The northern capital has long been associated with floods. Over the entire not-so-long history of St. Petersburg, there have been more than 300 of them, and 50 of them are considered major … Natural disasters have haunted this city literally from the day it was founded. Moscow, too, has repeatedly found itself at the mercy of the water element!
Blessed City?
Legend has it that the holy Apostle Andrew the First-Called, preaching Christianity, reached the mouth of the Neva and saw the northern lights in the sky. This meant that in the future a blessed capital city would appear here. 1700 years later, the prediction came true … Peter I saw in the swampy, forested Izhora land “a window to Europe”. For him, it was primarily the geographical location of the new capital that was important - “from now on we will threaten the Swede… . As for the swamps, they were supposed to be drained.
The energetic king ordered to bring to the construction site of the future capital city of masons, carpenters and other working people. They had to work in hellish conditions, sometimes knee-deep in water … Builders from Smolensk lived in the barracks on Vasilievsky Island. Unable to withstand the unhealthy climate and backbreaking work, many of them were sent to the next world ahead of schedule. They were buried on the banks of the Black River. Then she was baptized in Smolensk, and the burial began to be called the Smolensk cemetery … So the statement that the Northern capital was built on bones is by no means an exaggeration … In addition, since the city was built on swamps, the air in it was damp, unhealthy. … Such places are usually called "bad". It was not for nothing that many of St. Petersburg residents were ill with consumption, and doctors usually advised to change the climate … Moreover, floods hit the city every now and then. The people even called them the St. Petersburg Floods.
For sins will go to the swamp?
Before the founding of St. Petersburg, the largest flood occurred in 1691. The chronicles say that the water covered the entire central part of the future city by twenty-five feet (7.62 meters). Therefore, the Swedes decided to lay the Nyenskans fortress and the city of Nyen upstream - at the confluence of the Okhta river into the Neva.
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Three months after its foundation, St. Petersburg was covered with floods. This happened on the night of 19-20 August 1703. Then the water rose by more than 2 m. And three years later, in 1706, an even more formidable natural disaster struck the city. Peter I described the events in a letter to his associate Alexander Menshikov in the following way: “It has been three days since the wind west-south-west has caught up with such water, which, they say, has never happened. In my mansion it was 21 inches on top of the floor, and boats were free to ride around the city and on the other side of the street. However, it did not last long, less than three hours. And it was very comforting to see that people were sitting on the roofs and trees, as if during a flood … The water, although it was extremely great, did not make a big trouble”.
Once, in the 18th century, on Christmas Eve, candles lit by themselves on a tree near Trinity Pier, which appeared from nowhere. They decided to cut down the tree, but the candles went out, and a scar from the ax remained on the trunk. Several years later, a certain old man came under this tree and began to prophesy that soon the Lord would be angry and would flood the capital of Antichrist. But the water never flooded the city, and the hapless fortuneteller was whipped.
The largest flood in the history of St. Petersburg happened in 1824, during the reign of Alexander I. The water in the Neva then rose 410 cm above the ordinary (a water meter was installed at the Mining Institute). Until the end of his life, Alexander was tormented by his conscience: after all, his father Paul I was killed practically by this tacit consent! Once, examining the destruction caused by the flood, he suddenly heard someone's voice: "For our sins, God punishes us!" "No, for mine!" - responded the emperor.
At the end of the 19th century, prophecies about the imminent end of St. Petersburg spread. They said that he was destined to go into a swamp … One Italian clairvoyant predicted that as a result of an earthquake, the bottom of Lake Ladoga would rise and the water would flood the city. And a certain French woman predicted a volcanic eruption, as a result of which St. Petersburg would be washed away into the Gulf of Finland or Ladoga. Fortunately, this has not happened yet …
Where does the water come from?
According to scientists, the cause of the St. Petersburg II floods is the cyclones arising over the Baltic Sea, catching up with the wave. In addition, flood floods associated with melting snows occur more than once in the city. This was observed, for example, in 1903,1921 and 1956.
At present, it is considered to be floods that the water level rises by more than 160 centimeters above the ordinary. The rise of water up to 210 centimeters is considered dangerous, up to 299 centimeters especially dangerous, the rise above 300 centimeters is considered catastrophic … However, the water level in the Neva almost never rises so high, and floods, as a rule, do not cause serious damage to the city - only some embankments are flooded. True, these days are unpleasant stormy weather.
Most often, floods in St. Petersburg occur from September to December. The last of them, the 309th in a row, took place on December 28, 2011. The water level in the Neva then reached 170 centimeters …
Moscow floods …
Few people today remember that there were once severe floods in Moscow. They began in the 15th century. According to experts, this was due to the massive deforestation in the metropolitan area. One of the first mentions of such "floods" dates back to 1496.
"… Sia, the winter was very fierce, the abomination was great and there was snow, and in the spring in Moscow and everywhere the occasion was very great," the chronicler says.
In August 1566, several dozen Muscovites died as a result of another flood (and the population of Moscow then was not as large as it is now). The buildings in the capital were then mostly wooden, and the water washed away hundreds of residential buildings and outbuildings. From the center, some of the outskirts could only be reached by boat.
Once again, the elements cleared up in December 1607. In the "Notes of Zholkiewski" it is said: "…. The rivers flowing through the city protruded from their banks, and the water was so great that about 1000 houses were partly washed away, partly destroyed completely …" Many human victims were brought with them by the floods of 1879 and 1908 years. In 1908, the water level in the Moscow River within the city limits rose by as much as 9 meters. The water reached the Kremlin walls. Residents of the city climbed onto the roofs of houses, escaped in churches, which in the capital, as a rule, stand on heights. … So in terms of powerful floods, Moscow at one time was in no way inferior to St. Petersburg. True, in the last century, due to a significant change in the relief, such natural disasters no longer haunt the capital.
Based on materials from news agencies
