Many of us at least once in our lives have heard the expression that Moscow is a port of five seas. But if you pick up a map of the Moscow region, then no one will find a single sea nearby. Why did they start talking like that? Let's start in order.
Going ships
In ancient times, there were no cars, no trains, no planes, and it was always necessary to deliver food and other various goods to cities. The fleet came to the rescue. Of course, ships in antiquity were not the same as they are now. Today they can swim against the current with the help of an engine, and earlier ships were dragged on ropes. This work was done by horses. A man harnessed and led them along the coastline. However, it was difficult for horses, but it was even more difficult for a person to do such work.
This fact is confirmed by a painting by Ilya Repin called "Barge Haulers on the Volga". On it, the artist depicted a crowd of barge haulers, exhausted by hard work, who pull the ship on ropes. Their faces were burnt from the scorching sun, their foreheads covered with sweat, their clothes turned into shreds from hard work. It is scary to think how much strength and he alth these people gave in order to transportcargo to where it is needed. Sometimes a person had to move loaded ships in this way even through forests and meadows in order for the ship to continue its journey along the river. Since then, the expression has gone that ships do not swim, but go.
Muscovites know that there is a town of Volokolamsk in their region. The name of this city consists of two roots "volok" and "llama". This settlement arose precisely in the transshipment place where the ship was pulled out of the water of the Lama River and dragged along the land to the Voloshni riverbed. Such navigation of ships continued for many centuries, but in the 18th century Emperor Peter the Great came up with the idea of building a special canal. But the first mention of the port of the five seas in history will be even later.
Man-Made Rivers
Sovereign Peter the First came up with the opportunity to shorten the waterway for the ship. Imagine that from Moscow to Ryazan, a ship needs to sail not 200 kilometers, like a car, but much more. The thing is that the rivers are very winding, they have many twists and turns, so the waterway is longer than the highway.
Our emperor came up with the idea of digging a deep gutter in those parts of the river where it bends very strongly, then closing the old riverbed near the river, not letting water in, and filling the new gutter with it. This is how Peter's idea straightened out some rivers!
And indeed, this road was more convenient and shorter than the previous one. Surprisingly, such an idea made it possible to build waterways in places where they never existed. So that a person does not have to carry ships on himself,it was enough to dig a deep channel, and the highway for the fleet was erected.
You may be surprised, but the active sovereign nevertheless made such a project a reality. Under his leadership, the Vyshnevolotsk Canal was built. This body of water connected two rivers: the Tvertsa and the Tsna. So from the Volga the ships got into the B altic Sea. The port of the five seas was later built in the same way.
Unrealized plans
Sovereign Peter the Great at one time decided to connect the Moscow River and the Volga. But these plans were not destined to be fulfilled. In the 18th century, the emperor gave the order to draw up an estimate for the construction, and when it was prepared, having familiarized himself with it, Peter the Great said disappointedly: “However!”
The construction of such a canal at that time turned out to be very expensive and long, since there was no equipment that could do it quickly and without loss of life. And you and I are getting closer to answering the question: why is Moscow called the port of five seas?
The capital is thirsty
Each of us knows that there is drinking water in the tap due to the fact that the city is built on the banks of the river. So it was with Moscow. On the threshold of the 20th century, the capital begins to develop so rapidly that the townspeople experience a shortage of clean water. The city authorities urgently needed to take any action.
And in 1931 it was decided to connect the main river of the capital with the Volga. Only she could help Moscow in this situation. The following year, the construction of the Great Moscow Canal began. The grandiose construction lasted 5years, and in the spring of 1937 the canal was successfully erected.
Its length was 128 kilometers. In the same spring, on March 23, the Volga was stopped for 3 minutes, and the canal was filled with Volga water. The Ivankovskoye reservoir was filled, on April 18, water from the Volga gave capital residents to drink!
It turns out that not all Muscovites know how long the water they drink has covered.
Moscow is a port city of five seas
That's the answer to the question. The channel was opened during the reign of Joseph Stalin. This expression sounded from the lips of the head of the Soviet state. The meaning of this phrase was that after the construction of the Moscow and Volga-Don canals from the main city, you can get to:
- Black Sea.
- Sea of Azov.
- White Sea.
- B altic Sea.
- Caspian Sea.
The status of "port of five seas" can be assigned not only to Moscow, but also to all those cities that have a water connection with the capital. These cities include Uglich, Volgograd, Kazan and so on. It was common for the Generalissimo of the Soviet Union to build such large-scale projects, so it was Stalin who came up with the idea to make the port of five seas in Moscow.
