When, in high school, Sasha Borisov announced that he wanted to enter the sailor, there was a scandal at home. Almost like in Korzh's song. The Pope firmly said: "Only over my dead body". Mom tried to put ultimatums and dissuaded her son as best she could. Parents predicted the guy a promising career as an oil or gas worker. But he insisted.
Sasha's parents met in Nakhodka. Both had distribution. A graduate of a construction college from the village of Grushevo near Kobrin was sent to build a new city. A cadet of the river school from the Komi Republic was also distributed there. There they met, fell in love and got married. The nineties in Nakhodka were so difficult that Sasha's parents took two children, packed their bags and moved 10.3 thousand kilometers to Brest.
- It was 1994, I was four, and I only remember an uncle on the plane who gave me a jar of juice, Sasha recalls. - Since then, I have a Russian passport, but I feel 100% Belarusian.
The guy's father continued to go to sea already from Brest. Times were very difficult and dangerous. At the customs, sailors with salaries were met by racketeers - guys in black jackets, who knocked out information from companies about the time of arrival, flights and salary amounts. Sometimes sailors were robbed and beaten, someone managed to slip through.
- Can you imagine, after all that they have experienced, I declare that I will go to the maritime academy. It came to tears. Papa said "Only over my dead body"- Sasha recalls those family passions with a smile.
- Mom sobbed, put ultimatums. My parents all wooed me to Moscow, to the Gubkin Oil and Gas University. When it came to 11th grade, dad eventually agreed. The older sister spoke to her mother. I remember I told her: “Mom, don’t dissuade Sasha so that he doesn’t blame you later if something doesn’t work out for him.”
Sasha says that sailing was not such a rosy dream for him. He thought everything through and realized that, despite all the disadvantages, the profession is financially beneficial: you don’t have to save up for an apartment all your life.
“In the first practice, they crawled along the deck due to a large roll and seasickness”
So Alexander went to St. Petersburg to "Makarovka" (State University of the Sea and River Fleet named after Makarov). This university is still considered one of the most prestigious. Sailors, like doctors, study for six years, a year and a half of which is practice on a ship at sea.
- My most memorable practice was on a sailboat. Yes, yes, on the real one, where it was necessary to set sails,- Alexander recalls. - The ship itself was 100 meters long, and the masts were 49 meters. I had to climb on them and manually lower the sails. And they are heavy, it's canvas - the fabric is several times denser than jeans. And there were wild rolls up to 40 degrees. And we all suffered from seasickness. It was impossible to walk, we practically crawled on the deck,- the guy remembers. - We left Kaliningrad and sailed past Europe for half a year, passed Gibraltar and so on. Since the ship belonged to the academy, and the academy had no money, there was no way to make calls on it. In six months, I was only able to send SMS to my parents and girlfriend twice.
During the first practices, Sasha, like all trainees, cleaned, scrubbed, washed, painted - they didn’t trust anything more with “yellow mouths”. Later there were practices already in conditions close to real. Sasha went on a gas carrier and even on an oil tanker - on the very first tanker that carried oil from Venezuela to Belarus.
- At sea both then and now there is a large personnel shortage. In addition, "Makarovka" is the best nautical university in Russia. Therefore, graduates find work without problems, get jobs at the most best places and receive the highest salaries, and, of course, bear no less high responsibility, Sasha adds.
He graduated with honors and unexpectedly got into the Greek company Dynagas, which owns ships carrying liquefied gas and oil from Russia to various parts of the world.
So in 2014, he became the third mate on one of the company's gas carriers. This is the youngest officer rank (after the second, first and senior assistants to the captain). On his first voyage, the guy had an extreme: he lost 10 kilograms and mastered conversational and business English in a couple of months. Then he went into a rut, and it became easier.
"The company chooses the flag of the country that suits it best"
The crew on Dynagas vessels is usually small (up to 50 people). Basically it's all men. There are women in the sea, they even become captains, but so far this is a rarity. The saying "A woman on a ship is in trouble" is still in use. Therefore, while the sea is the prerogative of men.
The crews of the company's ships are international. As a rule, sailors, mechanics and stewards are Filipinos. They are paid, by sea standards, a little, they have a shift - about nine months. Often they do not even know English very well. But for them, this knowledge is not entirely necessary, the main thing is that the boatswain speaks English - in fact, their "foreman". Among the officers there may be Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians, Croats, Indians, Pakistanis, a few Spaniards, British and even one Greek.
- Here is such a Greek company, Sasha laughs. - And we go at all under the flag of the Marshall Islands. There is a concept of "flag of convenience" in maritime transport. The ship must belong to a country. The country is chosen by the company itself. And the choice depends on the port charges, taxes and so on. It is clear that they prefer options with lower rates. Therefore, on cargo ships very often the flags of Liberia, Panama, Marshall Islands, Belize, Bermuda and so on are used.
Alexander's work is not as romantic as it might seem. Mostly paper. A sea vessel is a separate legal entity. It is subject to various conventions, of which there are more than a dozen: on the training of sailors, on safety, on ecology, and so on. Each convention requires certificates (about 120-150 pieces). Plus certificates for equipment, fire extinguishers, boats. Keep track of all certificates, their expiration dates, help pass checks in each port - these are the tasks of the third assistant.
