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 the use of new technology 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 construction. sea vessels- tankers, timber carriers, dry cargo ships, cargo and 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
Since the mid-70s, the passenger fleet has been actively renewed Black Sea Shipping Company. The ships were also built in Finland, which at that time was a trendsetter in the construction of passenger ferries
Motor ship "Belorussia". blackseanews.net
Thus, in the Finnish city of Turku, at the Vyartsilya shipyard, five similar auto-passenger ferries were under construction, intended for the Black Sea Shipping Company. The lead ship was given the name "Belarus", the second - "Georgia", the third - "Azerbaijan", the fourth - "Kazakhstan", the fifth - "Karelia".
Almost half a century separated these ships from the previous passenger “Krymchaks”; a lot has changed over the past years. The demand for tourist travel in the Black Sea has increased, the navigation area has expanded passenger ships, especially in autumn and winter.
The inclusion of ships of this series into the passenger fleet of the ChMP meant a qualitative leap. This required the introduction of a number of organizational and technical innovations. In the ports of the Crimean-Caucasian line, there was a need to equip special “corner” berths to enable the mooring of vessels of the “Belorussia” type and the opening of ramps. It was also necessary to develop and implement technology for the accumulation and loading of vehicles, containers, etc.
The new ships were noticeably different from their predecessors built in the thirties in terms of the comfort of passenger accommodations and shape: the calm straightness of the hull and superstructures was replaced by the dynamism of the lines.
Sloping superstructures, a mast bent back and a chimney with wings gave the Belorussia a swift and graceful appearance. When designing the vessel, special attention was paid to providing passengers with maximum comfort, creating an atmosphere of comfort and good conditions for relax.
"Belorussia" had a deadweight of 3000 tons; length - 157 m; width - 21.8 m; draft - up to 6.2 m. Power of two main 18-cylinder diesel engines - I8000 hp. at a rotation speed of 520 rpm it allowed the speed to reach 2І knots. To reduce pitching, the ship had stabilizer devices. There was a thruster, bow, stern and side ramps.
The ship originally had 173 passenger cabins for 480 people. The car deck could accommodate up to 250 cars. In 1986, the ship was refurbished, passenger capacity increased, and additional cabins were built.
“Belarus”, like a banner, picked up its name from the famous steamship Far Eastern Shipping Company. Under the same name, it transported economic and military cargo to the Arctic, and in the most difficult wartime conditions it made its way as part of caravans, overcoming ice and enemy confrontation.
In March 1944, the ship "Belorussia" under the command of captain K.G. Kondratyev was traveling with cargo from the USA to Vladivostok. In the area of Iturup Island (Kuril Islands) it was torpedoed and sunk by a Japanese submarine. Miraculously, two crew members survived: stokers I.P. Petrovich and Ya.P. Pochernin. 41 people died.
On January 15, 1975, the state flag of the USSR was raised on the lead ship of the series of auto-passenger ferries, the motor ship Belorussia. At the beginning of February, the crew was completed in Riga, the ship was supplied for upcoming foreign voyages. At the same time, Vladimir Vysotsky made his first visit to the Belorussia, with whom the crew formed a long-lasting friendship.
The ship was received by one of the most experienced captains of the ChMP, Felix Dashkov. Before that, he commanded the motor ship "Lithuania", and proved himself to be excellent while working on the international line Odessa - Marseille. Dashkov transferred the level of service achieved on the Litva to the Belorussia and did a lot to improve comfort, since the new ship was of a higher class.
"Belorussia" began its work on cruises with tourists from the West German company "Turopa" along the route Genoa - Canary Islands. Sailing along this route in the cold season lasted for many years. Since 1977, work on the Marseille line has been equally constant during the summer months. In addition, the ship sailed along the Crimean-Caucasian and Middle Eastern lines and carried out cruises around Europe.
In the 80s, the West German Dolphin Seereisen and the French Transtour Company acted as charterers. The ship began making Arctic cruises with a call at Spitsbergen. "Belorussia" worked stably and without accidents. The annual income from operation amounted to several million foreign currency rubles.
