After the completion of the restoration of the river fleet during the first five-year plan, the period of its reconstruction began. Now the shipbuilders were faced with the task of not only replenishing shipping companies with Soviet-built ships, but boldly introducing advanced technology that would reduce the construction time of ships, reduce the consumption of scarce metal and, consequently, their costs. One of the progressive methods in those years was electric welding.
To be fair, we note that it was invented back in 1881 by the Russian engineer N. Benardos (see "TM" No. 12 for 1981), and six years later it was improved by N. Slavyanov, who created the first welding shop in history at the Perm Steel and Cannon Plant . However, for a number of reasons, electric welding did not find widespread use until the last years of the First World War. It owes its “rebirth” to reasons of a purely military nature - the need to save metal and speed up the production of military equipment in every possible way.
In the Soviet Union, electric welding began to be intensively introduced in many industries during the First Five-Year Plan, when all the people enthusiastically responded to the call of the Bolshevik Party to quickly catch up and surpass the developed capitalist countries. “Notes and essays appeared more and more often in newspapers and magazines about how a steel electrode in the hands of a welder helps win days and weeks in the battle for speed,” recalled academician E. Paton.
In shipbuilding one of the initiators of application new technology there was Professor V. Vologdin. It was he who, back in 1926, successfully carried out the first experiments in welding barges, and then individual components and parts of ships - machine foundations, fuel and ballast tanks, all kinds of casings, davits, cargo booms. Then Vologdin's group developed equipment designed for the manufacture of internal bulkheads. In 1929, employees of the Kyiv Mechanical Engineering Institute completed its tests, and in Sudoproekt, a centralized organization engaged in the design of new ships, a department appeared, whose employees began developing welded ship structures, introducing electric welding in shipyards and training welding workers.
The preparatory stage of research work was completed by the beginning of the 30s, and the board of the All-Union Association of River Shipbuilding entrusted the construction of the country's first all-welded ship to the Kyiv shipyard (now the Leninskaya Kuznitsa plant).
The Kiev residents chose a tugboat with a steam engine with a capacity of 150 hp, already mastered by industry and well-proven in operation, as the object of experimental construction. With. It was designed by the designers of the Nizhny Novgorod plant "Krasnoe Sormovo" for towing rafts on northern rivers from logging areas to seaports.
Starting such an unusual experiment, Ukrainian shipbuilders deliberately refused to make any changes to the project - outwardly the new tug was no different from its counterparts. The same flat-bottomed, with a hull divided into five compartments by four watertight bulkheads, side paddle wheels, straight sides, with an angular superstructure topped with a long chimney.
There was no desire to make do with “small forces” when solving a complex problem. This approach to the matter made it possible to quickly compare a welded ship with riveted ones and, in addition, obtain a significant gain in construction time.
Working drawings of "Belarus" - this is the name the tug received - were prepared by August 1, 1931, and two weeks later the first bottom sheets were laid on the slipway. Then the installation of the kit, cladding, and superstructures began. Everything seemed to be the same as before... Only for the first time, the deafening roar of the riveters’ hammers did not stand over the slipway, but the dazzling flame of an electric arc flashed ghostly. For the first time, ready-made bollards, fairleads, portholes and other parts were installed on a ship under construction in the designated places, rather than installing them in parts, as before. The work proceeded unusually quickly, and on November 20 the new tug was solemnly handed over to the owners - the Dnieper rivermen. The work shift of the ship "Belarus" has begun. And at the Krasnoye Sormovo plant, the same type of tugboat “Svarshchik” was built in a similar way.
And the shipbuilders began to sum up the results of the experiment. Well, they turned out to be quite good. Suffice it to say that the hull of the Belarus was 27.5% lighter than that of riveted tugs - the savings in metal are obvious. In addition, for the first time, shipbuilders were able to do without a number of rather difficult, time-consuming operations. We are talking about drilling holes in the skin and hull sheets, the riveting itself, and embossing; Finally, there was no longer any need to make thousands of different-sized bolts and nuts - the labor intensity of the work decreased by 30%. The advantages of electric welding turned out to be clear.
The new method of assembling ships was immediately extended to other enterprises in the industry, and the Kiev plant "Leninskaya Kuznitsa" began an extensive program of design and construction of a large series of all-welded tugs with 150 and 300 hp machines. With. Following the Ukrainians, electric welding was quickly introduced at many shipbuilding and repair enterprises in the Volga basin.