- And the captain's assistant himself should have several dozen certificates and certificates about passing various courses,- Sasha shows a weighty folder with documents. This folder is one of the most valuable things: there are dozens of different crusts, without which a Belarusian cannot work.
“In Europe, there is a lot of traffic at sea, you have to wait until night to moor”
Sasha's morning starts at 3:40. He wakes up, drinks tea and gets ready for work. From four to eight in the morning he keeps watch on the navigation bridge. During these four hours, it is Sasha who drives the steamer. No, he does not turn the steering wheel, as in the films, but he monitors the special “autopilot”, if necessary, corrects it in the direction set by the captain. In addition, he carefully analyzes the situation at sea. Here, by the way, right-hand traffic is the rules that are a bit reminiscent of traffic rules.
- In the ocean or on Far East it’s simpler: there is almost no traffic there, it’s good if you meet at least one ship per watch. But in the Mediterranean Sea, near Europe, it’s very difficult: there is a lot of traffic,- the man shares. - In the narrowness, straits on the approaches there are international corridors and the order of movement has been adopted. Directly on the map they indicate: this lane - there, this one - here. It happens that in ports you have to wait for your turn to moor even until night.
It is strictly forbidden to sleep on the watch, for this they will put you off at the first port and send you home. Sasha escapes from sleep with strong tea and “fizuha”: he sits down, does push-ups, and recently he even started a manual expander. I just want to sleep - it starts to squeeze and unclench it.
- The main thing is to endure until dawn. There the body is already easier,- explains the sailor. After the shift at 8:00, he begins "overtime" - time for paperwork. The assistant is given two hours for this, but no one fits into them. Therefore, Sasha takes all four hours for papers, checks and other things. At 12:00 he has lunch, and until 16:00 he has free time again.
Sasha inside the tank of the ship, in which liquefied gas is transported
- I try to occupy myself with something and not go to bed, because from 16:00 to 20:00 I have one more running watch. I will endure - I will sleep well later. If you go to bed late, then at 3:40 you can not wake up, Sasha explains.
And so from day to day, while the ship is at sea.
Pirates do not sail with the Jolly Roger flag, but disguise themselves as fishermen
On land, the situation is changing. Nobody cancels the watch, but a lot of other work is added: moor (and this is two hours), go through all the checks, maintenance services and other things. Everyone is trying to patch up in the port: the failure of equipment at sea is a real emergency and huge losses for ship owners and charterers.
- In the port, as everything starts at three in the morning, it can last until eight in the evening, Sasha explains. And when we ask if he has visited many countries, he just waves his hand. What I managed to see on the bridge, I saw. Walking in the port taverns and around the city did not really fall out even once.
- The fact is that oil and gas terminals are usually carried away from the city and the port: too much risk. Imagine 100 thousand tons of liquefied gas - God forbid,- adds a man. - So it takes an hour and a half to get to the nearest cafe. So occasionally we can go (for all three years it was only a couple of times), the company orders a bus for us. As a rule, we go to the shopping center to buy souvenirs, drink coffee - two or three hours, that's all. So you won't see any particular countries.
Sasha did not encounter pirates. Although they are in the Suez Canal, the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. Periodically, there are reports that ships are being attacked. But this does not happen like in films with a one-legged or one-armed captain and a flag " Jolly Roger”, they are more disguised as fishermen. However, the Greek company is insured: it hires special security.
- For these areas, our company hires security. But even pirates can hardly get to our specific ships without her, Sasha explains. - We usually go 19 knots - about 36-37 kilometers per hour. For merchant ships, this is fast: conventional merchant ships reach speeds of 10-12 knots (18-20 kilometers per hour). Plus, we have a high freeboard: from the water to the deck - 16 meters. For comparison, oil tankers have 7. Plus, at this speed, a big wave- not so easy to climb. But even if the pirates try to get closer, the guards simply show their weapons and they swim away.
“There is no medic on the ship, just a little bit - even the captain can sew up the wound”
The life of sailors is simple: cabins with beds, wardrobes, showers and toilets. The stewards clean the officers' cabins, the sailors clean their own. The food is different: companies save on it, so you don’t have to do it once in a while: cereals, soups, vegetables, sometimes fruits, meat and fish.
- When we load provisions, agents say, they say, here you are for three months. The cook comes and answers: “It’s good if it lasts for a month.” And if you can still buy fresh provisions, that's very good. Sometimes we indulge: we eat red caviar with spoons or take Far Eastern chum for $3.5 per kilogram.
The hospital building is located separately. But there is no doctor on cargo ships: all crew members undergo a thorough medical examination before the flight, and at the slightest suspicion of the presence of diseases, a person is not taken on board.
- Now I have become the second assistant, so I am already in charge of the hospital. And everyone who gets hurt or feels bad comes to me a little, Sasha says. - I will provide first aid, but if a person gets sick, then you have to call a helicopter if we are at sea. Well, we provide first aid to everyone, even the captain. He can even sew up a wound. And what to do, the conditions force.
From time to time, the team discusses emergencies on other ships and tries to improve safety on the ship.
- For example, in last flight news came that the mechanic of one of the ships had fallen overboard. He was not saved, because stopping abruptly and quickly returning to the same point is almost impossible. And to freeze in water at +4 degrees, 10 minutes is enough, sighs the sailor.
Living for three or even six months in a confined space with a limited number of people is another test. A Brest resident says that he sees a man from a mile away, whose contract is about to end: conflicts are growing, there are depressions.
- In view of this, senior officers are even allowed to take their wives on a flight,- explains the guy. - I have never come across this, but this item is there.
If they don’t take their wives with them, entertainment saves: satellite Internet, a gym, you can watch movies or read books, study and develop something.
July 3 - Belarus also celebrates the Day of the River Fleet. Until recently, Sozh was not only a place of rest, but also a breadwinner and the main highway. ABOUT river history curious archival documents have been preserved in the city…
Manufactory on the river sand
Navigation along the Sozh has been known since ancient times. As a matter of fact, it is to him that Gomel owes its appearance. A convenient place for a pier on the way from the "Varangians to the Greeks" clearly contributed to the flourishing of medieval Gomel.
It was on the Sozh that the first steamship in Belarus "Nikolai" built by Count Nikolai Rumyantsev appeared. In the 19th century, due to the development of industry in the south, timber rafting along the Sozh and the Dnieper became one of the most important sources of income for the local merchants. At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century, a regular steamship service was opened from Gomel to Kyiv, Vetka and Propoisk. The width of the Sozh near Gomel in 1913, for example, reached 100 sazhens, during the flood in some places - up to 10 versts. “As a beautiful navigable river, which was a special concern of the shipping department, the Sozh significantly contributed to the continuous development of Gomel as a major shopping center”, - write the authors of the reference book “All Gomel” for 1913.
The civil war caused severe damage to transport, including water transport. Part of the ships was mobilized into the Dnieper military flotilla, one of them sank in Gomel right next to the bridge. In June 1921, the Galaka gang captured Radul with a sudden raid and landed here passenger steamer which went from Kyiv to Gomel. 40 Red Army soldiers and employees of the Cheka were disarmed. The "Russian" passengers were released, and more than 70 Jews were stripped, robbed and drowned in the Dnieper.
Upon completion civil war water transport started to restore. There was no equipped port in pre-revolutionary Gomel. Manufactory, grain and hemp were reloaded by hand on wooden jetties. Until recently, lead seals of various trading houses could be found on the river sand near the park.
The beginning of industrialization and modernization of agriculture required different approaches. In 1930, the Council of People's Commissars of Belarus decided to build a modern river port in Gomel. At the same time, the construction of an elevator began on its territory.
On the Sozh coast of the Caucasus
The place for the Gomel port was chosen between the Gypsy descent and the Dedno ravine.
The future port, as it should be, was adjoined by picturesque and criminally famous slums, called "Caucasus". Subsequently, a story about the construction of the port was even published in Gomel - under the epic title "Conquest of the Caucasus" ...
This place was not chosen by chance - in the nearby backwater they had long been put up for wintering. river boats. There was also a protective dam - "Arrow". But the new plans were grandiose - it was supposed to equip a forest and oil harbor with mechanical loading facilities, an oil base, warehouses, work premises, two kilometers of sheet piling and concrete embankment, build a highway and railway. And also - a 4-storey brick house for water workers, a wooden hostel for ship crews and the same house for port loaders. Obviously, the last of these wooden barracks on Volotovskaya Street was demolished quite recently.
But most importantly, the project was so ambitious that it even involved the construction of a system of locks on the Sozh! The State Archives of the Gomel Region store documents signed by the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the BSSR Nikolai Golodeded. The head of the Belarusian government was from the Novozybkovsky district, he used to work in the Gomel province for a long time. The decision he signed provided for the construction of locks and appropriate piers on the river section between Krichev and Propoisk. Why this project, designed to facilitate navigation in the upper reaches of the Sozh, was postponed - one can only guess ...
Clear water under the keel
Strange as it may seem, but at that turbulent time of industrialization, the designers of the Gomel port showed a fair amount of concern for the environment. An appropriate commission was formed, which included the head of the Gomel "Portstroy" N.I. Malyarenko, engineer I.M. Pushkin, city health officer Livshits. In their opinion, only pure water- storm, thawed and either specially cleaned. A demand was even put forward to close the starch and syrup plant, which dumped waste into Lake Dedno (near the modern 17th microdistrict). Waste water from the city laundry bath under construction was allowed to be discharged into Dedno only after cleaning in “grease traps” and settling tanks. Also, all toilets of the "toilet" type in the vicinity were to be moved away from the Port.
To clean the port waters, a separate canal was also dug to the old channel (“old man”) Sozh.
At the same time, the head of the department of the Dnieper-Dvina river transport, Pochebut, authorized for the construction of the Sozh port, raised the question of creating Gomel ship repair workshops, a future large shipbuilding plant, before the People's Commissariat of Water Transport. Under the workshops, an area was allocated "on the South Pier at the arrow."
