Saima boat make Finland. Waiting to sail

The origin of the name "soima" is very interesting. Most likely, this is a derivative of the Finnish spovo "suomi" (literally: the land of Sum). This was the name of the tribe that lived on the territory of modern Finland, and subsequently this word gave the name to the whole country. It is likely that the Ladoga Soyma is a type of ancient Finnish vessel, mastered over the years by the Karelians and later by the Novgorodians. I wonder what maritime historians from Finland could add about this?

Until the middle of the 19th century, Lake Ladoga, located right next to the capital, remained, however, little known. The absence of his maps and descriptions did not affect shipping in the best way; even in a small wave, the captains preferred to go by bypass channels, which significantly lengthened the path. Not a single insurance company in Russia undertook to insure ships sailing with cargo on the open Ladoga.

Only in 1858 did the government send an expedition led by Colonel Andreev to explore the lake. The task of the researcher also included a detailed inspection of boats of local types. Describing them, Andreev noted the outstanding seaworthiness of a two-masted boat - the Ladoga Soyma. At the same time, he came to the conclusion that now nothing is known about the design of the ships that sailed along Ladoga during the time of Veliky Novgorod ... But the matter took an unexpected turn.

While visiting the Ladoga monasteries on duty, the colonel noticed that the icons of the local associates depict ships that are quite similar to the Ladoga soyms of the present time. "Based on this similarity," Andreev wrote, "and taking into account that the Ladoga Soyms have retained some primitive character to this day, we can conclude that the vessels of the Novgorodians were almost the same as the present Soyms."

Andreev compiled their description; the soims were made in typesetting, had curved frames, outwardly inclined stems and a small keel. The frames were attached both to the keel and to the skin with wooden dowels; sheathing boards were laid edge to edge and sewn together with juniper roots. To tack and reduce drift, a false keel was added to the keel. The spars of the soim consisted of two masts. The foremast was placed at the very stem, and the mainmast was placed in the middle. Both masts were low and had one wide sprit sail each. The mast, since it is low, was securely held without shrouds. All these ships did not have constant dimensions and were built in such a size that was convenient for the owner.

The purpose of the councils was different. They caught fish, transported large luggage, delivered pilgrims to Valaam (and even to Solovki). According to Russian sources, large soims traveled long distances and sailed to Aborforst and Stockholm for trading purposes. Judging by the descriptions of eyewitnesses, the Ladoga soims had a reliable, strong structure, were light on oars and were not afraid of headwinds.

After reviewing these materials, my friend Andrey Boev and I set about building such a boat and going around Ladoga on it. But we did not have the main thing - drawings and a master who would undertake to recreate the ancient soima. Then we went to the most remote corners of Ladoga, where we hoped to find people familiar with similar boats. Konevei Island, Zalaam, Sortavala ... Here we met mainly boats and home-made yachts. Sometimes there were ordinary wooden boats that did not resemble the description of the soyma. The Ladoga fishermen, learning what we were looking for, were surprised: "A two-masted boat? Forget it. No one has sailed here for a long time."

At the end of the summer, Andrei and I reached the remote village of Storozhno, located on the southeast coast of Ladoga. A real fishing village. There are nets all around. Instead of windows in some houses there are portholes...

Interested in boats? - one of the inhabitants asked us, seeing that we were looking at an inverted canoe.

Soimami, - answered.

Five minutes later we were sitting with our new friend, and he drew us exactly what we had been looking for for so long. Graceful lines of the body came out from under his hardened hand. His drawing of the sailing armament of a two-masted boat exactly coincided with what Andreev wrote about: the same arrangement of masts, the same sprint armament ...

I used to ride soims as a boy,” the old man said. - These were the most reliable ships on the whole lake. Be sure! Which boat will withstand a seven-point storm on Ladoga? Soyma only! It used to happen that bad weather would find you in the lake, the waves were raging all around, and not a drop fell into the soyma ... Such were the boats ... Only here you will not find the soym, and, probably, they are nowhere to be found.

In October 1994, when I was already thinking of postponing our search until next summer, I was informed that a boat master Alexander Kalyagin lives in the southern Ladoga region on the Syas River. We immediately went to him, but did not find him - the owner was on the hunt. To pass the time, we walked along the coast and stumbled upon a wooden one. And the boat, made, like the soyma, "overlapped" and with very good contours. The design of this boat, adapted for a motor, was clearly an echo of that distant era when, waiting for a fair wind, people sat on the shore for weeks.

Alexander Stepanovich, returning, announced to us. ready to take on any ship. but he needs a blueprint. "And don't forget - two thousand copper nails," he added.

One way or another, but the idea of ​​sewing a boat in the traditional way - with juniper roots - had to be abandoned. This is too labor-intensive, and our craftsman never sewed boats in this way... Judging by the excavation materials, four-sided iron nails were made in Novgorod in the 10th-11th centuries, but they were rarely used in shipbuilding: this was due to the fact. that in salt water the nails quickly rusted and destroyed the cladding. The roots, on the contrary, swelling, made the case waterproof. Our copper nails were a good substitute for juniper roots, and at the same time, we did not stray too far from history: the technique of using copper rivets was widely developed in medieval Ireland, while the Vikings fastened their ships with steel rivets.

Already closely engaged in the search for materials, I realized that the construction of a large sailing boat requires a lot of money, and the two of us are unlikely to master this project. I think that the idea with the soyma would have remained on paper, if at this difficult time we had not been supported by the surgeon of one of the St. Petersburg hospitals, Viktor Donskoy.

Six months later, I returned to Kalyazin with 40 kilograms of copper nails and a drawing. It was made by the leading specialists of the Naval Museum L. Larionov and G. Atavin and was a reconstruction of an 11-meter six-oar soyma.

Our cut, Ladoga, - Alexander Stepanovich said businesslike, looking at the drawing.

Now it remains to order 13-meter spruce boards to build a boat from solid material. The Ladoga masters tried not to make joints on the belts: such cases are weaker in design and can leak faster. In search of suitable boards, we traveled to several forestries and only in one found a sawmill that could let through 11-meter trunks. This determined the length of our future soyma - 9.45 m (with a width of 3.15 m).

Finally, in June 1996, the long-awaited moment of laying the soyma came. Her designer, the famous ship modeler Gennady Atavin, opened the champagne and "consecrated" the keel hewn with an axe.

The master built the boat almost alone, combining this work with haymaking and caring for horses. Sometimes his son Vanya helped, and we tried to come here every weekend.

When the keel was already ready, we harnessed the horses and went into the forest to get the stem. What was needed was a root with a sharp bend, and, moreover, of a certain thickness, without cracks. For two days I had to revise a lot of trees before I found a suitable option. As soon as both stems took their places, Kalyazin put two powerful patterns in the bow and stern and began to attract planks to them, fastening them together with rivets. This was the most important stage: "as you lay the first boards, the rest will go," the master often said.

When Andrey and I undertook to rivet the skin, it turned out that it was not so easy. Soft annealed nails bent under the blows of the hammer, stubbornly refusing to enter the tree. Skill came gradually, along with the confidence that we can do it.

By September, half of the hull was already ready. The graceful contours of a copy of an ancient ship caught the eye of everyone who came to our small shipyard. In autumn, the pace of work increased. We have prepared masts, sprints and oars. Alexander Stepanovich finished the skin, and began to cut out the frames. I rarely looked at blueprints. If he noticed that I was "testing" any part of the crew, he would say: "Do not doubt, the boat will be glorious, the first storm is mine!"

Meanwhile, 1997 arrived. And we decided that. if the soyma survives the test of Ladoga, we will set off along the path of the Great Embassy of Peter I - to Holland and England. After all, Western Europe has not yet seen boats of this type. To prepare the boat for such a long voyage, it was necessary to revise some of the features of its design. This work was undertaken by yacht captain Vladimir Miloslavsky. On his advice, we increased the height of the side - added one plank at a time, and determined the place for the cabin. For safety, it was decided to limit the sail area. In the end, we settled on a grotto with an area of ​​​​about 14 m 2 and a foreground - 8 m 2. In stormy weather, the open part of the soyma is closed with an awning. The boat is equipped with a ten-seat life raft, flares and a ship's VHF radio.

The soyma was launched and tested in June, then the first trip to the holy places of Lake Ladoga took place with a visit to the Valaam and Konevets monasteries.

Soyma got its name in honor of the founder of the Konevets Monastery - St. Arseny, and was consecrated there at the monastery pier.

In the summer of 1998, the team of "Saint Arseny" plans to make a transition to the English city of Portsmouth, where we were invited by representatives of the National Royal Museum.

For a successful forty-day voyage, 2,500 US dollars are needed.

We look forward to helping those. who are interested in what we do. We will raise our flag at the very edge of Europe!

Notes

1. The first to believe in us was the Planeta company, which provided life-saving equipment free of charge.

They say that the ways of the Lord are inscrutable. What a curious, exciting picture would appear to us from the pen of someone who would be able to trace the fate of each of us ...! Each of us who, one way or another, is associated with the name of the Holy Right-Believing Prince Alexander Nevsky ...

It leads us to each other, enriches, complements, unites us with a common goal. And all this allows us, the employees of a new legal entity - a private cultural institution "Cultural Center Samolva" to create a new museum cultural space.

In September, Alexander Karsov contacted us, a graduate of the 46th Moscow School, who in his youth took part in boat trips with Alexander Potresov, a graduate of the VKhPU named after. Stroganova, (Department of Industrial Aesthetics), artist-designer. He offered his services in making a model of boats (Ushkuy and Novgorod Soyma), which were built in Russia during the Battle of the Ice, and on which the soldiers of Alexander Nevsky could move across the expanses of water.

Ushkui- a sailing and rowing vessel - costed in Russia in the XI-XV centuries for rafting on rivers and for the sea. The name of the boat, according to one version, comes from the Oskuy River - the right tributary of the Volkhov near Novgorod, where the Novgorodians built boats they called "oskuy" or "ushkuy". The length of the ear was 12-14 meters, the width was 2.5 meters. The height of the board is about 1 meter and the draft is up to 60 cm, with a capacity of up to 30 people. The boat was used both at sea (with a slanting sail and holds were made at both ends of the ship's hull) and on rivers (the ushkuy had a straight sail and a completely open deck without holds). In both versions, a stern oar was used instead of a rudder.

