How the Zhigulevskaya HPS was built. Volzhskaya HPP, locks and fish factory History of construction and operation

A childhood dream came true - I went to visit the Cheboksary Gateway! Last week, I already told “ How does the Nizhny Novgorod gateway work”, and today we can compare it with the Cheboksary one. As usual, first things first. Let's go to another closed area!

#2. Usually, everyone is used to seeing the gateway from the side of the road-bridge across the Volga. And this is the view from the opposite side of the gateway. To get started, just look at the two photos. This is the gateway before the water release:

#3. And this is after the water has been removed. That's about as much as ships go down / up, passing through locking:

#4. We arrived here early on purpose, because. at this time, there are usually a lot of ships. However, on that day, there were no people who wanted to sail through ... Therefore, they sent a local boat on a special mission. The upper gates of the lock are lowered and the boat enters the lock freely:

#5. It moored and the discharge of water begins ... so, stop on the boat is not interesting. We were lucky and an oil ship was on the way. I will tell and show on his example, literally in a couple of pictures.

#6. Everyone believes that the Cheboksary lock is part of the Cheboksary hydroelectric power station. In fact, these are two different organizations, so getting here is not as easy as getting to the hydroelectric power station. But thanks to Irina Belikova (public relations specialist at the Cheboksary hydroelectric power station), we were allowed in here as well.

So, on the right is the hydroelectric power station itself, on the left is the gateway. The Cheboksary gateway has two threads, or cameras, that work independently of each other:

#7. Gateways are numbered 17 and 18:

#8. Now let's get back to locking. In the outport, "Captain Sergeev" is already pushing oil barges and heading to one of the locks:

#9. The upper gate is lowered, allowing the vessel access to the port:

#10. The maximum height is 17.5 meters. For example, some triple deckers do not fit into these dimensions and are forced to lower some masts:

#eleven. For comparison, only half of the barge has entered the lock so far:

#12. But now completely, I was even afraid that she would not fit there :)

#13. Do you think the barge is carrying oil? I will reveal a terrible secret, she transports seedlings :). See for yourself, cucumbers, tomatoes, parsley:

#14. As soon as the barge entered the lock, the sailors moored it to prevent rocking:

#15. They moor to such floating buoys that rise and fall when filling / emptying the lock:

#16. The ship turns off the engine. They begin to close (raise) the upper gate:

#17. Seagulls immediately fly in, hoping to find fish. Unfortunately, this time it's empty:

#18. The process of water discharge begins:

#19. Everything below and below:

#20. And even lower ... the difference is already 10 meters, "fountains beat":

#21. Navigators monitor the safety of the passage. Small booths are equipped for them:

#22. Everything you need is here: a life buoy, a vest, you can even sleep.

#23. As soon as the ship is moored, the navigator contacts the central point and allows the locking to begin. If something goes wrong, then it has a big red button, when pressed, the whole process immediately stops

#24. The discharge of water from the lock chamber occurs partially through the lower gate:

#25. Another part of the water is discharged into the downstream of the Cheboksary HPP:

#26. As soon as the water reaches the tailwater level, the ship is moored, the lower gates of the lock open:

#27. and the ship leaves the airlock. Let me remind you that the whole process of locking is completely free. However, there is a start / end schedule for navigation (mid-April and October), and if the ship is late and does not fit into this schedule, then you will have to pay for locking. The cost of approximately 240 thousand rubles is the cost of one day of the lock (if several ships pass in a day, then the amount will be divided between them)

#28. What is the peculiarity of the Cheboksary lock. If at the Nizhny Novgorod lock, water is filled through the upper gate, then at the Cheboksary lock, bottom filling is used. Those. water does not pressurize from the front, but evenly fills the sluice chamber from below. This allows you to virtually eliminate the buildup of ships. Water is filled through underground galleries:

#thirty. Now we go to the gateway control center, which is located in this tower:

#31. Separate equipment is installed on each thread of the gateway: on the left and on the right, respectively:

#32. All stands are hand-assembled by lock staff

#34. Communication with the captain of the vessel is carried out by means of walkie-talkies:

#35. No state-of-the-art systems can replace a reliable friend:

#36. bloggers at work

#37. And this is the space between the two chambers of the airlock. That is to say, a spare parts warehouse. If in summer lock employees are directly engaged in locking, then in winter they are engaged in full technical inspection and repair of mechanisms

#38. Do you think the umbrella is here for a person? No, this is for the accuracy of the device. With the help of it, employees measure how much the upper gate is "squeezed" when water is discharged from the lock. At this moment, the water from the upstream presses on them and they bend, and they follow this deflection. The employee said that everything is normal:

#39. The assistant at this time is on the upper gate, his task is to set / remove the mark on which the device is aimed:

#40. Machine room of the Cheboksary lock

#42. A few more interesting observations. What do you see that is unusual?

#43. And so? See the gate and rails?

#44. And this is on the other side of the gateway. The missing part was raised and lowered (and even now it can) and all the mechanisms were brought along these rails during the construction of the hydroelectric power station

#45. For the opportunity to get in and see how the facility works, many thanks to Sergey Olegovich Marchenko, all the employees of the Cheboksary lock and public relations specialist JSC "RusHydro" - " Cheboksary HPP”, Irina Belikova.

Glad you read to the end. I would be grateful for feedback!

Only yesterday we were still walking along the Kama, and now we are walking along the Kuibyshev reservoir - where "the Volga river flows for a long time from afar." And the coast is very beautiful - and so different from the Kama! These are the Novodevichy Mountains, chalk hills in the vicinity of the village of Novodevichye (Shigonsky district of the Samara region). In the central part of these mountains is the village of Belogorsk (former Melzavod) where chalk was previously mined commercially.

Novodevichy - a former large trading village on the Volga. Bread, firewood, various handicrafts brought here from five volosts (Novodevichenskaya, Usolskaya, Terengulskaya, Shigonskaya and Starotukshumskaya) were traded here, dozens of barges were loaded here. The village was founded as the Novoprechistenskaya estate of the Moscow Novodevichy Convent in 1683. In the 50s, part of the village was flooded during the construction of the Kuibyshev hydroelectric power station (the water level rose by 26 m), the inhabitants were resettled.

We pass the Zhiguli cement plant - this is the city of Zhigulevsk-7, pos. Apple ravine. The plant was built in 1958, produces cement, roofing material, building gravel for industrial and residential construction.

On the right bank of the Volga, the Zhiguli Mountains. The highest point is Mount Bezymyannaya (381.2 m above sea level), which is considered the highest point in the middle zone of European Russia.

And ahead you can already see the houses of the city of Togliatti - the second largest in the Samara region. Initially, it was called Stavropol (the unofficial "refined" name of Stavropol-on-Volga, by analogy with Stavropol Caucasian), but in the summer of 1964, after the death of the Italian communist leader Palmiro Togliatti, it was renamed.

The tug "Ural-19" is dragging the barge "Belskaya-68" - and on the barge there is some interesting construction trailer :)

houses of Tolyatti closer

and river station

with a shipyard

and in the meantime we approached the locks of the Zhigulevskaya hydroelectric power station.

Zhiguli hydroelectric power station (Volzhskaya (Kuibyshevskaya) HPP named after V.I. Lenin) is the sixth stage and the second largest HPP in the Volga-Kama cascade of HPPs. Its construction began in 1950, and ended in 1957. The structures include: a hydroelectric power station, a trash-retaining structure, a spillway dam, an earthen dam, a mud outlet, a two-line two-chamber lock with an intersluice pool and berthing facilities.

