Volzhskaya Belyana

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

Few, probably, know that some hundred years ago ships sailed along the Russian Volga River, their displacement surpassing the cruiser "Aurora", and they were built … from wood!

They were called Belyans and went down in the history of Russian shipbuilding as the most unique river ships in the world.

First of all, speaking of the Belyans, it should be noted that they were very large, at least for river vessels. Preserved information that there were belyans up to a hundred meters long, and their side height reached six meters!

The carrying capacity of the Belians corresponded to their size and could be 100-150 thousand poods (poods - 16 kg) for small Belians, but for large ones it reached 800 thousand poods! That is, these were the dimensions, albeit not very large, but nevertheless an ocean ship, although they sailed exclusively from the upper and lower reaches of the Volga and had never been further than Astrakhan!

It is known that the construction of one middle Volga Belyana took about 240 pine logs and 200 spruce logs. At the same time, the flat bottom was made of spruce beams, and the sides were made of pine. The distance between the frames is no more than half a meter, which is why the strength of the Belyana hull was extremely high. At the same time, as it very often happened with us in the past, the Belyans were built at first without a single nail, and only later they began to hammer them together with iron nails.

Belyana's hull was sharpened both in front and behind, and it was controlled with the help of a huge steering wheel - a lot that looked like a real boardwalk, which was turned with the help of a huge long log led from the stern to the deck. Because of this, the lot was floated down the river not with the bow, but with the stern. From time to time, wiggling a huge lot like a lazy whale's tail, she swam like this, but despite all her awkwardness, she had excellent maneuverability! In addition to the lot, the Belyana had large and small anchors weighing from 20 to 100 pounds, as well as a great variety of various ropes, hemp and sponge.

But the most interesting thing about Belyana was, in general, her cargo - "white forest", that is, white and yellow logs devoid of bark. It is believed that because of this it was called that way, although there is another point of view, as if the word "Belyana" is associated with the Belaya River. In any case, any Belyana was always white, since these ships served only one navigation and therefore never prayed!

But the belyany was loaded in the way that no ship in the world was loaded or loaded, as evidenced by even the following proverb: "You can disassemble the belyana with one hand, you cannot collect the belyana in all cities." This was due to the fact that the timber was placed in the Belyana not just in a stack, but in a stack with many spans, in order to have access to its bottom in case of a leak. At the same time, the cargo of the sides did not touch or put pressure on them. But since at the same time the outboard water pressed on them, special wedges were inserted between the cargo and the sides, which, as they dried out, were replaced by larger and larger ones.

At the same time, as soon as the forest began to exceed the height of the Belyana board, the logs began to be laid so that they protruded beyond the boards, and a new load was laid on them. Such protrusions were called splits or spacing, which one had to be able to arrange so as not to disturb the balance of the vessel. At the same time, the dissolutions sometimes protruded overboard by four or more meters to the sides, so that the width of the vessel at the top turned out to be much larger than at the bottom, and reached 30 meters for some Belians!

The log baggage in the Belyana hull was also not solid, but consisted of spans with holes for ventilation. Therefore, in the old days, the size of Belyany was judged by the number of spans on it, and there were Belyany about three, four spans, and so on.

"Kazenki", deck and pumps

Interestingly, the deck of Belyana was also nothing more than a load, but was laid either from a plank or from sawn boards, and was so large that it resembled the deck of a modern aircraft carrier. 2-4 gates were placed on it for lifting large anchors and tensioning the ropes holding the lot.

But closer to the stern on the whites, for the sake of balance, two small huts were installed - "kazenki", which served as the habitat of the ship's crew. Between the roofs of the huts there was a high cross bridge with a carved booth in the middle, in which the pilot was located. At the same time, the booth was covered with carvings, and sometimes it was even painted with paint like "gold".

Although this vessel was purely functional, the Belians were nevertheless richly decorated with flags, not only state and commercial flags, but also the own flags of a particular merchant, which most often depicted blessing saints or some symbols suitable for the occasion. These flags were sometimes so large that they fluttered over the Belians like sails. But the merchants did not usually take into account the expenses on them, since here the main thing was to declare themselves!

There were 15 to 35 workers in Belyana, and at the largest - from 60 to 80. Many of them worked on pumps that pumped water out of the building, and there were 10-12 such pumps, since the Belyana building always leaked little by little. Because of this, the belyana was loaded so that its nose plunged into the water deeper than the stern, and all the water would drain there!

The construction of Belyany on the Volga reached a special peak in the middle of the 19th century in connection with the beginning of mass steamship traffic. Since steamers at that time ran on wood (and there were about 500 of them), it is not difficult to imagine what a huge amount of wood this entire fleet required.

Firewood was brought to the Volga ports exclusively on Belyany, and only gradually, in connection with the transition to oil, the demand for firewood on the Volga fell. Nevertheless, even at the end of the 19th century, up to 150 of them continued to be built here annually and loaded with timber, they were floated down the river up to Astrakhan.

Then these unique ships were dismantled, so much so that in the literal sense of the word, nothing was left of them! "Kazenki" were sold as ready-made huts, the timber was used for building material, hemp, matting and ropes, not to mention the fasteners - absolutely everything brought income to the owners of the Belians! Only small belyans, loaded with fish in Astrakhan, walked back, drawn by the barge haulers. However, then they were also dismantled and sold for firewood. Keeping Belyana afloat for more than one season turned out to be unprofitable!

The history of Belyans is also interesting because some of them were assembled and disassembled twice in one navigation! So, for example, small Belyany in the place where the Volga came close to the Don, moored to the shore, after which all the cargo from them was transported by horse carts to the Don. After that, the Belyana itself was dismantled, transported after the load, reassembled and loaded at a new place. Now the forest was rafted on them to the lower reaches of the Don, where the Belians were sorted out for the second time!

And now judge for yourself how creative and savvy our distant ancestors were, who managed to create such huge and cargo-lifting river vessels, which represented an almost waste-free vehicle for one season.