Mariinskaya water system. Mariinskaya water system: history of creation, significance, photos, interesting facts. “The barge haulers are walking with a towline!”

One day I saw the Onega and Staroladoga bypass canals, which run along the edge of the lakes and end in Shliselburg. These canals in many places are covered in granite, just like the canals of St. Petersburg, there are bridges over them, and there are locks and piers on the canals.

The scale of the work simply amazed me! Then I found out that all this is not all, that at the same time, the end of the 18th century, Kronstadt was built with its forts from cut granite on bulk islands, at the same time, bast peasants were building St. Petersburg and, without hesitation, they also dressed the canals in granite! Many have written about the oddities of the construction of St. Petersburg and its incomprehensible technologies! But when all this came together in my head in one time and place, the volume of work, its quality and grandeur simply amazed me to the core! But this turned out to be just a small fraction of what actually happened in this region at the end of the 18th and mid-19th centuries... the time of construction or the development of the former Mariinsky system! Why did I get hooked on this waterway - as if its history is simple and clear - Aleksashka Menshikov took over and began building bypass canals, then the Oldenburgs continued, and the Soviet builders finished it! Is it simple? No, it’s not easy, and here’s why - as we see on the map, this system includes the Volkhov River and the Neva River! These are very unusual rivers - the Neva is the deepest and shortest of all the rivers on earth... it starts from a lake and flows into the Gulf of Finland... well, okay, it happens! But the Volkhov River is generally strange - it flows out of Lake Ilmen, and flows into Lake Ladoga, the river is so reminiscent of a canal that it is often called a canal, and the river flows in one direction or the other, but it is in its own, very necessary place and is part of the general water system. Naturally, nowhere will you find mention of the construction of such a canal, after all, the “most ancient” city - Veliky Novgorod stands on this river!

Here is a modern diagram and the Volkhov River is included in it - straight as a canal, straighter than the famous Volga-Baltic Canal!

This diagram was very helpful in understanding the issue - it shows a general diagram that includes everything - from Kronstadt to Rybinsk, a single water transport system that unites, as they say, natural and artificial objects, and the Mariinskaya is only part of it.

The Volkhov River and the Rurik settlement...

Here is a description of the Mariinsky system - the length was 1145 km along the route. On average, it took 110 days to get from Rybinsk to St. Petersburg. At the same time, it was necessary to pass through 28 wooden locks.

The whole system looked like this: Locks on Kovzhe - St. Constantine, St. Anna and one half-lock.

9 km from St. Anna, a connecting canal was dug to the village of Verkhny Rubezh. There are 6 gateways on the channel.

The watershed point was Matkoozero.

There are 20 locks on Vytegra. All locks had a chamber length of 32 m, a width of 9 m and a depth at the threshold of 1.3 m.

The system is fed from Lake Kovzhskoye, for which its level was raised by 2 meters by blocking dams on Kovzha and Puras.

For safe communication around lakes Bely, Onega and Ladoga - which are often stormy - bypass canals were dug:

The 10 km long Syassky Canal took 36 years to build, from 1765 to 1802. Under Alexander II it was expanded and modernized.

The Svirsky Canal, 53 km long, was built in 1802-10. Modernized almost simultaneously with the previous one, after which it was renamed in honor of Alexander III.

Onega Canal. Its construction began in 1818 on the site from the river. Vytegra to the Black Sands tract. The length of the canal is 20 km. They dug from Black Sands to Voznesenye until 1852.

The Belozersky Canal was opened in August 1846. Passed along the southern shore of the lake with dimensions: bottom width 17 m, depth 2.1 m, length 67 km. It had two gateways on the Sheksna side - “Convenience” and “Safety”, and one on the Kovzha side - “Benefit”.

Here are the wooden gateways...

The buildings completely correspond to the time, even steam shovels and dredgers worked...