The idea of energy use of the Volga near the Samarskaya Luka was put forward by Gleb Krzhizhanovsky back in 1910. But design and survey work began only in the 30s, and in 1937 a decision was made to build the Kuibyshev hydroelectric complex in the villages of Krasnaya Glinka and Perevoloki. It was built by prisoners of the Gulag (Samara ITL and the construction of the Kuibyshev hydroelectric complex, where more than 30 thousand people worked). But in the 1940s, oil-bearing areas were discovered there and construction was suspended. After 9 years, survey work was resumed and in 1950 they began to build a hydroelectric power station in the area of Zhigulevsk.

mooring

lock gates close

now let's go down

these are the gates that closed two frames ago :)

and here we are below

from the first lock chamber we exit into the inter-lock pool

and look back

and now let's see what we have in this very interlock pool around. Here the tankette "Volgoneft-206" is being repaired

on the shore of the house one more beautiful than the other

people move from coast to coast

the ship is called so - "crossing", short and clear :)

The dry cargo ship "Dmitrov" from Taganrog passed us

and we have already approached the second lock, we enter the lock chamber

We will be locking with a funny boat named "Dale"! :))

cool, probably, like this, a company to swim under a green canopy. Moor, walk, swim and sail on.

We got through - Anya and I run to the stern, to look at the locks remaining behind us. And "Dale" is briskly catching up with us :)

Immediately after the dam of the hydroelectric power station, a local "ruble" began right along the coast - a mansion drives a mansion apart.

a gravel crocodile swam past us :)

And here he is in full size! His name is "Plotovod-687", and he drags 2 barges at once

We pass by the Holy Resurrection Monastery. It was created quite recently, in 1996.

Touching landing stage and boat "Semych"

Although the monastery is recent, it still has its own interesting history. On its territory, the buildings of the former Stavropol Zemstvo hospital have been preserved, which did not fall under flooding during the construction of the hydroelectric power station. The hospital was built and operated by the forces of the Stavropol Zemstvo, which paid much attention to the development of education and health care, in addition to doing everything else - roads, mail, repair of bridges, agriculture.

It was necessary to build medical institutions from scratch - we remember how things were with doctors in the counties from the history of Yelabuga medicine. One doctor, wandering around the villages, physically did not have time to reach everyone who needed him.

And in 1868, at the expense of the Zemstvo, 3 hospitals were built in the county, the medical staff of which consisted of a doctor and a paramedic. In 1872, zemstvo doctors managed to expand the Stavropol hospital to 45 beds, which received not only residents of Stavropol, but also peasants from nearby villages. From 1872 to 1873 The Stavropol hospital was headed by Evgraf Alekseevich Osipov, a graduate of Kazan University, one of the founders of Russian sanitary statistics.

By 1902, funds were allocated for the construction of a new hospital due to the dilapidation of the old one. The hospital that was built had an operating room, a maternity ward, and apartments for staff. And just the buildings of this hospital can still be seen on the territory of the Holy Resurrection Monastery. (information from the article "Stavropol Zemstvo" on the site "Museum of the History of the Samara Territory").

And I will finish the post with an old postcard with a view of the Zhiguli (from the set "Volga on old postcards", "Printing and Publishing Plant", Kazan, 1999.)

All posts with photos from this trip can be viewed by the tag

The inventor of the shipping lock can be considered the assistant minister of transport of the Chinese province of Huainan named Qiao Wei-Yue. Deciding once and for all to put an end to the theft of grain, he ordered the construction of a structure that allowed ships to overcome the height difference without the risk of damage to the hull. The historical baton was picked up by the Dutch, a little later - by the Italians. We collected several photos and videos about how these hydraulic structures are doing today
Airlock chamber of the Uglich hydroelectric power station at night. The hydroelectric power plant in Uglich was launched in 1940 and played an important role in providing Moscow with electricity during the war. And it was also its construction that contributed to the flooding of the old part of Kalyazin, which is now famous for the bell tower standing alone on the water.

Locks No. 7 (foreground) and No. 8 of the Moscow Canal - on the way from the Khimki reservoir to the Moscow River.

One of the wooden locks on the Teza River in the Ivanovo region - from the mouth to the city of Shuya, this tributary of the Klyazma was made navigable for boats. Since 2000, historical wooden locks have been gradually replaced with modern designs.

Lock number 5 on the River Teza is one of two that have been left wooden as a monument to 19th-century engineering. The system of waterworks itself has been operating here for more than 170 years.