If the ushki were used as a “combat” vessel, then one of the most common types of vessels of ancient Novgorod, the soima, can be attributed to the “civilian courts”. The lightest boat of this type, up to 6 m long, was called a soiminka. The boats, whose length reached 12 m, had a deck and a fish tank for live fish. They were called live fish, or pre-solid soims.

Fast on the move under sail, light on oars, well tacked and able to walk steeply to the wind, the soims were used by the Novgorod bands for trips to the White Sea for "fish tooth". Rapid rivers were overcome on them without the risk of breaking the keel (when swimming through the rapids, hitting the stones, the keel board of the boat springy). On the lakes, high stems ensured good germination on the wave. It was easy to drag light soims across the watersheds.

These two models, we hope, will soon appear in the exposition of the Battle of the Ice Museum of the History of the Battle, which will be opened at the Samolva Cultural Center in April 2017 to mark the 775th anniversary of the legendary battle.

It is difficult to find another such ship, which would be so closely connected with the Ladoga area, as the soyma. This strange snub-nosed boat, proudly carrying two masts, owes its birth to Ladoga and its indigenous people - the Karelian-Finns. However, thanks to the glory of the Solovetsky Wonderworkers, she has seen the soyma and the lead waters of Lake Onega and the salty tidal wave of the White Sea. Her faded sails loomed near the Klimenets Monastery and the Kizhi churchyard, in view of the noisy Povenets and on the schismatic Vyg ... But the soyma found rest only under the walls of the legendary Valaam Monastery, founded by St. Sergius and Herman - her homeland was here. Pilgrims from Olonets, St. Petersburg, Pskov and Tikhvin, who arrived on the soyma, were baptized on high domes and stepped unsteadily on the holy Valaam rocks ...

Our story will go about this amazing snub-nosed boat, overshadowed by two wing-sails ...

Until the middle of the 19th century, Lake Ladoga, located right next to St. Petersburg, remained, however, little known. The absence of his descriptions did not have the best effect on navigation: even in a small wave, the captains preferred to go by bypass channels, which significantly lengthened the route. Not a single insurance company in Russia undertook to insure ships sailing with cargo on the open Ladoga.

Only in 1858, the Admiralty sent an entire expedition to Ladoga under the guidance of an experienced hydrographer, Colonel A.P. Andreeva. He was instructed to make a survey of the entire Lake Ladoga, map its coasts, lighthouses, describe the most dangerous capes, shoals, reefs and determine the direction of the winds. The task of the researcher also included a detailed inspection of boats of local types. Describing them, Andreev noted the outstanding seaworthiness of a two-masted fishing boat - soyma. At the same time, he came to the conclusion that now nothing is known about the design of the ships that sailed along Ladoga during the time of Veliky Novgorod. But things took an unexpected turn.

While visiting the surrounding monasteries on duty, the colonel noticed that the icons of the local ascetics depict ships that are quite similar to the Ladoga Soyms of the present time. “Based on this similarity,” the colonel wrote, “and, taking into account that the Ladoga soims have retained some primitive character to this day, we can conclude that the vessels of the Novgorodians were almost the same as the current soims.”

Andreev left a description of the Ladoga Soyma. The researcher noted that this is a small sailing and rowing vessel, fishing or cargo, which has its own distinctive features - stems piled back. The soima is type-setting, has curved frames and a small sharp keel. To tack and reduce drift, a false keel was stuffed on the keel. The frames were fastened both to the keel and to the sheathing with wooden dowels, the sheathing boards were laid “overlap” and sewn together with juniper roots. Moreover, recesses were provided both outside and inside under the stitching roots in the boards to protect the roots from damage. “It has been proven by experience,” Andreev admired. “It’s more likely that the sheathing and frames on the soyma will rot than the tree root will be destroyed ... But how firmly and reliably this seam holds the boards, one should be surprised!” .

From myself I will add that, flexible connections had one clear advantage over any other fastening: swelling, the roots made the case waterproof.

The spars of the soim consisted of two masts. The foremast was placed on the stem, and the mainmast was placed in the middle. The mast was inserted through the opening of the can into the steps, strings were applied to the legs of the sprints, then the sail was stretched diagonally by the sprint. When it was filled with wind, the mast was securely held without shrouds. The sail was controlled by a sheet; when harvesting the sail, the sprint was pulled to the mast by hand, wrapped around both with a sail and tied with a sheet. At the same time, two people were enough to manage such a boat.

All soims were built without preliminary drawings and of such length as was convenient for the owner. The lightest boat of this type, up to 6 m long, was called a soiminka. The length of the hook soyma ranged from 7-8 m, and the length of the tethered soyma - 9-10 m. Boats, the length of which reached 12 m, had a deck and a fish tank for live fish. They were called live fish or pre-solid soims. However, if necessary, the cages were built into any boat, for which they put two waterproof wooden bulkheads, and holes were drilled in the sides between them for water circulation. On large soyms intended for the transport of passengers, there were rooms in the stern.

According to Andreev, the Ladoga Soims possessed outstanding seaworthiness: they were light on oars and were not afraid of oncoming winds - they “tacked very decently”. The Soims traveled long distances for trading purposes. They continuously, throughout the entire navigation, made voyages to Vyborg, Aborforst, Stockholm and transported pilgrims from St. Petersburg via Ladoga and Onega, heading to the Solovetsky Monastery.

“So the soima is our own ship! - Andreev enthusiastically summed up his research. - Soima probably saw those ancient times that are dark in history. The Soima has also seen enough of Hanseatic goods! And even now the soima is the only vessel used in fresh waters northeastern Russia.

It is not surprising that, after reading these reports, my comrade Andrei Boev and I set about building such a boat and going around Ladoga on it. But we did not have the main thing - the drawings and the master who would undertake to recreate the medieval sojma. Then we went to the most remote corners of Ladoga, where we hoped to meet people familiar with such boats. Konevets Island, Priozersk, Sortavala ... Here we met mainly boats and home-made yachts. On Valaam, we looked especially closely at the local fishing boats, however, they were not even remotely similar to the Soyma described by Andreev. The last old Finn who lived on Valaam, having learned what we were looking for, asked in surprise: “A two-masted boat? .. Forget it. No one has been sailing here for a long time.”

At the end of the summer of 2004, Andrei and I reached the remote village of Storozhno, picturesquely spread out on the southeastern coast of Ladoga. A real fishing village: nets are hung around, portholes are inserted instead of windows in sheds ...

Interested in boats? - one of the local old men asked us, seeing that we were looking at an inverted canoe.

Soimami.

Five minutes later we were sitting with our new friend, and he drew us exactly what we had been looking for for so long. Graceful lines of the body came out from under his hardened hand. The pattern of the sailing armament of a two-masted boat exactly coincided with what Andreev wrote about: the same arrangement of masts, the same sprit armament.

I used to ride soimahs as a boy, - said hereditary fisherman Ivan Andrianov. “They were the most reliable boats on the whole lake. Be sure! Which boat will withstand a seven-point storm on Ladoga? Soyma only! It used to happen that bad weather would find you in the lake, the waves were raging around, and not a drop would fall into the soyma ... Such were the boats ... Only here you will not find the soym, and, probably, they are nowhere to be found.

Much later, I was surprised to learn that the search had to be carried out much further south - on the banks of the Ilmen. It was there, near Veliky Novgorod, the very city to which Andreev attributed the birth of the soyma, in the coastal villages of Ustreka and Vzvad, such boats are still “sewn”. True, these are typical Ilmen soims - without a stem piled back, like in the Ladoga version. By the way, no one knows what caused such a bend in the bow. The authoritative ship modeler A. Zaitsev expressed the opinion that “fishing soyms had to be in close proximity to each other during the seine plant, and the stem littered back excluded such a possibility.” It is difficult to agree with this opinion: after all, fish were also caught on Ilmen, and the stem of the Ilmen soym is almost straight. Obviously, the secret lies in the peculiarities of the Ladoga excitement. It is quite probable that the stem, which was sharp and extended forward, climbed the high wave more easily, making its way in the raging lake.

...But let me return to the Ilmensky Soyms. I remember how amazed I was when, getting off the tour bus at the St. George's Monastery, I easily saw two soimas on the shore, pulled up to the shore with their noses. Burnt-out sails wrapped around low masts crowned pot-bellied hulls. Forgetting that my group was moving away in the direction of the next church, I went, squelching through the silt, towards this mirage - two fishermen's comands that floated out of the Ilmen haze, like an echo from the distant past ...

But this meeting will take place later, - but for now, Andrei and I continued to look for a master who was ready to take on such a boat and, to be honest, we soon fell into some despondency.

However, in the fall of 1994, when I was already thinking of postponing our search until next summer, I was informed that boat master Alexander Kalyazin lives in the southern Ladoga region on the Syas River. We immediately went to him, but did not find him - the owner was on the hunt. In order to somehow pass the time, we walked along the coast and stumbled upon a wooden boat, made, like the soyma, “overlapping” and with very good contours. The design of this boat, adapted for a motor, was clearly an echo of that distant era when, waiting for a fair wind, people sat on the shore for weeks.

Alexander Stepanovich, returning, announced to us that he was ready to take on any ship, but he needed a drawing. “And don't forget the two thousand copper nails! Especially if you go to salty waters,” the master added.

One way or another, but the idea of ​​sewing a boat in the traditional way - with juniper roots - had to be abandoned. This is too laborious an occupation, and our master never sewed boats in this way. But let's turn to the ancient Karelian-Finnish epic Kalevala: it mentions two ways of fastening ship parts: using flexible ties and wooden fasteners:

Often good housewives

juniper break

Well-known folklorist V.Ya. Evseev, commenting on this passage, believed that the skeleton of a boat was made of juniper, on which animal skins were stretched. This is hardly true. Most likely, we are talking about flexible connections designed to fasten the boat.

By the way, Peter I was distrustful of ships sewn with vices. “Novgorod ships were made only for festivities,” the tsar writes in 1702, “and they are incapable of military affairs for what is on old bottoms that are sewn with witches ...”

True, later Peter changed his mind about the soima - perhaps after these nimble Finnish boats took an active part in some episodes of the Northern War. In 1702, 400 Peter's foot soldiers, planted on the soyms, took a successful battle with the squadron of Admiral Nummers. Undoubtedly, the participation of the soims in the capture of the Noteburg fortress. It is not surprising that after a decade and a half, Peter remembered the soims, but over the years, along with a decrease in the Finno-Ugric population in the St. Petersburg region, the craftsmen who knew how to “sew” these boats also disappeared.

Admiral Count Apraksin in 1716 anxiously wrote to Menshikov: "... it was ordered to make thousands for ten people, so that more is better, soims that go to Murmansk." Further, Apraksin complains in the same letter that “we don’t know the sample of those communities and there are no craftsmen and supplies.” A month later, Menshikov informs the tsar: “I went to the senate and advised in whatever way to make soims known to you, to which the merchant people of Ladoga are called, who do not deny it, they only ask for a model vessel, which one I found here.”

A curious fact follows from this sovereign's correspondence: in the first quarter of the 18th century, Ladoga residents did not even know what a soyma looked like!

But let's return to the times of Kalevala, in one of the runes of which curious information is reported that the Karelian-Finns sometimes did without a wick, preferring a tree to it:

Väinimeien Tesal,

made a boat

stone axe,

Wooden nails.

These lines of an unknown rune-singer greatly encouraged Andrei and me: now we could, without deviating far from tradition, replace the roots with copper nails.

Already closely engaged in the search for materials, I realized that the construction of a large sailing boat would require considerable funds, and the two of us were unlikely to master this project. I think this idea with the soyma would have remained on paper, if at this difficult time we had not been supported by the surgeon of one of the St. Petersburg hospitals, Viktor Donskov. Victor had a rare quality - he was a purposeful romantic, turning any dream into reality. We joked about our company for a long time: “A chemist, a historian and a doctor got together and decided to build a boat…”

Having found the master, I rushed about in search of drawings. But where can you get blueprints for an old fishing boat, which, judging by some reports, was built "without any preliminary measurements"? Something told me that I should contact the Naval Museum. The calculation turned out to be correct. Museum staff, having learned what we were looking for, took out from a dusty cabinet a model of the Ladoga Soyma, made by the Moscow ship modeler A. Zaitsev. We photographed it and, looking ahead, I will say that this picture replaced the drawings for our master. The latter, too, were soon found: they were made by two well-known St. Petersburg ship modellers - Andrei Larionov and Gennady Atavin. A drawing from a pre-war Finnish magazine was taken as a basis; I haven't been able to find out which one.

It was really bad with copper nails. “All copper has been in the Baltics for a long time,” friends joked. But the miracle nevertheless happened: we came across some factory that was being sold, the director of which, looking around, laid out 40 kilograms of excellent copper nails on the scales.

In the spring we came to Kalyazin in his Podriabinye.

Our cut, Ladoga, - Stepanych said businesslike, looking at the drawing. - Well, decide what size we will sew ...

We settled on a 9-meter tethered team, counting on six rowers and a helmsman.

At this stage, we needed solid spruce boards with a length of at least 11 meters. In St. Petersburg, such long boards were not sawn. As always, Stepanych came to the rescue.

Business, he chuckled. - Podryabine stands in the forests; I will cut down the masts myself, and there is any kind of wood in the local offices.

... Shaking on a motorcycle along the broken Ladoga roads, we drove around about five forestries, and only in the sixth was a sawmill ready to cut 13-meter trunks. We were promised to deliver such trunks to the sawmill by the New Year. However, an unusually snowy winter, which has not been the last half century, suddenly intervened: cars could not enter the forest to pick up the cut trees.

Every weekend I went to the quiet Podriabinye, whitened with snow, but to no avail: the snow fell incessantly, so much so that even experienced hunters preferred to sit at home. It is not surprising that such a winter shocked even the surrounding wolves: due to the deep cover, the gray ones could not catch up with the hares and therefore reached for easier prey. One night, wolves raided Podryabinye and dragged away thirteen village dogs, including Stepanych's guard dog.

Look, snakes - they walked around the stables, - said Kalyazin, pointing out to me numerous footprints in the snow. This news especially excited me, because under a canopy next to the stables we were just about to build a community ...

These wolves are for war, - the local old women shook their heads.

Listen to them more! - Stepanych smiled slyly, lighting a "Belomorina", but then, throwing a hard look out of the window, he said thoughtfully. - But the grandmothers are right: the last time the wolves visited us was in the winter of the 41st ... Eh, all this is not good! - and shook off the ashes on the floor ...

While waiting for the boards, I got acquainted with the life of this Ladoga village. Everything was here again for me, a city dweller: the fact that almost every inhabitant is armed, and the fact that a conversation without a glass does not begin - “otherwise there will be no conversation”, and the fact that horses’ tails are cut with an ax, and that when a pike breaks off the lure, no one is worried: “It was not our pike,” the Ladoga resident will meekly say. And it is not necessary to remember more about lost prey. Podryabinsky hunting ends only when the stocks of alcohol or “wine”, as vodka is more often called here, end. And even then - all the hunters will gather, sit down, spread a shabby map in the clearing and calculate - how close is the nearest village where there is a shop ...

Desperate people these Ladojans! Stepanych told how two of his fingers were shot off on a hunt by mistake: they took him for a bear ... Fingers hang on the skin, his hand bleeds. And there was still vodka; not to return home ... So the operation was done right in the forest: they gave the hunter a sip from the bottle, put the brush on the stump, doused it with vodka - and shuffled with a knife ... Purely, as if a piece of butter had been cut off. And for the hunt!

Stepanych's son Vanya also did not lag behind the elders. He came, I remember, he somehow in the morning to the hut. Sleepy, he came, put the gun in a corner, takes off his boots.

What, I say, were you hunting?

No, - Vanya shakes his head, - he sat on the river all night: someone got into the habit of stealing our shuttles ...

Yes, cool people live in Podriabinye. God forbid, getting to them is not with good intentions, and even under a hot hand! God forbid!

Twenty years ago, as Kalyazin told us, a fish inspector lived in their village, and at the other end of the village - an ordinary bulldozer man and, of course, an avid fisherman. And for the fish inspector, he is not a fisherman, but a real poacher. Once our fisherman threw his nets, and in the morning they were taken off. Who filmed? We know who ... There is no one else to shoot them. Then the peasant started his bulldozer and, crossing himself - whoever wants to take a sin on the soul - led his tractor to the fish inspector's bathhouse. I picked it up a little with a ladle, and dumped it into the river ... Now it steers straight to the house of its enemy - and immediately drove into the house ... So much so that the windows fell down ... It slips with caterpillars, shakes the house ... “Vanya! shouts the fisherman from his cabin. Where are the nets? - "Nets in the bath!" A muffled voice comes from inside the house. - “There is no bath! - the tractor driver roars. - Where are the networks? .. "

Kalyazin himself told this story without laughter: he felt sorry for both fellow villagers and the dead nets, and the bath that sailed away into the river distance ... Probably, that is why - by the sensitivity of his soul - Stepanych was the unofficial headman of the village. His house was never empty; As soon as we sit quietly at the table to discuss the soyma work plan, someone is already knocking on the window. Everyone needs Stepanych. Plow the garden - to Stepanych; what motor to attach - to Stepanych; put together a coffin, if someone died - to Stepanych. We needed him as much as anyone else. And therefore, so that the master would not be especially distracted when leaving for the city, we left him a written plan of work on the soyma. Just like in school...

Finally, in June 1996, the long-awaited moment of laying the soyma came. One of her designers, Gennady Atavin, opened the champagne and “consecrated” the keel hewn with an axe.

Kalyazin built the boat almost on his own, combining this work with haymaking and caring for horses. Sometimes his son Vanya helped him, and we tried to come here every weekend. The master rarely looked into the drawings. If he noticed that I was “trying out” some part of the crew, he would say: “Do not doubt, the boat will be glorious, the first storm is mine!”

When the keel was already completed, we harnessed the horses and set off into the forest for the stem. What was needed was a keel with a sharp bend, and at the same time of a certain thickness, without cracks. For two days I had to revise a lot of trees before I found a suitable option. As soon as the stems took their place, Kalyazin placed two powerful patterns in the bow and stern and began to draw cladding boards to them, fastening them together with rivets. This was the most important stage of construction: “As the first boards are laid, the rest will follow,” the master often said. - Rot board board, do not be afraid! - she herself must lie down in her place, ”Kalyazin encouraged us.

Andrey and I also undertook to rivet the skin, but it turned out that it was not so easy. Soft annealed nails bent under the blows of the hammer, stubbornly refusing to enter the tree. Skill came gradually along with the confidence that we can do it. True, it was not without risk: for tools often had to go through the corral, where Stepanych's horses were grazing - the red-haired Krokha and the handsome black stallion Malysh. The baby was an unusually calm horse, but the Kid, at the sight of people, stood up and neighed wildly, thereby expressing all sorts of displeasure. Therefore, passing through its territory for some kind of roulette, I felt nothing but a bullfighter and preferred to arm myself with a heavy stick ...

By the way, Kalyazin's roulettes, if they were found, were quickly lost. And in the end, our soyma turned out to be built really “without any dimensions”. When a ruler was needed, Stepanych usually found some kind of tree, cut it off with one stroke and proudly showed us: “Well, why not a ruler?” Our master generally worked with what he had at hand. To draw a straight line on a board or kilson, he sometimes used his favorite "grandfather" method: he smeared the thread with charcoal, pulled it on the nails like a string, and "beat off" it with a slight movement of his fingers. Surprisingly, a perfectly straight black line turned out.

Stepanych built soundly, but slowly and with long breaks. May - he had a holy month: hunting, and in the last days - plowing and potatoes. July - you won’t sleep either: haymaking. And September is the holy of holies: the opening of the hunting season and the same potatoes. But we put up with this - he “sewed” the boat firmly and conscientiously. And we made the right decision: later, in England, where we arrived on the soyma, one of the specialists in copies of wooden ships admitted to us that the Ladoga soyma was the best boat he had ever seen ... If in the homeland of Captain Cook they admired Stepanych's work - what else can be added to this?

While Kalyazin leisurely “sewed the boards”, I continued to sit in the libraries, looking for any information related to the soyms. Some experts rightly believed that the soima is a type of ancient Finnish vessel, mastered over the years by the Karelians and later by the Novgorodians. The latter, according to the outstanding researcher of the Russian North I.P. Shaskolsky, “transferred this type of ship to the White Sea, where it is mentioned in documents of the 17th century.” If these sources are correct, then perhaps the soima was at one time a fairly common vessel on the White Sea. Zaitsev even puts forward the version that since the end of the 18th century, the soims began to be forced out of this region by more navigable shnyaks and yols.

However, the fact that the soima is a typical Finnish (and not even Karelian) ship, I was convinced when I was in the Maritime Museum in Stockholm. Two soimas are exhibited there (although without the snub-nosed stem characteristic of the Ladoga variant); and next to it - an explanatory sign in Swedish and English: « Fishing boat Åland Islands ". As you know, Aland is an island part of southwestern Finland. It remains to be added that the name "Soima" speaks for itself: most likely, it is a derivative of the Finnish tribe "Sum", who lived in southern Finland and later gave the name to the whole country - "Suomi".

However, not everyone agreed with this argument. For example, G. Ash in his authoritative work "Guide for sailing enthusiasts" wrote about the soima as a vessel of purely Russian origin, "which was not influenced by any foreign elements in its construction." At the same time, the researcher paid tribute to the excellent seaworthiness of this fishing vessel and noted its original design features: “The excellent qualities of the Ladoga Soyma have been developed over the centuries,” the researcher writes. - We see that the middle of the ship is placed in the middle of the ship; however, the soima, as a cargo ship, does not have permanent waterlines, and hence the midship, and even with a slight trim, the midship moves to the stern. This is an extremely remarkable feature. Without exception, all previous ships had a midship ahead of the middle; only relatively recently yacht architecture, and with it other branches of shipbuilding, realized how important it is to change the midships closer to the stern than to the bow; the builders of the soymas, who lived several centuries ago, assimilated and put into practice the principle, which we have reached only now. Thus, the Russians can rightly be proud of their Ladoga soims, which are purely Russian in origin, especially since the lines themselves leave nothing to be desired. It is difficult to imagine a more perfect line. And indeed, soims on the move are very light and fast; their maritime qualities are excellent; soims maneuver perfectly, they are quite prone to oars ... Fishing boats, - the researcher sums up, - often have such excellent sea qualities that can not even always be found on yachts.

We were able to verify the validity of the last conclusion a year later, when a Dori-type yacht under a powerful engine could not catch up with our sailing crew.

In the course of my research on the soima, I sometimes came across contented and controversial information, which, I think, will be interesting to readers. For example, that the soyma has been known in Pomorye since the 11th century (?), and that one of the soymas went all the way to America in 1834! The latest version was written by the famous folklorist and local historian V. Pulkin. The researcher took this information from the Olonets collection of the late 19th century. “Not very long ago, one could still meet old people around the basin of Lake Onega, sailing the seas as sailors on Russian and foreign ships,” this collection reported, “and around 1834, one of the Onega peasants on his own ship sailed to America and back » . As you can see, the original source does not name the type of vessel, so we will have to part with the version that the soyma saw the American coast for now ...

However, there were also more reliable sources. For example, in 1804, the English traveler Atkinson (J.A. Atkinson) sketched the soims he saw. But where the traveler met them, and where these drawings are now stored, was not reported.

Later reports about soims are also very interesting, especially when the author observed these marvelous boats "live". Such information about soims - only in this case, Ilmen - was left by local historian M. Barinov, who in the late 1960s observed soims and even went to them in Lake Ilmen. “The Soima is unlike any of the ships known to me,” he writes. - At first glance, it refutes all the elementary laws of shipbuilding. Let's start with the fact that it has a trim on the nose. She has two short masts and the front one is fixed right next to the stem, exactly in the place where on big ships there is a bow flagpole for a bow flag. The two masts, at any rate, are more than oddly placed. And besides, both masts are tilted forward! I'm not talking about such details, understandable only to specialists, as about the absurdly forwarded centerboard well, etc. In a word, not a ship, but a caricature, not to swim, but to tumble.

However, then, having independently sailed on these "cartoon" ships, Barinov admired their navigable qualities and optimal design. Here is a description of his first meeting with deck fishing teams on the stormy Ilmen: “Gloomy purple clouds rolled in from the northwest, and the horizon swirled with white foam for all three hundred and sixty degrees. Ilmen presented a formidable sight with him that night ... And suddenly, not far from us, I saw the black silhouettes of two ships going to cut. In less than three minutes, in the ghostly whitish haze of the northern night, I already distinguished two sailboats, easily and freely making their way among the raging waves. Wide black sails, like wings, swept over black hulls, complete desertion on the decks and on the stern, where the helmsman is supposed to be, created a fantastic impression. They walked in parallel courses and quickly approached us. No matter how much I peered, I did not see a single person from the teams of these mysterious wanderers, they were going with full wind, jibing and white foam whiskers boiled under their sharp stems. We missed each other no more than fifteen meters, and then I noticed that a cable was fixed at the stern of the nearest sailboat, going into the water in the direction of the second. And still, not a single soul. As it turned out later, the author observed soims while fishing: “Having stretched a long net, they keep their course parallel in a stormy lake all night,” Barinov is amazed. - And, as a rule, there is no one on the rudders of ships! I can’t imagine how the amazing Ilmen navigators manage to do this!”

Of course, such flattering reports about the soyms only gave us enthusiasm, and by September half the corps was ready. The graceful contours of a copy of a medieval ship caught the eye of everyone who came to our small shipyard. In autumn, the pace of work increased. We felled several fir trees and prepared sprits and oars. Stepanych, meanwhile, finished the skin and began to cut out the frames. We couldn't wait to put the soyma on the water before winter. But Kalyazin quickly cooled our fighting ardor: “What are you doing? The boat needs to be impregnated, painted, caulked ... Where are you driving? By May, everything will be ready - and we will throw it on the water: in six seconds!

Closer to the New Year, I began to notice that the soyma was getting kind of sprawling. I measured it - the width is 3 m instead of 2 m 60 cm, as it was according to the project. It turned out that our master was too overzealous, chipping the edge of each board. Here the soyma "fell apart". With a boat length of 9.5 m, the width went to the 3rd. But Stepanych did not lose heart. “On the contrary, this is a plus for the ship,” he said, “there will be less pumping. Don't be shy guys!"

“It’s easy to say“ don’t be shy, ”I thought,“ I suppose he himself won’t go on such a boat to Ladoga without an engine, and even to Valaam itself ... ”And, without further ado, I suggested Kalyazin go with us on the first voyage. But Stepanych did not even think of resisting: “On the Soyme? I'll go! And why not drink wine at sea? .. "

In the spring of 1997, having previously soaked the boat with drying oil and caulked the grooves, we set about painting. As a sample, we took the Zaitsev model from the Naval Museum: the body of the soim became black (as if tarred), and the last top board retained its natural wood color. It is worth noting that on the advice of the yacht captain Vladimir Miloslavsky, we increased the height of the board - we added one board each: after all, we dreamed of going to Europe ... Vladimir Gavrilovich generally provided us with invaluable help: he planed the boards, riveted the sheathing, painted, caulked, and in the spring performed the most important and delicate work - he made special drawings of the soyma for strict inspection of small vessels. Gavrilych helped us with equipment. He found that the windage in the drawing of Larionov and Atavin is 28 square meters. m - too large and suggested, for security reasons, to be limited to 21.5 square meters. m. As a result, the forefoot began to carry 8 square meters. m. of sails, and the mainsail - 13.5 sq. They did not forget to put the shrouds, however, as we later found out, they were not useful: low masts hold securely even without shrouds. To better go to the tack, we added a false keel.

In June 1997, the Shtandart Naval Historical Club, which was working on the reconstruction of a copy of the Petrovsky frigate of the same name, helped us transport the crew to St. Petersburg. An open fishing boat, the design of which Peter the Great was interested in, stood next to the first ship of the Baltic Fleet - the favorite brainchild of the tsar. It was symbolic. Here, on the banks of the Neva, near the Shtandart frigate under construction, we were completing work on the soyma. Additional frames were cut in, the stem was upholstered with copper, and the oars were planed. After the first tests that took place in the Gulf of Finland, some shortcomings were found out, which we immediately eliminated: we shortened the main mast, increased the area of ​​the rudder blade and significantly lightened the spprints and oars.

During the descent, the soyma received the name “St. Arseny" - in honor of the founder of the Konevsky monastery. The first hike on the soima took place along the route of this legendary ascetic of the 14th century - around Lake Ladoga with a visit to the Valaam and Konevsky monasteries. For three weeks, the soyma sailed and rowed about 400 kilometers, actually rounding the largest lake in Europe. "St. Arseniy" showed excellent seaworthiness. The maximum speed with which we went to Valaam under a strong side wind was 7 knots. Moreover, the boat went with a minimum roll, which was undoubtedly facilitated by low masts and a small sail area. We appreciated the spars of the boat even more when we were exhausted by sudden squalls, so characteristic of Ladoga: two people from the crew were enough to remove the mainsail, and the foresail was removed by one person! Whoever has ever removed the masts in heavy seas will share our admiration...

Upon arrival on the island of Konevets, a prayer service was served in honor of St. Arseny, and in the same place, at the monastery pier, the soyma was consecrated.

In 1998 "St. Arseniy" at the invitation of the Royal Maritime Museum in Portsmouth (England) participated in the "Great Embassy" project. This project was dedicated to the 300th anniversary of Peter I's stay in Western Europe, and our soyma was in the center of attention of the festival of traditional wooden ships. During the 40 days of travel to the shores of Great Britain, a fishing boat from the Ladoga region managed to charm many - from English yachtsmen to Swedish housewives. "St. Arseny”, “soyma”, “Stepanych” - now these words are known on the banks of the English Channel! At present, England is the westernmost point where this strange snub-nosed boat, worked with an ax on the banks of the Xiasi, reached. In the homeland of Captain Cook, a special interest was shown in the soima. This is not surprising: maritime traditions are especially strong in England. And as the best compliment, the words of one experienced British shipbuilder sounded to us: “Your crew is the best boat I have ever seen in my life” ...

A special role in the history of the Russian North and, in particular, the formation of local shipbuilding was played by Ladoga, which arose in the Baltic-Finnish and Sami environment (Kirpichnikov A.N. 1988, p. 40). According to archaeological research and dendrochronological analysis, its foundation dates back to the 750s (Ryabinin E.A. 1985, p. 27).

At the end of the ninth century in Ladoga, for the first time, a stone fortress was being built, which implies the presence of a suburb. The latter undoubtedly existed in the second half of the ninth century. (maybe earlier), when Ladoga, judging by the finds, was a settlement of the early city appearance with its inherent blacksmithing, jewelry and shipbuilding crafts (Kirpichnikov A.N. 1985, p. 170). It was here, in Ladoga, that the Slavs came into contact with the population, who had long been moving on ships across large expanses of water. On the Lake Ladoga, which is not inferior in size to any of the bays White Sea and hydrographic conditions similar to it, the Russians apparently acquired skills in creating marine-type vessels and, possibly, as T. A. Bernshtam notes, in the Ladoga seal fishery (Bernshtam T. A. 1978. P. 25) .

According to A.N. Nasonov, Ladoga was not only an outpost of the northern borders of Russia, but also actively participated in the development of the legendary Biarmia - the Northern Dvina, the White Sea, including the Kola Peninsula (Nasonov A.N. 1951. P. 80). Moreover, according to A. V. Kuza, the Novgorod land was headed by Novgorod, Pskov and Ladoga. It was these three centers that were part of the main state territory and formed it (Kuza A.V. 1975, p. 188).

The geographical position of Ladoga - at the junction of sea and river roads - favored its development. Its formation as a transshipment point, a harbor, a place of contact between various ethnic groups and cultures, made Ladoga stand out as a major shipbuilding center.

A large number of items found during archaeological excavations in Ladoga are associated with river and lake fishing. In addition, according to chronicles and sagas, travelers moving in the XI century. west to the sea, the Volkhov rapids passed on "small ships", and in Ladoga they changed to sea ​​vessels, equipped with "Russian gear" (Rydzevskaya E. A. 1945. P. 63). The battle of the Ladoga residents with the Swedes and the Emyu on Lake Ladoga and the Neva suggests that they have a navy (Bernshtam T. A. 1978, p. 23).

The spread of the influence of the Ladoga residents in territories that are geographically much more distant than the Lower Dvina can be judged from one episode. The chronicler, who visited Ladoga in 1114, included in his narrative the story of the Ladoga residents about the “old men” who went during the reign of Yaroslav the Wise “for the Yugra and the Samoyed” (Nasonov A.N. 1951. P. 80). It is most natural to believe that their path at the end ran along the Mezen to the throat of the White Sea (Bernshtam T.A. 1978, p. 24).

In the Novgorod Fourth Chronicle, under 1032, a campaign of a certain Uleb to the Iron Gates is mentioned. In Uleb, S. M. Soloviev saw Eilif’s brother, the Ladoga Jarl Ulf (Soloviev S. M. 1959. P. 216), and the Iron Gates, according to one version, are located near the mouth of the Northern Dvina. This was the name of one of the straits (Nasonov A.N. 1951, p. 93). The military action of one of the Ladoga Normans was undoubtedly associated with the subordination of some part of the White Sea to Ladoga (Kirpichnikov A.N. 1988. P. 58).

No matter how disparate the above facts are, they testify that it was from Ladoga (perhaps, before the 11th century) that the penetration of Russian squads, tribute collectors, and then settlers went north (Bernshtam T.A. 1978. P. 20) . Moreover, it was carried out mainly by water on ships adapted for long voyages.

Archaeological sources give an idea of ​​the main types of watercraft of medieval Ladoga, as well as some features of the Ladoga shipbuilding and navigation.

1. Ships of the rook type with rigid connections - that is, keel ships with clinker sheathing, built in the Scandinavian tradition, played a very prominent role in Ladoga.

At least 62 iron rivets are known from city excavations (Sorokin P. E. 1997. P. 33). Here one can compare the situation with Novgorod, where about 50 rivets1 have been found to date (see Fig.

1 Probably the Novgorod rivets belonged to small ships (coming to Novgorod or built on the spot), since large seaworthy ships of D ° Novgorod could not reach because of the Gostinopol thresholds on the Volkhov. W

Chapter III), but, given the much larger scale of the Novgorod excavations, the specific number of rivets per unit area will clearly be in favor of Ladoga. Moreover, in the Ladoga materials there are two fragments of boards of ship plating with rivets dating back to 30-50 years. 9th century and 30-50 years. 10th century (Sorokin P. E. 1997, p. 31). There are no such finds in Novgorod at all. Mention should also be made of the large number of rivets found during the study of the burial mound of the 9th century. in the Plakun tract, connected directly with the Staraya Ladoga settlement. Here, in each of the four mounds containing the remains of cremations in the boat (there are 18 mounds in total), from 1-2 dozen to 100 or more rivets were recorded (Nazarenko V.A. 1986, pp. 159, 162). Iron rivets were also found in a hill-like mound near the Plakun tract (Nosov E.N. 1985, p. 154).

Another find associated with the Scandinavian shipbuilding tradition is a 2.4 m high T-shaped post of a ship's canopy, found in the strata of the 2nd half. 9th century (Sorokin P. E. 1997. P. 41) (Fig. 4.3). Similar details were recorded on Viking ships, in particular on the ship from Gokstad (Von Fircks, 1982, fig. 58, 60, 63). However, one curious fact should be noted. The aforementioned post was found together with plating boards and hull frames, which obviously belonged to a vessel of a tag or baroque-rook type (Ravdonikas V.I. 1950, p. 5). And, despite the fact that all the parts were in secondary use (they were parts of the pavement), it can be assumed that they belonged to the same ship. In this case, we are presented with a typical mestizo design, when an introduced detail was used on a local flat-bottomed river craft, which is typical for seaworthy Scandinavian ships. However, the lack of information does not allow us to reasonably substantiate this version.

Speaking about the Scandinavian shipbuilding tradition in Staraya Ladoga, one cannot fail to mention the craft complexes associated with the repair and maintenance of ships.

The first of these complexes was discovered in 1958 in strata of the 2nd half of the 9th century. The workshop was focused on the processing of Iron and bronze, and the craftsman who worked here, among other things, made “rivets, obviously, for the repair of northern ships that arrived here” (Davidan O.I. 1986, p. 100). Another unique industrial complex was explored during the excavations by E. A. Ryabinin in the pre-continental layer of the Earthen settlement of Staraya Ladoga (50-60s of the 8th century). Here were presented the remains of a blacksmith and metalwork and jewelry workshop, one of the specializations of which was

Rice. 4.1. Fragment of ship plating. 10th century (according to P. E. Sorokin) Pig. 4.1. Part of vessel boarding. 10th century (according to P. Ye. Sorokin)

Rice. 4.3. Ship canopy stand. 2nd floor 9th century (according to P. E. Sorokin) 4.3. Awning stanchion. 2nd half of the 9th century (according to P. Ye. Sorokin) ^ j.

ship building and repair services. This is evidenced by the concentration of iron rivets and blanks of large rods, as well as the presence of large pen-shaped drills among the tools (Ryabinin E.A. 1985. S. 55-64).

2. In the Old Ladoga archaeological material, keelless ships of the Baroque and Baroque-rook types with smooth hulls are very widely represented.

In the cultural layer of the city, not to mention individual cladding boards, a significant number of accumulations of remnants of the cladding of such ships was recorded, and, most importantly, in some cases we can even talk about fragmented collapses, since they contain parts that were originally interconnected .

So, on Varyazhskaya street in layers of the 10th century. V.P. Petrenko examined a fragment of the side of the vessel 14.3 m long and about 1 m wide, consisting of three whole boards connected by ribs-planks. The extreme board had a complex L-shaped section and was planshire (or, according to P. E. Sorokin, gate) (Petrenko V. P. 1989. P. 46; Sorokin P. E. 1997. P. 26) (Fig. 4.2).

Another fragment of sheathing, recorded in the strata of 930-960, contained gate and side boards connected by two frames-planks (Sorokin P. E. 1997. P. 157, Fig. 11.3) (Fig. 4.1). In the strata of the IX-X centuries. separate under-gate boards were also noted. All of them belonged to baroque type ships with a rectangular turn (90°). However, judging by the fact that some of the L-shaped boards mentioned had, along with pins, subrectangular holes with rounded edges, it is possible that such boards can also be interpreted as gunwale boards, in which the elongated holes served for tying gear (see Fig. boards with similar holes from Novgorod - Chapter III).

A very interesting fragment of ship plating was recorded during excavations at Zemlyanoy settlement by E. A. Ryabinin in strata of the 2nd half of the 9th century. Here, against the wall of the so-called. The “big house” (in the construction of which separate ship details were used) adjoined, which is part of the courtyard pavement for secondary use, a frame-plank 3.3 m long, to which two sheathing boards were attached with dowels (Ryabinin E. A. 1985. P. 46. Fig. 11). The most important thing here is that in this case, for the first time, we actually see a fragment of a two-layer plating of a vessel of a tag or rook-type vessel.

The largest number of accumulations of planks of sheathing was recorded in Staraya Ladoga in the strata of the 2nd floor. IX - con. 10th century It seems that all the investigated clusters contained (except for the already mentioned gate or gunwale boards and frames) only rectangular boards of a simple section.

Frames. Kokors (there are at least 15 of them) constructive? but do not differ from Novgorod. It is only necessary to mention four ko- * bark (2nd half of the 9th century) from Baroque vessels with a rectangular fold, i.e. e. without the collapse of the sides. It is characteristic that all the known Ladoga gate-boards (if their interpretation is correct) also belonged to token ships without collapse of the sides.

At least 36 pieces are known of frames-slats. They date from Ser. VIII - con. 10th century (Sorokin P. E. 1997, p. 29). Structurally, they do not differ from Novgorod. Known frames-slats up to 3.3 m long (Novgorod, as a rule, are shorter).

3. Dugout vessels are represented in the Ladoga archaeological material extremely weakly. One can only mention a boat bench dating back to 750-760, an arched frame of the 16th-17th centuries. and, finally, an oak fish (750-760) (Sorokin P. E. 1997. P. 29, 32, 33, 120) .. Of course, some part of the oars and, perhaps, oarlocks are associated with doblenki.

4. Caulker and resin. In Staraya Ladoga in the strata of the VIII-X centuries. found 7 brushes for resin, similar to Novgorod. Among the finds there are also braces (Sorokin P. En 1997, pp. 34, 42, 124). G

5. Does multipurpose parts and tooling include items*? used on various types of watercraft (pins, * oars, oarlocks, etc.).

Nagels in the old Ladoga cultural layer can be traced starting from the earliest strata (VIII century). In total, at least 500 copies were found, both separately and in sheathing boards (Sorokin P.E.< 1997. С. 33).

Oars. In urban strata VIII-X centuries. 4 whole oars and 22 fragments were recorded. There are both rowing and steering oars. Of particular interest is a large oar with a balancer (920-950) (Sorokin P. E. 1997. P. 38-41). Two oars, probably from small shuttles, were found during the study of a hill-like embankment near the Plakun tract (IX century) (Nosov. E. N. 1985. P. 150, 154-155). Typologically, all oars from Staraya Ladoga are similar to those from Novgorod.

Oarlocks. In total, 9 pieces were found in the strata of the 8th-15th centuries: Despite the general similarity with the Novgorod material, the Old Ladoga oarlocks are closer to the Scandinavian samples: some of them were fastened with dowels both to the upper cut of the side and to the side of the upper plank of the sheathing. An oarlock with a vertical rod located behind the horn was also found (Sorokin P.E. 1997, p. 36). Another interesting find should be mentioned: in the strata of the 2nd half of the 9th century. a sheathing board was found (apparently, from a baroque or baroque-rook type ship) with an oar port (an oval hole with dimensions of 16.7x8.5 cm) (Orlov S.N. 1954. P. 243).

Gags, including large ones, are recorded in the strata of the 8th-10th centuries. Of particular interest is a gag woven into a bast rope, woven from six ends and reaching a length of 1.5 m (865-920) (Grozdilov G.P. 1950. P. 91-92).

Thus, consideration of the archaeological material from Staraya Ladoga shows that the main types of watercraft used here in the Middle Ages (primarily in the 10th-10th centuries) are round-bottomed keel vessels with clinker sheathing and rigid ties (iron rivets), built in the Scandinavian tradition and keelless ships of the baroque and baroque-rook type with smooth plating and dowel fastening, representing a pan-European tradition. A large number of finds (for example, in comparison with Novgorod) associated with the first of the mentioned types of ships is not surprising, taking into account the direct water communication between Ladoga and Scandinavia. The presence of seagoing vessels in this only “sea” port city in northwestern Russia is beyond doubt, which is directly confirmed in written sources1. As for the ships of the baroque and baroque-rook types, intended exclusively for river and, partly, lake2 navigation, it was precisely such watercraft that were the main cargo and passenger transport connecting Staraya Ladoga with Novgorod and other cities of inner Russia.

The small amount of material associated with dugouts is puzzling. The version of P. E. Sorokin, who connected this phenomenon with the peculiarities of the construction technology of one-tree houses in Ladoga (Sorokin P. E. 1997. P. 92), can hardly be considered justified,

1 For example: “That winter King Yaritsleif gave his daughter to Harald. Her name was Elizabeth; the Norwegians call her Ellisiv ... And in the spring he (Harald) got ready on his way from Holmgard and went to Aldeigyuborg in the spring, took a ship there and sailed in the summer from the east, turned first to Svitjod and headed for Sigtuna ”(Sturluson Snorri. Heimskringla (The Circle of the Earth), The Saga of Harald the Severe, Quoted from: Old Russian Towns... 1987, p. 81).

2 The possibility of widespread operation of ships of the token and baroque-rook types in the waters of Lake Ladoga, which is difficult from the point of view of navigation, raises doubts (see, for example, Shubin I.A. 1927. P. 198) 4 b,

since, if dugouts in the Middle Ages were made in accordance with the traditions known here to this day (Sorokin P.E. 1997. P. 98. Fig. 4.1), then such vessels in the cultural layer should have left archaeological traces anyway.

It is a pity that no remains of rook-type vessels with clinker sheathing connected by flexible ties - vices, have been found so far, since, most likely, it was precisely such vessels that determined the further development of local lake shipbuilding.

Before turning now to ethnographic sources, let us briefly note the hydrological characteristics of Lake Ladoga, gleaned from studies of the late 19th century, and, starting from this information, outline an “averaged” model of a watercraft that is optimal for this reservoir. According to data published in 1875 by A.P. Andreev, the southern part of the shore of the lake is low-lying, almost treeless and swampy. The soil is clayey or loamy. The western part from Shlisselburg to Kexgol-ma is also low-lying clayey, with sandy and rocky coasts. To the border of Finland, the relief gradually rises, the ground is pure clay. For r. Voksoy, 4 kilometers north of Kekegolm, the structure of the coast is changing. From here, skerries begin, going along the entire northern coast. The relief of the mainland and the islands is hilly, the coastal part is steep and composed of granite. East coast Lake Ladoga from the border of Finland to the south is at first quite high and consists of loamy soil, but the marginal part of the lake is sandy. Loamy soil extends southeast to Lodeynoye Pole. Clay dominates near the shore, which lies down to the river. Svir. The relief gradually becomes low-lying and swampy, the very edge of the lake, from the sand thrown from the lake, is purely sandy, hilly in places and covered with coniferous forest.

It is also necessary to note the nature of the Ladoga wave. She is rather tall, short, "bran and irregular". In the northern half of the lake, in deep water, with wind, the wave forms rather quickly and reaches a considerable height. In the southern part - at shallow depths, the wave is smaller. This remark refers to the western and eastern winds prevailing in the summer season. The most dangerous waves for navigation - high, short - form the north and northeast winds observed on the lake mainly at the beginning of navigation. In the southern part of the lake, these winds form a very strong surf. In July, on the bar, at the sources of the Neva, Svir, Volkhov and in other places with shallow depths and flowing water, extremely thin and long algae appear in the entire depth of the water. Their thickets are large, which interferes with the movement of steamers, “winding them on wheels, clinging to the steering wheel, propeller,

being sucked into the water-receiving tubes (kingstones). These algae stay on the lake until the end of August (Andreev A.P. 1875. Part 1. S. 134-204). On the whole, according to the modern sailing directions of Lake Ladoga, during 50% of the navigation time, access to the lake is dangerous due to weather conditions.

An analysis of the hydrological characteristics of the lake and its shores makes it possible to outline the main features of watercraft that are most optimal for given conditions. First of all, this is the good stability of the vessel and the flexibility (elasticity) of the hull exposed to high, short and bran waves. The most acceptable type of fastening of individual parts of the body for creating such an “elastic construction” is sewing with thread, leather straps, bast, etc. It is known that such a body will not hold a huge load of short, secant waves, but evenly distribute it over each element) of the structure due to the flexibility (tensile and compression) of the fastening material. Another feature of ships for these hydrological conditions is the absence of a high keel. This is due to the viscosity of the soil - a ship with such a keel will burrow and be sucked into the clay or loamy bottom when mooring to the shore. The structure of the banks also determines the shape of the bow and stern stems. For the convenience of approaching the I coast with viscous soil and strong surf, straight endings inclined forward are expedient. In addition, the stem of such a shape! it cuts short and high waves better, and the stern-post, beveled downwards, protects the hinged rudder from hitting stones. ]one

According to the information provided by A.P. Andreev, on Lake Ladoga by the middle of the 19th century. the following types of ships became widespread: soims, galliots, gukkors, brigs and doshcouts. For communication between Shlisselburg, along the southern bank of the river. Svir, a trash cat was used, and for coastal fishing in the northern part (in Finland) typesetting boats with straight stems (Andreev A.P. 1875. S. 32-37, 241).

The galliot, as you know, is not the original Ladoga ship, but was borrowed by Peter I in Holland and introduced throughout the Russian North. The design of gukkors, brigs and doshkots is similar to the design of galliots and differs from the latter only in equipment and sailing equipment. Threshout (threshout) - a flat-bottomed vessel with one mast, used to transport goods and passengers. Its design was not well suited for fishing, which has long been common on Lake Ladoga. This is fishing: with a net - in the coastal zone of the Shlisselburg Bay (on the western side), on Valaam, on the northeast and south coast; merezhoy - in the southern part of the lake; garvoy - a special kind of large net, set up for catching salmon - mainly near Cape Storozhno, in the Volkhovskaya and Svirskaya bays and in some places along the southern and western sides of the lake; slings - a favorite projectile - throughout Lake Ladoga (Andreev A.P. 1875. Part 1. S. 211-212).

Various written sources brought us information about the Ladoga soima. In general, the soima, as originally a Finnish ship type, appeared on lakes Saima and Onega, further spreading to the waters of Ladoga and Ilmen. Later, along the Mariinsky water system, the soims reached the Upper Volga (Shubin I.A. 1927, p. 253). According to legend, the design of the soym has remained unchanged "since the time of the Varangians." Their archaism is also evidenced by the mention in the decrees of Peter I of this ship type among the so-called. “old-fashioned ships” along with boats, nasads, plows, beads, pauses, etc. (Kuznetsov V.P. 1956, p. 43). It should be noted that the concept of "soima" unites a whole group of similar lake vessels, which, however, have certain design differences associated not only with a variety of purposes, but also largely with the place of manufacture of the vessel - after all, as the distribution area of ​​this vessel type expands, various new features appeared in the construction of soims, associated with local shipbuilding traditions.

A detailed description of the Ladoga Soyma is given by A.P. Andreev. He writes: “She is type-setting; curved frames; both stems are inclined from the outside and the vessel is sharp-keeled. Soima is built from pine forest; instead of nails, a thread of a tree root is used, according to the local name vicina (according to Andreev, the word vicina comes from the word forever).

The peculiarity of soims is precisely that they have a wooden fastening. The frames are attached both to the keel and to the skin with wooden dowels; beams and beams are also fixed on the knees with dowels. Sheathing boards are placed edge to edge, in a set, and sewn together with a root; the ends are also sewn together with vicina, but how firmly and securely this seam holds the boards, what one should be surprised at! And so that the root seam does not exceed the surface of the boards, then under it, where it lies, an incision is made in the board, in which the seam is preserved and does not deteriorate during accidental friction of the soyma.

The soima sits rather low on the water, and since it has almost no keel, for tacking, or as they say in the local language, to go to the rai - under the soima, a third of the distance of the keel, a false keel is nailed in the stern and bow.

The Ladoga Soyma is built in different sizes, depending on their purpose in use. Each soyma, depending on its size, has special names; for example: light, hook, sheer, salted. The light soima is the smallest, and is 15 to 20 feet long; hook - about 25; netting - about 30, and salting - reaches 40 feet;

Jans. 4.5. Soyma Ilmenskaya. Yuryevo, 1960s (photo from the archive of B. A. Kolchin) 4.5. Ilmen soima. Yuryevo, 1960s (photo from B. A. Kolchin's archives)

Rice. 4.6. Soyma Ilmenskaya. Body section. Yuryevo, 1960s -;4 (photo from the archive of B.A. Kolchin) and Fig. 4.6. Ilmen soima. Hull section. Yuryevo, 1960s (photo from B, A. Kolchin"s archives)"

Rice. 4.7. Soyma Ilmenskaya. Detail. Frame connection with skin, false keel * ... and kilson. Yuryevo. 1960s (photo from the archive of B. A. Kolchin)

Fig. 4.7. Ilmen soima. Part. Frame connection with boarding, false keel and keelson. *v **.t*H-* "*" Yuryevo, 1960s (photo from B. A. Kolchin"s archives) " ; et

the last genus of soims is larger and larger, then it is called cargo. Salted soima is otherwise called live fish, has a covered upper deck with a hatch, and in the middle of the soyma there is a fish tank for live fish.

On large soims, the deck is blind, in the middle with hatches, has a slope to the sides of the vessel; there are no sides on the soyma; the crew quarters are located at the stern, and at the bow there is a small room for various accessories of the vessel.

All soims are armed without fail with two masts. The fore mast is placed at the very stem, and the main mast is placed in the middle. Both masts are not high; they have 2 sprinted sails, quite wide. Large catfish have a flying topsail.

The construction of soims is mainly carried out on the Pasha River, Petersburg province, Novo-Ladoga district. At the fair, which takes place in mid-January and March 17, in the village of Syasskaya Ryadki, at the mouth of the Syasi River, sometimes a lot of them are brought for sale. Soims are also sold in the summer, at the fair in Novaya Ladoga; to order, these ships are prepared at any time and very carefully. During hydrographic studies on Lake Ladoga, medium-sized soims were used for sounding work. They served for 9 years in such hard work without major repairs in the ship's hull, which clearly proves the strength of such ships.

Large soymy travel long distances. They continuously, in the course of the entire navigation, transport various luggage and live fish from Lake Ladoga and the rivers flowing into it - to St. Petersburg; they also swim in the Gulf of Finland - namely: to Vyborg, Rochensalm, Aborfors, Luga and beyond. The crew on the soyma is 2 people and is quite sufficient. Soima is light on waves, walks and maneuvers very well; small ones are very light on oars.

So, the Soyma is our own ship! Soima probably saw our ancient times, which are obscure even in history. The Soima has seen enough of the Hanseatic goods too!... And now the Soima is the only coastal vessel used on fresh waters in northeastern Russia. Soima without a deck, but with a roof on top, transports from St. Petersburg, through Lake Ladoga and Onega, to Povenets, pilgrims heading to the Solovetsky Monastery; the soyma also carries calves to St. Petersburg; The soyma transports both willow bark and live fish - it is good for everything ”(Andreev A.P. 1875. P. 37).

Further, A.P. Andreev notes that in the northern part of Lake Ladoga - in Finland, boats of a different type are used. They are type-setting and have almost straight stems. Their nose and stern are sharp and raised upwards. As a rule, boats have 2 masts and three sails: sprinted foresail, mainsail and jib. They are built along the entire Finnish coast, they are extremely easy to use, safe on the wave and have a small draft (Andreev A.P. 1875. P. 35).

Soima, as a ship type, has also been preserved on Lake Ilmen. When comparing the information of A.P. Andreev with the modern Ilmen soyms, a number of differences immediately catches the eye, associated both with local traditions and with certain innovations introduced into Russian river and lake shipbuilding throughout the 20th century. So, if in the XIX century. on Lake Ladoga, soims were round-bottomed keeled vessels with clinker sheathing sewn with wicker in the form of tree roots and caulked with moss, then modern Ilmen soims are most often almost flat-bottomed, mostly keelless vessels with a small false keel, having a smooth sheathing with dowel fastening and fin sealing of seams (Fig. 4.4). Usually, Ilmen soims are equipped with two masts: a foremast located almost on the stem and a mainsail in the middle bank about an Ouse from the bow. Both masts are tilted forward (Fig. 4.5). The rigging consists of two rather wide sprint sails. On the move, soims are very light, fast and maneuverable. The stems are inclined, sometimes almost vertical, the stern is most often transom (Fig. 4.6, 4.7, 4.8). Another feature noted in modern soyms is the protruding centerboard well. Until recently, soims were still being built on the southern bank of the Ilmen in the village. Oyster.

According to the researcher of the late XIX century. Grigory Vasilyevich Esh, the general shape and sailing armament of the soims made them look like fishing boats from Lake Peipus, and also, most interestingly, like Norwegian fishing boats. Soims did not have permanent waterlines, and consequently, the midships, and even with a slight trim, the midships retreated to the stern. This is an extremely significant feature, since earlier all ships, without exception, had a midsection ahead of the middle, and only in the second half of the 19th century. yacht architecture, and after it all other branches of shipbuilding, recognized how important it is to place the midships closer to the stern (Esh G.V. 1895. p. 61).

Interesting information about the Ilmen Soyms was left by Mark Mikhailovich Barinov, who in the late 1960s. I observed these ships and even crossed Lake Ilmen several times on them: “The Soima is not like any of the ships I know ... At first glance, it refutes all the elementary laws of shipbuilding. Let's start with the fact that it has a trim on the nose. She has two short masts, and the front one is fixed right next to the stem, exactly in the place where the bow flagpole for the bow flag is located on large ships. The two masts, at any rate, are more than oddly placed. And besides, both masts are tilted ... forward! I’m not even talking about such details that are understandable only to specialists, like the awkwardly placed forward centerboard well, etc. In a word, it’s not a ship, but a caricature, not to swim, but to tumble ”(Barinov M. M. B. G. S. 25-26).

However, later, having independently sailed on these "caricature" vessels, M. M. Barinov admired their navigable qualities and optimal design, and also paid tribute to the rather peculiar fishing methods used by local fishermen. Here is a description of the first meeting with fishing communities on the stormy Ilmen: “Gloomy purple clouds rolled in from the northwest, and the horizon swirled with a white veil for all three hundred and sixty degrees. Ilmen was a formidable sight that night ... And suddenly, not far from us, I saw the black silhouettes of two ships going across. In less than three minutes, in the ghostly whitish haze of the northern night, I already distinguished two sailboats, easily and freely paving the way among the raging waves. Wide black sails, like wings, swept over black hulls, complete desertion on the decks and on the stern, where the helmsman is supposed to be, created a fantastic impression. They walked in parallel courses and quickly approached us. No matter how much I peered, I did not see a single person from the teams of these mysterious night wanderers. They were sailing with full wind, on a gybe, and their white, foamy whiskers seethed under their sharp stems. We missed each other no more than fifteen meters, and then I noticed that a cable was fixed on the stern of the nearest sailboat, going under water in the direction of the second. And still, not a single soul ”(Barinov M. M. B. G. S. 24-25).

As it turned out later, the author observed soims while fishing: “... having stretched a long net, they keep their course parallel in a stormy lake all night. And, as a rule, no one is on the helms of the ships! I can’t imagine how the amazing Ilmen navigators manage to do this!” (Barinov M. M. B. G. S. 27).

We present the work of the famous Onega lake craftsman Sergei Vasilyevich Davydov. During the years of activity as a boat master, he built 37 boats of the classical type (of which 10 were Kizhankas) and the boat "MAX-4" (the second one) for Evgeniy Smurgis. The author introduces the reader not only to the traditional technology of building folk boats of the Russian North, but also to the experience of improving them (in particular, taking into account the use of an outboard motor).

1. What is kizhanka

The majestic wooden temples in our reserved Zaonezhie did not appear from scratch: men never hesitated to work with an ax here and owned it excellently. Of all the amazing variety of old handmade wooden products, not only have survived to this day, but also work normally, perhaps only Kizhanka boats. Today I know at least five Onega craftsmen who make such boats, and they do it the way they did in the good old days. For many generations, the technology of construction has been polished, and the most common type of kizhanka has settled down. In the old days, a boat was usually built on a barn - under the common roof of a large northern house.

The length of the boat is 5.2 m, the width is 1.4 m, the height amidships is 0.5 m.

Kizhanka has remained unchanged in Zaonezhie due to its remoteness from major trade routes and from the influence of new technology. Manufacturing technology is based on the use of all the same carpentry techniques. These are, for example: dovetail connection, tongue and groove, pins. Wide boards are used. Once these boards were not sawn, but hewn. On stems and frames, "native" roots and branches are taken. Native - this means that the parts are not bent or glued, but have a natural curvature. A whole kokora is placed as a stem - a “hook”, hewn from the lower part of the spruce trunk with a thick root process. Such a kokora, set with the root part up, creates, together with the sheer sides, a unique image of the boat.

A boat is being built with the keel down. The keel (matitsa) - a wide chopping block - is placed on two low goats installed at the locations of two internal patterns-templates, in local terms - slats. From above, a vertical bar is placed in the groove of the plank, the upper end of which rests against the roof beam. This beam presses the pattern and the keel to the goats. Patterns-slats set the collapse of the first two bottom boards. The collapse of the following boards depended on the experience and skill of the master and, as a result, determined the performance of the boat. Secrets were handed down directly from father to son, so the family traits of floating boats are still distinguishable today. Kizhanki served for 25-30 years. I know a boat that is now over fifty, and the master who made it is still remembered.

The length and contours of the boat were determined by the Onega wave. The main advantage of the boat is a sharp nose, with which it easily penetrates the wave and does not jump out of the water, but only rises slightly when the crest of the wave approaches its middle. Thanks to this, even when rough, the boat moves without loss of speed. And the wave in the fresh wind is high and with a lamb.

The narrow running waterline is the secret to easy oaring. Moreover, a 6-meter boat with a load of 250-300 kg behaves better in all respects than an empty one.

