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The spacious meadow is strewn with large shavings; on the trampled grass, freshly sawn wood kopani - the transverse ribs of the boat - turn yellow. Or frames, if someone knows the Dutch version of the word better. The span is more than three meters. Keel - "womb" in local language - is also impressive. 12 meters of powerful, solid spruce timber.

Now, 15 days after the start of construction, the bony body of the soyma looks as alive as Ilmen, merging with the gray sky, which is no more than 300 meters away.

"Our business ends..."

The idea of ​​building the Ilmen soyma belongs to Vladimir Shchetanov, teacher of the capital’s “Navigation School”, researcher of folk navigation.

“Today, many are convinced that navigation in Russia originated in the time of Peter the Great thanks to the borrowing of European experience,” says Shchetanov. - But that's not true. The maritime culture was developed in our country even before the advent of Peter the Great's fleet, both in the north - among the Pomors, and in the south - among the Cossacks.

One day, Shchetanov came across an article by Valery Orlov, a staff correspondent for the magazine “Around the World,” about the disappearing folk sailing ships—the wooden Novgorod soymas. The material, released in 1987, was called “Going Beyond the Horizon.” Gennady Rukomoinikov, one of the famous shipbuilders and the hero of the article, bitterly told the journalist: “Our business is coming to an end...”. Even then, there were only four pairs of soymas left on Ilmen. These boats always went fishing in pairs - they cast nets and pulled them along. Hence another name for them - “deuce”.

Reproduction of the painting “On Lake Ilmen” by Pyotr Konchalovsky (1928).

After reading Orlov’s article, Vladimir studied the information on the Internet and decided to go in search of wooden soymas. In general, fishing boats with this name were once used both on the White Sea and on Lake Ladoga, but they have not survived there today. Unlike Ilmen, where Vladimir arrived in 2012. By that time, fishermen walked around the lake on welded iron catfishes. True, also under sail.

In the southern Ilmen region, Vladimir met Alexander Myakoshin, last student Gennady Rukomoinikov, And Sergei Demeshev, a fisherman in the fifth generation, and now a feedman and head of a fishing artel. We got to talking and complained that there were no clear drawings of the soyma - the available documents did not give a complete picture of the ship. At first they didn’t even think about taking on construction, but fate decreed otherwise.

“I tried to find interested parties - both legal and physical, but no one showed interest in the Ilmen soyma,” admitted Vladimir. “And we decided to build the boat on our own.” We work on a voluntary basis, investing personal funds.

Place for a monument

By the way, in 2007, two soyma from Sergov and Kuritsk were delivered to the Novgorod Museum of Wooden Architecture “Vitoslavlitsy”. Its specialists monitor the condition of the deuces, save them from moisture, but a tree is a tree. Soimas don’t get any stronger here.

In general, the deuce - the last surviving folk sailing ship of Russia - can be said to be classified as a monument. Valery Orlov, who saw the soyma in the field and at work, would definitely not agree with this. And not only him. The ending of Oryol’s essay became the meaning of the cause for which Shchetanov, Myakoshin and Demeshev united in 2016. “...Now, when I saw the soyma racing under sails across the water surface, I realized that only Lake Ilmen should become a true pedestal for it. But for this we need to keep it here...”

The builders of the soyma had to look for huge vice clamps, forged nails and several thousand metal staples

What would Novgorod be without Volkhov and Ilmen, where both “Varangians” and “Greeks” went to trade? Would there be one at all? And what is Ilmen without fishing, which once gave birth to its own unique vessel, capable of withstanding multi-pound blows of heavy waves carrying sand and silt raised from the bottom?

The Ilmen soyma has its own characteristics that allow it to successfully fish in harsh lake conditions. The main one among them is the retractable centerboard (from the German Schwert - “sword”). It rises between two masts of the catwalk and outwardly resembles a door or window raised above the deck for unknown reasons. In fact, this is a retractable keel - an additional means of tacking and a great advantage of the soyma. You need to approach the shore - the centerboard is raised, and the ship turns into a punt. You need to go out into the open lake, the centerboard is lowered, and it works like a fin.

How long ago did the soyma appear on Ilmen? Sergei Demeshev hopes to find the answer to this question in the archives. Today’s project to restore the construction technology of the Novgorod soyma is on a par with other initiatives to revive and preserve almost forgotten traditions, without which Russia will be just a big, uninteresting spot on the map.

Mathematics of shipbuilding

However, the participants in the Ilmen project prefer not to indulge in philosophy, but to get down to business. Like, when we build it, then we’ll talk. And shipbuilders have plenty to do. But why did the plans for 2016 become a reality only two years later? Here's why.

Ship timber as a concept went down in history even earlier than the soyma. Finding and ordering pine and spruce trees of the required size - 14 meters in length - was not easy. For current logging companies, the maximum is six meters. There's simply no need for it to be longer. Meanwhile, the length of the uterus, the base of the soyma body, made of solid timber without a single joint, is 12 meters and no less. A margin of a couple of meters is necessary for ease of operation. In their original form, many parts of the boat have completely different shapes and sizes when they are assembled together. Then they are pruned and trimmed.

The wooden instruments fixing parts of the soyma body are entangled with tightly stretched twisted ropes.

“Last year we finally managed to find the necessary forest in the Borovichi district,” says Demeshev. “But just in case, we were on the safe side and brought some more from Pinaev Gorki.”

To build one soyma, 4,000 metal staples and at least 500 forged nails are required. But it turned out to be the easiest way to get them - in Ustrek, many people still have old stocks of boat components. Some kind people found them and shared. It was more difficult to find huge vice clamps, but we managed to cope with this too.

And then the next task came - the forest had to be cut. Where? Previously, there was a sawmill on the shore in Ustrek. As in many fishing villages and hamlets on the Ilmen, there was almost a full cycle of construction of soyma: from sawing timber to launching ships.

“But with sin, they sawed it in half and in June of this year they finally started construction,” continues Sergei Demeshev.

The Vanished Collection

Alexander Myakoshin now cannot remember when he built his last soyma. It seems that after the collapse of the collective farm, but this was in the late 90s. He only knows that the new soyma will be the 21st in his disappeared collection. And he remembers his mentor Gennady Rukomoinikov well.

“He told me: “Sashka, take notes - they don’t carry the craft on their shoulders,” he recalls. — I wrote something down. Now this is useful.

And yet Myakoshin feels as if he is learning to walk again. In the case of Alexander, these words also have a second meaning. Many years ago he was in an accident and doctors were unable to save his leg. But this did not stop him from remaining in his craft.

Sergey Demeshev - fifth generation fisherman and Alexander Myakoshin - the last shipbuilder on Ilmen

What Myakoshin did not have time to write down, his hands remember as they go along. And we got smart helpers - fishermen Alexey Kuzmin and Vladimir Klevtsov. They listen, they do, they remember. Slow, calm outwardly work is full of tension. The wooden instruments fixing parts of the soyma body are entangled with tightly stretched twisted ropes. If you hesitate a little, they will burst, and not only splinters, but also teeth will fly to the sides.

Vladimir Shchetanov is not only an inspirer and organizer. He carefully records the process on a video camera and camera. This is the whole essence of the project - to document the construction process of the soyma in its entire sequence, every hammered nail, every staple, and post drawings, engineering drawings, photos and videos on the Internet, so that anyone interested in the history of the country, the traditions of Russian shipbuilding, can get an idea of ​​ship construction technology. For these purposes, the project participants created a special group on the VKontakte social network “Ilmen Soyma”.

Last Sunday, shipbuilders completed the most difficult stage - they assembled the bottom of the boat, where the boards are bent with a screw.

“We used to have it like this: we’ve done the bottom and consider half the boat ready.” You can breathe easy,” says the master.

But there is still a lot of work: we need to complete the installation of the skin, install the masts, sew two sails - the bow and the stern, rig the boat... Much will depend on the weather. If the heat returns, Myakoshin and his assistants will have to suspend work - the tree loves moist air. Then there will be tests on the Ilmen wave. So what is next...

Vladimir Shchetanov captures every moment of the construction of the soyma on film and a video camera.

— Another of our tasks is to assess the potential of the soyma as a vessel for maritime practice, expeditions, family vacation or sailing, says Shchetanov. “On these boats you can organize beautiful races, walks for vacationers, and it would be possible to organize practice for those who want to learn navigation. Maybe there will be those who want to order new soymas. However, let's not guess.

Photo by Vladimir Malygin

At least once, the Ilmen soyma has already died and been reborn. In the 70s, when boats with large nets replaced wooden doubles, boats with smooth nets became less popular. Sergey Demeshev spoke about this. Soyma requires constant care, and lasts only 7-8 years. Yes, and you need to be able to control the sail, and on Ilmen, where the weather changes in a matter of hours, a pilot’s mistake can have the most fatal consequences. But in the 90s, when Russia encountered its first economic crisis, fishing on the soyma returned. A two-piece never required a large crew - only four people, four like-minded people. It is always easier to gather four people than to organize a large team. Especially in difficult times.

From Valery Orlov’s essay “Going beyond the horizon” (“Around the World”, July 1987): “...Long-bodied, with convex sails on masts carried far forward, with a low cockpit roof, sides sloping in the middle - the soyma seemed to me and indeed sailed from the distance of centuries. From that time, when crowds of visiting merchants roared in the squares of the city of Novgorod, bells rang merrily, and the walls of the Kremlin did not even suspect that people would be protected as dear monuments.”

Before Peter I, it was not customary in Russia to give names to ships. And the Ilmen soims were also nameless. But despite this, it was customary for fishermen to treat the two as a member of the family. She is the main assistant in the house. He will feed you fish, help you bring hay, and prepare firewood.

Forged nails were collected from old stocks by the entire village

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

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

In September, Alexander Karsov, a graduate of the 46th Moscow school, who in his youth took part in boat trips with Alexander Potresov, a graduate of the VHPU named after. Stroganova, (faculty of industrial aesthetics), artist-designer. He offered his services in making a model of boats (ushkuy and Novgorod soyma), which were built in Rus' during the Battle of the Ice, and on which Alexander Nevsky’s soldiers could move across the expanses of water.

Ushkui- sailing and rowing vessel - were used in Rus' in the 11th-15th 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 ushkui was 12-14 meters, the width was 2.5 meters. The board height 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 an oblique sail and holds at both ends of the ship's hull) and on rivers (the ear had a straight sail and a completely open deck without holds). In both versions, a stern oar was used instead of a rudder.

If ushkui were used as a “combat” ship, then one of the most common types of ships of ancient Novgorod, the soyma, can be classified as “civil ships”. The lightest boat of this type, up to 6 m long, was called a soyminka. The boats, which were up to 12 m long, had a deck and a tank for live fish. They were called live fish, or salt soyma.

Fast on the move under sail, light on oars, tacking well and capable of sailing steeply into the wind, soymas were used by gangs of Novgorodians for trips to the White Sea for “fish teeth”. They crossed rapids rivers without the risk of breaking the keel (when swimming through the rapids, hitting the stones, the keel board of the boat springs). On the lakes, high stems ensured good penetration of the wave. Light soymas were easy to drag across watersheds.

These two models, we hope, will soon appear in the exhibition of the Battle of the Ice Museum, which will be opened in “ Cultural center SAMOLVA" in April 2017 on the 775th anniversary of the legendary battle.

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“It will forever be unsinkable”

... The morning of September 4, 1999 turned out to be unusually windy, which could have complicated the launching of the frigate. From the window of the wardroom one could clearly see how quickly cumulus clouds were flying over the Neva. In the morning, people began to flock to the shipyard, and the police took their places in the cordon. By noon, journalists and television arrived. The cameramen were busy filming the “Standart”, above which the giant floating crane “Bogatyr” towered.

There are two hours left before the descent. While our guys are running steel cables under the bottom of the frigate, I decide to disconnect from the bustle and climb to the top platform of the crane. The gusts of wind are more sensitive here, and therefore I do not remove my hands from the cold handrails. From here you can clearly see how a stream of people moves along the alley leading to the shipyard. I can’t believe my eyes - hundreds, thousands of St. Petersburg residents. Those who had already approached earlier are trying to squeeze closer to the ship, but the police are not letting them through. By placing yellow barriers, she keeps the crowd at bay. Children hung in clusters on the concrete fence, covering the sponsors' billboards with their feet.

All builders are invited to board the frigate. The priest serves a prayer service, as befits before the launch of each ship. I stand behind my comrades, and only individual phrases of a melodious prayer reach me: “It will be unsinkable forever...”.

It's time to descend. We ask journalists and photographers to leave Shtandart. Captain Martus is talking on the radiotelephone with the crane operator... Several minutes of tedious waiting. I look at the sky - rare clouds pass over the leaden Neva. The tense silence grows. You can only hear the Russian flag fluttering, mounted on the stern of the Shtandart.

The crowd comes to life. A small stampede begins. Everyone is interested in seeing the ship's keel leave the ground. Our team is busy keeping four ropes tied to the frigate: two from the stern and two from the bow. When lifting, it is very important to control the rocking of the ship. I hear someone shouting: “Hold tight! Now there will be a rise! " And sure enough, the planks placed under the cables begin to creak pitifully. For several seconds the frigate remains motionless, but then its hull shudders, and one and a half hundred tons of wood and metal go up. A narrow gap appears between the ground and the keel. The ship rises higher and higher. With our heads raised, we follow his “walking” body. The crane begins to turn the ship sideways towards the Neva. The stern moves massively to the side and carries us along with it. We lean on the rope, trying to hold back the advance of the frigate. Another team pulls the stem of the “Standard” back to the Neva... People rush to the wooden pier. Photographers are waiting for the moment when the pot-bellied bottom of the Shtandart touches the water surface. Creaking on the steel cables, the frigate begins to quickly descend, its black hull confidently entering the Neva waters. A cannon shot is heard. "Vivat!" - as Tsar Peter would say. The crowd of forty thousand is noisy and rejoicing. Rockets take off into the sky...

Frigate « Standard» a year after the descent. Photo by V. Martus. 2000

- Look, it’s swinging! – I hear an enthusiastic cry behind me. I catch myself thinking that the frigate is really rocking on the waves. This sounds unusual, even somewhat strange. We have been walking towards this day for five years. Five years of my life have been devoted to the construction of a sailboat, which has just been launched. It's finished!

The frigate's godmother, Englishwoman Anne Palmer, takes a bottle of champagne in her hand.

- I call you “Standard!” – A short feminine wave and the clap of broken glass announces that the ship has found its rightful name.

Vivat! The orchestras are playing a march. People are pushing towards the frigate. I'm being pushed aside. Hundreds, thousands of St. Petersburg residents pass by me. I get out of the tight ring and look back at the high masts. I remember the words from the church service spoken today: “It will forever be unsinkable...” And nothing more is needed.

Frigate "Standart" - main characteristics

Chapter 43
Construction of the Ladoga soyma "St. Arseny"

It is difficult to find another ship that would be so closely connected with the Russian North as the Ladoga Soyma. This small sailing and rowing boat “was born” in time immemorial on Ladoga, but thanks to St. Petersburg pilgrims traveling to the northern monasteries, the soyma visited both Solovki and Lake Onega. Her faded sails loomed near Valaam and in the Vologda region. Soims went to the Baltic for trading purposes - right up to Stockholm. This boat even managed to “fight” with the Swedes in the Northern War: the practical and uncomplicated design of the soyma attracted the attention of Peter I, who found that it was convenient to transport soldiers in such vessels.

My story will be about this amazing boat, overshadowed by two sails-wings...

Until the middle of the 19th century, Lake Ladoga, located very close to St. Petersburg, nevertheless remained little known. The absence of his descriptions in the best possible way affected navigation: even in a small wave, captains preferred to go through bypass channels, which significantly lengthened the journey. Not a single insurance company undertook to insure ships sailing with cargo on open Ladoga.

Only in 1858, the Admiralty equipped an entire expedition to Ladoga under the leadership of the experienced hydrographer Colonel A.P. Andreeva. He was instructed to take a survey of the entire Lake Ladoga, map its coastline, lighthouses, describe the most dangerous capes, shoals, reefs and determine wind directions.

The researcher’s task also included a detailed inspection of local types of boats. Describing them, Andreev noted the extraordinary seaworthiness of a two-masted fishing boat - a soyma. At the same time, he came to the conclusion that now nothing is known about the design of the ships that sailed on Ladoga during the times of Veliky Novgorod. But things took an unexpected turn.

Ladoga soyma "St. Arseny". Photo by A. Epatko. 1998

While visiting the surrounding monasteries on duty, the colonel noticed that the icons of the local ascetics depicted ships quite similar to the Ladoga soimas 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 ships of the Novgorodians were almost the same as the current soims.”

Andreev left a description of the Ladoga soima. The researcher noted that this is a small sailing and rowing vessel, fishing or cargo, which has its own distinctive features - stems rolled back. The soyma is made-up, has molded frames and a small sharp keel. To tack and reduce drift, a false keel was placed on the keel. The frames were attached both to the keel and to the sheathing with wooden dowels, the sheathing boards were laid “overlapping” and sewn together with juniper roots. Moreover, both outside and inside, recesses were provided in the boards for the stitching roots to protect the roots from damage. “It’s been proven by experience,” Andreev admired. “It’s more likely that the sheathing and frames on the soyma will rot than the tree roots will be destroyed... But how tightly and reliably this seam holds the boards, it’s amazing!”

Project of the Ladoga Soima. G. Atavin. V. Miloslavsky. 1997

I’ll add on my own that flexible connections had one clear advantage over any other fastening: by swelling, the roots made the body waterproof.

The mast of the soym 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 hole in the can into the steps, lines were placed on the ends 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 using a sheet; when retracting the sail, the sprint was pulled by hand to the mast, both were wrapped in a sail and tied with a sheet. Two people were enough to operate such a boat.

A compass card used on Ladoga in the 19th century.

Soymas 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 soyminka. The length of the hook soyma ranged from 7–8 m, and the length of the mesh – 9–10 m. Boats, the length of which reached 12 m, had a deck and a tank for live fish. They were called live fish, or salt soyma. However, if necessary, cages were built into any boat, for which two waterproof wooden bulkheads were installed, and between them holes were drilled in the sides for water circulation. On large soymas intended for transporting passengers, there were rooms in the stern.

According to Andreev, the Ladoga soymas had extraordinary seaworthiness: they were light on oars and were not afraid of headwinds - “they maneuvered very decently.” 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 through Ladoga and Onega to the Solovetsky Monastery.

“So, the soyma is our native ship! – Andreev enthusiastically summed up his research. – Soima has probably seen those ancient times that are dark in history. Soima has seen enough of Hanseatic goods! And even now the soyma is the only vessel used in the fresh waters of northeastern Rus'.”

It is not surprising that, after reading these messages, my hiking companion Andrei Boev and I were inspired by the idea of ​​​​building such a boat and sailing around Ladoga on it. But we did not have the main thing - drawings and a master who would undertake to recreate the medieval soyma. Then we went to the most remote corners of Ladoga, where we hoped to meet people familiar with similar boats. Konevets Island, Priozersk, Sortavala... Here we met mainly boats and homemade yachts. On Valaam, we took a particularly close look at the local fishing boats, but they were not even remotely similar to the soyma described by Andreev. An 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 1994, Andrei and I reached the remote village of Storozhno, picturesquely located on the southeastern coast of Ladoga. A real fishing village: nets are hung all around, portholes are installed in the barns instead of windows...

– Are you interested in boats? – one of the local old men asked us, seeing that we were looking at the overturned boat.

- Soymami.

Five minutes later we were sitting with our new friend, and he was drawing us exactly what we had been looking for for so long. The graceful lines of the body emerged from under his calloused hand. The design of the sailing rig of the two-masted boat exactly coincided with what Andreev wrote about: the same arrangement of masts, sprint rig...

“I went to the soym as a boy,” said the hereditary fisherman Ivan Andrianov. “These were the most reliable ships on the entire lake. Rest assured! Which boat can withstand a force seven storm on Ladoga? Only soyma! It used to be that bad weather would find you in the lake, the waves were raging all around, and not a drop would fall into the soyma... These were the boats... Only here you won’t find the soyma, and, probably, they don’t exist anywhere anymore.

Hereditary fisherman Ivan Adrianov (right) tells the author about the soyma. The village of Storozhno on Lake Ladoga. Photo by A. Boev. 1994

Much later I learned that the search for masters should have been carried out much further south - on the banks of the Ilmen. It was there, close to Veliky Novgorod, to whose times Andreev attributed the origins of the soyma, that such boats are still being “made” in the coastal villages of Ustrek and Vzvad. True, these are typical Ilmen soymas - without the stem rolled back, like the Ladoga version. By the way, no one knows what causes such a bend in the bow. The authoritative ship modeler A. Zaitsev expressed the opinion that “fishing soymas when making seines had to be in close proximity to each other, and the stem thrown back excluded such a possibility.” It is difficult to agree with this opinion: after all, fish were also caught on the Ilmen, and the Ilmen soyma has an almost straight stem. Obviously, the secret lies in the particularity of the Ladoga unrest. It is likely that the sharp and forward stem climbed the steep wave more easily, making its way in the raging lake.

But let’s return to the Ilmen soyms. I remember how amazed I was when, getting off the excursion bus at the Yuriev Monastery, I immediately saw two soymas on the shore, pulled out with their noses onto the shore. Faded sails wrapped around low masts crowned tarred, pot-bellied hulls. Forgetting that my group was moving away in the direction of another church, I went, squelching through the mud, towards this mirage - two fishing soymas that emerged from the Ilmen haze, like an echo of the distant past...

Fragment of an icon from the Life of St. Nicholas. XVI century The vessel piloted by the saint resembles the main characteristics of the Ladoga soyma

Autumn has come. By that time, I had already decided to postpone our search until next summer, but I was unexpectedly informed that beyond Novaya Ladoga, on the Syas River, the boat master Alexander Kalyazin lives. We immediately went to see him, but didn’t find him - the owner was hunting. To pass the time, we walked along the shore and came across a wooden boat, made, like the soyma, “covered up” and with very good contours. The design of this boat, adapted for a motor, was clearly an echo of that distant era when people sat on the shore for weeks waiting for a fair wind.

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

The idea of ​​sewing a boat in the traditional way - using juniper roots - had to be abandoned. This task is too labor-intensive, and our master has never sewed boats in this way. By the way, in the ancient Karelian-Finnish epic “Kalevala” two methods of fastening parts of the vessel are mentioned: using flexible connections and wooden fasteners:

Often good housewives
Juniper is broken,
They are making a boat.

Famous folklorist V.Ya. Evseev, commenting on this passage, believed that the frame of a boat was made from juniper, on which animal skins were stretched. Alas, he was wrong: the epic talked about flexible connections intended for securing a boat. By the way, Peter I was distrustful of ships made by vice. “Novgorod ships were made only for festivities,” the Tsar wrote in 1702, “and are incapable of military affairs because on the old bottoms, which are sewn with cowhide...”

True, Peter later changed his mind about the soyma - perhaps after these nimble Finnish boats took an active part in some episodes of the Northern War. In 1702, four hundred Peter's infantrymen, mounted on soymas, took part in a successful battle with the squadron of the Swedish admiral Nummers. The participation of the Soyma in the capture of the Noteburg fortress is undeniable. It is not surprising that after a decade and a half, Peter I remembered the soims, but over these years, along with the decrease in the Finno-Ugric population in the St. Petersburg area, the craftsmen who knew how to “sew” these boats also disappeared.

Admiral Count Apraksin wrote with alarm to Menshikov in 1716: “It is ordered to make ten thousand people, so that more is better, soims, that is, for the Murmansk (Barents Sea. - A.E.) are walking." Further, Apraksin complains in the same letter that “we don’t know a sample of those soymas and there are no craftsmen or supplies.” A month later, Menshikov reports to the Tsar: “I went to the Senate and they advised me on what method to make the soyma known to you, which is what the merchant people of Ladoga are called to do, who do not deny it, they only ask for a model vessel, which is the only one I found here.”

An interesting fact emerges from this sovereign correspondence: in the first quarter of the 18th century, Ladoga residents did not even know what a soyma looked like!

But let's go back to the times of Kalevala. One of the runes reports interesting information that the Karelian-Finns sometimes did without the tree, preferring wood to it:

Ship modeler G. Atavin and boat master A. Kalyazin (Stepanych). Photo by A. Epatko. 1996

Väinimeien tesal,
Made a boat
Stone ax,
Wooden nails.

These lines from an unknown rune singer greatly encouraged Andrey and I: now we could, without departing too 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 be able to complete this project. I think this idea with soyma would have remained on paper if Viktor Donskov, a surgeon at one of the St. Petersburg hospitals, had not supported us during this difficult time. Victor has a rare quality: he is a purposeful romantic who turns 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 around looking for drawings. But where can I get the drawings of an ancient fishing boat, which, according to some sources, was built “without any preliminary measurements”? Something told me that I should go to the Naval Museum.

The calculation turned out to be correct. A museum employee, having learned what we were looking for, took out from a dusty cabinet a model of the Ladoga soyma made by A. Zaitsev. We photographed it, and subsequently this photograph replaced our master’s drawings. The latter were also soon found: they were made by two famous St. Petersburg ship modelers - Andrei Larionov and Gennady Atavin. The drawing was taken as a basis from a pre-war Finnish magazine (I was never able to find out which one).

The copper nails were really bad. “All the copper has long been in the Baltic states,” friends joked. But a miracle still happened: we came across some factory that was being sold out, the director of which famously poured 40 kilograms of excellent copper nails onto the scales.

In the spring we came to Kalyazin in his Podryabinye.

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

We settled on a 9-meter long soyme, counting on six rowers and a coxswain.

We needed solid spruce boards no less than 11 m long. In St. Petersburg, such long boards were not cut. Stepanych, as always, came to the rescue.

“Business,” he grinned. - Podryabinye stands in the forests; I will cut down the masts myself, and there is any kind of timber in the local offices.

Model of the Ladoga Soyma. A. Zaitsev. 1980s

...Riding on a motorcycle along the broken Ladoga roads, we drove around about five forestry enterprises, and only in the sixth did we find 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, the likes of which had not happened in the last half century, unexpectedly intervened: cars could not enter the forest to pick up cut trees.

Every weekend I went to the snow-white Podryabinye, but without success: 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 grays could not catch up with the hares and therefore reached for easier prey. One night, wolves descended on Podryabinye and carried away thirteen village dogs, including Stepanych’s guard dog.

“Look, snakes were walking around the stables,” said Kalyazin, pointing out to me numerous tracks in the snow.

This news especially excited me, since under the canopy, next to the stables, we were just about to build a soyma...

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

- Listen to them more! - Stepanych smiled slyly, lighting a Belomorina, but then, casting a heavy glance outside the window, he said thoughtfully: - But the women are right: the last time the wolves visited us was in the winter of '41... Eh, all this is not good! - and shook the ashes onto the floor...

While waiting for the boards, I got acquainted with the life of this Ladoga village. Everything for me, a city dweller, was here again: the fact that almost every resident is armed, and the fact that a conversation cannot begin without a glass - “otherwise there will be no conversation,” and the fact that horses’ tails are cut with an ax, and the fact that, when a pike falls off the spoon, no one worries: “It was not our pike,” the Ladoga resident will meekly say. And you are not supposed to remember any more about the lost spoils. The hunt for the Podryabinsk people ends only when the reserves of alcohol or “wine”, as vodka has been called here since ancient times, run out. And even then, all the hunters will gather, sit down, spread out a tattered map in the clearing and calculate how close the nearest village is from here, where there is a store...

Before “installing” the cladding boards, we soaked them in hot drying oil. True, we were recommended to use melted seal fat. But where can you get these seals? Photo by A. Epatko. 1997

It will be a good mast! Photo by A. Epatko. 1996

These Ladoga residents are desperate people! Stepanych told how two of his comrade’s fingers were shot off by mistake during a hunt: they were mistaken for a bear... The fingers hang on the skin, the hand is bleeding. And there was still vodka left; I can’t go back home... So they performed the operation right in the forest: they gave the hunter a sip from the bottle, put the brush on a stump, doused it with vodka - and scraped it with a knife... Cleanly, like a piece of butter, they cut it off. And for the hunt!

Stepanych's son Vanya also did not lag behind the elders. I remember he came to the hut one morning. He came in sleepily, put the gun in the corner, and took off his boots.

- What, I say, were you hunting?

“No,” Vanya shakes his head, “I’ve been sitting on the river all night: someone got into the habit of stealing our shuttles...”

Yes, cool people live in Podryabinye. God forbid you get to them not with good intentions, and even under the hot hand!

About twenty years ago, as Kalyazin told us, there lived in their village a fish inspector, and at the other end of the village there was a bulldozer driver and, of course, an avid fisherman. And for the fish inspector, he is not a fisherman, but a real poacher. One day our fisherman cast his nets, and in the morning they were removed. Who took it? We know who... There is no one else to take them off. Then the man started his bulldozer and, crossing himself - who wants to take a sin on his soul - drove his tractor to the fish inspector’s bathhouse. He picked it up with a ladle and dumped it in the river... Now he’s steering straight towards his enemy’s house - and he drove straight into the house... So much so that the windows fell down... The tracks are slipping, the house is shaking... “Vanya! - the fisherman shouts from his cabin. “Where are the networks?” - “Nets in the bathhouse!” – a muffled voice comes from the house. - “There is no bathhouse!” - the tractor driver roars. “Where are the networks?”

Kalyazin himself told this story without laughing: he felt sorry for both fellow villagers, and dead networks, and a bathhouse that floated into the river distance... This is probably why - due to the sensitivity of his soul - Stepanych was the unofficial head of the village. His house was never empty; As soon as we sit down quietly at the table to discuss the work plan for the soyma, someone is already knocking on the window. Everyone needs Stepanych. To plow the garden - to Stepanych; which motor to attach - to Stepanych; put together a coffin, if someone dies, go to Stepanych. We needed him as much as anyone else. And therefore, so that the master would not be particularly distracted when leaving for the city, we left him a written plan of work on the soyma.

Finally, in June 1996, the long-awaited moment of laying the soyma arrived. One of its designers, Gennady Atavin, opened champagne and “blessed” the axed keel.

Kalyazin built the boat alone, 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 at the drawings. If he noticed that I was “testing the strength” of some part of the soyma, he would say: “Don’t doubt it, the boat will be glorious, the first storm is mine!”

Stepanych at work. Photo by A. Epatko. 1997

When the keel was already completed, we harnessed the horses and went into the forest to get the stem. What was needed was a keel with a sharp bend and, at the same time, a certain thickness, without cracks. In two days we had to look through a lot of trees before finding a suitable option. As soon as the stems took their place, Kalyazin placed two powerful patterns at the bow and stern and began to attract the cladding boards to them, fastening them together with rivets. This was the most important stage of construction: “As you laid the first boards, so will the rest,” the master often said. - Bend the board, don’t be afraid! “She herself must lie down in her place,” Kalyazin encouraged us.

Andrey and I also set out to rivet the sheathing, 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. The dexterity came gradually along with the confidence that we could do it. True, it was not without risk: to get tools, we often had to walk through the paddock where Stepanych’s horses grazed - the red Krokha and the handsome black stallion Malysh. Baby was an unusually calm horse, but Baby, when he saw people, stood up and neighed wildly, thereby expressing all sorts of displeasure. Therefore, walking through its territory for some kind of roulette, I felt like a bullfighter and preferred to arm myself with a heavy stick...

By the way, if Kalyazin had roulettes, they were quickly lost. And our soyma ended up being built truly “without any measurements.” When a ruler was needed, Stepanych usually found some piece of wood, planed it 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 keelson, he sometimes used his favorite “old-fashioned” method: he smeared the thread with coal, pulled it on nails like a string, and “beat” it with a slight movement of his fingers. Surprisingly, the result was a perfectly straight black line.

Stepanych built it soundly, but slowly and with long breaks. May was a holy month for him: hunting, and in the last days - plowing and potatoes. July – you can’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 it - he “sewed” the boat firmly and conscientiously. And we were right: later, in England, where we finally reached on a soyma, one of the specialists in replicas of wooden ships admitted to us that the Ladoga soyma was the best boat he had ever seen... Well, if in the homeland of Captain Cook they admired Stepanych’s work - what else can be added to this?

While Kalyazin was slowly “stitching the boards together,” I continued to sit in libraries, looking for any information related to the soyma. Some experts rightly believed that the soyma was 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 vessel to the White Sea, where mention of it is found in documents of the 17th century.” If these sources are correct, then perhaps the soyma was at one time a fairly common ship on the White Sea. A. Zaitsev even puts forward the version that from the end of the 18th century, the Soims began to be forced out of this region by the more seaworthy Shnyaks and Yols.

I became convinced that the soyma is a typically Finnish (and not even Karelian) ship when I was at the Maritime Museum in Stockholm. There are two soimas on display (albeit without the snub-nosed stem characteristic of the Ladoga version) and next to it there is an explanatory sign in Swedish and English: “Fishing boat of the Åland Islands.” As you know, Åland is an island part of southwestern Finland. It remains to add that the name “Soima” speaks for itself: most likely, it is a derivative of the Finnish tribe “Sum”, who lived in the south of Finland and later gave the name to the whole country - “Suomi”.

“Kizhanka”, apparently, also incorporated the design of the soyma. Only for some reason there is only one mast... Engraving by A. Avdyshev. 1970s

However, not everyone agreed with this argument. For example, G. Ash, in his authoritative work “A Guide for Sailing Lovers,” wrote about the soyma as a ship of purely Russian origin, “the construction of which was not influenced by any foreign elements.” 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 centuries,” writes Ash. – We see that the midships of the ship is placed in the middle of the ship; However, the soyma, as a cargo ship, does not have permanent waterlines, and therefore no midsection, and even with a slight trim the midsection moves aft. This is an extremely wonderful feature. Without exception, all previous ships had a midsection ahead of the middle; only relatively recently did yacht architecture, and with it other branches of shipbuilding, realize how important it is to change the midsection closer to the stern than to the bow; The builders of the soyma, who lived several centuries ago, internalized and applied in practice a principle that we have only reached now. Thus, Russians can rightly be proud of their Ladoga soimas of purely Russian origin, especially since the lines themselves leave nothing to be desired. It's hard to imagine a more perfect line. And indeed, soymas on the move are very light and fast; their sea quality is excellent; Soimas maneuver perfectly, the oars are quite good... Fishing boats“,” the researcher concludes, “are often distinguished by such excellent sea qualities that cannot even always be found on yachts.”

We were able to verify the validity of the last conclusion a year later, when our sailing soyma could not be caught up by a Dory-type yacht with a powerful engine.

During my research about the soyma, I sometimes came across rather controversial information, which, I think, will be interesting to readers. For example, that the soyma has been known in Pomerania since the 11th century, and that one of the soymas went all the way to America in 1834! Latest version belonged to the pen of folklorist V. Pulkin. The researcher took this information from the Olonets collection late XIX 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,” the collection reported, “and around 1834, one of the Onega peasants sailed on his own ship 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 J. Atkinson sketched the soymas he saw. But where the traveler met them and where these drawings are now kept was not reported.

Later reports about soymas are also very interesting, especially when the author saw these marvelous boats “live”. Such information about the soims - only in this case the Ilmen ones - was left by local historian M. Barinov, who observed the soims in the late 1960s and even went to Lake Ilmen on them. “Soyma is not like any of the ships I know,” he writes. – At first glance, it refutes all the elementary laws of shipbuilding. Let's start with the fact that it has a bow trim. She has two short masts and the front one is fixed right near the stem, exactly in the place where on large ships there is a bow flagpole for the bow flag. The two masts, in any case, are located more than strangely. Moreover, both masts are tilted forward! I’m not talking about such details that are understandable only to specialists, such as the awkwardly placed centerboard well, etc. In a word, it’s not a ship, but a caricature, it doesn’t float, but tumbles.”

The sharp bow and stern and the correct contours of the hull made it possible to navigate the waves well. The bow cocora crashed into the wave, spreading it with “loose” sides, wide in the center, which increased the stability of the vessel, and the stern cocora improved streamlining, and the boat “did not drag” water along with it. The length of the hull allows the boat not to fall between the waves and to cut the first and third waves with bow and stern stems. On an intermediate wave, the maximum camber of the sides on the middle frames works - it gives the boat stability: the more you load, the less it sways.

The type-built hull with patterned frames had the necessary dimensions and reliability to carry out all the work of the Kizhi peasant - from moving between villages, towing timber and fishing in Lake Onega or Ladoga to transporting livestock or cargo in the skerries and to Petrozavodsk. The boats needed in the peasant economy were taken care of - built from good wood, with proper care they served for 20–30 years or more.

Kizhanki of different sizes were built for different navigation areas. For internal, between villages, “coastal” navigation, boats up to 6 m long were built, with access to an open lake - up to 8 m. For long-distance voyages on Lake Onega with access to Ladoga, as well as for fishing and transportation of goods, boats 9 m long were built m with two masts. In addition to the Kizhi boats, in the Kizhi skerries in the first half of the twentieth century. they built Onega “soimas” (Karelian “saima” - large boat) - two-masted boats more than 9 m long. Soimas on Onega were used, as a rule, for transporting goods, therefore, to lay them, the sides were lined inside with a “podtovarnik” (thin board), boxes were made for cargo or fish, and instead of a deck, decks with awnings were installed to shelter the cargo from the water.

Kizhanki and soyma (Onega and Ladoga) were well adapted for navigation on large lakes by oars and sail. In appearance and design features they are very similar. Drawings and photographs of soymas and kizhankas have been preserved, on which you can see their general lines of silhouettes with similar stems and sailing equipment. These folk boats, which have unique contours, are not found in other Russian provinces.

Many travelers and researchers of the Russian North noted good seaworthiness, as well as the structural similarity of soymas and kizhankas and assumed that they belong to distant antiquity. It can be added that good seaworthiness is evidence of centuries-old traditions, experience, skill and skill of national shipbuilders.

Structural element terminology

At the end of the 18th century. Academician N.Ya. Ozeretskovsky, describing the Ladoga and Onega lakes, noted that “floating... Russians used to call the main winds with Russian names, which are almost the same... among our Pomeranians living near the White Sea and along the shores of the Northern Ocean. in fact, the name of the rhumbs was originally developed by the Lado-Zhans, immigrants from Novgorod.”

The same can be said about the basic shipbuilding terms that are mentioned in written sources of the 19th century. and earlier times, preserved to this day in the centers of Russian shipbuilding on large lakes and on the White Sea.

According to academician of architecture V.P. Orfinsky, such an almost fantastic speed of construction of undoubtedly complex ships could hardly have been achieved without irrefutable regulations of traditions, the stability of which, as is known, was directly dependent on the duration of rooting in the popular consciousness. The same is evidenced by the filigree execution of the nodes and interfaces of the elements of Zaonezhsky boats.

Every Zaonezh peasant who sewed boats had a workshop located in the barn of his house, where all the equipment and tools necessary for construction were stored near the walls, on shelves, in cabinets and special drawers, and there was also a supply of materials and blanks for the future boat. Some of the prepared materials could be stored near the house. [text from the website of the Kizhi Museum-Reserve: http://site]

On the barn there was a carpentry workbench, a long workbench for sharpening boards and a small anvil, on which the heads of horseshoe nails were riveted (made flat) in a special “nail mill”. On the barn or outside against the wall of the house there was another long workbench and a grinding machine with a round stone for sharpening tools. In good weather, cutting boards and riveting nails could be done outside.

The slipway for the construction of the boat consisted of two “stacks” - low (up to 40 cm) trestles made of logs 2.5–3.0 m long, which were installed only during the construction of the boat hull. The “matitsa” - the keel - was placed on them in the center. After drawing, side boards were placed on the plank outlets - “cuttings” and hewn with an ax along the line - “edged”, then installed vertically in special grooves of the planks, for sharpening the edges with a plane.

For weaving kokor, bends, springs and oars there were special blocks with grooves in which the blanks were fastened with a wedge, and the springs and other small ones were planed structural elements fixed in a carpenter's workbench.

Table 3. Traditional terms of shipbuilding and shipping technology. Devices, tools, workpieces

Devices, tools, workpieces	Material, technology, purpose
"Insoles"	A pair of low (about 40 cm) sawhorses, about 2 m long, for installing the mat - keel on a slipway in the barn of a peasant house
"Filly"	Templates made of wood were installed on the mat in the places where they were folded to the pins of the first board - the beating. Stands were inserted into them, which pressed the mat against the inserts.
"Ticks, dumplings"	Special wooden clamps made of birch with a wedge for tightly pressing the embroidery to each other when drawing and sewing (clamps clamping with a wedge) - sewing with a root or nails
"Tooth"	A special board with a groove for connecting and holding the side boards at the stems when drawing and attaching the lining to the beams
“Stops”, “flogging”, “spacers”, “spreads”	Thin poles (often birch) when sewing sides for additional pressing of the embankments in the bow and stern. At the bottom they rested on the bosses and pressed the boards against the frames, and the upper ends of the poles rested on special boards - spacers, to protect against cracks in the beatings. To maintain the shape of the boat from the inside, short boards were placed in the bow and stern to space out the boards before installing the roots
"Plate"	Thick board for “matitsa”
"Corga"	The butt was spruced with the root for cutting “matika” - keel, “kokora” - stem or sawing into “springs” and “roots”
"Balanina"	Thin log. Sawing in half with a rip saw to make “cuts”
"Krivulya"	A crooked thick branch for frames, a good branch lay on two sides, and a solid “spring” was obtained
Skobeli	Various sizes of flat and semicircular forged blades with handles for debarking logs
Axes	Metal blades of different sizes and shapes on wooden “axe” handles. For all work, from harvesting trees and chipping blanks to cutting grooves and trimming the edges of embankments
Catfish saw	Saw for longitudinal sawing, up to 2 m in size. Two-handed with a removable lower handle. A blade with long (up to 5 cm) teeth, ending with a curved cutting “claw”-hook. For vertical sawing of logs into boards
"Steluga"	Tall (more than 2 m) sawhorses for sawing logs into boards with a rip saw
Cross saw	Two-handed with a triangular tooth of about 1 cm for cross-cutting logs and thick plates, block
"Arshin", meter	A wooden measuring rod with marked divisions of 1 vershok or 1 cm. For marking long structures, it was used as a ruler for transferring dimensions to the boat
Trait carpentry and joinery	Devices made of a bent metal rod, with varying width between the drawing points. To transfer the groove line to the embossing or the edges of the embossing to the next
Compass	Sliding metal or wooden. For marking and transferring identical dimensions, for example, the distance between the axes of frames
Hacksaw	Short with one handle and fine teeth. For transverse and oblique precision sawing of thin boards and other boat structures
Bow saw	With a thin blade and fine teeth in a wooden base, with adjustable tension. For longitudinal sawing of curved boat structures - girths, hooks, etc.
"Medvedka"	Planer with a wide blade and two transverse handles. For sharpening long boards and plates together
Jointer	Planer with a long (50–100 cm) wooden block. For fine and even sharpening of the side planes of boards
Plane	Planer with a wooden block 20–30 cm long. For sharpening the side planes of the keel, stems, frames, bars and boards of various purposes and sizes
Semi-round plane	Planer with a rounded (various radius) wooden block at the bottom up to 20–25 cm long. For sharpening curved and end planes of roots, girdles, roots, hooks, embankments and other structures
Hammer	Metal on a wooden handle. For driving nails and riveting heads
nail shop	Metal block with holes for a flat horseshoe nail. For cold riveting of flat nail heads
Semicircular chisel	For making round recesses in embankments for the heads of horseshoe nails
Carpenter's chisel	For selecting different grooves if necessary
Kiyanka	Wooden hammer. For impacts on wooden surfaces
Rotator with perk, drill, auger	For drilling holes of different diameters when attaching structures and boat elements to each other
"Vdeyka"	Launching a boat
"Litki"	Traditional treat for masters or owners when purchasing a boat
"Scoop" and pump	In the stern for pumping water out of a boat while moving or near the shore
"Lava"	Pier - gangway for going ashore. One end is placed on the shore, the other on trestles - racks for moving with changes in water level

Construction of a kizhanka boat

When starting the construction of a boat - "laying" - on the flooring of a barn in one permanent place In order not to interfere with other work, a slipway was built. Without any drawings, at a certain distance from each other, in accordance with the length and proportions of the boat, two slipways were placed, across which the finished “mat” was laid across the axis of the slipway - a keel with longitudinal grooves.

Two “fillies” were placed on the mat, exactly above the stitches - special templates for setting the angle of inclination of the first embroidery. In the grooves of the koba

Lok, the lower ends of the racks of poles were inserted, the upper ends of which were fastened with a wedge point-blank into the floor beams of the barn and rigidly pressed the mat against the goats of the slipway (Fig. 1: 1). At the very ends of the matrix, short posts were attached to a nail to fix the even line of the keel.

In plan, the keel of the kizhanka is even between the “fillies”, from which it begins to gradually taper towards the bow and stern. On the sides, the mother - the keel of the kizhanka - has an unusual cross-section with longitudinal grooves for the first [text from the website of the Kizhi Museum-Reserve: http://site]

the piles, which also begin to gradually rise from the fillies and pass into the grooves of the stems. Such a complex and elegant groove shape is not found in the matrices of other traditional boats (Fig. 2: 1, 2).

The bow and stern “roots” - stems - were inserted at the desired angle with a dovetail lock made at the lower end into special grooves in the matrix and were additionally attached to the matrix with a dowel (Fig. 1: 2). This longitudinal frame of the boat was secured from lateral displacements on the slipway with thin poles - spacers, nailed at one end to the stems, and at the other to the walls or floor of the barn.

After this, we began to “sewing” the sides (Fig. 1: 3,4). The first, lower boards were adjusted and attached to the frame of the future boat using pliers with wedges, additional stops and transverse boards with grooves, then they were drawn to the matrix and the frames in the prepared grooves. The grooves of the motherboard and the frame, as well as the embossing, were carefully processed and aligned to avoid water leakage of the body. After clean preparation, each board was again installed in the groove in place on resin and tow (moss) and fastened to the matrix with flat (horseshoe) nails, and nailed to the cocors with round or square nails. Using the same devices and technology, the next boards fixed in the same way were drawn to each other with an overlap of 2–3 cm, then removed, hewn along the line and planed.

The sheathing boards were also connected to each other with flat nails “overlapping” - the lower edge on the outer side of the side “overlapping” the previous board. Such double joints gave the boat's hull additional longitudinal rigidity (when sewing the side trim "smoothly", the end edges of the boards were fitted butt to each other). The upper planks consisted of two “half-thicks” - the widest boards, which were overlapped along the length in the center of the boat, with the front one overlapping the back one.

In the first third of the twentieth century. still used in boat building ancient technology- instead of nails, to fasten the boards to each other, a thin spruce root, steamed in boiling water, was used - “vitsa” (“vicya” - twisted, twisted), which, twisted, through small holes (less than 5 mm) was pulled with stitches through both boards and “stitched” - they pulled the prints together along the entire length. When sewing with vitsa, they tried to make fewer joints, and usually boats with a side height of about 50 cm were sewn in 3-4 boards of “nashva” - hemming. Only large boats - fishing boats or on order for logging work and cargo transportation - had 5 or more weights. It was difficult to bend wide boards to the stems, and only one pair of such wide (more than 30 cm) boards came out of the trunk. [text from the website of the Kizhi Museum-Reserve: http://site]

Holes for the crown were drilled every 4–6 cm, and a groove was selected between them, in which the root was recessed flush with the surface of the board. The steamed root was pulled in, and when it dried, tightening the side seams, it was additionally secured in each hole with birch wedges. The latch pins were attached to the stems with wooden dowels, and the girths were attached to the latch pins, and the body became firmly sewn. Then the sides were carefully resinized on both sides, the hull did not allow water to pass through and lasted longer than one “sewn together” with nails. All researchers of the 19th century. note that the root sewing technology is no worse, and in many ways even better, than the nail technology, but the labor intensity was very high, so when it became possible to use the emerging factory-made nails, the ancient technology died along with the old masters in the first half of the twentieth century.

When fastening the side boards of boats in the second half of the twentieth century. More often, specially forged, flat nails with wide heads or flat horseshoe nails are used, the heads of which have to be flattened with a hammer. Craftsmen who still have horseshoe nails still use them to this day in building boats.

When the hull of a boat is “sewn”, it is strengthened inside and out. For transverse rigidity in the bow and stern of the hull, one “root” is drawn to the beads, inserted and attached to the sides - a reinforced one-piece flora frame made of processed spruce roots or forks of trunks. In the same way, after 40–45 cm, “springs” were drawn and nailed to the sides - frames hewn from processed crooked pine branches or sawn from cocor (Fig. 1:5).

The roots and girths were previously attached to the sides through the beatings on the outside using round wooden dowels; now they are secured with nails that are bent inside. Lately we haven’t installed kokor roots - we made them from boards. In the stern girths and the root at the bottom of the mother, semicircular holes were made - “golubnitsy” - with a diameter of 30–50 mm for better flow of water into the stern when pumping with a pump or draining with a scoop. In the mat, behind the stem, closer to the stern stem, a hole (diameter 30–35 mm) with a round plug, which was called an “umbilical cord,” was drilled with a drill to drain water when hauling it ashore or lifting it on a sled.

At the top of the kokor, the last panels - “half-heeled” - were fastened with small transverse floorings - “half-decks” (up to 50 cm long) and brackets - “kluchs”. On the outside, level with the upper edge of the half-bars, a “ogiben” (narrow board) was nailed down, and on the inside there was a “poruben” - a rectangular beam hewn from half a thin pine tree with special protrusions left for oarlocks (Fig. 1: 6). [text from the website of the Kizhi Museum-Reserve: http://site]

When building boats, the old Kizhi craftsmen traditionally processed all structures and grooves before sharpening them using axes and almost never used chisels. One of the last masters of the traditional school, N.V. Sudin, who himself worked only with an ax during the construction of a boat, spoke about the master I.F. Veresov: “Ivan Fedorovich Veresov is the best master, he sewed very good boats and made them quickly - in a day I could collect 5 naboev. Look, he works with an ax as easily as he draws. In his hands the ax flew like an artist’s brush - his fame spread throughout everyone. He did everything by eye and with an axe. It would be faster with an ax - we wouldn’t have earned anything with chisels.”

After these works, the corps received the necessary strength. Matitsa, kokory, naboi, “bends” and “cuts” gave the boat hull longitudinal strength, and “roots” and “springs”, “half-decks” and “clews” - transverse strength.

The construction of the boat was completed by the installation of “nashes” - benches for rowers and “sleigh bridges” - floorings for the feet with supports for rowing, which were not attached to the hull and could be removed. After completion of construction work, the building was thoroughly cleaned of debris (Fig. 1:7).

A false keel is nailed to the mat along its entire length - a “hammer” made of a rectangular block. Previously, the ram was made from a round pole about 2 m long, one edge of which was cut off and nailed to the keel, the very end was bent and attached to a root (about 30 cm). Such a false keel protected the stem and keel from being abraded on the shore, was easily replaced and at the same time increased the course stability and maneuverability of the boat under sail.

To protect the wooden structures from water, wind and sun, the boat was necessarily tarred “all around” - on both sides. Once the resin had dried, the boat was ready to launch. To pull boats ashore, a wooden dowel, a finger 30–40 cm long, was installed in the hole in the bow deck. [text from the website of the Kizhi Museum-Reserve: http://site]

According to the testimony of I.F. Veresov, a resident of the village of Eglovo, carpenter and master boatmaker, it also happened like this: “The customer is distant from Voznesenye (100 km by water, 300 km by road. – Yu.N.) I arrived at Volkostrov, but there was no boat yet. Summer, white nights. Several men got together and built the boat overnight; the next day the customer left with a finished, although not tarred, kizhanka. If the untarred boat did not leak, then it was taken away without a bailer, and this was the work of a top-class craftsman.”

Boat rigging

The traditional propellers of the “kizhanka” were oars and a sail (Fig. 1:8). As a rule, three pairs of rowing oars were made: the upper, middle and lower ones - with the two front rows, and with the rear ones they rowed or pulled - they directed the boat along the desired course. The oars were attached in the “keys” to the stops – “fingers” with loops braided from branches or ropes.

The mast was up to 3.5 m high. It was placed in the bow in a special socket on the motherboard through a round hole or semicircular recess in the bow “half-deck” and was attached with a rope to the round fingers installed on it. On large boats, as on soymas, there were two masts; the second mast was placed in the hole of the second bench from the bow, specially attached to the girths and sides.

The traditional sprint sail is trapezoidal, low (up to 2.5–3 m), but long - almost to the stern oars. The leading edge of the sail (luff) was firmly tied to the mast. The free upper corner of the sail was set using a thin pole - “raino” (batten), the lower end of which rested on a loop near the mast. The helmsman controlled the sail with two ends of one rope (sheets), going aft from the upper, “spring”, and from the free, lower, corners of the sail. [text from the website of the Kizhi Museum-Reserve: http://site]

The rudder was hung only when sailing over long distances; in skerries they steered with one stern oar.

According to M.P. Rogachev, for equipping boats in the 1940s. local residents bought canvas in a store, and for sheets they used ropes twisted from bast. Instead of metal anchors, large flat stones tied with bast rope were used on boats, since neither anchors nor the necessary ropes could be purchased in stores.

The boats were specially equipped to perform transport and fishing tasks and had additional devices. For fishing, horizontal “gates” were installed for lowering, lifting and towing gear and nets, and for transporting live red fish, special boxes with slots in the bottom linings were built in the hull. To tow rafts with timber or firewood - “purses” - gates were installed to pull towards an anchor brought forward. To transport goods and livestock along the girdles, boards of additional flooring were nailed - “sub-towers” ​​- and sheds and awnings were installed.

To transport horses and cattle to pastures or for work from one island to another on boats in the Kizhi skerries, a special device was used - a “dam” (Fig. 3). This design consisted of a special float - a counterweight (a square section beam 1.0–1.5 m long) attached to a pole with dowels using a vertical bar. The dam was attached to the hull in the following way: a pole more than 3 m long was laid across the sides in the middle of the boat and tied with a rope with a loop at the end, stretched under the keel from one side to the other.

When the boat moved, a beam attached to a pole parallel to the hull floated through the water, and when a horse or cow stepped on board, it, like a balancer on ocean pies, prevented a dangerous increase in roll. Submerging into the water, the beam increased buoyancy or, rising out of the water, like a counterweight, kept the boat on an even keel. The dams were of different sizes depending on the length of the boat and the amount of hay or livestock being transported. [text from the website of the Kizhi Museum-Reserve: http://site]

The author has not encountered any mention of such a balancer-counterweight on boats in other places, either in specialized literature or on expeditions. According to local residents, this is a “pre-syul”, ancient device that was used by their grandfathers and great-grandfathers. IN Soviet time they were used on the Volkostrovsky collective farm for transporting livestock to distant pastures or for sale in Velikaya Guba. Transportation of livestock on boats with a dam was carried out only in the waters of the Kizhi skerries, without access to the open lake, and was not used either on the coast of Lake Onega or on other lakes.

Such a boat with a dam is exhibited in the main exhibition of the Kizhi Museum in the barn of Oshevnev’s house (purchased for funds from V.N. Burkov from the village of Shuina on Volkostrov Island). We can say that the Kizhi “dam”, like the boat – “Kizhanka”, is a product of the development of the local island shipbuilding culture.

In the 50s XX century on traditional boats they began to use stationary engines from 1 to 12 hp, for this purpose a foundation of timber was made in the aft part for the motor, and a hole was drilled in the frame for a deadwood with a shaft, at the same time passenger cabins and wheelhouses with a helmsman began to be built into kizhanki management.

When outboard boat motors appeared, they began to make a transom stern for them. In the 1980s - early 1990s. one of the best master boatbuilders and carpenters, I.F. Veresov, without any drawings, based on his experience, invented and sewed very good boats 5.0–5.5 m long with a transom stern for the Veterok motor, which local residents had received the name “heather”.

// Kizhi Bulletin. Issue 13
Under scientific ed. I.V.Melnikova, V.P.Kuznetsova
Karelian Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Petrozavodsk. 2011. 296 p.

The ancient Novgorod soyma, which is being restored on the banks of the Ilmen, has been prepared for wintering

Last summer, on the shore of Lake Ilmen in the village of Ustrek, Starorussky district, amazing story. A group of volunteers united around the big and important task of restoring the construction technology of the Ilmen soyma - the last representative of folk sailing ships in Russia.

The Ilmen soyma, a type of boat for smooth fishing used by local fishermen, has been known at least since the beginning of the 20th century. In the 90s, wooden soymas were replaced by iron boats equipped with motors, and the construction of wooden soymas stopped.

The initiator of preserving the secrets of the construction of the Ilmen soyma was Muscovite Vladimir Shchetanov, one of the founders of the Vodlozersk artel - a community created to support and highlight the work of a group of researchers and lovers of original navigation.

His assistants were Alexander Myakoshin, the last shipbuilder on the Ilmen, who once built soymas, Sergei Demeshev, a fifth-generation Old Russian fisherman, feedman and main fisherman of the fishing artel in Ustrek, and fishermen Alexey Kuzmin and Vladimir Klevtsov.

It was planned that in the fall the project participants would launch the soyma onto the Ilmen wave to test its performance. But the hopes did not come true. Often the weather interfered with the work, it rained, because of which it was necessary to stop the work. But over the summer and half of the fall, the participants in the unique project accomplished a lot.

“The Soyma is almost completely built,” said Vladimir SHCHETANOV. — There are some small things left that we will finish in the spring. You can’t go out into the lake yet - the soyma needs to be cleared and equipped. It is necessary to make a walkway - a deck, equip a hut - a cabin, sheet and tar the boat, sew sails, make masts and props, and acquire the necessary gear.

The other day the boat was prepared for winter. To begin with, we soaked the body with an antiseptic, which is why the soyma acquired a greenish tint, which, as they say in the project community on VKontakte, will go away along with the tar. Then the boat was covered with a construction film awning. “Actually, usually the soyma was not sheltered here for the winter, but we feel sorry to leave a ship that has not yet seen the lake unprotected,” wrote the project participants. The Soyma will spend the winter at the shipyard in Ustrek, where it was built.

“There are always plenty of difficulties, but nothing is unsolvable,” says Vladimir Shchetanov about how the work is going. — Of course, any financial assistance from caring people would not hurt.

Now like-minded people are discussing what the sails on the Novgorod soyma will be like. According to Vladimir Shchetanov, canvas for them can be purchased in Russia, but the boat builders will cut and sew on their own. It is necessary to decide on the shape of the sails, which has changed with the advent of motor sails. Participants in the unique project will turn to fishermen for advice and help.

Let us remind you that Vladimir Shchetanov’s project involves not only the construction of a soyma, its equipment, but also testing its seaworthiness and operational qualities on the Ilmen, filming a drawing and creating a reporting video about the construction and technique of smooth fishing.

Videos, photographs, drawings after completion of the work will be available to everyone - both scientists and all those interested in the history of Russia, the Novgorod region, fishing and folk navigation. Some of the information can already be found in the project community on VKontakte “Ilmen Soyma”.

*Ilmen soyma is a type of boat for smooth fishing, which was used by fishermen on Lake Ilmen.