But the Mariinsky water system is already late and it is not the largest and grandest. I won’t show photos of the canals of Shliselburg and Staraya Ladoga, everything is clear there - Peter the first caught up with soldiers and peasants, they built everything, as if next to St. Petersburg and there is granite not far away and there is a tradition of rolling the banks into granite because there is nothing to do!

But for example, the Belozersky Canal is granite.

Sudbitsky Lock is a surveyor's dream!

And this is Vyshny Volochek - an ancient canal - granite again!

Photos like these are especially touching - granite shores and a woman rinsing clothes..... where is her granite washing machine?

Yes, one could build a hundred thousand pyramids from this chopped granite!!! Moreover, it turns out that in the 18th century they built from granite, and in the 19th century they began to make wooden sluices, in the 18th century powerful metal structures embedded in granite slabs, and in the 19th there were such men with shovels! And barge haulers who pull barges with their hands - probably the same with sawn granite, only through the swamps on chariots!

Okay, when I see a steam excavator in a photo from the 19th century, I understand how the canals were dug, but in the 18th century they didn’t seem to exist?! And that they dug like this with wooden shovels and carried them to the top on a stretcher, and then laid the granite blocks evenly by hand?

I was also surprised by the sparse population of these areas - this is Venice, and where the inhabitants are, there are some miserable villages along the canals! In short, questions, questions, questions and they need to be answered! It's all right next to us! And all the supposedly gray-legged men, illiterate and wild... and who fed them, washed them, where did they live, where was all the infrastructure?

The Volga-Baltic Waterway is the name given to a grandiose transport system of water routes that stretches for 1,100 km in the northwestern part of Russia and connects the Baltic Sea and the river. Volga. It is a complex link in a single deep-sea communication system for the entire European part of the Russian Federation, which unites transport lines leading to the White, Baltic, Black, Caspian, and Azov seas.

(VDVP) passes through:

Rybinsk Reservoir;
lakes: Beloe, Onega, Ladoga;
rivers: Sheksna, Kovzha, Vytegra, Neva, Svir;
channels: Mariinsky, Onega, Volgo-Baltiysky (Volgo-Balt).

Drawable pontoon road bridge across the Volga-Baltic Canal in the village of Annensky Bridge

The waterway has a minimum width of 50-70 m with a depth of 4 m and allows the passage of ships with a carrying capacity of up to 5000 tons. Most of them are self-propelled cargo ships that transport cargo without transshipment. The most important goods transported by this waterway are:

iron ore concentrate – through Kandalaksha from the Kola Peninsula to the Cherepovets Iron and Steel Works;
Cherepovets ferrous metals, Donbass and Kuzbass coal, potassium salts from Solikamsk, sulfur pyrites from the Urals - to supply the northwestern regions and for export;
Khibiny apatites and apatite concentrate, Karelian granites and diabase, grains - to different regions of the country;
timber, lumber from Vologda, Arkhangelsk - to St. Petersburg, the southern regions of the country and for export;
Baskunchak salt - to Murmansk;
oil and its refined products – to the northwestern regions, the Baltic states, for export;
imported cargo – from St. Petersburg to different regions of Russia.

Passenger routes connect St. Petersburg with Moscow, Rostov-on-Don, Perm, Astrakhan, and most river cruises to the “northern capital” also pass along this route.

Volga-Baltic Canal
Annensky Bridge crossing

The history of the waterway goes back to the creation Mariinskaya water system, built back in the 19th century. After its major reconstruction in the 60s of the last century, it was named the Volga-Baltic Waterway.

Since the 18th century, access to the Baltic Sea has been a strategic goal for Russia. This was facilitated by the growing importance of the new capital, St. Petersburg, which required the establishment of convenient transport links, including water transport, with all internal regions of the state.

To solve these problems, water systems were created and discovered:

in 1709 – Vyshnevolotskaya;
in 1811 - Tikhvinskaya;
in 1810 - Mariinskaya.