Unforeseen incidents also happened. So, in October-November 1979, the ship carried out cruises to the USA with Soviet tourists. At the Boston-Baltimore crossing, the ship pierced a 12-meter-long whale with its bulbous stem. The main engines were stopped. To free itself from the carcass, it was necessary to call port tugs, which slung the whale and pulled it off the stem.
The Belorussia was repaired first in Yugoslavia, and since 1977, the Odessa shipyard "Ukraine" mastered and successfully carried out dock repairs of ships of this series. In February-May 1986, the ship was modernized in Bremerhaven.
There have been many passengers on Belarus flights famous people, for example, the outstanding Soviet writer Konstantin Simonov. In 1975 and 1977, Vladimir Vysotsky and Marina Vladi made a sea voyage on the ship. The crew tried to do everything to make such dear guests happy. And Vladimir gave sailors and tourists his wonderful songs.
Before the collapse of the USSR, the financial and economic situation in the ChMP was stable, but since 1992 the shipping company began to feel the consequences of non-payments and crisis phenomena, and itself became a debtor. It was during this difficult time that “Belarus” got into a major accident. On October 25, 1992, the Belarusian ship was lifted into the dock at a ship repair yard in Singapore. The motor ship arrived for scheduled repairs and docking under the command of Captain I.N. Mironenko, who headed the ship since 1980. A replacement crew also flew to Singapore.
During the process of docking, when the ship was already standing on the keel blocks, the ship suddenly trembled (as it later turned out, several “cushions” of the keel blocks pushed through the pontoon) and fell first to the left, then began to heel more thoroughly to the starboard side. There was a loud crash. Two cranes collapsed from the dock tower onto a nearby floating dock.
The dock workers fell into the water like peas: the ship capsized along with the dock. Captain Mironenko declared a general ship alarm and organized the evacuation of the crew. A shore crane brought in a “gazebo” and began filming the team, half of which were women.
The neighboring dock was submerged, and the cranes on its towers, until they were torn off, slowed down the list of the Belorussia. The ocean tug moored nearby withdrew in time, otherwise he would have gotten it too.
After the onset of full water, the ship's roll reached 52 degrees, and the ship that had fallen onto the dock received serious damage. Then the position of the vessel along with the dock stabilized. However, in ship premises There was a significant amount of water; the cabins of the lower decks where the crew were accommodated were flooded. Fuel oil spilled from the fuel tanks, and things floated in rainbow stains. This was the first case in the history of the Black Sea Marine fleet of a dock and a vessel capsizing.
On November 14, straightening of the vessel began with the help of two powerful floating cranes. After which 19 pumps pumped water out of the flooded premises. The ship was then placed in dry dock for restoration and repair work, which continued until May 1993.
Later it was decided to send the ship to Bremerhaven to complete repairs. This decision can hardly be called appropriate, since the ChMP was already in debt to the Lloyd Werft company, where the repairs were planned, and the production of Belorussia raised this debt to 24 million German marks. Repairs in Singapore would be much cheaper.
As a result, the repair work ended in high-profile financial scandals, criminal cases were opened, Lloyd Werft's claims were added to the claims of creditors of other companies, which further complicated the financial situation of the private enterprise. By the way, the arrest of the motor ship "Odessa" in April 1995 in Naples was carried out on the basis of a claim from Lloyd Werft.
The renovation of Belorussia was completed in December 1993. The ship was renamed Kazakhstan-2 and continued cruising. In July 1995, the ship was detained in the port of Tromso by representatives of the International Transport Workers Union. The reason for the delay was that the crew did not have an agreement with the shipowner and that the crew received wages below the level established by the Union.
In 1996, the Liberian flag was raised on the ship. According to some reports, the motor ship "Belorussia" already under the name "Dolphin" at the beginning of 2012 was still working as part of a small German company. It was commanded by Captain Vladimir Vorobyov, who, by the way, was once a trainee on the Belorussia.