Historians attribute the first attempt to connect the Volga and Don at the place of their closest approach to the middle of the 16th century. In 1569, the Turkish Sultan Selim II, famous for his campaign against Astrakhan, sent 22,000 soldiers up the Don to dig a canal between the two rivers. However, just a month later, the Turks retreated "with great abuse", stating, according to the chroniclers, that "even the entire Turkish people here and for 100 years nothing can be done"
In the photo: the first lock on the Volga-Don canal, located within the city of Volgograd

Fishermen at the Severka lock in the lower reaches of the Moskva River. Kolomna.

On the Volga-Don, lock number 2.

Moscow, one of the locks of the Moscow Canal.

Video: a small ship passes the first lock of the Volga-Don.

Seagulls are constant companions of river vessels in temperate latitudes. Rybinsk.

Another view of the gateway in Rybinsk. We quote the source:

“The gateway near the HPP works on the principle of two-chamber reservoirs. They receive half of the total volume of water from the reservoir. Water gradually overflows from one chamber to another, and then the ships descend into the Volga. The presence of a second camera saves time when passing through the gateway. The water drop in them is 18 meters, their length is 300 meters, and their width is 30. The lower gates of the sluice have two leaves, and the upper ones are a solid shield that goes to the bottom and can rotate around a horizontal axis.”

Two gloomy people are smoking near a technical facility next to the White Sea Canal lock No. 3.

The passage of the lock on a sailing ship, Belomorkanal.

Moscow Canal section Pokrovskoye - Streshenevo.

The Svir River connecting Lake Ladoga and Onega. Motor ship "Mikhail Sholokhov" in the lock of the Verkhnesvirskaya hydroelectric power station

The sculptural group "Cossacks" at the 15th lock of the Volga-Don Canal (within the city of Volgodonsk, Rostov Region)

Gateway on the shipping canal Brussels-Charleroi, Belgium. 2005 year.

The ruins of the Petrovsky lock of the Mariinsky water system. Color photo of 1909, author - Sergei Prokudin-Gorsky. The Mariinsky water system was built during the reign of Paul I and at the time when the photo was taken, it was functioning, but some sections were closed and replaced with new ones. As a result of several renovations during the 19th century, the Volga-Baltic route was greatly reduced. And in 1963, the Mariinsky water system was finally replaced by the Volga-Balt.

Another picture of the Mariinsky system from Prokudin-Gorsky: Chernigov lock beyond Dubno on the Novoladozhsky Canal (now in the Volkhov district of the Leningrad region)

The Tveretsky sluice within the city of Vyshny Volochek - once the first artificial water system in Russia - Vyshnevolotskaya - began here. It was built under Peter I. In place of the old sluice, now there is not even a riverbed - there is a holiday village there.

A memorial sign near the old location of the Tveretsky lock of the Vyshnevolotsk system. By the way, the movement along the system was one-way, from the Volga to St. Petersburg. The ships could not go back: the Borovitsky rapids on Msta were impassable when sailing upstream.

Bukhtarma sluice, hydroelectric power station on the Irtysh River, below the mouth of the Bukhtarma River near the city of Serebryansk, East Kazakhstan region, Kazakhstan. Included in the Irtysh cascade of hydroelectric power stations.

There is even a song about the Bukhtarma gateway from the photo above!

A hydroelectric power station is a hydroelectric power plant that converts the energy of a water stream into electricity. The flow of water, falling on the blades, rotates the turbines, which, in turn, set in motion generators that convert mechanical energy into electrical energy. Hydroelectric power plants are built on riverbeds, and dams and reservoirs are usually built.

Principle of operation

The basis of the operation of a hydroelectric power station is the energy of falling water. Due to the difference in levels, river water forms a continuous flow from source to mouth. The dam is an integral part of almost all hydroelectric power plants, it blocks the movement of water in the riverbed. A reservoir is formed in front of the dam, creating a significant difference in water levels before and after it.

