May 2007 trip to Russia

The Boaters Page

The 1000-mile journey from Moscow to St Petersburg can only be undertaken from May to September; at other times most of it is frozen. It is busy with shipping at all times, not just the tourist ships such as we were on, but also a great many barges which are generally pushed singly or in pairs by giant push-tugs; their cargoes are generally timber, or sand and gravel. Unusually, we even saw a submarine arrive in Moscow along the canal.

Evening at Moscow River Station	A surprise arrival: a submarine	Sometimes moorings are scarce	Working on our anchor	A larger cruise ship overtakes us
Self-propelled timber barge	Push Tug	Push Tug	Push Tug	Push Tug Train
Waiting in the Neva River one-way system	Smaller traffic	Smaller traffic	Maintenance boats	Boatyard
Boatyard	Under repair	In need of repair	On our Bridge	The ship is steered by a tiny joystick. The larger lever is for the bowthruster

For the first 75 miles you are on the Moscow Canal which was built in 1937; it lowers you by 160 feet through 6 locks to the Volga River. The locks are wide enough for only a single ship, but easily long enough for two ships. There are floating hooks in the lockside for the ropes, but the remains of the original sets of bollards can often still be seen. The top gates are unusual in that they usually lie flat on the canal bed, and are rotated into an upright position once the ship has passed over them.

Moscow Canal architecture is similar to England's Gloucester and Sharpness Canal. This building controls a stop-gate	To navigate across the many lakes and even along some of the twisting rivers, leading marks are used extensively	When the leading marks are lined up like this you are on the right course	The locks have impressive decorations ...	... which are illuminated at night
Entering the first lock on the Moscow Canal	Some locks have very impressive entrances	The locks are up to 40 feet deep	They are only just wide enough for one ship	Although sometimes there is room for a smaller boat to sneak in as well
This lock was duplicated in 1992 to ease congestion, but one of the pair is no longer in use	The top gate mechanism	The top gate rotates to lie flush on the canal bed, then rotates when the boat has passed	The original bollards set into the wall ...	... have now been replaced by floating bollards
Approach the floating bollard ...	... get ready to throw the rope, ...	... throw it and miss, ...	... throw it again and miss again, ...	... throw it a third time and hook on to the bollard

At first on the Volga river you are on the Uglich reservoir, which was created to power a hydro-electric power station. At one point the spire of a church still stands above the water as a forlorn monument to a drowned village.  Strangely you travel downstream eastwards on the Volga, but after a brief diversion to the city of Yaroslavl you turn north in the middle of the next reservoir  onto a tributary (the River Sheksna) while the Volga turns south to head for the Caspian Sea.

The next lock, rising 40 feet to the summit level of the 1964 Volga-Baltic Canal proved such a bottleneck to traffic that in 1992 it was duplicated, but the second chamber is no longer in use and the gates have been replaced by a brick wall. A flight of 6 locks follows, taking you down 230 ft to Lake Onega, which at over 150 miles long and 55 miles wide is the second largest lake in Europe. At the northern end of this lake is the island of Kizhi, which is a popular tourist stop and a Word Heritage Site with its museum of wooden buildings. The waters of the lake are exceptionally clean and pure, due partly to the quantity of charcoal on its base from the dense forests which surround it.

The treacherous river Svir connects Lake Onega to Lake Ladoga, is described as “somewhat of a nightmare from a navigational standpoint, being plagued with shallow stretches, narrow rapids, blind bends, dense fogs, and the constant threat of floating debris such as tree trunks”. Lake Ladoga’s waters unfortunately are not so pure. The pollution comes mainly from dirty chemical plants by the lakeside, which is unfortunate since this lake is one of the main water supplies for St Petersburg. It is also the largest lake in Europe, measuring about 130 miles long and 80 miles wide as well as being exceptionally deep.

The river Neva flows from Lake Ladoga down to St Petersburg. It is narrow, twisting, and fast-flowing. Ships travel westwards during the even-numbered hours starting at 12, 2, 4, 6, 8, or 10 o’clock, and eastwards during the odd-numbered hours starting at 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, or 11 o’clock. On the hour, everybody simply drops anchor and waits until the next hour.

The River Neva at St Petersburg is crossed by massive 8 lift-bridges. They are lifted to allow boat traffic every night between 1.30 and 6.30 am; between those hours there is no way of crossing from one side of the city to the other (although recently a high-level suspension bridge has been built at the eastern edge of the city). St Petersburg itself has been nicknamed “the Venice of the North” since it stands on 42 islands, with 65 rivers and canals being crossed by over 600 bridges. Many of the canals are busy with trip-boats, which appear to be powered by some sort of water-jet system.

Unusual river traffic in St Petersburg	The fastest way to commute in St Petersburg	We board our canal trip boats	The trip boats appear to use water jet propulsion. Here one engages 'full astern' to stop and moor	Aiming for the canal off the river Neva
Some of the bridges are quite low	There is quite a lot of traffic on the canals ...	... of varying types, but mainly for pleasure	St Petersburg is beautiful when seen from the canal	The cruiser Aurora

There are apparently a number of sailing ships on the river, but they are all replicas built to act as restaurants. Of some interest however is 19^th century cruiser “Aurora” which is an impressive sight with its 4 giant funnels. Its main claim to fame however must be that in 1917 it fired a single blank shell to signal the start of the 1917 October Revolution.