This is the history of the ship, which successfully operated as part of the passenger fleet of the Black Sea Shipping Company.
Vladimir Polyakov, Chairman of the Council of Veterans of the ChMP Fleet, Senior Engineer,
Oleg Bulovich, Deputy Chairman of the Council of Navy Veterans of the ChMP
Ports of Ukraine, No. 7 (119) 2012
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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 a river one. The fact is that Belarusian fleet exists, Telegraph correspondents were able to verify personal experience, having visited the river port of Bobruisk (which, by the way, is one of the eight branches of the Republican Unitary Enterprise "Belarusskoe river shipping company"), and after having traveled and with the cargo not a single ten kilometers on a towing ship.
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 management 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, uses “this or that watercraft, if it is free, and sends it to any point in Belarus where it can be delivered.”
Thus, the ships of the Bobruisk port, although they work mainly on the Berezina, but in 2008-2010 they worked in the port of Gomel and also reached Turov. Today, one of the Bobruisk dredgers (a vessel designed for dredging and extraction of non-metallic construction materials) operates in the river port of Mogilev.
The main activity of the port of Bobruisk today is the transportation of construction mineral cargo. Basically, this is sand, which is mined from the bottom of the Berezina to ensure navigation on 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 construction sand using portal cranes,” noted the port’s chief engineer.
“To go, for example, to Mikashevichi for crushed stone is very far. You have to go to the Dnieper, go through Ukraine to Pripyat to Mikashevichi - this is a very large circle over a distance of 830 km (while the distance from Mikashevich to Bobruisk by rail is only 300 km Therefore, such transportation this moment No. However, notes the chief engineer, river and railway transport complement each other.
“There are places where the railway does not reach, and we can transport crushed stone and any other cargo there. The shipping company was a little forgotten as a form of transport, but now it is slowly beginning to revive. The Belarusian river shipping company is starting to work closely with Ukraine: we transport granulated slag , we carry out timber transportation, transportation of petroleum products. “This is largely done by the river port of Mozyr and adjacent ports,” he says.
“Last year, our ship participated in the transportation of oversized cargo for the Novolukoml and Berezovskaya State District Power Plants. Apparently, this year there will be some deliveries as well. We plan to take part in these transportations along the Berezina River,” said Grigory Artemchik. In the last three years, Bobruisk ships also transported timber for the Svetlogorsk pulp and cardboard mill from the Berezino pier, where timber was harvested.
The port of Bobruisk currently employs 67 people. In operation there are three towing ships, two dredgers, five non-self-propelled barges with a lifting capacity of 1 thousand tons and two non-self-propelled barges with a lifting capacity of 350 tons, two floating reloaders, which are used when working where there are no portal cranes (in Svetlogorsk, Parichi). In total, in 2012 the Bobruisk port had 300 thousand tons of transportation, this year 350-400 thousand tons are expected.
“We work as soon as the ice melts and before freeze-up. Naturally, in the spring, when the waters are high, we can make maximum use of the carrying capacity of our barges. After working in May and June in Bobruisk and accumulating sand for construction organizations in Bobruisk, we will go to work in Svetlogorsk. In July-September, of course, the loading of ships decreases due to the lack of depth. But since we are constantly deepening the bottom, we try to maintain the volume of transportation. We use the winter period to repair the fleet, both in the port itself and at the Rechitsa and Gomel shipbuilding yards -ship repair yards, which were recently joined to the shipping company,” he noted.
In addition, according to Grigory Artemchik, the port is now closely involved in the delivery of construction sand for the needs of individuals. “People come, order, and we load right on the spot without involving third parties. And, thanks to this, we receive additional income,” said the chief engineer.