The upper and lower levels of the water are called the pool, and the difference between them is the height of the fall or pressure. The principle of operation is quite simple. A turbine is installed on the downstream, on the blades of which the flow from the upstream is directed. The falling flow of water sets the turbine in motion, and it rotates the rotor of the electric generator through a mechanical connection. The greater the pressure and the amount of water passing through the turbines, the higher the power of the hydroelectric power plant. The efficiency is about 85%.

Peculiarities

There are three factors for efficient energy production in hydroelectric power plants:

Year-round guaranteed water supply.
Favorable terrain. The presence of canyons and drops contribute to hydraulic construction.
Greater slope of the river.

The operation of a hydroelectric power plant has several, including comparative features:

The cost of electricity produced is significantly less than at other types of power plants.
Renewable energy source.
Depending on the amount of power a hydroelectric power plant needs to produce, its generators can be quickly switched on and off.
Compared to other types of power plants, hydroelectric power plants have much less impact on the air environment.
Basically, HPPs are objects remote from consumers.
The construction of hydroelectric power plants is very capital intensive.
Reservoirs occupy large areas.
The construction of dams and the construction of reservoirs blocks many species of fish from reaching spawning grounds, which radically changes the nature of fisheries. But at the same time, fish farms are being set up in the reservoir itself, fish stocks are increasing.

Kinds

Hydroelectric power plants are divided according to the nature of the erected structures:

Dam hydroelectric power stations are the most common stations in the world in which the pressure is created by a dam. They are built on rivers with a predominantly slight slope. To create a large pressure under the reservoirs, large areas are flooded.
Derivative - stations built on mountain rivers with a large slope. The required pressure is created in the bypass (derivation) channels at a relatively low water flow. Part of the river flow through the water intake is sent to the pipeline, which creates a pressure that drives the turbine.
Hydrostorage stations. They help the power system cope with peak loads. The hydraulic units of such stations are capable of operating in pumping and generating mode. They consist of two reservoirs at different levels, connected by a pipeline with a hydroelectric unit inside. At high loads, water is discharged from the upper reservoir to a lower one, while the turbine rotates and electricity is generated. When demand is low, water is pumped back from the low storage to the higher storage.

Hydropower of Russia

To date, more than 100 MW of electricity are generated in Russia at 102 hydroelectric power plants. The total capacity of all hydraulic units of Russian HPPs is about 45 million kW, which corresponds to the fifth place in the world. The share of HPPs in the total amount of electricity generated in Russia is 21% - 165 billion kWh / year, which also corresponds to the 5th place in the world. In terms of the number of potential hydropower resources, Russia is in second place after China with an indicator of 852 billion kWh, but the degree of their development is only 20%, which is significantly lower than in almost all countries of the world, including developing ones. In order to develop the hydro potential and develop the Russian energy sector, in 2004 a federal program was created to ensure the reliable operation of functioning hydroelectric power plants, the completion of existing construction projects, the design and construction of new stations.

List of the largest hydroelectric power plants in Russia

Krasnoyarsk HPP - Divnogorsk, on the Yenisei River.
Bratsk HPP - Bratsk, r. Angara.
Ust-Ilimskaya - Ust-Ilimsk, r. Angara.
Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP - Sayanogorsk.
Boguchanskaya HPP - on the river. Angara.
Zhigulevskaya HPP - Zhigulevsk, r. Volga.
Volzhskaya hydroelectric power station - Volzhsky, Volgograd region, Volga river.
Cheboksary - Novocheboksarsk, the Volga River.
Bureyskaya HPP - pos. Talakan, Bureya river.
Nizhnekamsk HPP - Chelny, r. Kama.
Votkinskaya - Tchaikovsky, r. Kama.
Chirkeyskaya - river. Sulak.
Zagorskaya PSP is a river. Kunya.
Zeyskaya - the city of Zeya, r. Zeya.
Saratov HPP is a river. Volga.