The last system, starting near Rybinsk, passed further along rivers, lakes, and the artificial Mariinsky Canal. It also included bypass canals created to ensure the safety of navigation of small vessels plying on Lakes Ladoga, White, and Onega:

Onega;
Novoladozhsky;
Belozersky.

The economic importance of the Mariinsky system for that time is difficult to overestimate. At that time, it was an outstanding hydraulic structure, however, it soon ceased to satisfy the growing transport needs of the country, which necessitated the need to search for new modern solutions.

The Mariinskaya water system is a waterway in Russia connecting the Volga basin with the Baltic Sea. From Rybinsk to the St. Petersburg seaport through the Ladoga canals (1054 versts). Consists of both natural and artificial waterways: r. Sheksna - White Lake - r. Kovzha - Mariinsky Canal - r. Vytegra - Lake Onega - r. Svir - Ladoga canals - r. Neva. It was under the jurisdiction of the Vytegorsky and St. Petersburg communication districts. The construction of the waterway was necessary for the Russian Empire to supply St. Petersburg (as the capital and largest city by population) with bread, timber, firewood and other products, goods for foreign trade, delivered through Rybinsk from the lower reaches of the Volga. For grain trading, a grain exchange was established in Rybinsk. Subsequently, wheat was exported to Europe through the Mariinsky system. The construction of the system, over 1,125 km long, took place during the reign of Paul I and his son Alexander I, and took 11 years. In connection with the development of capitalism after the abolition of serfdom, the capacity of the Mariinsky Canal was considered insufficient. In August 1882, work began on its modernization (the so-called Novomariinsky Canal). Construction work was completed in 1886. Following this, the construction of the Novosvirsky and Novosyasky canals (bypass canals near Ladoga) began. The reconstruction of the canals was led by engineer K. Ya. Mikhailovsky. In 1890, the Ministry of Finance allocated 12.5 million rubles for the reconstruction of the system. The work began on October 28, 1890. They were supervised by engineers from the Vytegorsky and Novoladozhsky railway districts: A. Zvyagintsev, K. Balinsky, A. Valuev, A. Moguchiy, V. Martynov. Total: 38 locks (on Vytegra - 28, on the Novo-Mariinsky Canal - 2, on Kovzhe - 2, on Belozersk - 2, on Sheksna - 4) and 26 dams (on Vytegra - 14, on Kovzha - 4, Belozersk Canal - 4, on Sheksna - 4). Four stone sluices were built (without No., No. 35, No. 36 and No. 37), each 150 fathoms long, 6 fathoms wide; with metal gates, collapsible dams of the Poare (Poare) system. Perekop (total length 20 versts): No. 1 Devyatinsky on Vytegra; Kopanovsky (at the 21st verst from the source), Krestovy, Alekseevsky, Maryinsky, Probudovsky (at the 45th verst), Lukovetsky (791 fathoms; shortened the path by 7 versts) on Sheksna. Cleared of influx and sediment, deepened and expanded lakeside bypass channels. In some places, towpaths have been renewed, in some places new ones have been built. On the Svir, rapids have been partially cleared, straightening and water-restraining structures have been built, and the navigation channel has been widened and deepened. On June 15/27, 1896, the opening ceremony of the rebuilt system took place in Chernaya Grid in the presence of the leader. book Vladimir Aleksandrovich, Minister of Railways M.I. Khilkov. At the World Exhibition in Paris in 1913, the Mariinsky system was awarded the Big Gold Medal. With the completion of the construction of the Volga-Baltic waterway, most of the Mariinskaya water system became part of it. The system reconstructed in 1959-1964 was named the Volga-Baltic Waterway named after. V.I. Lenin. During the initial construction of the Mariinsky water system (1799 - 1808) “in the gorge”, where the Vytegra River “... is surrounded by high rocky mountains and makes several meanders,” one- and two-chamber wooden locks of St. Andrew were installed (at 32- th verst from Vytegra near the village of Velikiy Dvor), St. Samson and St. Michael, and below is the three-chamber gateway of St. Paul (at the 30th verst near the village of Parfeevskoye). Each lock chamber was 15 fathoms long and 30 feet wide. There were dams at the locks. With a rare exception on the Vytegra River (St. Andrew's lock), all locks were built in diversion (water supply) canals dug in the meanders of the river. In 1890 - 1896, a winding section of the riverbed, 1.5 versts long, was removed from the water system by digging. Gateway of Empress Maria Feodorovna on the Mariinskaya canal system

There were two most significant excavations along the entire Mariinsky waterway: Perekop No. 1 near the village of Devyatiny (437.75 fathoms in rocky soil with the bottom laid at a depth of 11.01 fathoms from the surface) and Lukovetsky excavation on the Sheksna River. Devyatinsky Perekop was the most grandiose structure of the reconstruction of the Mariinsky water system in 1890 - 1896. The work was carried out by constructing a tunnel using the so-called English method, which was used in England, America, Italy, Switzerland and Austria. This method was used for the first time in Russia. The existing fairway at the St. Alexey. 1892

The essence of the tunnel method was that at the level of the bottom of the future canal, a tunnel-adit was built, which communicated with the surface by a number of shafts. The soil removed from the surface was thrown through the mine channels into the adit, where rolling stock cars stood under the mine openings. The soil was removed from the adit and dumped under the overpass along which the train was moving. The path for transporting soil from the excavation went along the slope of the left bank and, bypassing the village of Kamennaya, went along a wooden overpass (340 fathoms long and 6 fathoms high) to a low meadow, which subsequently disappeared under the poured soil. Laying the king on the St. Nicholas. 1892

Two locomotives with rolling stock moved along the rails, each consisting of 45 cars (3 cars for each of the 15 shafts). There were 16 people working at the top of each shaft, and two people at the bottom in the adit. Breaking was carried out manually with little support from blasting. During these difficult works, unexpected obstacles appeared, for example, in one part of the excavation under the slabs there was a layer consisting of alternating layers of stone and clay of all colors and compositions, this whole mass began to move with the onset of thaws. Digging device at the St. Alexey. 1892

On average, 1,200 people and 500 horses were employed on a permanent basis. There were not enough workers. Food and technical supplies came intermittently in autumn and spring, and in winter it was very expensive, since only horse-drawn transport could be used. One winter there was a frost of thirty degrees. One year of construction coincided with a bad harvest. The threat of a cholera epidemic arose twice. Devyatinsky perekop. A steam locomotive drives a loaded train. 1893

The construction of Perekop No. 1 took five and a half years. The volume of excavation amounted to more than 80 thousand cubic fathoms, including 5 - clay soil and 76 - slab and rocky (dolomitized) limestone (786, 48.5 and 737.5 thousand cubic meters, respectively. The first Russian experience of the tunnel method of canal construction exceeded the volume of work all previously known is six times.

Perekop walked around the bend of the river where the St. Samson and St. Michael locks stood. In the perekop itself, three locks, each 50 fathoms long, were installed. In technical terms, three locks with one dam with distances between chambers of 125 fathoms were actually one three-chamber lock. Mariinskaya 5th dredging machine. Kovzha River. 1909

Today in the river valley you can see the remains of a whole complex of wooden hydraulic structures of the old Mariinsky Theater of different years of construction. A little below the mouth of the White Stream in the channel of the Vytegra-Mariinka there are the ruins of the dam and lock of St. Andrew. The log fortifications of the walls of the former lock chamber and the fallen gate remained. The current channel, when turning into Perekop, is blocked by the remains of the St. Samson dam and the wooden structures of the St. Samson sluice of the first construction. The artificial origin of the excavation is easily determined by its straight direction and smooth slopes. Kovzh Dam. 1909

In the lower part of the sides of the excavation, the remains of fastenings of the coastal slopes are visible in places. The locks of St. Samsonius, St. Michael and St. Vladimir (downstream, respectively, No. 25, 24, 23), which once stood in the perekop, now represent the remains of log structures of the side walls and bottom of the chambers and iron rods that secured the wooden structures to the “ stone" slopes of the dig. You can even “guess” the technical features of the cameras. The now unpreserved “floor” of the bottom of the chambers of the two upper locks was laid on beds attached to limestone slabs, and the chamber of the St. Vladimir lock had a pile foundation. Half-rotten beds in one place and the remains of a pile foundation in another place can still be distinguished. It is virtually impossible to reconstruct the appearance of the first locks of St. Michael, even in general terms, from fragments of wooden structures and pile fortifications in the riverbed. In 1887, the Novo-Mariinsky connecting canal with a total length of about 9 versts was built to bypass Matkozero, including 2 versts 7 fathoms of the old canal (from the mouth of the first canal to the St. Peter's lock). There were only two gateways on the new channel. The lifting of vessels to the watershed reach of the canal was carried out through the St. Alexander lock, and entry into the Baltic branch was carried out through the St. Peter lock. On the Vytegra River. 1909

The area around the canal and locks was completely open. A mile from St. Peter's lock there was an obelisk erected in honor of Peter I by General Devolant. From the monument one could see the basin of Matkozero, which was lowered in 1886. At the fifth mile of the new canal, away from the Aleksandrovsky Lock, the remains of the former Konstantinovsky water pipeline remained for a long time. A monument in honor of the completion of the construction of a new connecting (Novo-Mariinsky) canal between the Vytegra and Kovzheya rivers. Lock of St. Alexander. 1909

St. Xenia Dam on the Vytegra River. 1909

Dam of St. Paul in Devyatiny. 1909

Repair shop M.P.S. in Devyatiny. Vytegra River. 1909

GIOL 59°57′07″ n. w. 30°20′47″ E. d. HGIOL

Volga-Baltic Waterway

Pavel I. thin. Borovikovsky

Alexander I, artist S. Shchukin

The construction of the waterway was necessary for the Russian Empire to supply St. Petersburg (as the capital and largest city by population) with bread, timber, firewood and other products, goods for foreign trade, delivered through Rybinsk from the lower reaches of the Volga. For grain trading, a grain exchange was established in Rybinsk. Subsequently, wheat was exported to Europe through the Mariinsky system.

The construction of a system with a length of over 1125 km took place during the reign of Paul I and his son Alexander I, and took 11 years. It was constantly reorganized and improved, digging in river bends shortened the length of the path. The system reconstructed in 1959-1964 was called Volga-Baltic Waterway named after. V. I. Lenina.

Design and construction

Research

Research in the direction of the river's waterway. Vytegra - r. Kovzha - White Lake - r. Sheksna was held several times: by decree of Peter I in 1710, and in 1774, 1785 and 1798.

In 1710 - research by the English engineer John Perry (invited by Peter I in 1698) of all three watersheds of the Volga and Baltic.
In 1711, Peter I personally inspected the watershed of the Vytegra and Kovzhi from the Vyanginskaya pier to Badoga.
In 1712, John Perry in the Senate, in the presence of Peter I, announced the results of the research, presented a work plan and calculations. The Senate decided to allocate ten thousand workers to the engineer.
In 1774, Second Major Likhachev presented his project for connecting the rivers.
In 1785, Catherine II ordered the Prosecutor General of the Senate, Prince. A. A. Vyazemsky sent two people to study the area of the future canal. They were carried out by the engineer Yakov-Eduard de Witte, sent by A.A. Vyazemsky, drawing up a preliminary and then a completed project and an estimate in the amount of 1,944,436 rubles. 20 kopecks On December 31, 1787, Catherine II allocated 500,000 rubles for the construction of the Vytegorsky Canal, but immediately redirected this money to the construction of the St. Petersburg - Moscow and St. Petersburg - Narva roads.
in the same 1785, both the Olonetsky and Arkhangelsk governor-general made their proposals.

But the need for supplies of goods to St. Petersburg was so high that the head of the Department, Count Yakov Efimovich Sivers, had to take up the design issue. He personally carried out a reconnaissance of the route and presented a report to Paul I on the construction in the Vytegorsky direction. The direction of the canal was taken from the Scotsman John Perry.

Money in the amount of 400 thousand rubles per year for the “speedy construction” of the Vytegorsky Canal was borrowed from the safe treasury of the Orphanages of both capitals. Since the head of the institutions was Empress Maria Feodorovna, by decree of January 20, 1799, the canal under construction received the name “Maryinsky”.

Construction

Description of the system for the 1810-1820s

Vytegra River

St. Daria (single-chamber) near the village of Skachkovo
St. Andrew (single-chamber, head 1.74 fathoms) near the village of Velikiy Dvor
St. Samson (single-chamber, pressure 1.56 fathoms)
Upper St. Michael (single-chamber, 1.44 fathoms)
Lower St. Michael (single-chamber, 1.28 fathoms)
Upper St. Paul (2-chamber, 2.45 fathoms)
Lower St. Paul (2-chamber, 2.26 fathoms)
St. Thomas (single-chamber, 0.92 fathoms)
St. George (two-chamber, 2.09 fathoms)
St. Jacob (single-chamber, 1.18 fathoms)
St. Alexy (two-chamber, 2.51 fathoms). St. Alexius Dam (built 1806, abolished 1893)
St. Theodore (single-chamber, 1.53 fathoms)
St. John (two-chamber, 1.96 fathoms). St. John's Dam (built 1806, abolished 1888)
St. Basil (single-chamber, 1.46 fathoms)
Upper St. Natalia (two-chamber, 2.40 fathoms) near the village of Markovo
Lower St. Natalia (two-chamber, 2.60 fathoms)
St. Olga (single-chamber, 1.41 fathoms) near the village of Ryabovo
St. Nadezhda (two-chamber, 2.26) near the village of Materiki
“Slava” (single-chamber, 1.31 fathoms) near the village of Belousovo
Upper "Russia" (single-chamber, 1.17 fathoms) near the village of Kryukova
Nizhny “Russia” (single-chamber, 1.20 fathoms)
St. Demetrius (single-chamber, 1.09 fathoms) near the village of Denisovo
semi-sluice "Devolant" (single-chamber, fall 0.76 fathoms; 1789-1810) in Vytegra. In 1822 it was replaced by the St. Sergius lock

Lakeside channels

For safe communication around lakes Bely, Onega and Ladoga - which are often stormy - bypass canals were dug:

Ladoga - Emperor Peter the Great Canal (1719-1730; length - 104.3 versts).
Syassky - Empress Catherine II channel (1765-1802; length - 9.4 versts). Under Alexander II it was expanded and modernized.
Svirsky - Emperor Alexander I canal (length - 48.1 versts; built in 1802-1810)
Onega Canal. Built in 1818-1820. in the area from the river Vytegra to the Black Sands tract. The length of the canal is 19 versts 15 fathoms. (40.8 km).

Flaws

The small size not only limited the possibilities of increasing cargo turnover, but also could not allow ships traveling along the Vyshnevolotsk system to Rybinsk. For a long time, Lakes White and Onega did not have bypass canals, as a result of which, even with slight waves, ships were lost while passing through them. The route itself passed through deserted and sparsely populated, swampy areas. Difficulties arose in finding sufficient numbers of people and horses to pull ships and maintain shipping.

Improvements 1820-1880s

Commodity and passenger shipping company S.I. Baldin.

Vessels: “Belozersk”, “Maria”. Message: Belozersk - St. Andrew's Gateway.

Passenger Shipping Company of the Heirs of P. P. Kaporulin.

Suda: “Peter.” Message: Belozersk - St. Andrew's Gateway.

Passenger Shipping Company (Partnership) Milyutin and Co.

Suda: “V. K. Vladimir”, “East”, “Northerner”, “Easy” (administrator for the affairs of A.I. Milyutin). Message: Rybinsk - Cherepovets - Chaika (road "Safety") - Belozersk.

Commercial-Peasant Shipping Company.

Vessels: “Vladimir”, “Citizen”, “Gregory”, “Maria”, “Mikhail”, “Nikolai”, “Society of Peasants 1st”. Message: Rybinsk - Cherepovets.

Kirillovskoye Commodity, Passenger and Tug Shipping Company. Message: Cherepovets - Topornya.
Partnership of Light Passenger Shipping Company along the river. Sheksne. Suda: “Vyacheslav.”
Shipping Company A. A. Ishanin. Vessel: "Vytegra".
Shipping Company A. N. Chernyshev.

Suda: “Bird.” Message: Rybinsk - Volskoye village.

Service vessels

Dredger "Mariinskaya I" (built in 1867 at the Cockerill plant, assembled in St. Petersburg; iron body, length - 12 fathoms, width - 2.5 fathoms)
"Mariinskaya II"
“Mariinskaya III” for work on the Belozersk Canal, coloir, with a residential vessel for the crew and a pontoon to counterweight the coloir (assembled in St. Petersburg in 1878 from foreign boilers and mechanisms; 85 hp; length - 13.15 fathom, width - 3.30 fathom)
“Mariinskaya IV” (purchased in 1887, the machine was built at the Haber factory in Lyon, wooden body, length - 14 fathoms, width - 4 fathoms)
“Mariinskaya V” (built in 1908 at the Sormovo plant, iron body, length - 12 fathoms, width - 4.15 fathoms)
"Sheksninskaya I"
"Sheksninskaya II"
"Sigovets"
Fire steamer "Pozharny" (built in 1904 at the Ils and Son plant in St. Petersburg; screw, 90 hp, 14 versts/hour, length - 9 fathoms, width - 1.9 fathoms. ; pump capacity: fire pumps - 20,000 buckets/h, drainage pumps - 16,000 buckets/h).
“Kama” - a steam barge for inspection supervision (transferred from the Kazan district of the PS in 1891, twin-screw, 18 hp, speed 10.5 versts/hour in still water).
“Porozovitsa” - a steam barge for inspection supervision (built at the Berd plant in St. Petersburg in 1876; 40 hp, speed 15.5 versts/hour, copper hull, length - 7.55 fathoms, width - 1.38 soot.)
“Andrey Birilev” is a steamer for traveling among senior officials of the Board of the Vytegorsky District of the Ministry of Railways (wheeled, iron hull, 140 hp, speed 12 versts/hour, built in Björnenborg at the Holström plant).
“Chaika” - a turbine longboat for travel and inspection of the head of the Belozersky Canal (built in 1892 at the Creighton plant in Abo; iron hull; 48 hp, 17 versts/hour; length - 8.5 fathoms, width - 1 ,3 soot.)

Insurance

Insurance agents and offices of insurance companies: “Russia”, “Severnoe”, “Salamander”, “Anchor”, “Russkoe”, “Russian Lloyd”, 1st Russian, 2nd Russian, Petrograd Insurance Society.

Situation

Lighthouses: on Ladoga: Storozhensky, Svirsky; on Onego: Kulikov, 6 versts from the source of the Svir (wooden on a stone foundation; height - 55 feet); on White Lake: at the mouth of Kovzhi (wooden), Black Sands (wooden, 1845)
Leading signs: at the entrance to the river. Vytegra (1878)
Buoys: on White Lake at the source of the Sheksna and the mouth of the Kovzha
Water measuring posts: Sermaksy (1st category), at the Podyandebsky threshold (2nd), Vazhiny (2nd), Myatusovo (2nd), Voznesenye (1st), Petrozavodsk (1st), Povenets ( 1st), Besov Nos (1st), Black Sands (1st, 1875), mouth of the river. Vytegra (1st category; 1885), St. Sergius lock (1st), at the Kovzhskaya dam (1st), St. Konstantin lock (1st), Polza lock at Cape Krugloye ( 1st), at the Belozersky spillway (1st), the “Security” lock at Cape Chaika (1st), the lock at Krokhino (1st), the lock at Nilovits (1st), the lock of Nicholas II at Black Ridge (1st), Cherepovets (1st), Vakhnovo (1st), Kozmodemyanskoye (1st), near the village of Knyazhich-Gorodok (2nd category).
Rescue station at the mouth of the Vytegra (1892)
Meteorological stations in Vytegra and Belozersk.
Hydrometric station in Krokhino posad.
Telephone exchanges
The guard booths are standard: wooden and brick.
Shoreline
Milestones. Border signs

Monuments

Obelisk to the construction of the Onega Canal in Ascension
Obelisks at the site of the old and new junction of the Vytegra and Kovzhi rivers
Obelisks for the construction of the Belozersk Canal: at the mouth of Kovzha, in Belozersk, at the junction with Sheksna.
Obelisks for the construction of the Novo-Ladoga Canal in Novaya Ladoga and Shlisselburg (not preserved).
Obelisks on the new and old Syask canals
Peter I in Lodeynoye Pole
Petrashen I.V. Mariinsky system. 1810-1910. St. Petersburg 1910
Reference book of the Vytegorsky Railway District. 1910 Vytegra. 1910
On the procedure for managing government property and maintaining proper reporting: Instructions for Vytegor officials. districts of communication tracks 3rd ed., add. Vytegra: Type. Samoilova. 1915
News of the Vytegorsky Railway District. Vol. 1-8. Vytegra. 1911-1918
Reference book of the Vytegorsky District of Railways. Mariinsky and Tikhvin waterways. 1916 Vytegra. 1916
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During the initial construction of the Mariinsky water system (1799 - 1808) “in the gorge” where the Vytegra River “... is surrounded by high rocky mountains and makes several meanders,” one- and two-chamber wooden locks of St. Andrew were installed (at the 32nd verst from Vytegra near the village of Velikiy Dvor), St. Samson and St. Michael, and below is the three-chamber gateway of St. Paul (at the 30th verst near the village of Parfeevskoye). Each lock chamber was 15 fathoms long and 30 feet wide. There were dams at the locks. With a rare exception on the Vytegra River (St. Andrew's lock), all locks were built in diversion (water supply) canals dug in the meanders of the river. In 1890 - 1896, a winding section of the riverbed, 1.5 versts long, was removed from the water system by digging.

Devyatinsky perekop. A steam locomotive drives a loaded train. 1893

The now unpreserved “floor” of the bottom of the chambers of the two upper locks was laid on beds attached to limestone slabs, and the chamber of the St. Vladimir lock had a pile foundation. Half-rotten beds in one place and the remains of a pile foundation in another place can still be distinguished. It is virtually impossible to reconstruct the appearance of the first locks of St. Michael, even in general terms, from fragments of wooden structures and pile fortifications in the riverbed.

In 1887, the Novo-Mariinsky connecting canal with a total length of about 9 versts was built to bypass Matkozero, including 2 versts 7 fathoms of the old canal (from the mouth of the first canal to the St. Peter's lock). There were only two gateways on the new channel. The lifting of vessels to the watershed reach of the canal was carried out through the St. Alexander lock, and entry into the Baltic branch was carried out through the St. Peter lock.

The area around the canal and locks was completely open. A mile from St. Peter's lock there was an obelisk erected in honor of Peter I by General Devolant. From the monument one could see the basin of Matkozero, which was lowered in 1886. At the fifth mile of the new canal, away from the Aleksandrovsky Lock, the remains of the former Konstantinovsky water pipeline remained for a long time. The design of this structure could have been understood back in the pre-war years of the 20th century.