The sail was set in the bow - sprint (in Zaonezhsky sprint is called "raino"). An ordinary boat had a length of about 6 m. The fishermen were larger - 8 m. The largest were the soims for transporting goods and livestock (in the summer to the islands for grazing); their length was about 10 m. The weight of the empty boat did not matter. They carried up to 800 kg of cargo.

The boats were made with sheathing. Boards were used spruce or pine. Moss or tow on resin was laid between the boards. They fastened (stuffed) the boards with horseshoe tetrahedral nails (with a flattened hat) in a bend. Therefore, they called the boards - naboi. The width of the boards is of great importance. With wide boards, more distinct longitudinal edges appear, which, by increasing the width, provide good stability of the boat when entering the water on a roll.

The case, when everything is ready, could be assembled in a week. Then, native frames (girths) were placed inside and along the edge of the side - a fender (bend). On average, with all the preparations and preparations for the manufacture of the boat, it took up to three weeks. The customer came, and the white, not yet tarred boat was lowered into the water and looked where it was flowing. Only after that the boat was taken away and pitched - impregnated with hot tree resin - already the owners themselves.

And after all this, the moment of truth came: glory to the master or shame!

Owning this technology, you can make a boat of any desired size - "as measure and beauty say." These are the words of master Nestor, who erected the Church of the Transfiguration in Kizhi and threw his ax into the lake (there is such a legend!) As a sign that there will be no other such church.

2. How I built the "davydovka"

I am a resident of the city, but as a child I lived in Zaonezhye for a long time. And after serving in the army, he returned here again and worked on the restoration in Kizhi. Dural boats with a cloud of spray and hysterically humming motors have never caused me much joy. They are all in a hurry. And in a solid wooden boat with a sail, you don’t want to rush anywhere. I want to be alone with nature. But the motor is small - let it still be. Just in case. In 15 minutes, the situation can change so much that it’s not a sin to hurry to the house! Having sweated a little on the oars, you lean back - and look at the sky, you hear only a slight splash, the blows of waves on the hull.

So, we inherited a wave-piercing body that works well even under a motor at speeds up to 15 km / h. The speed at oars and under sail is sufficient for fishing and recreation, but is it possible to make the kizhanka even easier on the move?

The magazine "KiYa" is one of the few that spur thinking activity. In one of the magazines, I read about semi-planing hulls, as if consisting of two parts: a displacement lower one, which has a small width and a high relative elongation, and an upper planing hull, the width of which exceeds the average width of the lower part by at least three times. And it became interesting to me: is it possible to apply this experience on a rowboat? I wanted to make a 7-meter (or larger) boat with a new type of contours. It took some time to think and. I wanted to be sure to take all the best from the “Kizhanka”. The small width of the transom (about 0.6 m on the DWL) was determined from the condition that the main mode of movement is sailing and oaring; it is important that the boat does not pull water.

The construction began with the selection of grooves on the bar keel and stem and the assembly of the assembly - the transom panel. And now a narrow keel is placed on the slipway. Bends to form a rise to the bow and especially to the transom.

The stem and transom are attached. The stem this time was a kokora, set with the root part down. It is paired with the keel “on the mustache”, so that the end of the keel is protected by the kokora. The bow and midsection patterns-slats are installed. The transom itself serves as a stern pattern - power, for hanging the motor.

The boards of the first sheet piling belt are drawn, and then the boards are fastened. The angles of installation following the sheet piling are not random. The second and third belts form platforms on which the body rests when moving under a motor at speeds above 10 km / h. At the same time, only a long narrow “lower” body remains in the water. Its width refers to the width of the upper planing area (along the running overhead line) as one to three.

As a seal between the tongue groove of the keel and the first board, as well as between all subsequent belts, I used Sikaflex 291 polyurethane sealant, which has amazing adhesive properties and does not dry out completely, i.e. retains elasticity. Fasteners - galvanized nails bent. Boards 18 mm thick were laid without steaming. Two-year-old natural drying boards were used, stored outdoors under a canopy.

Each subsequent board was attached to the previous one with the help of pincers with a wedge, resembling a large clothespin. The customized board was bent around in place and drawn along the upper edge of the already fixed one. Boards - unedged. And since in nature there are no identical trees, there are no completely identical boards. Therefore, there is never a dull moment while working. And it's cold too. The temperature in the workshop should be 12-14°C so that the boards do not dry out.

The stern of the boat ends with a decorative transom, located 0.6 m aft from the end of the keel, on which the power transom stands. The side view gives the impression that the motor is inside the boat. The boards at the stern end of the boat are cut at an angle of 45° to the horizontal. The motor has the same freedom as on a conventional motorboat.

The classic kizhanka has what the boatmen call flat-keeled bottom contours. In other words, below the DWL, all three or four boards are placed at approximately the same angle to the horizontal (about 15 °).

The length of the boat is 6.0 m, the width is 1.6 m, the height amidships is 0.55 m.

The main difference of my new boat (Davydovka "Fedorych") is that the middle part of the bottom in width has a pronounced deadrise. Sheet pile boards are placed at an angle to the horizontal not 15 °, as usual, but 45 °. Thus, a convex keel part protruding downwards is formed, and above the sheet pile belt, the contours repeat a typical kizhanka. Deadrise angle - 12°.

Kizhanka "Fedorych" with improved contours and internal
transom under the PM of the work of the author of the article.
The length of the boat is 7.0 m (according to the DWL - 6.25 m), the width is 1.7 m, the height amidships is 0.65 m.

A rubber cushion is attached to the aft end of the keel, against which the leg of the Veterok rests. A low fin is made in the stern of the keel. Thus, the motor leg is pressed against the boat over its entire height and does not create resistance to movement.

The cabin-shelter roof in the bow makes the hull more rigid. Under the roof there is flooring. The body outside was impregnated with Impreg 1 in three layers, then primed and painted with enamel (Hempel products). From the inside, the case is impregnated with hot wood resin on turpentine (three layers). The mast is placed on the keel through a slot open from the stern in the edge of the roof. No shrouds and other complications typical for yachts are required. With a weak side wind, without removing the sails, you sit down at the oars. For two or three strokes, the speed of the boat increases, and the sails are filled with wind. With a headwind, the mast, of course, is removed (thanks to the slot, it easily collapses into the stern), and the motor is turned on.

The usual and reliable sprint sailing equipment with a total area of ​​​​about 8 square meters was used. m. The staysail and the grotto are sewn from lavsan.

And now the new boat is on the water. Immediately on the keel we lay ballast - about 60 kg of stones. The length of the oar is 2.9 m. We slowly accelerate and immediately notice a very easy move on the oars. Later, having properly understood our boat, we learned to row it even against a strong wind.

The boat simply does not notice a wave 15-20 cm high. One good day we went to Kizhi on Veterka-8. The distance from Petrozavodsk is 66 km. Cargo - 200 kg and two people. It feels like the boat is running. The motor hums smoothly, and the throttle is half open. In the middle part of the path, you need to cross the open part of the lake, this section is about 25 km long. Everything was unusually easy and calm. The average transition speed was 13.5 km/h. Fuel consumption is 15 liters, it turned out about 0.25 liters per 1 km. In the future, we reached an even lower consumption figure - 0.2 liters. With a load of four or five people, with an increase in speed to the maximum, a small transverse wave appears behind the stern, but at a speed of 12-13 km / h it is almost absent.

We decided to check the speed on the "measured mile" without a load on two pairs of oars: it turned out that 1 km was covered in 4 minutes. They didn't believe it! Went back - 4.5 min. It is clear that we have 12 km / h when rowing together on two pairs of oars.

They named the boat "Fedorych" - in honor of my teacher. Boat craftsman Ivan Fedorovich Veresov made about 300 boats.

On August 18, Kizhi traditionally celebrates the Day of the Transfiguration. Local people gather, people come on motor ships from Petrozavodsk. There is a service in the temple. The bell ringing is carried over the expanses of water and islands.

For the second year in a row, according to the celebration program, a rowing race on folk boats is held. In the morning we brought here our new boat "Fedorych" in tow behind our "big sister" - the previously built "davydovka". About thirty boats gathered, most of them ordinary kizhankas of different sizes and different years of construction. Even just looking at them was interesting. And then you could see and compare them on the go! From the city came wooden ships, including the three-masted frigate Courier, and the iron ships of the young sailors' club, so that the background of the anchored old sailing ships was picturesque and curious.

The starting shot was fired from a cannon on board the Pomeranian boat "Saint Nicholas".

The start was given from the shore, so at this signal everyone rushed to take their places. Everything was fun and cute. Residents gathered of different ages. There were family and even purely female crews, and the rowers were in old dresses with flowers.

Kizhi Island is narrow and long. Started on one side, finished on the other. The distance as a whole was 3 km. Before the turn, we went first, but after the turn we were overtaken by a light boat 5.2 m long. According to the rules of the race, a crew of three was allowed: two rowers and one helmsman. And they rowed with three pairs of oars. We did not immediately realize what was happening, and only therefore did not have time to catch up with them. We finished second, and both boats had a big lead over the rest.

There were no offended: all crews received prizes; grandfather - for being the oldest, another old man - for the oldest boat, some of the participants - for beauty. Someone in general - only for participation, and some of the laggards - for the will to win. One crew received an ax with the wording "for the most clumsy boat"; the men were not taken aback and threw the prize into the lake, declaring that the next boat would be done differently.

A good person will talk, talk - and drink, so there was a common celebratory tea party. He helped organize all this with a grant received from Uncle Soros. And we, together with the Kizhi Museum-Reserve, were able to explain to him that local shipbuilding is the most folk craft. But there are patrons in their own country. At their expense, the described boat "Davydovka" was made.

This season we tried it not only in races, but also in hiking. Were on waves up to 7 m long, got into a thunderstorm. By all accounts, the boat turned out. It is both light on the move, and stable, and stable on the course. On it, you can safely, for example, catch grayling, walking along the coast in the surf, where other boats easily lose control. In other words, I am very pleased with the boat, but this does not stop me from thinking about how to make it even better. I will make the next “davydovka” a little longer (by 0.25 m on the design waterline), I will shift the maximum width by about 0.5 m to the stern, and I will increase the side height in this place by 5 cm; Perhaps I will reduce the deflection of the keel.

S. Davydov, Petrozavodsk, "KiYa" No. 175.