By the beginning of 1932, there were already 550 welding machines on the stocks of the All-Union Association of Shipbuilding Industry Soyuzverf, and more than a thousand workers had mastered the new specialty.
Soon, electric welding began to be widely used in the construction of sea vessels - tankers, timber carriers, bulk carriers, cargo-passenger liners and warships. Suffice it to say that on new fishing trawlers, welding operations accounted for up to 45% of the volume of hull work. Moreover, the success of Kyiv shipbuilders allowed Soviet shipbuilding enterprises, ahead of well-known foreign firms and companies, to move to a new stage in the history of shipbuilding - high-speed sectional assembly of ships. And its use only in the construction of timber carriers saved the national economy more than 5 million rubles.
And this began with the small wheeled tugboats “Svarshchik” and “Belarus”.
Performance characteristics of the tugboat "Welder"
Length, m - 42
Width, m - 12.6
Draft, m - 0.64
Displacement, t - 128
Engine - steam engine
Power, hp - 150
Speed, km/h - 8
On February 11, 1809, American Robert Fulton patented his invention - the first steam-powered ship. Soon steamships came to replace sailing ships and were the main water transport until the middle of the 20th century. Here are the 10 most famous ships
Steamer "Clermont"
The Claremont became the first officially patented steam-powered vessel in the history of shipbuilding. The American Robert Fulton, having learned that the French engineer Jacques Perrier had successfully tested the first ship with a steam engine on the Seine, decided to bring this idea to life. In 1907, Fulton surprised the New York public by launching a ship with a large funnel and huge paddle wheels on the Hudson River. Onlookers were quite surprised that this creation of Fulton's engineering was able to move at all. But the Claremont not only sailed along the Hudson, but was also able to move against the current without the help of wind or sails. Fulton received a patent for his invention and within several years improved the ship and organized permanent river cruises on the Claremont on the Hudson River from New York to Albany. The speed of the first steamship was 9 km/h.
Steamship "Clermont"
The first Russian steamship "Elizabeth"
The steamship "Elizabeth", built for Russia by the Scottish mechanic Charles Bird, entered service in 1815. The ship's hull was wooden. A metal pipe with a diameter of about 30 cm and a height of 7.6 m served instead of a mast for setting sails in a tailwind. The 16 horsepower steamship had 2 paddle wheels. The steamship made its first voyage on November 3, 1815 from St. Petersburg to Kronstadt. To test the speed of the steamer, the port commander ordered his best rowing boat to compete with it. Since the speed of the "Elizabeth" reached 10.7 km/h, the oarsmen, pushing hard on the oars, sometimes managed to overtake the steamer. By the way, the Russian word “steamboat” was introduced into use by naval officer P. I. Ricord, a participant in this voyage. Subsequently, the ship was used to transport passengers and tow barges to Kronstadt. And by 1820, the Russian fleet already consisted of about 15 steamships, by 1835 - about 52.
The first Russian steamship "Elizabeth"
Steamboat Savannah
The Savannah was the first steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean. He made a flight from the American city of Savannah to Liverpool, England in 29 days. It should be noted that the steamer sailed almost the entire way, and only when the wind died down was the steam engine turned on so that the ship could move even in calm weather. At the beginning of the era of steamship construction, sails were left on ships making long voyages. The sailors still did not fully trust the power of steam: there was a great risk that the steam engine would break down in the middle of the ocean or there would not be enough fuel to reach the destination port.
Steamboat Savannah
Steamship "Sirius"
They decided to abandon the use of sails only 19 years after the transatlantic voyage of the Savannah. The paddle steamer Sirius left the English port of Cork with 40 passengers on April 4, 1838 and reached New York 18 days and 10 hours later. Sirius crossed the Atlantic Ocean for the first time without raising sails, using only a steam engine. This ship opened a permanent commercial shipping line across the Atlantic. "Sirius" moved at a speed of 15 km/h and consumed a monstrously large amount of fuel - 1 ton per hour. The ship was overloaded with coal - 450 tons. But even this reserve was not enough for the flight. "Sirius" barely made it to New York. To keep the ship moving, ship rigging, masts, wooden bridge decking, handrails and even furniture had to be thrown into the firebox.