He also noted that Belarus fully provides itself with 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 emerge from it as second mates to the captain or commander of the dredger. Gomel State Vocational School of River Fleet No. 30 trains motor mechanics. In addition, senior command personnel are trained there. Engineering and technical personnel are trained by the Belarusian State University of Transport and the Department of Shipbuilding and Hydraulics at BNTU. “The training of all personnel in Belarus has been streamlined,” emphasized Grigory Artemchik
The production of passenger ships is currently carried out by the Pinsk Shipyard. Three passenger ships of his production have recently been operating in Mogilev and Vitebsk. “Previously, the production of thousand-ton barges was carried out by the Rechitsa shipbuilding plant. Tugboats were produced by the Pinsk and Gomel shipbuilding plants, 350-ton barges by the Petrikovsky shipbuilding plant. And there was a shipbuilding plant in Bobruisk, but in 1986 it was combined with the port under the Soviet Union,” - said the chief engineer.
Grigory Artemchik also noted that during the ten years of his work at the port there were no significant incidents. According to him, all problems are being resolved as usual.
At the same time, Alexander Livanovich, a second-generation river captain, on the ship under whose control Telegraph correspondents set sail, said that anything could happen. So, according to him, it had happened many times before that ships were stranded and had their bottoms broken on rocks. In such cases, barges often had to be unloaded, towed, and repaired.
“This used to be the case. Now they are trying to transport everything across high water. When the water starts to fall more, they will be transferred to Svetlogorsk. It won’t be profitable here: the fuel is burned, and there is little cargo to transport. There are such places that there are a lot of stones If you get a little overloaded, that’s the only way you’ll get through,” the captain noted.
The only woman in the Bobruisk port, the cook on the ship that sheltered us, Anna Maksimova, also had to stand aground, and she treated Telegraph journalists to her dishes. Although, according to her, the saying “it’s unfortunate for a woman on a ship” is not about her. “Once four barges with timber were pulled from Berezino. So we sat aground for six days. It seemed like the shore was close, but there was no way to get out. Being aground, we had to bake bread ourselves and do everything. It was such that we had no water. They got water three kilometers away. Everything was done,” she said.
According to Nikolaevna, this is her eighth navigation, but her first on this ship. The ship she sailed on earlier has been undergoing repairs in Rechitsa since this year. Nevertheless, she says, the team here is “young and good.” “Everyone especially loves potatoes. Even if you spread them on bread, they will eat potatoes. I bake pies and buns. The river asks for food, so we don’t take the kettle off the stove,” says the cook.
On a tugboat, our route lay from the river port of Bobruisk to Lukova 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 Onion Mountain are located in Bobruisk, it took about 2.5 hours to walk against the current along the numerous bends of the Berezina. At Onion Mountain, the ship's crew deftly replaced the empty barge with one filled with sand, and the ship set off on its return journey. The journey 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, albeit without journalists.
Maxim Gatsak. Photo by Nadezhda Gatsak
Remember.
1. How does a factory differ from a manufactory? 2. What were the fairs like?
Learning task.
Identify signs of a maturing industrial revolution in Belarus.
Forms of industrial production and the beginning of the industrial revolution.
In the first half of the 19th century. Industry in Belarus was represented by various types of enterprises: craft workshops, manufactories, factories. Among industrial enterprises, those that belonged to noble landowners were in the most advantageous position. 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 of serfs. It was difficult for enterprises organized by merchants and townspeople to compete with such enterprises with their own money. Therefore, the merchant and 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 that employed from 6 to 15 workers. Here the owner was only involved in organizing the process of manufacturing and marketing the products. An even larger number of workers (over 16) made it possible to divide the production process into separate operations, which was characteristic of the manufacturing stage of industrial development.
A new phenomenon in the industrial development of Belarus in the first half of the 19th century. marked the beginning of the transition from manufacturing to factory production, which indicated the beginning of the industrial revolution. The first factories in Belarus—industrial enterprises in which there was a division of labor and machines were used—were built in the 1820s. in the villages of Khomsk, Kobrin and Kossovo, Slonim districts. The factories that produced cloth belonged to the large landowner Count Wojciech Pusłowski- the founder of an entrepreneurial dynasty. More than 400 workers from among the serfs worked at the Chomsk factory in 1823. Steam engines were used for the first time in Belarus at Puslovsky's enterprises. They replaced manual labor in factories and required specially trained workers. Forced free labor of serfs at landowner enterprises was ineffective.
The English traveler W. Cox left notes in his diary about the work of serfs in Grodno manufactories at the end of the 18th century: “. One of the students, more lively, said to her overseer, 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 my master’s serf—the work 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 out of compulsion and not out of inclination.”
Small enterprises owned by merchants and townspeople used civilian labor. 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 factories in Belarus. Almost all of them belonged to landowners. Some factories were quite large. Thus, in the town of Gomel, more than 200 people worked at the sugar enterprise of Prince I.F. Paskevich, and in the Starintsy estate of the Cherikovsky district, at the metalworking enterprise of Count Benkendorf - 600 workers.
Industry in Belarus was represented mainly by enterprises processing agricultural raw materials: distilleries (for the production of alcohol from potatoes and grains), cloth, linen, flour mills and sugar factories (for processing sugar beets). The first sugar factory in Belarus began operating in 1830 on the Molodovo estate in Kobrin district and belonged to the entrepreneur Alexander Skirmunt. For the first time in world practice, the manufacturer 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 communication and trade routes. The role of fairs. At the end of the 18th - first half of the 19th centuries. Work was carried out to improve communication routes. The construction of post roads began, and from the 1830s. — and highways (with road surfaces, shoulders and ditches). The Moscow-Brest-Warsaw highway runs from east to west, and the St. Petersburg-Kiev road runs from north to south. Canals were reconstructed or built to connect the rivers of the Black and Baltic seas: Oginsky (Dnieper and Nyoman), Berezinsky (Dnieper and Western Dvina), Dnieper-Bugsky (Dnieper and Vistula), Augustovsky (Nyoman and Vistula) ( **1). Steamships sailed along the Dnieper, Pripyat, and Western Dvina. The first steamship with a capacity of 12 horsepower was built by the Englishman A. Smith, a mechanic at the Gomel estate owned by Count N.P. Rumyantsev, and was tested on the Sozh in 1824. The number of piers and cargo turnover on the main rivers of Belarus increased significantly in 1844-1860. . increased more than 2 times.
Mainly landowners worked for the market. They supplied agricultural and livestock products, timber. About half of the landowners' income came from the sale of alcohol.
The growth of the urban population determined the demand for agricultural products. The serf peasantry conducted mainly subsistence farming and bought almost no industrial goods.
Foreign trade expanded. Transit cargo went from Western Europe through Belarus to Russian cities, and from Russia to Western European markets. Exports from Belarus were dominated by flax and flax products, grain, vodka, alcohol, wool, lard, and timber. Salt, metals, steam engines and technical equipment, cotton and silk fabrics, porcelain and earthenware, tobacco, sea fish, tea, and coffee were brought to Belarus.
The organizers of trade were merchants. They bought agricultural and industrial products and raw materials from manufacturers, delivered goods to cities and river piers, and exported them abroad. However, local merchant capital was still small.
Foreign merchants at the beginning of the 19th century. They came mainly from Warsaw, Danzig (now Gdansk) and other Western cities. In the 1840s. they were driven out by merchants from the cities of Russia.
An important role in trade by the middle of the 19th century. fairs continued to play. They were held in towns and cities on certain days, and larger ones lasted a week or more. Typically, fairs coincided with church holidays, and they included folk festivities and theatrical performances.
From the memoirs of Count L. Pototsky: “Once a year, fairs were held in Zelva, mainly horse fairs. There you could look at the horses from the herds of Sapega, Poteev, Radziwill, and purebred Polish horses, the breed of which has already disappeared. The most beautiful stallions were delivered there from the east. And far around the city everything was filled with Ukrainian herds. 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, ridden around, tried, traded, sold or bought. After dinner everyone goes shopping, in the evening there is a theater and a masquerade. or arranged meetings in private houses.”
