If you ask what is Beliany, then few will answer this question. But just some 100 years ago, these giant ships sailed along the Volga and Vetluga. Beliany is perhaps the most unique river boats in the world. These were huge, even by current measures, ships. According to some reports, there were belyany up to 120 m long. The side height could reach 6 meters.
Let's find out what was their uniqueness …
A long time ago, even before the revolution, every spring, as soon as Vetluga opened from the ice, the inhabitants of the coastal villages, enchanted, watched the majestic snow-white buildings slowly passing along the river. They glorified them as "Belians" - white, it means. Unlike rafts and soyms, they were loaded only with cultivated, "white" timber - that is why they were considered more valuable and expensive.
Irina Sergeevna Korina, director of the local history museum of the Krasnobakovsky region, believes that the beginning of shipbuilding was laid in the 17th century, when, after the Streltsy riot in 1698, families of archers, as well as guilty ship craftsmen, were exiled to the Vetluga and its tributary Usta.
There were a great many types of river vessels at one time: gosyanki, podchaki, semi-boats, ferries, barges … Shipbuilding was considered prestigious and profitable: before the advent of accessible railways and highways in Russia, the river was the fastest and cheapest way of transporting passengers and goods. Depending on the characteristics of the river, certain types of ships were popular on it.
Vetluga became famous for Belians. They were built only at three shipyards, one of which was Bakovskaya.
… It was a beautiful sight - the majestic Belyana walking along the blue Vetluzhsky waters. Not everyone, probably, thought about the cost of what incredible labor this beauty was created. The work of the raftsmen could be compared with the hard labor, with the only difference that hard labor is forced labor.
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The carrying capacity of the Belians corresponded to their size and could be 100-150 thousand poods (poods - 16 kg) for small Belians, but for large ones it reached 800 thousand poods! That is, these were the dimensions, albeit not very large, but nevertheless an ocean ship, although they sailed exclusively from the upper and lower reaches of the Volga and had never been further than Astrakhan!
Timber felling and rafting were carried out in barbaric ways in the absence of any mechanization. The workers set out to cut wood in an artel, taking food with them from their homes. They lived in the woods, without being at home for three or four months, being content with a meager and monotonous diet, sleeping in small huts, winter cottages, which did not keep warm well.
The felled forest had to be dragged to a floating river (a tributary of the Vetluga). Here the logs were tied into links, and when the flood began, they were driven to Vetluga (to the mouth of the floatable river). This was done with the use of long poles, with which the tied logs were pulled away from the banks so that there was no congestion, and some brave fellows sat down on small rafts and dashingly rushed to the mouth of the river through fast water, directing the movement of the floating forest.
Despite the fact that the work of a barge haule was very dangerous, sometimes threatening the loss of health and even death, people came here, since this work was, albeit meager, but a help in peasant life. Women also worked for Belians, but their labor was paid much lower. Therefore, they were floated in rare cases, only when the whole family served the raft.
The forest in Belyana was laid in a special way - in even rows with wide openings, so that in the event of an accident it was possible to quickly reach the place of breakdown. In addition, correctly laid logs dried out faster, which kept them from rotting.
It is known that the construction of one middle Volga Belyana took about 240 pine logs and 200 spruce logs. At the same time, the flat bottom was made of spruce beams, and the sides were made of pine. The distance between the frames is no more than half a meter, which is why the strength of the Belyana hull was extremely high. At the same time, as it very often happened in our past, the Belyans were built at first without a single nail, and only later they began to hammer them together with iron nails.
But the most interesting thing about Belyana was, in general, her cargo - "white forest", that is, white and yellow logs devoid of bark. It is believed that because of this it was called that way, although there is another point of view, as if the word "belyana" is associated with the Belaya River. In any case, any Belyana was always white, since these ships served only one navigation and therefore never prayed!
