Car-passenger ships of the "Belorussia" type. Remembering the liner "Belarus" The first steamship in Belarus

It is no coincidence that the first quarter of the 19th century. V Russian history often called the "Rumyantsev era". Nikolai Petrovich’s activities are large-scale, multifaceted, and extend in different directions. Having received a European education and lived in Europe for a long time, he was one of the most enlightened people of his time, who sought to introduce advanced European experience onto Russian soil. The implementation of many projects in the posts of Director of the Department of Water Communications and Minister of Commerce pursued the goal of overcoming the economic backwardness of Russia. We see similar aspirations in the example of farming in N.P. Rumyantsev Gomel estate. In the first quarter of the 19th century. Plant seeds, new breeds of sheep and cattle are imported to the estate from Europe, and technical innovations find various applications. Among them is a project to build a steamship for the Gomel estate. This was a new matter not only for Belarus, but also for Russia as a whole.

It should be noted that the first steamship "Elizabeth" was built in Russia in 1815. The following description of this event appeared in the newspaper of that time: “This ship sailed for an hour and a half different directions in a round pool, opposite the palace, the diameter of which does not exceed forty fathoms. The comfortable movement of such a large vessel in such a small space of water presented a pleasant spectacle and showed how easy it was to control. The news of this phenomenon, the location and the beautiful weather that day attracted an extraordinary number of spectators there.” It is unknown whether Nikolai Petrovich Rumyantsev was among them, but he had no doubt that “these ships in many cases can be useful for the Gomel economy.” “The State Chancellor gave me a copy of the letter regarding the construction of a steamship on the river. Sozh. He asks to provide him with drawings of the steamship according to the agreement.”– the manager of the Gomel estate addresses A.F. Deryabin To Charles Bird in 1818

Charles Bird is an English mechanic who arrived in Russia in 1786. 6 years later he built the first mechanical foundry in St. Petersburg at the mouth of the Neva, a shipyard and a sawmill here. It was from his shipyard that the first steamship “Elizabeth” came out. Negotiations are underway with him about setting up a steamship on the river. Sozh. “I will now enter into direct communication with Mr. Bird. First, I will consult with Mr. Smith and then I will write to Byrd, and in what sense I will not inform you in due time.”– writes A.F. Deryabin N.P. Rumyantsev. And in a letter to Byrd: “Smith undertakes to build a ship according to these drawings, install a steam engine and put it into operation.”

Mr. Smith was one of those specialists whom Nikolai Petrovich invited to Gomel to implement his projects. In particular, he was involved in the construction of distilleries in the Petrovsky farm, Dobrush. The construction of the steamship was also one of those projects in which he was directly involved.

What could the first steamship launched in Gomel be like? Considering that it was built at the Bird plant, it can be assumed that it belonged to the Elizabeth type, which had the following characteristics: length 18.3 m, width 4.5 m, draft 0.61 m, displacement 30 tons. It was equipped with side paddle wheels with a diameter of 2.4 m and a width of 1.2 m, and a Watt steam engine with a power of 4 horsepower, which allowed the ship to reach speeds of up to 6 knots. In 1820, 15 ships of this type operated in Russia with steam engines from 12 to 32 horsepower.

The new type of water transport cost the Gomel economy 20 thousand rubles and was launched in 1824. It was named “Nikolai”. The project was expensive. Suffice it to say that Nikolai Petrovich’s brother Sergei, who inherited the Gomel estate in 1826, asked for 300 rubles when selling for one male serf.

However, the first steamships had a number of shortcomings that prevented the Nikolai steamship from operating on the Sozh River for a long time. The steamships of the early 19th century were wooden and very heavy, had a deep draft, and often ran aground. Little cargo was transported, because... had to take it with me a large number of firewood for running the steam engine. We walked along the river slowly, and even more slowly with the load. In addition, every time a car broke down, it was necessary to appoint specialists to repair it. Manager of the Gomel estate Moschinsky in 1826, in a letter to Nikolai Petrovich, he reports : “The obstacles to the desired benefit from it are the small rivers there.”

In the winter of 1826, from a letter from Moschinsky, we learn that the ship is docked in Krylovets (Krolevets?), and there is a buyer for it.

And although the ship did not serve the Gomel residents for long, and steamships returned to the Sozh River later, when the designers replaced the wooden ship hull with a lighter metal one, nevertheless, the Gomel residents can rightfully be proud that the new kind water transport appeared for the first time in Belarus in Gomel. And the experimenter and innovator Nikolai Petrovich Rumyantsev was to blame for this.

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 in the most advantageous position there were those that belonged to 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 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. More large quantity 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 industrial development 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 century. Work was carried out to improve communication routes. The construction of postal 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 Neman), Berezinsky (Dnieper and Western Dvina), Dnieper-Bugsky (Dnieper and Vistula), Augustovsky (Neman 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. From Western Europe Transit cargo went 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 of 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 being built up 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 houses are stone and for the most part very large, and the streets are quite smoothly paved with stone and very neatly kept. 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 of the 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.

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. Telegraph correspondents were able to verify that the Belarusian fleet exists 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 tens of kilometers with cargo 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 minerals) building materials) works 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 it using gantry cranes construction sand", noted the chief engineer of the port.

“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 Railway does not reach, and we can transport crushed stone and any other cargo there. Shipping was a little forgotten as a mode of transport, but now it is slowly beginning to revive. The Belarusian River Shipping Company begins to work closely with Ukraine: we transport granulated slag, carry out timber transportation, and transport oil products. “This is largely done by the Mozyr river port 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 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 during the winter period for fleet repairs, both in the port itself and in the Rechitsa and Gomel shipbuilding areas. -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 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 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 fine,” 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

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 to the Black Sea Shipping Company of the USSR Ministry of Marine and Fleet.

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. Photo 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 Ministry of Marine Fleet of the USSR - 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 vacation spot, 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. IN late XIX- at the beginning of the 20th century, regular steamship service 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 directory “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, in a surprise raid, captured Radul and a passenger ship moored here, which was sailing 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 manually 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 port loaders. 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 clean water should flow into the “Port” (that’s how they spelled the word - with a capital letter) - rainwater, 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 rowable.

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 - water surface 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, Gomel became home to two “city-forming” industries - railways 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 riverine school and technical school, and a station for young sailors were opened. The management of the Dnieper-Dvina River Shipping Company was based in Gomel. The Gomel port has become one of the largest, if not the largest, in Belarus.

Sources:

1. "All Gomel", Gomel, 1913

2. State Archives Gomel region, F. 296, Op.1, D. 210, 334