Volzhskaya HPP

In the past, the Stalingrad and Volgograd hydroelectric power stations, and now the Volzhskaya, located in the city of the same name Volzhsky on the Volga River, are a medium-pressure station of the channel type. Today it is considered the largest hydroelectric power plant in Europe. The number of hydroelectric units is 22, the electric power is 2592.5 MW, the average annual amount of electricity generated is 11.1 billion kWh. The capacity of the hydroelectric complex is 25,000 m3/s. Most of the electricity generated is supplied to local consumers.

The construction of the hydroelectric power station started in 1950. The launch of the first hydroelectric unit was carried out in December 1958. The Volga hydroelectric power station was fully operational in September 1961. The commissioning played a crucial role in unifying the significant energy systems of the Volga region, the Center, the South and the energy supply of the Lower Volga region and Donbass. Already in the 2000s, several upgrades were made, which made it possible to increase the total capacity of the station. In addition to generating electricity, the Volzhskaya HPP is used to irrigate arid land masses in the Trans-Volga region. At the facilities of the hydroelectric complex, road and rail crossings across the Volga were arranged, providing communication between the regions of the Volga region.

This time there will be no analytics and problematic issues, but there will be a time-lapse, animation and a bunch of photos about how the locks on our numerous reservoirs are arranged and how they work.
, I already told. Now let's take a closer look at how ships overcome the rather large thresholds of the erected dams in order to get up or downstream.

Look at the view of the Cheboksary HPP and the locks:

Why locks were built simultaneously with dams is understandable.
Do you know that today in many places the locks and hydroelectric power stations themselves, together with the dam, belong to different departments?
HPP - RusHydro, and locks - Rosmorrechflot. This is the irony of privatization.
However, what am I? Promised no retreat!

Then let's first watch the video, and then - the details in the photographs.
Before that, I’ll just say that they don’t usually take excursions to the gateways, so I had to use the opportunity provided to the fullest - I put the old Canon S3 IS over the abyss and started shooting time-lapse:

Well, then I also took my modeling system and made a model of the gateway with animation to show on the model how the gate closes, where the water flows from and all that.
For what is a gateway? This is the same pool from the classical problem in arithmetic: it flows into one pipe, pours out into another. Nothing complicated!

Please note that no pumps are required on river locks: water fills the lock chamber or flows out of it by itself, you just have to open the valves.
But on canals passing through watersheds (like the Moscow Canal), pumps are needed (although not necessarily on the locks themselves).

The mathematical model of this "pool" is a little more complicated than two pipes: in addition to them, you still need to control the boat and the gate. And water to flow in the pipes:

What? Unfamiliar language? Well, that's ok! ;)

Everything, everything, everything, I will no longer fill my head with wisdom. Just watch the video and see for yourself.
True, the mounted (for beauty) photo of the gateway control panel is from the Nizhny Novgorod hydroelectric power station, but I think our people will forgive me for this! :)

Now, for the photo details.

That the roof of the engine room of the Cheboksary HPP is also a bridge across the Volga:

Therefore, residents of Cheboksary and guests of the capital usually see our HPP from a car window, and in the best case (if you stop in front of the bridge) something like this:

To see all the beauty and power of the hydraulic structure, you need to climb the mountain to the grove.
We used to come there on bicycles in childhood to look at the great construction site and experience the joy of work ("this is the feeling that a poet experiences, looking at a dam under construction").
Well, or climb the Gateway Control Tower - that's where my camera stood on a tripod:

Who forgot or for the first time - by clicking the mouse, the photo opens in a large size!

It was a top view. And here is the Tower itself, bottom view:

What does this Center look like?
The control panel is simple and not very modern (but this is enough here - it’s not an airport):

There is another interesting system. They can see all the ships going up and down the Volga (all those that have GLONASS / GPS and special means of data transmission).
The blue track of the next ship is visible on the screen. We wanted to wait for him, but we never did - he was far away and walked slowly:

Actually, speed is the main drawback of water transport. You can't carry perishable food on a barge.
But it is very convenient to carry building materials. The fact that today the KAMAZ army carries them on the roads is simply a crime against the environment, and even common sense. And we do not leave the hope that water transport will, in the end, be restored and developed.
Look at the title photo or this beautiful barge that enters the locks of the Nizhny Novgorod hydroelectric power station - what a carrying capacity! In order to transport so much cargo by Kamaz trucks from one Volga city to another, it is necessary to burn fuel tanks and break hundreds of kilometers of the route ...

