The Gulf of Finland in St. Petersburg, despite external restraint and even "coldness", has many amazing corners filled with natural beauty and dramatic history. One of the pearls - Gogland - a large island in the Leningrad region. Everyone who has visited Gogland speaks of it as a majestic and unique land.
Etymology
The Swedish name of the island Hogland translates as "High Land". Indeed, there are relatively high mountains covered with forests, rocky shores, almost vertically extending into the water. In general, the landscape is typical for Eastern Fennoscandia. The Finns, from time immemorial, called the island Suur-Saari, in translation - "Great Land".
Sizes
Gogland Island is the largest in the Russian waters of the Gulf of Finland. It is located 10 km east of Russia's maritime border with Finland. From north to south, it stretches for about 11 km, and its width is from 1.5 to3 km. The entire area of the island is 20.65 km2.
Location
A seemingly uninhabited piece of land has a convenient and therefore important strategic position. On the right, 180 kilometers away is St. Petersburg, the Gulf of Finland with the fortress of Kronstadt, large Russian ports (Primorsk, Vysotsk, Vyborg, Ust-Luga). On the left, Finland and Estonia.
The island separates the western, deeper and s altier part of the Gulf of Finland, from the eastern part, which is shallower and fresher. Geographic coordinates of the island:
- 60ᵒ01' – 60ᵒ06' p. sh.;
- 26ᵒ56' – 27ᵒ00' c. e.
The nearest Finnish city is Kotka, located 43 km to the northeast. In the south, the Estonian coast of the bay is approximately 55 km away, and Bolshoi Tyuters Island is located to the southeast, at a distance of 18.5 km from the southern cape. The distance in a straight line to Ust-Luga is 85 km.
Gulf of Finland Islands: Gogland
The relief of the island is strongly dissected, the absolute marks vary from 108 m in the northern part (Pohjeiskorkia hill) to 175.7 m in the south (Lounatkorkia hill). Often there are rocky ledges up to 10 m or more high, they reach their maximum height (50-70 m) on the western slopes of the Mäkiinpäällus and Haukkavuori hills.
Along the east and west coasts are small bays and several small islands. The shores are mostly rocky, in the coves - pebble with boulders, and only in the bay of Suurkulänlahti - a clean sandy beach. This closed bay, convenient for ships, is located in the north-east of the island. It is protected by a pier and hasthe depth of the fairway at the entrance is 4.2 m, with an entrance width of 90 m. An old Finnish cemetery is located south of the Suurkulänlahti bay.
Lighthouses
There are two lighthouses on the island. The northern Gogland lighthouse, located on the Pokheiskorkia hill, was built under Peter the Great in 1723. Southern Goglandsky was founded in 1905 by decree of Nicholas II. Since 2006, a station for remote tracking of ships has been operating, built near the South Lighthouse. The only dirt road runs through the entire island, connecting both facilities.
Scientific activity
The Gulf of Finland for scientists is a unique natural laboratory, where, despite active human activity, the ecosystem has been preserved in its original form. Integrated ecological expeditions of the Biological Research Institute of St. Petersburg University to study the islands of the Russian part of the Gulf of Finland, including the island of Gogland, were carried out annually from 1991 to 1995 on the initiative and with the direct participation of Director D. V. Osipov.
Then they were continued in 2003-2004 within the framework of joint projects of the BiNII and the Finnish Environment Center (COSF). In 2004, the research received financial support from the Environmental Fund of the Leningrad Region. The geological study of the island was started in 2001 and continued in 2003-2004. The collection of materials for the description of vegetation was carried out by the Botanical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1994-1998 and in 2004-2006. The accumulated material made it possible to compile a botanical, zoological and geological mapregion, as well as to trace changes in nature based on previously obtained data.
Under the flag of UNESCO
Gogland Island is not only a natural attraction. In 1826, the German-Russian astronomer, director of the Pulkovo Observatory V. Ya. Struve founded a unique point on the island, which is part of a grandiose project designed to calculate the size and shape of the planet Earth. The so-called "Struve Arc", stretching from the shores of the Arctic Ocean to the Danube, is recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.
According to the registry, two objects - "Point Z" and "Point Mäkipyallus" (after the name of the rock of the same name) - are located on this land area remote from the coast. Here Viktor Yakovlevich observed angles and azimuths, which made it possible to obtain valuable astronomical data. This proves how important the Gulf of Finland is.
A conference dedicated to the points of the Struve Arc was held in St. Petersburg. A special expedition was sent to the island, which assessed the actual state of the UNESCO site. In memory of the historical event, two astronomical signs are installed here. The first one is on the Mäkiinpyällus upland. It is a commemorative plaque with the inscription “Mäkiinpyällus geodetic point was founded in 1826 by V. Ya Struve. To Ismail 841657 toises, to Hammerfast 660130 toises. The first measurement of the meridian arc in Russia from 1816 to 1855.”
Not far from the bay of Suurkulänlahti, in the forest, at the fork in the road leading to the Northern Lighthouse, another monument was erected, alsodedicated to the measurement of the meridian V. Ya. Struve. This astronomical sign "Gogland Z" was installed by the staff of the Pulkovo Observatory.
Historical background
The islands of the Gulf of Finland have been inhabited by people since time immemorial. The Saami were the first to master them. This is evidenced by sacred objects found on the tops of the hills - stones-caps, seids, " altars", resembling the religious buildings of the Sami of the Kola Peninsula.
In the historically foreseeable time Gogland was part of Sweden. Traditions say that the distant ancestors of the islanders were pirates and smugglers. These legends are quite plausible, since the island is located near an important trade route, and the rocky landscape was an excellent refuge for filibusters who robbed ships that went from the west to the Neva and Novgorod.
The island went to Russia in 1743 after the conclusion of a peace treaty with Sweden. In July 1788, a naval battle took place near Gogland between the Russian and Swedish fleets, known as the Battle of Gogland. It ended with the victory of the Russian fleet, as a result of which Russia secured the right to own the island.
Ship Graveyard
Gogland Island is located across the Gulf of Finland, in its very heart, so a busy sea route has been nearby since ancient times. A large number of underwater and surface rocks caused frequent shipwrecks off the coast of Gogland. In the memory of contemporaries, the story of the death of the Russian three-masted sailing ship America, which occurred on an October night, has been preserved.1856. The ship was sailing with a load of logs and iron to Tallinn, but, having got into a storm off the northeast coast, it ran into rocks and sank near the Northern Lighthouse. In the cemetery near the village of Suurkulä, one can see two graves in which 2 officers and 34 sailors from the crashed ship "Amerika" were buried. In 1999, the remains of another sunken sailboat were found by members of the Estonian Ikhtiandr Club in Maahelli Bay off the western coast of the island.
The birth of radio communications
The scientific experiments of A. S. Popov brought the island truly worldwide fame, when at the end of January 1900 a wireless telegraph connection was first established between Gogland and the Finnish island of Kutsalo near Kotka. It is significant that the ship crash was also the reason for conducting radio communication tests. The battleship "General-Admiral Apraksin", en route to the winter quarters from Kronstadt to the port of Liepaja, on November 13, 1899, ran into an underwater rock off the southeast coast.
It was not possible to remove it from the cliff in the conditions of the onset of winter weather and the rapid formation of an ice cover off the coast of the island. To organize rescue operations, it was necessary to establish uninterrupted communication with the nearest settlement, which was the city of Kotka, and through it - with St. Petersburg. After a number of fruitless attempts to establish the first line of radiotelephone communication, on January 24, the first radiogram was successfully transmitted from the Lounatkorkia hill (now called Popov's hill). To commemorate this event, a stele andmonument to A. S. Popov.
XX Century
Since 1917, when the Republic of Finland gained independence, the island of Gogland went to Finland. There were two Finnish villages - Suurkylä (translated as Big Village) and Kiiskinkylä (Ruff Village), whose population was about a thousand people, who were mainly engaged in fishing and seal hunting. So, according to the 1929 census, 896 people lived on the island. Solid foundations of houses, stone fences, cleared fields - all these evidence of the former peaceful life of the islanders have been preserved on the site of former villages. After the end of the Soviet-Finnish war, under the terms of the peace treaty (1940), Gogland was transferred to the USSR.
Dramatic events unfolded near the island during the Second World War. In August 1941, ships carrying refugees - children, women, tried to break out of the besieged Tallinn to Kronstadt, but were destroyed by German aircraft. The sailors of the detachment of ships under the command of Admiral I. G. Svetov rescued more than 12 thousand people who were in the water. According to the will of the admiral, he was buried in 1983 on the shore of the Suurkulyanlahti bay next to the grave of the fallen soldiers. An obelisk was erected at this place.
During the Great Patriotic War, the Gulf of Finland became the arena of the Soviet-German confrontation. Fierce battles were fought between the Soviet, Finnish and German troops and on Gogland. An old wooden cross erected on the shore of Lake Liivalahdenjärvi serves as a memorial to fallen soldiers.
Current State
In the post-warOver the years, defensive structures were created on the island, a powerful air defense radar station, recently dismantled, was deployed. Now there is only a small border post here and the staff of the navigation service serving the lighthouses, as well as the staff of the meteorological station operating on the island since the middle of the 19th century.
Administratively, Gogland is part of the Kingisepp District, (Gulf of Finland, Leningrad Region). A tourist center is developing near the Suurkylänlahti bay. A two-story Euroclass hotel has been built, which is already accepting tourists. Thus, from an outpost island on the border of Russian territorial waters, Gogland is gradually turning into a tourist Mecca of the Eastern B altic.