The Zelva fair was the most significant of all 43 in the Grodno province. In the Vitebsk province, the most famous were the Osveyskaya and Beshenkovichi fairs, in the Mogilev province - the Lubavitch fair. Fair trade began to shrink over time. It was replaced by constant store trade and weekly city bazaars.
Cities and towns of Belarus. During the period from 1825 to 1861, the population of 42 cities in Belarus increased from 151 thousand to 320 thousand people. However, the share of city dwellers among the residents of Belarus remained at 10%. Among them, artisans and small traders predominated, who were part of the bourgeois class. In the provincial centers there were many officials, nobles, and clergy. Merchants and wealthy townspeople played a decisive role in city government (**2).
The population of cities has traditionally been multi-religious and multi-ethnic. Most The townspeople were Jews. This was explained by the existence of the Jewish Pale of Settlement, as well as the tsarist policy of forced relocation 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 overcrowding and cramped conditions. Ramparts 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 “Travel to Polesie and the Belarusian Territory” noted: “Minsk is one of the large and beautiful cities Western Russia. With the exception of the Trinity Suburb, the Tatarsky End and some back alleys on the outskirts of the city, in Minsk all the houses are stone and for the most part very large, and the streets are quite smoothly paved with stone and are kept very neatly. Spread over mountains and steep slopes, Minsk presents a beautiful view from almost all roads or entrances; but the view from the Borisovsky entrance, starting from Komarovka, is especially open and picturesque. Before you lies 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 winding like a snake.”
However, only provincial centers, where several tens of thousands of people lived, were more or less decently maintained. Smaller, county towns with their own appearance and way of life, with a few exceptions, not far from the towns - settlements transitional from village to city type. The number of towns increased to 400 due to the opening of fairs and bazaars in them.
Along trade routes, in the squares of cities and towns, taverns were built - inns and taverns where travelers stopped, ate, and spent the night. On their basis, hotels and postal stations were formed.
Cultural and historical environment
**1. In 1824-1839. In the difficult terrain of the Augustow Forest, construction of a 101.2 km long canal was carried out to connect Nyoman and Vistula. About 400 ships annually passed through the constructed canal, which were pulled by horses using ropes. The canal had stone locks and good technical equipment. In 1852, K. Brzostowski designed an original steam boiler for the furnace in which massive metal gates for the canal locks were cast.
Construction railway in the second half of the 19th century. caused a reduction in cargo transportation through the canal. In 2004, in our republic a decision was made to reconstruct the part of the canal located on the territory of Belarus. These works have been declared a youth construction project.
**2. In 1851, the City Duma in Minsk decided to liquidate the town hall building, which was reminiscent of the Magdeburg law received by Minsk in 1499. Emperor Nicholas I imposed the following resolution on this decision: “Break down and transfer the guards to the public offices building.” In 1857, the two-story town hall building with a 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 urban residents of Belarus? 2. a) Fill out in your notebook the comparative table “Types of industrial enterprises that existed on the territory of Belarus in the first half of the 19th century. "
b) Conclude at which type of enterprise the work of workers was most effective. 3. Why was the labor of serfs in factories ineffective? Use the information of the English traveler W. Cox. 4. Why were most 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 19th century. the industrial revolution began. 6. Using the map diagram in paragraph c, determine very much The ability to use communication routes for the export and import of goods. 7. Write a description of the fair using the “Voices of the Past” rubric.
- SECTION I. Belarus at the end of feudalism: the end of the 18th - mid-19th centuries.
- § 1. The situation of the Belarusian lands at the end of the 18th - mid-19th centuries. general characteristics
- § 2. The policy of the tsarist government in Belarus at the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th century.
- § 4. Social and political movement in the first third of the 19th century.
I continue the story about river boats, built during the first five-year plans of the USSR. Information on them - for the most part - is taken from the magazine "Technology - Youth".
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, 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 shipbuilding, one of the initiators of the use of new technology 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.
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.