Stop. With a broken track, everything is clear, but with fuel tanks? However, the efficiency of the entire vessel, according to rough estimates, is only 3%. So the current technologies of water transport are significantly inferior to freight transport (total efficiency is about 8%) - and even more so - to rail transport. Therefore, for now, forget everything that I said in the paragraph above - a separate topic for analysis and comparison is required here!

In the meantime, the Volga, alas, is quite deserted:

But let's not be distracted and continue our acquaintance with the work of the gateway.

Here, for completeness, is the view "into the abyss" from the Tower:

The first photo showed a double barge that occupied the entire lock.
And there will be only one small boat:

For each vessel, the lock dispatcher indicates the place that he needs to take in the lock - the number of the mooring eye, and the following indicators help the captain of a large ship to monitor the position:

The ship is moored to the eyelets - large floats that run along the rails in the niches of the walls of the lock chamber, rising and falling along with the water and the ship:

Our boat is going down, so now we need to close the upper gate.
On most locks of the Volga-Kama cascade, they are made in the form of a lifting wall:

Pay attention to the "teeth" that barely emerged from the water - this is a fixed base, a fortified wall that helps the gate withstand the pressure of the huge mass of the reservoir.
Look how small the distance from them to the upper limit of the water (4 meters)!
A ship with a draft of more than 3.6 m simply will not pass here (40 cm is the reserve required by the regulations). And if, due to low water, which took place this summer, the water level in the reservoir drops slightly, then smaller vessels will no longer be able to pass.
At the Cheboksary HPP, such a severe limitation arose due to the fact that the level of the reservoir was not raised to the design height. At the design level of 68 meters, the gate will need to be slightly raised, but the threshold will be already 6 meters, which is guaranteed to be enough for all Volga ships.

Upper gate up close:

Here we see workers and emergency gates duplicating them at the same time (the airlock is completely filled with water).
Emergency gates are needed in case of failure or scheduled repair of working gates.
When there are no locking ships, it is possible to carry out routine maintenance of mechanisms, which we now see.

With the help of a theodolite, the deflection of the gate is controlled:

Just imagine, this iron hulk still noticeably bends under the pressure of water in the reservoir - up to 1.5 cm is an emergency gate and less than a centimeter is a working gate!

The lifting mechanism at the gate is hydraulic:

Oil pumps for maintenance of the upper gate:

There are always a lot of birds in the locks:

Because here it is convenient to pick up fish that remain on the gate rising from the water:

Let's go to the lower gate.
Again, on most Volga locks, they are made in the form of huge double doors:

When closed, the doors converge at a noticeable angle to resist the pressure of water in the lock chamber:

At the Cheboksary hydroelectric power station, special measures are provided so that the water flowing out of the lock chamber does not wash away the shore. Part of it merges from under the gate (seething water in the picture), and part - far from the lock and from the coast - to the middle of the Volga:

To avoid waves when filling the lock chamber, special measures are also provided here - a complex distribution system that dampens the speed of the water flow and evenly distributes it throughout the lock. Part of these special chambers is visible from the outside. They remained unfinished, because then they decided not to raise the water to the design level. Now, if there is still a rise, we will have to finish building:

Finally, the water from the lock is released, you can open the lower gate:

Let's take a closer look around the lower gate:

Directly under the bridge, above the emergency gate, rails are visible, which seem to break into an abyss. They were used during construction, and even now they can be used - you just need to lower a large beam, which is visible at the top left, right under the bridge - this is nothing more than a movable span of a railway bridge. It will lie across the lock, and the rails will continue!

What else can you see?
For example, a utility yard between lock chambers:

And some brutal designs for a snack:

And here is the barge leaving the lock: