Where is the city from? Part 6. Ladoga Canals

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

I cannot pass by two more grandiose construction projects (no less grandiose than the "Thunder Stone", "Isaac" and "Alexander's Pillar"), which official historians easily attribute to the omnipresent and omnipotent Tsar Peter the Great.

Huge canals (Novoladozhsky and Staroladozhsky) stretch almost from the source of the Neva along the southern coast of Ladoga.

Novoladozhsky channel

Staroladozhsky channel.

What kind of effort does such a construction require? We know about this from recent history, however, official science only casually notes that the canals were built for the covert movement of ships along Ladoga (where and where?). The idiocy of this statement is obvious.

First, it is easier to navigate the ships along Ladoga itself (at night, in fog, etc.), since the construction of the canal takes time and cannot be carried out secretly. And if the enemy knows about the existence of the channel, then it is enough to place observers along the banks and …

Secondly, the canal was dug literally along the shore of Ladoga and is perfectly visible from the lake - no one seems to have hidden it. Sitting in the old cemetery in the village of Kobona, observing the canal and Lake Ladoga at the same time, there is no reasonable explanation for digging this canal. A fair question arises: why such colossal costs? Even today, having calculated the volumes, drawing a network diagram taking into account the capabilities of the builders of the early 18th century, we get a construction site that will take decades. And all this taking into account the fact that factories (not artels, namely factories) for the extraction, production and transportation of granite, excavator equipment and heavy trucks have already been built and are operating. I am silent about the engineering personnel, surveyors, bridge builders, civil engineers, transport workers, river workers.

By comparison: Building the Panama Canal is just as quick, economical and easy.

An American ship is approaching one of the Panama Canal locks.

In the spring of 1879, the Paris Geographical Society came up with the initiative to establish the General Interoceanic Canal Company and commissioned Ferdinand de Lesseps to lead it. A hereditary diplomat, he successfully supervised the construction of the Suez Canal in Egypt, which was commissioned in 1869. The scale of construction in Panama promised to be no less impressive. In 1878, engineer Lucien Napoleon Bonaparte-Weiss received a 99-year concession for the construction and operation of the canal from the Colombian authorities. But the great-nephew of the emperor realized in time that he was not in a position to raise such a project. Ferdinand de Lesseps easily persuaded Bonaparte-Weiss to cede the rights to build the canal to him for 10 million francs and began to act according to the scenario already tested on the Suez Canal. We issued shares. But they raised less funds than was required - 300 million francs instead of the planned four hundred. The creator of the Suez Canal went to the United States, but there he was not given money. The Yankees remained true to the Monroe Doctrine: the American continent was a conservation area for American companies. The French, however, was not going to retreat and in 1881 began construction. From the very beginning, everything went awry. The construction shells broke down, unable to cope with the stony ground. The workers, brought in mainly from the nearby Caribbean colonies of France, were mowed down in the thousands by yellow fever and malaria. It got to the point that people who were recruited for the construction left for Panama with coffins prepared in advance! Further here …

Weaklings, huh? They would have the magical capabilities of Peter the Great, they would have managed it in six months.