Steamship "Sirius"
Steamship "Archimedes"
One of the first steam ships with a propeller was built by the English inventor Francis Smith. The Englishman decided to use the discovery of the ancient Greek scientist Archimedes, which had been known for a thousand years, but was used only for supplying water for irrigation - the screw. Smith came up with the idea of using it to propel the ship. The first steamship, called Archimedes, was built in 1838. It was moved by a screw with a diameter of 2.1 m, which was powered by two steam engines with a power of 45 horsepower each. The vessel had a carrying capacity of 237 tons. "Archimedes" developed a maximum speed of about 18 km/h. Archimedes did not make long-distance flights. After successful trials on the Thames, the ship continued to operate on inland shipping lines.
The first screw steamer "Stockton" to cross the Atlantic
Steamship "Stockton"
The Stockton was the first screw steamship to sail across the Atlantic Ocean from Great Britain to America. The story of its inventor, Swede John Erikson, is very dramatic. He decided to use a propeller to propel a steam ship at the same time as the Englishman Smith. Erickson decided to sell his invention to the British Navy, for which he built a screw steamer with his own money. The military department did not appreciate the Swede's innovations; Erickson ended up in prison for debt. The inventor was saved by the Americans, who were very interested in a maneuverable steam ship, in which the propulsion mechanism was hidden below the waterline, and the pipe could be lowered. This is exactly what the 70-horsepower steamship “Stockton” was, which Erickson built for the Americans and named after his new friend, a naval officer. On his steamship in 1838, Erickson left for America forever, where he gained fame as a great engineer and became rich.
Steamship "Amazon"
In 1951, newspapers called the Amazon the largest wooden steamship ever built in Britain. This passenger transport the luxury class could carry more than 2,000 tons and was equipped with an 80 horsepower steam engine. Although metal steamships had been rolling out of shipyards for 10 years, the British built their giant from wood because the conservative British Admiralty was prejudiced against innovation. On 2 January 1852, the Amazon, crewed by 110 of Britain's finest sailors, sailed for the West Indies, taking on board 50 passengers (including the Lord of the Admiralty). At the beginning of the journey, the ship was attacked by a strong and prolonged storm; in order to continue moving further, it was necessary to start the steam engine at full power. A machine with overheated bearings worked non-stop for 36 hours. And on January 4, the officer on duty saw flames coming out of the engine room hatch. Within 10 minutes the fire engulfed the deck. It was impossible to put out the fire in the stormy wind. The Amazon continued to move through the waves at a speed of 24 km/h, and there was no way to launch lifeboats. Passengers rushed around the deck in panic. Only when the steam boiler had exhausted all the water were they able to put people into the rescue longboats. After some time, those who sailed away in the lifeboats heard explosions - it was the gunpowder stored in the holds of the Amazon that exploded, and the ship sank along with the captain and part of the crew. Of the 162 people who set sail, only 58 were saved. Of these, seven died on the shore, and 11 people went crazy from the experience. The death of the Amazon became a cruel lesson for the Lords of the Admiralty, who did not want to admit the danger posed by combining the wooden hull of a ship with a steam engine.
Steamship "Amazon"
Steamship "Great East"
The steamship "Great East" is the predecessor of the Titanic. This steel giant, launched in 1860, was 210 meters long and for forty years was considered the most big ship in the world. The "Great East" was equipped with both paddle wheels and propellers. The ship became the last masterpiece of one of the famous engineers of the 19th century, Isambard Kingdom Brunel. The huge ship was built to transport passengers from England to distant India and Australia without visiting ports to refuel. Brunel conceived his brainchild as the safest ship in the world - the Grand Orient had a double hull that protected it from flooding. When at one time the ship received a hole larger than the Titanic, it not only remained afloat, but was able to continue its voyage. The technology for building such large ships had not yet been developed at that time, and the construction of the “Great East” was marred by many deaths of workers working at the dock. The floating colossus was launched for two whole months - the winches broke down, several workers were injured. A disaster also occurred when the engine was started - the steam boiler exploded, scalding several people with boiling water. Engineer Brunel died upon learning of this. Infamous even before it set sail, the 4,000-person Grand Orient set off on its maiden voyage on June 17, 1860, with just 43 passengers and 418 crew on board. And in the future there were few people willing to sail across the ocean on the “unlucky” ship. In 1888, they decided to dismantle the ship for scrap metal.