But the Belyany was loaded in the way that no ship in the world was loaded or loaded, as evidenced by even the following proverb: "You will disassemble the Belyana with one hand, you will not collect the Belyana in all cities." This was due to the fact that the timber was placed in the Belyana not just in a pile, but in a stack with many spans in order to have access to its bottom in case of a leak. At the same time, the cargo of the sides did not touch or put pressure on them. But since at the same time the outside water pressed on them, special wedges were inserted between the cargo and the sides, which, as they dried out, were replaced by larger and larger ones.
At the same time, as soon as the forest began to exceed the height of the Belyana board, the logs began to be laid so that they protruded beyond the boards, and a new load was laid on them. Such protrusions were called splits or spacing, which one had to be able to arrange so as not to upset the balance of the vessel. At the same time, the dissolutions sometimes protruded overboard by four or more meters to the sides, so that the width of the vessel at the top turned out to be much larger than at the bottom, and reached 30 meters for some Belians!
Belyana's hull was sharpened both in front and behind, and it was controlled with the help of a huge steering wheel - a lot that looked like a real plank gate, which was turned with the help of a huge long log led from the stern to the deck. Because of this, the lot was floated down the river not with the bow, but with the stern. From time to time, wiggling a huge lot like a lazy whale's tail, she swam like this, but despite all her awkwardness, she had excellent maneuverability! In addition to the lot, the belyana had large and small anchors weighing from 20 to 100 pounds, as well as a great variety of various ropes, hemp and sponge.
It is interesting that the deck of the "Belyana" was also nothing more than a load, but it was laid either from a timber or from sawn boards and was so large that it resembled the deck of a modern aircraft carrier. 2-4 gates were placed on it for lifting large anchors and tensioning the ropes holding the lot. But closer to the stern on the "Belyana" for the sake of balance, two small huts were installed - "kazenki", which served as the habitat of the ship's crew. Between the roofs of the huts, there was a high cross bridge with a carved booth in the middle, in which the pilot was located.
At the same time, the booth was covered with carvings, and sometimes it was even painted with paint like "gold". Although this vessel was purely functional, the "Beliany", nevertheless, were richly decorated with flags, not only state and commercial flags, but also the own flags of a merchant, which most often depicted blessing saints or some symbols suitable for the occasion … These flags were sometimes so large that they fluttered over the "Belyany" like sails. But the merchants did not usually take into account the expenses on them, since here the main thing was to declare themselves!
There were from 15 to 35 workers on the "Belyana", and on the largest - from 60 to 80. Many of them worked on pumps that pumped water out of the building, and there were 10-12 such pumps, since the "Belyana" building was always a little leaked. Because of this, the "Belyana" was loaded like this. so that its nose sinks into the water deeper than the stern, and all the water would drain there!
The construction of Belyany on the Volga reached a special peak in the middle of the 19th century in connection with the beginning of mass steamship traffic. Since the steamers at that time ran on wood (and there were about 500 of them), it is not difficult to imagine what a huge amount of wood this entire fleet required.
Firewood was brought to the Volga ports exclusively on Belyany and only gradually, due to the transition to oil, the demand for firewood on the Volga fell. Nevertheless, even at the end of the 19th century, up to 150 of them continued to be built here annually and loaded with timber, they were floated down the river up to Astrakhan.
Then these unique ships were dismantled, so much so that in the literal sense of the word, nothing remained! "Kazenki" were sold as ready-made huts, the timber was used for building material, hemp, matting and ropes, not to mention the fasteners - absolutely everything brought income to the owners of the Belians! Only small belyans, loaded with fish in Astrakhan, walked back, drawn by the barge haulers. However, then they were also dismantled and sold for firewood. Keeping Belyana afloat for more than one season turned out to be unprofitable!
The history of the Belians is also interesting because some of them were assembled and disassembled twice in one navigation! So, for example, small Belyany in the place where the Volga came close to the Don, moored to the shore, after which all the cargo from them was transported by horse carts to the Don. After that, the Belyana itself was dismantled, transported after the load, reassembled and loaded into a new place. Now the forest was rafted on them to the lower reaches of the Don, where the Belyans figured out for the second time!
One of the last Belians, early 20th century:
