was equated to the greatest crime. Which, however, did not prevent the British, who arrogantly considered themselves among the legislators of noble maritime traditions, from completely destroying the Inkerman sites during the siege of Sevastopol (1854-1855...

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City, wars, people, lighthouse

XX century changed a lot in Evpatoria’s life. Acquiring mud baths, boarding houses, and sanatoriums, the city quickly gained popularity as a climatic resort. In 1908, Evpatoria became one of the few Russian cities illuminated by electricity. The first 44 arc lamps from Kering and Metison were lit on the evening of February 10; by the end of the year, the port, city embankment, central streets, and the Primorskaya Sanatorium were illuminated with electricity. And the Evpatoria lighthouse, as in the old days, continued to shine with a petroleum wick lamp for the sailors. Years passed. Recovering from wars and revolutions, Evpatoria expanded and improved. The seaport grew and developed. Only the lighthouse tower, dilapidated and collapsing, silently endured human injustice. Cosmetic repairs, which happened from time to time for anniversaries and important political dates, did not save the situation. By the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the corroded structure became dangerous for use, and the lower part of the tower was lined with brick. The navigation equipment was replenished with a radio beacon, and Doty's petroleum lamp was replaced with a more advanced kerosene-heat installation, increasing the brightness of the fire.

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First and second towers

...At about three o'clock in the morning on June 22, 1941, the observation posts of the Evpatoria lighthouse and Cape Sarych informed the operational duty officer of the Black Sea Fleet headquarters that they could clearly hear the hum of the engines of many aircraft flying towards Sevastopol. Thus began a new bloody war. Under wartime conditions, the lighthouse was switched to a special (manipulator) mode of operation with the fire turned on by order of the headquarters for a strictly defined period. The observation post, headed by the lighthouse keeper Timofey Evmenovich Kukuruza, conducted continuous monitoring of the air, the coast and the mine situation in the specified sector of the sea. From the first days of defense, the tower was repeatedly bombed and shelled, but as soon as the battle subsided, the lighthouses repaired the damage, and the fire continued to shine on our warships. By October the situation had become critical. The lighthouse received an order to dismantle the optics and valuable equipment, pack it securely and leave for Sevastopol at the first opportunity at sea. On October 31, 1941, the Nazis entered Evpatoria, turning the wonderful Evpatoria beaches into minefields surrounded by barbed wire.

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Construction of a new lighthouse tower in 1970

Liberation came on April 13, 1944.

The dilapidated lighthouse tower presented a pitiful appearance. All the buildings of the town were in ruins. A new generation of lighthouse workers had to restore the lighthouse - Ivan Grigoryevich Saryapu, Mikhail Mikhailovich Agapov and Grigory Antonovich Antonov. The primary task was to ensure navigational safety of night navigation and mine sweeping in the Evpatoria area. Therefore, the construction of housing and economic services began only after the lighthouse tower was restored and the fire was lit. The entire life of the lighthouse men at that time consisted of several tents, a field kitchen and a barrel of drinking water. Only in 1955, a new brick octagonal twenty-meter lighthouse with a visibility range of electric fire of 13 miles was built next to the veteran. But the city grew quickly. Multi-storey sanatoriums and residential buildings along the coastal strip interfered with the hydrographic provision of navigation. In 1970, military builders erected a fifty-two-meter reinforced concrete tower next to the existing tower, and hydrographers equipped it with modern lighting equipment. Today, the visibility range of the white flashing Evpatoria light is 20 miles, and its radio call sign is “YA” (

• • — • —) ship navigators can clearly hear it from a distance of 150 miles from their home port.

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Lantern of the Evpatoria lighthouse

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Entrance to the lantern structure

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Fire switching equipment

...There are no two similar lighthouses in the world, each of them, demonstrating an example of inquisitive engineering, is built according to a special project in relation to technical problems, local conditions and technologies of its time.

In all civilized countries, understanding the uniqueness of such structures, disused towers are turned into museums that tell numerous tourists about the history of navigation, lighthouse business, glorious and tragic events in the life of lighthouses and their inhabitants. In our country, the old Evpatoria lighthouse towers... were blown up, apparently considering that neither current nor future generations are at all interested in knowing the centuries-old maritime history of their state...

• Sergey AKSENTIEV. *

*Reprinted with the kind permission of the author. **The article was published in the magazine Youth Technology No. 07/2012*