Steamship "Great East"
Steamship "Great Britain"
The first metal-hulled screw steamship, the Great Britain, rolled off the slipways on July 19, 1943. Its designer, Isombard Brunel, was the first to combine the latest achievements on one large ship. Brunel set the task of turning long and dangerous transatlantic Passenger Transportation on fast and luxurious sea voyages. The huge steam engines of the Great Britain steamship consumed 70 tons of coal per hour, produced 686 horsepower and occupied three decks. Immediately after its launch, the steamship became the largest iron ship in the world with a propeller, marking the beginning of the era of steam liners. But this metal giant also had sails, just in case. On July 26, 1845, the steamship Great Britain set off on its maiden voyage across the Atlantic with 60 passengers on board and 600 tons of cargo. The steamer moved at a speed of approximately 17 km/h and after 14 days and 21 hours entered the port of New York. After three years of successful flights, the Great Britain failed. On September 22, 1846, the steamer, crossing the Irish Sea, found itself dangerously close to the shore, and the rising tide brought the ship ashore. There was no disaster - when the tide went out, the passengers were lowered from board to the ground and transported in carriages. A year later, the Great Britain was rescued from captivity, a canal was broken, and the ship was back on the water.
The huge transatlantic steam liner Titanic, which claimed the lives of more than a thousand passengers
Steamship Titanic
The infamous Titanic was the largest passenger airliner in the world at the time of its construction. This city steamship weighed 46,000 tons and was 880 feet long. In addition to the cabins, the superliner had gyms, swimming pools, oriental baths and a cafe. The Titanic, which set sail from the English coast on April 12, could accommodate up to 3,000 passengers and about 800 crew members and moved at a maximum speed of 42 km/h. On the fateful night of April 14-15, when it collided with an iceberg, the Titanic was traveling exactly at this speed - the captain was trying to break the world record for ocean-going steamships. There were 1,309 passengers and 898 crew on board at the time of the shipwreck. Only 712 people were saved, 1495 died. There were not enough lifeboats for everyone; most of the passengers remained on the ship without hope of salvation. On April 15, at 2:20 a.m., a giant passenger ship, making its first voyage, sank. The survivors were picked up by the ship "Carpathia". But even on it, not all those rescued were transported to New York alive and well - some of the Titanic passengers died on the way, some lost their minds.
In 1975, at the Wartsila shipyard in the Finnish city of Turku, the transfer of a new vehicle-passenger motor ship "Belorussia" to the customer - Sovcomflot of the USSR - took place. This ship was the lead in a series of five ships. Initially, all five ships were transferred Black Sea Shipping Company Ministry of Marine and Fleet of the USSR.
The order was given to the Finnish shipyard for a reason - the Wartsila company was already known in the USSR, and Finnish shipbuilders had a lot of experience in building ferries. Despite all the external similarities with the large car-passenger ferries that plied in the Baltic basin, the new ships cannot be called ferries in the usual sense. The ships had only one car deck and were still intended to transport primarily passengers, and then cars between ports Black Sea coast THE USSR.
m/v "Belorussia" leaves the port of Valletta, 1975
"Belorussia" leaves Southampton, 1987
Red stripe on the false pipe with the Soviet coat of arms, home port of Odessa - this was what "Belorussia" was like in the second half of the 80s. Pictured - June 1988, Fremantle
m/v "Belorussia" 1992. being towed through the English Channel under the tow of SMIT ROTTERDAM
In 1993, after repairs in a dry dock in Singapore, the ship was renamed Kazakhstan II, and then, in 1996, DELPHIN
Already under the name Kazastan II, Durban, 1994.
This is how she is these days - DELPHIN:
on the approach to Kiel harbor (Kiel, Germany)
At the same time, in 1975, the motor ship "Georgia" was put into operation. He was also transferred to the ChMP.
"Georgia" in Southampton, 1976
in Sochi, 1983
Southampton, November 1983
Istanbul, 1991
still "Georgia", 1992, Quebec, Canada. The ship was chartered for cruises on the St. Lawrence River.
the coat of arms of the USSR was changed to a Ukrainian trident, the name was changed to Odessa Sky, St. Lawrence River, Canada, August 1995
In 1999, the ship sailed under the name Club I. The photo was taken in the North Sea
Soon the ship was renamed again - Club Cruise I. Presumably, this renaming occurred in the same 1999 - the ship changed owners. Then, in 1999, the ship was renamed again - Van Gogh - after the famous Dutch painter. The ship sailed under this name until 2009. In 2009 it was renamed again - SALAMIS FILOXENIA. The ship still operates under this name.
Port Caen, 2004
off the coast of Norway, 2007
Kiel Canal, 2008
Port of Split, Croatia, 2008
SALAMIS FILOXENIA at anchor off the island of Patmos, July 2010
If we conditionally divide ships into series according to the year of construction, then the motor ship "Azerbaijan" is the last motor ship of the first series - like "Belarus" and "Georgia" it was built in 1975 and became the third ship of the "Belarus" type. In 1996, the ship received a new name - Arcadia (when you look for its pictures on various sites - at least one more ship is referred to as Ardkadia, which has nothing to do with our fleet - New Australia and also Monarch of Bermuda). In 1997, the ship was renamed Island Holyday, and the ship operated under this name until 1998. From 1998 to the present - ENCHANTED CAPRI.
The photo was taken before the collapse of the USSR, but it is not yet possible to determine the exact year
Fremantle port, first half of the 90s
Southampton 1992
"Azerbaijan" in Genoa, late 70s. By the way, there is a photo of the motor ship "Ivan Franko" taken at the same pier. Just from a slightly different angle.
1998, the name is Island Holiday
photo from 1996-1997
In 1976, two more vessels of the series were delivered to the USSR Ministry of Marine and Fleet - Kazakhstan and Karelia.
The motor ship "Kazakhstan" was renamed in 1996 - ROYAL SEAS, and in 1997 - "Ukraine". It was for this reason that “Belarus” was called “Kazakhstan II”. In 1998, the ship changed ownership, flag and name - ISLAND ADVENTURE. The ship still operates under this name today. Although in what capacity is difficult to say. It is known that in 2007 it operated in Miami Beach as a floating casino.
"Kazakhstan" in Greece, Mykonos, May 1983
"Ukraine" leaves Fort Lauderdale, 1998
ISLAND ADVENTURE, photo 1998, location - Fort Lauderdale
Miami Beach, 2007
The last ship in the series was the Karelia. She is currently based in Hong Kong.
"Karelia" was put into operation in 1976, in 1982 the first renaming - the ship received the name of the recently deceased General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee L. I. Brezhnev. In 1989, when perestroika was in full swing in the country, the ship was renamed again - its original name was returned. In 1998, the ship passed under the Liberian flag and changed its name to OLVIA, then a series of resales and renamings followed - 2004 - NEPTUNE, 2005 - CT NEPTUNE, 2006 - NEPTUNE.
December 1983
"Leonid Brezhnev" in the Kiel Canal, 1985
"Leonid Brezhnev" in the port of Tilbury, 1987
Port of Tilbury, 1989
"Karelia" in the first half of the 90s
OLVIA in 2004, the mouth of the Elbe River
Neptun in 2007, Hong Kong
Hong Kong, March 2010
________________________________________ ___________________
Photos of ships - www.shipspotting.com, www.faktaomfartyg.se
Information on renaming - www.faktaomfartyg.se
July 3 — Belarus also celebrates River Fleet Day. Until recently, Sozh was not only a place of rest, but also a breadwinner and the main transport route. ABOUT river history The city has preserved interesting archival documents...
Manufactory on 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 emergence. A convenient place for a berth on the way from the “Varangians to the Greeks” clearly contributed to the flourishing of medieval Gomel.
It was on 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 Dnieper became one of the most important sources of income for local merchants. At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, regular steamship services opened from Gomel to Kyiv, Vetka and Propoisk. The width of the Sozh near Gomel in 1913, for example, reached 100 fathoms, during the flood in some places - up to 10 versts. “As a beautiful navigable river, which was of particular concern to the shipping department, the Sozh significantly contributed to the continuous development of Gomel as a large shopping center“,” write the authors of the reference book “All Gomel” for 1913.
The Civil War caused severe damage to transport, including water transport. Some of the ships were mobilized into the Dnieper military flotilla, one of them sank in Gomel right near the bridge. In June 1921, the Galak gang captured Radul and the mooring here in a surprise raid. passenger ship, which went from Kyiv to Gomel. 40 Red Army soldiers and Cheka employees were disarmed. The “Russian” passengers were released, but more than 70 Jews were stripped, robbed and drowned in the Dnieper.
Upon completion civil war water transport began to restore. There was no equipped port in pre-revolutionary Gomel. Manufacture, grain and hemp were transshipped by hand on wooden piers. Until recently, lead seals of various trading houses could be found on the river sand near the park.
The onset 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, construction of an elevator began on its territory.
On the Sozh coast of the Caucasus
The location for the Gomel port was chosen between the Gypsy descent and the Dedno ravine.
Adjoining the future port, as expected, were picturesque and notoriously criminal slums called “Caucasus”. Subsequently, a story about the construction of the port was even published in Gomel - under the epic title “The Conquest of the Caucasus”...
This place was not chosen by chance - in the nearby backwater they had been wintering for a long time. river boats. There was also a protective dam - “Strelka”. But the new plans were grandiose - it was supposed to equip timber and oil harbors with mechanical loading facilities, an oil loading base, warehouses, work premises, two kilometers of “sheet piling” and concrete embankment, and build a highway and railway. And also - a 4-story brick house for water workers, a wooden dormitory for ship crews and the same house for longshoremen. Apparently, the last of these wooden barracks on Volotovskaya Street was demolished quite recently.
But the most important thing is that the project was so ambitious that it even included the construction of a lock system on Sozh! The state archive of the Gomel region contains documents signed by the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the BSSR Nikolai Goloded. The head of the Belarusian government was originally from Novozybkovsky district, and previously worked for a long time in the Gomel province. The decision he signed provided for the construction of locks and corresponding 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 is anyone’s guess...
Clear water under the keel
Strange as it may seem, at that turbulent time of industrialization, the designers of the Gomel port showed considerable concern for the environment. A corresponding commission was formed, which included the head of the work of the Gomel “Portstroy” N.I. Malyarenko, engineer I.M. Pushkin, city sanitary doctor Livshits. In their opinion, only pure water— storm water, melt water, or specially purified water. There was even a demand to close the starch and syrup plant, which dumped waste into Lake Dedno (the vicinity of the modern 17th microdistrict). Waste water from the city bathhouse-laundry under construction was allowed to be discharged into Dedno only after purification in “grease traps” and settling tanks. Also, all toilets 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 riverbed (“old man”) of the Sozh.
At the same time, the head of the Dnieper-Dvina river transport department, Pochebut, authorized for the construction of the Sozh port, raised the question of creating the Gomel ship repair workshops - the future large shipbuilding plant - before the People's Commissariat of Water Transport. An area was allocated for the workshops “on the South Pier at the Spit.”
One of the first ships to arrive here for repairs at the end of 1933 was the boat “Jefferi,” which belonged to the Gomel City Council. In total, there were 42 units of equipment on the “Gomel roadstead” at that time. 8 of them belonged to the Dnieper-Dvina river transport, the rest were leased or belonged to various organizations - from the “Department of Entertainment and Cultural Park” to the crushed stone artel and the Volya correctional colony. The Gomel rivermen had at their disposal the Kleptan and Benz motorboats, the Locomobile, Case, and Auston motorboats, and the Ragal motorboat. The Kleptan motorboat served as a tugboat and had a 60 horsepower engine, the Benz had an 81 horsepower engine. The Packard motor-dub carried passengers for the Lunacharsky park.
What is 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 it could also be related to the Gomel oak forests - part of its frame was traditionally made of oak wood. Plus, the young “builders of the future” thought of equipping the oak with an internal combustion engine - and the result was a good vessel of the “river-sea” class. The gas oil supplied from Samara burned in the engine of the motorcycle engine. But four oak trees in Gomel in 1933 still remained rowing.
In addition to motorboats, sailing boats glided along the surface of the Sozh at that time and gilyars walked. The Laib's displacement was up to 45 tons. Around one of them, as evidenced by documents, a scandal erupted due to its “speculatory and greedy use.”
Gomel "Titanic"
But, of course, at that time such deviations were rather the exception to the rule. All river vessels worked in the interests of the country. Thus, in 1933, Belarusian water workers were tasked with transporting 60 thousand tons of potatoes and 30 thousand tons of grain along Sozh, Besedi and Berezina. The same motorboats could tow flat-bottomed wooden barges and Berlins, assembled using ancient technology - without a single nail. And fulfill the five-year plan for them.
But not everything went smoothly - the surface of the water is so deceptive... During the navigation of 1933, the non-steam vessel "Nikolaev" was wrecked in the Chenok area. Its displacement is impressive - 800 tons! A real Dnieper-Dvina Titanic. After all, the carrying capacity of the entire Gomel fleet at that time was 456 tons. Apparently it was a huge wooden barge. Operating river workers say that it is not difficult to run aground in the Chenok area even today; the river here makes a sharp bend. Once on land, the wooden ship, like a giant whale, slowly began to agonize. Its body, most likely assembled using wooden dowel bolts, 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 “launch” commission was created to accept the Gomel port. With its entry into operation, there were two “city-forming” industries in Gomel - Railway and water transport. The port workshops soon grew into a large shipbuilding plant. In the center of the city, residential buildings for watermen were built, a rivermen's club, a river school and technical school, and a station for young sailors were opened. The Dnieper-Dvinsk administration was based in Gomel river shipping company. The Gomel port has become one of the largest, if not the largest, in Belarus.
Sources:
1. "All Gomel", Gomel, 1913
2. State Archives of the Gomel Region, F. 296, Op.1, D. 210, 334
The length of the waterways of Belarus is 2.5 thousand kilometers. Our country is small, the roads are good, so internal transportation by river transport, although it exists, is developing poorly. Bye. Today Belarus is actively modernizing its waterways to meet the requirements of European qualifications. Transit is an excellent 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 route from the Dnieper to the Vistula - a route of international importance with the designation E-40 - appeared. The “new old” idea was launched in the spring of 2014 in Brest. Then a memorandum was signed between Belarus, Ukraine and Poland on the restoration 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 - design. And only then - implementation.
Recently, journalists from Belarusian and foreign media mass media interested organizations showed how hydraulic structures are being updated in Belarus. At the expense of the budget.
Of the 11 waterworks, five have already been reconstructed. They have found a second life and meet 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 waterworks per month. Not much...
Currently, up to 1 million tons of cargo are transported along Belarusian rivers. The plans are for at least four million. Crushed stone from Mikashevichi, sand, potassium salts from the Petrikovsky deposit... Two oil tankers are being built at the Pinsk Shipyard, which will be used to transport oil products from Mozyr to Brest.
Belarus is interested in transit. And for Europe, an additional transit line by water could not come at a better time.
The creation of a new route “from the Varangians to the Greeks” with a length of more than 2 thousand kilometers is hampered by several neglected river sections. You can walk from Brest to Kherson by water. The bottleneck is the section of the Western Bug from Brest to Warsaw. There is a blind dam in Brest. Next is a wild river without hydraulic structures, without track work or clearing. Three options for restoring the section to Warsaw have been developed. And also 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? It’s a matter of time and more than one hundred million dollars.
Cargo transportation by river is cheaper than by land. But passenger river transport is not cheap. Today on the balance sheet of the Belarusian River Shipping Company 10 passenger ships. Walking. They ride on the water in Brest, Pinsk, Mogilev, Gomel and Rechitsa, as well as on the Zaslavsky Reservoir. During the navigation period, a little more than 99 thousand tourists were transported. Less than last year.
But boats for pleasure trips with passengers do not yet use the E-40 waterway. Although a number of waterworks have infrastructure for such travel. Perhaps the first to try out the new possibilities of water will be a cruise ship for tourist and excursion transportation, which will sail along the route Brest - Kyiv. The ship, 43.6 meters long and 7 meters wide, with a restaurant and a casino, is being completed by the Pinsk Shipyard. Next year - launching. Secretary of the Commission for the development of the E-40 water transport connection on the Dnieper-Vistula section Andrey Rekesh noted that a cruise ship is not a passenger ship for delivering passengers from point A to point B, therefore it will travel at a speed of no more than 20 kilometers per hour, and the pleasure of traveling on it will not be cheap.
While big plans are waiting for big money, enthusiasts are taking action. In 2015, the first shipping festival was held in Belarus. The small combat boat "Yatvyag", built by three reenactors from Lida, tested the waters of the Neman. The owners of an agricultural estate from the Kobrin region, with the help of artisans, built the ship “Sleipnir” (a sliding, magical eight-legged horse in mythology). Recently, a test launch of the vessel and a swim along the Mukhavets River took place.
It's probably worth taking the oars in good company and watching tourist routes, which are offered by the owners of the farmstead. But - in the spring. This year's navigation is completed...