One of the first ships that came here for repairs at the end of 1933 was the boat "Jefery", which belonged to the Gomel City Council. In total, there were 42 pieces of equipment on the "Gomel raid" at that time. 8 of them belonged to the Dnieper-Dvinsk river transport, the rest were leased or owned by various organizations - from the "Administration of Spectacles and the Park of Culture" to the crushed stone artel and the Volya correctional colony. The Gomel rivermen had at their disposal the Kleptan and Benz motor oaks, the Lokomobil, Case, Auston motor boats, and the Ragal motor boat. Motodub "Kleptan" served as a tug and had an engine of 60 horsepower, "Benz" - 81 "horses". Motodub "Packard" carried passengers for Lunacharsky Park.
And what is it - a "motorized" oak? No, it was not at all a floating cramp from the surrounding forests, equipped with an imported motor. Oak is a type of wooden vessel, known on the Black Sea and in the lower reaches of the Dnieper. But he could also be related to the Gomel oak forests - part of his frame was traditionally made of oak wood. Plus, the young "builders of the future" guessed to supply the oak with an internal combustion engine - and it turned out to be a good ship of the "river-sea" class. Gasoil, supplied from Samara, was burned in the motor-dub engine. But four oaks in Gomel in 1933 still remained rowing.
In addition to motor oaks, sailing lifeboats glided along the surface of the Sozh of that time and gilars walked. The displacement of life was up to 45 tons. Around one of them, as evidenced by the documents, a scandal erupted in connection with its "speculative and greedy use."
Gomel "Titanic"
But, of course, at that time such retreats were already rather the exception to the rule. All river vessels worked in the interests of the country. So, in 1933, the Belarusian water workers were tasked with transporting 60 thousand tons of potatoes and 30 thousand tons of grain along the Sozh, Besed and Berezina. The same motor oaks could take in tow flat-bottomed wooden barges and berlins, assembled using old-fashioned technology - without a single nail. And fulfill the five-year plan on them.
But not everything went smoothly - the water surface is so deceptive ... In the navigation of 1933 in the Chenok region, the non-steam ship "Nikolaev" was wrecked. Its displacement is impressive - 800 tons! The real Dnieper-Dvinsk "Titanic". After all, the carrying capacity of the entire Gomel fleet at that time was 456 tons. Obviously, this was a huge wooden barge. The operating rivermen say that it is not difficult to run aground in the Chenok area even today, the river here gives a sharp bend. Once on land, the wooden ship, like a giant whale, began to slowly agonize. Its body, assembled most likely with the help of wooden pins, began to dry out, deform and burst. The rivermen turned to the Gomel Council with a request to allocate peasants from Sevruki and Bobovichi to save the ship - manually. It took at least 150 rescuers to pull the wooden Titanic into the water.
In October 1933, a special "launching" commission was created - for the acceptance of the Gomel port. With its entry into operation in Gomel, there were two "city-forming" industries - the railway and water transport. The port workshops soon grew into a large shipyard. Residential houses of watermen were built in the center of the city, a club of rivermen, a river school and a technical school, a station for young sailors were opened. The administration of the Dnieper-Dvinsky river shipping company. Gomel port has become one of the largest, if not the largest, in Belarus.
Sources:
1. "All Gomel", Gomel, 1913
2. State archive of the Gomel region, F. 296, Op.1, D. 210, 334
Belarus, as you know, has no access to the sea. And in this regard, many residents of the republic do not even imagine that the country has its own fleet, even if it is a river one. The fact that the Belarusian fleet exists, Telegraf correspondents were able to verify on personal experience, having visited the river port of Bobruisk (which, by the way, is one of the eight branches of the Republican Unitary Enterprise "Belarusian River Shipping Company"), and after having traveled a dozen kilometers with cargo on a towing boat.
The chief engineer of the port Grigory Artemchik told us about the work of the Bobruisk port and the Belarusian shipping company. According to him, the leadership of the Belarusian river fleet is carried out by the Republican Unitary Enterprise "Belarusian River Shipping Company" with its center in Mozyr. In addition to the port in Bobruisk, it includes seven more river ports: Gomel, Mozyr, Rechitsa, Brest, Pinsk, Mikashevichi and Mogilev. Grigory Artemchik noted that it is the shipping company that coordinates the activities of all ports, depending on what tasks the shipping company faces, it uses "one or another watercraft, if it is free, and sends it to any point in Belarus where it is possible to put it."
Thus, the ships of the port of Bobruisk, although they work mainly on the Berezina, but in 2008-2010 worked in the port of Gomel, and reached Turov. Today, one of the Bobruisk dredgers (a vessel designed for dredging and mining of non-metallic building materials) operates in the river port of Mogilev.
The main activity of the port of Bobruisk today is the transportation of building mineral cargo. Basically, this is sand, which is mined from the bottom of the Berezina to ensure navigation through it in the summer. "The dredger loads sand onto non-self-propelled barges, motor ships tow the barges to the port, and then we unload building sand with portal cranes," the chief engineer of the port noted.
“To go, for example, to Mikashevichi for gravel is very far. You have to go to the Dnieper, go through Ukraine to Pripyat in Mikashevichi - this is a very large circle at a distance of 830 km. (At the same time, the distance from Mikashevichi to Bobruisk by rail is only 300 km ).Therefore, such transportations on this moment No. However, notes the chief engineer, river and railway transport complement each other.
"There are places where the railroad does not reach, and we can bring crushed stone and any other cargo there. The shipping company was a little forgotten as a mode of transport, but now it is slowly starting to revive. The Belarusian river shipping company begins to work closely with Ukraine: we transport granulated slag , we carry out timber transportation, transportation of oil products.”The river port of Mozyr and adjacent ports are mostly involved in this,” he says.
“Last year, our ship was involved in the transportation of oversized cargo for Novolukomlskaya and Berezovskaya GRES. Apparently, this year there will be some deliveries too. We plan to take part in these transportations along the Berezina River,” Grigory Artemchik said. In the past three years, Bobruisk ships have also transported timber for the Svetlogorsk Pulp and Cardboard Mill from the Berezino wharf, where timber was harvested.
The port of Bobruisk currently employs 67 people. Three towing ships, two dredgers, five non-self-propelled barges with a carrying capacity of 1 thousand tons and two non-self-propelled barges with a carrying capacity of 350 tons, two floating loaders are in operation, which are used when working where there are no portal cranes (in Svetlogorsk, Parichi). In total, in 2012, the port of Bobruisk had 300 thousand tons of transportation, this year 350-400 thousand tons are expected.
“We work as soon as the ice has melted and before freezing. Naturally, in the spring, when there are high waters, we can make the most of the carrying capacity of our barges. In July-September, of course, the loading of ships decreases due to the lack of depths.But, since we are deepening the bottom all the time, we try to maintain the volume of traffic.We use the winter period to repair the fleet, both in the port itself and at the Rechitsa and Gomel shipbuilding - ship repair plants, which were recently attached to the shipping company," he said.
In addition, according to Grigory Artemchik, the port is now closely engaged in the delivery of building sand for the needs of individuals. “People come, order, and we ship right on the spot without the involvement of third-party organizations. And, thanks to this, we get additional income,” said the chief engineer.
He also noted that Belarus is fully self-sufficient in personnel for the Belarusian shipping company, as well as ships. Thus, the command staff of the fleet is trained by the Svetlogorsk State Industrial College. People come out of it as second assistants to the captain or commander of the dredger. Gomel State Vocational School of the River Fleet No. 30 trains minders. In addition, the highest command staff is being trained there. Engineering and technical staff is trained by the Belarusian State University of Transport and the Department of Shipbuilding and Hydraulics at BNTU. “Training of all personnel in Belarus is well-adjusted,” Hryhoriy Artemchik stressed
The Pinsk Shipbuilding Plant is currently engaged in the production of passenger ships. Three passenger motor ships of his production have recently been sailing in Mogilev and Vitebsk. “Previously, the Rechitsa Shipbuilding Plant was engaged in the production of thousand-ton barges. Towing ships were produced by the Pinsk and Gomel shipbuilding plants, 350-ton barges by the Petrikovsky shipbuilding plant. Yes, there was a shipbuilding plant in Bobruisk, but in 1986 it was merged with the port under the Soviet Union,” - said the chief engineer.
Grigory Artemchik also noted that during the ten years of his work in the port there were no significant incidents. According to him, all problems are fixed in the normal mode.
At the same time, Alexander Livanovich, a second-generation river captain, on the ship under whose control the Telegraph correspondents set sail, said that everything had happened. So, according to him, earlier it happened more than once that the ships stood aground, pierced the bottom on the stones. In such cases, barges often had to be unloaded, taken in tow, and repaired.
"It used to be like that. Now they are trying to transport everything by high water. As soon as the water starts to fall more, they will be transferred to Svetlogorsk. It will not be profitable here: the fuel will burn, and it is not enough to carry cargo. There are places such that there are a lot of stones If you overload a little, you will only break through," the captain noted.
The only woman in the port of Bobruisk also had to stand aground - the cook on the motor ship that sheltered us, Anna Maksimova, who treated Telegraph journalists with her dishes. Although, according to her, the saying "a woman on a ship unfortunately" is not about her. “Once four barges with timber were hauled from Berezino. So they sat aground for six days. It seemed like the coast was close, but there was no way to get out. Sitting aground, I had to bake bread and do everything myself. Three kilometers away, water was extracted. Everything was there," she said.
According to Nikolaevna, this is her eighth navigation, but the first on this ship. The ship, on which she sailed earlier, has been under repair in Rechitsa since this year. Nevertheless, she says, the team here is "young and good". “Especially everyone loves potatoes. Even if you spread it on bread, they will eat potatoes. I bake pies and buns. The river asks for food, so we don’t remove the kettle from the stove,” says the cook.
On a towing boat, our path lay from the river port of Bobruisk to Lukovaya Gora on the very outskirts of the city, where a dredger with a barge filled with river sand was already waiting for us. Despite the fact that both the port and Lukovaya Gora are located in Bobruisk, it took about 2.5 hours to go against the current along the numerous bends of the Berezina. At Lukovaya Gora, the crew of the ship deftly replaced the empty barge with one filled with sand, and the ship set off on the return journey. The way back was not so long and took only 1.5 hours - the current helped. Having delivered the barge to the port, the ship set off again, however, already without journalists.
Maxim Gatsak. Photo by Nadezhda Gatsak
The length of the waterways of Belarus is 2.5 thousand kilometers. Our country is small, the roads are good, therefore, although domestic transportation by river transport exists, it is developing poorly. Bye. Today, Belarus is actively modernizing waterways to meet the requirements of European qualification. Transit is a great prospect. Large-scale projects stimulate the development of regional ones: this year enthusiasts organized the first shipping festival in Belarus.
Back in the 1950s, the idea of creating a main line - from the Dnieper to the Vistula - of international importance with the designation E-40, appeared. The start of the "new old" idea was given in the spring of 2014 in Brest. Then a memorandum was signed between Belarus, Ukraine and Poland on the reconstruction of the Dnieper-Bug-Vistula-Oder route. Active work is underway, and in December 2015 the 3rd session of the Commission on the development of the E-40 water transport connection on the Dnieper-Vistula section will be held in Lublin. A feasibility study of the project will be presented there. This is the first stage. There will be money, the second one will begin - designing. And only then - implementation.
Recently, journalists of Belarusian and foreign media mass media interested organizations showed how hydrotechnical structures are being renovated in Belarus. Through the budget.
Five of the 11 hydroelectric facilities have already been reconstructed. They have found a second life and correspond to the high parameters of the international classification. Let's take, for example, the Kobrin waterworks. The largest in the country, with a water drop of 5 meters 40 centimeters. Previously, the locking process took more than an hour, now it takes about 15 minutes.
However, 15 - 20 ships pass through the hydroelectric complex per month. Not much...
Now up to 1 million tons of cargo is transported along the Belarusian rivers. The plans are at least four million. Crushed stone from Mikashevichi, sand, potash salts from the Petrikovskoye deposit... Two oil tankers are being built at the Pinsk shipbuilding plant, which will be used to transport oil products from Mozyr to Brest.
Belarus is interested in transit. And for Europe, an additional transit line on the water is most welcome.
The creation of a new route "from the Varangians to the Greeks" with a length of more than 2 thousand kilometers is hindered by several neglected river sections. From Brest to Kherson you can walk on the water. The bottleneck is the section of the Western Bug from Brest to Warsaw. In Brest - a deaf dam. Further - a wild river without hydraulic structures, without track work and clearing. Three options for the restoration of the section to Warsaw have been developed. As well as several options for connecting the Polish (future) shipping section with the Belarusian one.
When will it be possible to freely get from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea and vice versa? A matter of time and not one hundred million dollars.
Cargo transportation by rivers is cheaper than by land. And here is the passenger river transport not cheap. Today on the balance sheet of the Belarusian River Shipping Company 10 passenger ships. Pleasure. They ride on water in Brest, Pinsk, Mogilev, Gomel and Rechitsa, as well as on the Zaslavsky reservoir. A little more than 99 thousand tourists were transported during the navigation period. Less than last year.
But ships for walks with passengers do not yet use the E-40 waterway. Although a number of hydropower facilities have the infrastructure for such trips. Perhaps the first to test the new possibilities of water is a cruise ship for tourist and sightseeing transportation, which will run along the route Brest - Kyiv. The vessel, 43.6 meters long and 7 meters wide, with a restaurant and a casino, is being completed by the Pinsk Shipyard. Next year - launching. Andrey Rekesh, Secretary of the Commission for the Development of the E-40 Water Transport Connection on the Dnieper-Vistula Section, noted that a cruise ship is not a passenger ship for the delivery of passengers from point A to point B, therefore it will go at a speed of no more than 20 kilometers per hour, and the pleasure of traveling on it will be expensive.
While big plans are waiting for big money, enthusiasts are acting. In 2015 Belarus hosted the first shipping festival. The small combat boat "Yatvyag", built by three reenactors from Lida, tested the waters of the Neman. With the help of artisans, the owners of the farmstead from the Kobrin region built the ship "Sleipnir" (a sliding, magical eight-legged horse in mythology). Recently, a test descent of the vessel into the water and a swim along the Mukhavets River took place.
Probably worth sitting down at the oars in good company and watching tourist routes offered by the owners of the farmstead. But - in the spring. Navigation completed this year...
Remember.
1. How is a factory different from a manufactory? 2. What were the fairs?
Learning task.
Determine the signs of an industrial revolution brewing in Belarus.
Forms of industrial production and the beginning of the industrial revolution.
In the first half of the nineteenth century. industry in Belarus was represented by various types of enterprises: craft workshops, manufactories, factories. Among the industrial enterprises in the most advantageous position were those that belonged to the noble landowners. This was explained by the fact that the landowners owned the land, its subsoil and forest wealth, free raw materials and used the free labor force of serfs. It was difficult to compete with such enterprises for enterprises organized by merchants and philistines with their own money. Therefore, the merchant-petty-bourgeois industry in the cities was represented almost exclusively by handicraft-type enterprises with manual production, in which there was no division of labor. These included small workshops with no more than 5 workers, including the owner himself.
Small-scale production included enterprises employing from 6 to 15 workers. Here the owner was only engaged in organizing the process of manufacturing and marketing products. An even greater number of workers (over 16) made it possible to divide the production process into separate operations, which was typical for the manufacturing stage of industrial development.
A new phenomenon in the industrial development of Belarus in the first half of the XIX century. was the beginning of the transition from manufacturing to factory production, which testified to the beginning of the industrial revolution. The first factories in Belarus - industrial enterprises where there was a division of labor and machines were used, were built in the 1820s. in the villages of Khomsk, Kobrin and Kossovo, Slonim counties. The factories that made cloth belonged to a large landowner, Count Wojciech Puslovsky- the ancestor of an entrepreneurial dynasty. In 1823, more than 400 workers from among the serfs worked at the Chomsky factory. For the first time in Belarus steam engines were used at Puslovsky's enterprises. They replaced manual labor in factories and required specially trained workers. The forced free labor of serfs at landlord enterprises was of little effect.
The English traveler V. Cox in his diary left notes about the work of serfs in Grodno manufactories at the end of the 18th century: “. One of the students, more lively, said to her supervisor, who was trying to increase the intensity of her work: “What benefit will I get if I follow your advice? No matter how skilled I become in my craft, I will always remain the serf of my master - the labor will be mine, and the profit will be his. Most of them had an expression of such deep sadness on their faces that my heart broke with pain looking at them. It was easy to understand that they were working under compulsion and not out of inclination.”
At small enterprises owned by merchants and philistines, civilian labor was used. According to various estimates, hired workers in Belarus accounted for at least 1/3 of all workers. However, the existence of serfdom hindered the formation of a free labor market.
In 1860, there were 140 manufactories and 76 factories and plants in Belarus. Almost all of them belonged to the landowners. Some factories were quite large. So, in the town of Gomel, more than 200 people worked at the sugar enterprise of Prince I.F. Paskevich, and 600 workers at the metalworking enterprise of Count Benckendorff on the estate of Starintsy, Cherikovsky district.
The industry in Belarus was represented mainly by enterprises for the processing of agricultural raw materials: distilleries (for the production of alcohol from potatoes and grain), cloth, linen, flour mills and sugar (for the processing of sugar beets). The first sugar factory in Belarus began operating in 1830 on the estate of Molodovo in the Kobrin district and belonged to the entrepreneur Alexander Skirmunt. For the first time in world practice, Fabrikant invented an installation for accelerated continuous evaporation of sugar syrup, which lasted only 4-5 minutes instead of the previous 4-5 hours.
Skirmunt, having registered his discovery, became the first officially recognized inventor from Belarus in the Russian Empire.
Development of communications and trade. The role of fairs At the end of the 18th - the first half of the 19th century. work was carried out to improve communication routes. The construction of post roads began, and from the 1830s. - and highway (with a roadway, roadsides and ditches). The main highway Moscow-Brest-Warsaw ran from east to west, and the Petersburg-Kiev road ran from north to south. Canals were reconstructed or built that connected the rivers of the Black and Baltic Sea basins: Oginsky (Dnepr and Neman), Berezinsky (Dnepr and Western Dvina), Dnieper-Bugsky (Dnepr and Vistula), Augustovsky (Neman and Vistula) ( **1). Steamboats went along the Dnieper, Pripyat, Western Dvina. The first steamboat with a capacity of 12 horsepower was built by the Englishman A. Smith, a mechanic on the Gomel estate owned by Count N.P. Rumyantsev, and was tested on the Sozh in 1824. . more than doubled.
It was mainly the landowners who worked for the market. They supplied agricultural and livestock products, timber. About half of the income of the landlords was the sale of alcohol.
The growth of the urban population determined the demand for agricultural products. The serf peasantry was mainly subsistence farming and almost did not buy manufactured goods.
Foreign trade expanded. Transit cargoes went from Western Europe through Belarus to Russian cities, and from Russia to Western European markets. The export from Belarus was dominated by flax and flax products, grain, vodka, alcohol, wool, lard, timber. Salt, metals, steam engines and technical equipment, cotton and silk fabrics, porcelain and faience dishes, tobacco, sea fish, tea, and coffee were brought to Belarus.
Merchants were the organizers of trade. They bought agricultural and industrial products, raw materials from manufacturers, delivered goods to cities and river piers, and exported them abroad. However, local merchant capital has so far been small.
Foreign merchants at the beginning of the XIX century. came mainly from Warsaw, Danzig (now Gdansk) and other western cities. In the 1840s they were forced out by merchants from the cities of Russia.
An important role in trade by the middle of the XIX century. fairs continued. They were held in towns and cities on certain days, and larger ones lasted a week or more. Fairs usually coincided with church holidays, they hosted festivities and theatrical performances.
From the memoirs of Count L. Potocki: “Once a year fairs were held in Zelva, mostly horse fairs. There one could see plenty of horses from the herds of Sapieha, Poteev, Radziwills, purebred Polish horses, the breed of which had already disappeared. The most beautiful stallions were brought there from the east. And far around the city, all Ukrainian herds filled. Merchants from Warsaw and Vilna came to Zelva. from Odessa, Bukhara. Persians from Astrakhan, numerous inhabitants from all over Lithuania gathered. Every morning, horses are taken out of the stables, they go round, try, trade, sell or buy. After dinner, everyone disperses to shopping, in the evening - theater, masquerade. or arranged gatherings in private houses.
The Zelvenskaya fair was the most significant of all 43 in the Grodno province. In the Vitebsk province, the most famous were the Osvei and Beshenkovichi fairs, in the Mogilev province - the Lubavich fair. Fair trade began to narrow over time. It was replaced by a constant store trade and weekly city bazaars.
Cities and towns of Belarus. During the period from 1825 to 1861, the population of 42 cities of Belarus increased from 151 thousand to 320 thousand people. However, the share of townspeople among the inhabitants of Belarus remained at the level of 10%. Among them, artisans and small merchants, who were part of the philistine class, prevailed. There were many officials, nobles, and clergy in the provincial centers. Merchants and wealthy philistines played a decisive role in city self-government (**2).
The population of cities has traditionally been multi-confessional and multi-ethnic. Most of the townspeople were Jews. This was due to the existence of the Jewish Pale of Settlement, as well as the tsarist policy of forced resettlement of Jews from villages to towns and cities. The city also grew due to the increase in military garrisons.
Cities expanded geographically. Gradually, they lost the features of feudal cities with their crowding and tightness. Shafts and walls were demolished. The center housed administrative, cultural and educational
institutions, large stores. Here the houses were made of stone, the streets were paved and illuminated at night. The outskirts were built up with wooden houses, where the poor, artisans and small traders settled.
Pavel Shpilevsky in his "Journey through Polesye and the Belarusian Territory" noted: "Minsk is one of the largest and most beautiful cities Western Russia. With the exception of the Trinity Suburb, the Tatarsky End and some back streets along the outskirts of the city, in Minsk all the houses are made of stone and for the most part very large, and the streets are rather smoothly paved with stone and very neatly kept. Spread out on mountains and slopes, Minsk presents a beautiful view from almost all highways or entrances; but a particularly open and picturesque view from the Borisovsky entrance, starting from Komarovka. Before you spreads a panorama of several mountains, hillocks and steep cliffs, covered with artificial and natural lawns, large gardens, greenhouses, luxurious flower beds and washed by the waters of the Svisloch, which winds like a snake.
However, only provincial centers were more or less decently maintained, in which several tens of thousands of people lived. Smaller, county towns, with their appearance and way of life, with some exceptions, are not far from the towns - settlements transitional type from village to city. The number of townships grew to 400 due to the opening of fairs and bazaars in them.
Along the trade routes, on the squares of cities and towns, taverns were built - inns and taverns where travelers stopped, ate, and spent the night. Based on them, hotels and postal stations were formed.
Cultural and historical environment
**1. In 1824-1839. in the difficult terrain of the Augustow Forest, a 101.2 km long canal was being built to connect the Neman and the Vistula. About 400 ships passed through the constructed canal every year, which were dragged with the help of horse ropes. The channel had stone locks and good technical equipment. In 1852, K. Brzostowski designed an original steam boiler for a furnace in which massive metal gates for canal locks were cast.
Construction railway in the second half of the 19th century. caused a reduction in the transport of goods along the canal. In 2004, a decision was made in our republic to reconstruct a part of the canal located on the territory of Belarus. These works are declared youth construction.
**2. In 1851, the City Duma in Minsk decided to liquidate the building of the town hall, reminiscent of the Magdeburg rights received by Minsk in 1499. Emperor Nicholas I imposed the following resolution on this decision: “To break, and transfer the guards to the building of government offices.” In 1857, the two-storey town hall building with the tower, bell and city clock was destroyed. In 2004 the town hall as an architectural element historical center Minsk, was restored.
Questions and tasks
1. Why were Jews predominant among the urban residents of Belarus? 2. a) Fill in the comparative table in your notebook “Types of industrial enterprises that existed on the territory of Belarus in the first half of the 19th century. ".
b) Make a conclusion on which of the types of enterprises the work of workers was the most effective. 3. Why was the work of serfs in manufactories inefficient? Use the information of the English traveler W. Cox. 4. Why were the majority of industrial enterprises in Belarus located in rural areas and not in cities? 5. Prove with concrete historical facts that in Belarus in the first half of the nineteenth century. the industrial revolution began. 6. Determine using the map in the paragraph in azhn the use of means of communication for the export and import of goods. 7. Write a description of the fair using the Voices of the Past section.
- SECTION I. Belarus at the end of feudalism: the end of the 18th - the middle of the 19th centuries.
- § 1. The situation of the Belarusian lands at the end of the 18th - the middle of the 19th century. general characteristics
- § 2. The policy of the tsarist government in Belarus in the late 18th - early 19th century.
- § 4. Socio-political movement in the first third of the nineteenth century.
