Started here: "Interrogation Protocol No. 1. Kazan Cathedral"
“How boring it is to live without a bright fairy tale, With only one coldness in my chest.
Without a seductive denouement, Without hopes ahead"
(V. Gaina" Fairy Tale ")
Misconceptions. How many of them are in the minds and souls of people! One of the reasons for this phenomenon lies in the imperfection of the person himself, in immaturity and infantilism. In the eternal need for something that goes beyond the usual. Something that frees you from the need to make independent decisions and take responsibility. In childhood, when a person does not yet have sufficient baggage of life experience, fairy tales are his guide to the adult world. So difficult for him to understand, incomprehensible, but alluring. Fairy tales become a kind of "adapter" for him, helping to combine the two data encoding formats and to recognize the recording made with the help of another, more complex device.
But, having acquired the ability to read data of a complex format, a person cannot part with an adapter that is no longer needed and continues to use it in everyday life. The craving for everything unusual, mysterious and magical sometimes takes precedence over rational thinking in some people. And for those around them, they become eccentrics "out of this world." However, without eccentrics, our world would be poor and gray. And also, without a doubt, primitive, because almost all the significant achievements of mankind, which we use everywhere, were made precisely thanks to those who are considered to be eccentrics.
Thanks to scientists and inventors who have not parted with the children's adapter, which helped them not to turn into robots, whose mental activity is subject to uniform algorithms, we have the happiness of living in our beautiful, amazing world.
But this stick has two ends: sometimes the love of fairy tales plays a cruel joke on many, and they get lost in the world of illusions created by their own imagination, limited by the framework created, paradoxically, by the same love for fairy tales that helps others to make discoveries …
So, having believed in fairy tales that are perceived as truth from early childhood, many are unable to escape from the illusory world even under the pressure of facts that convincingly refute existing delusions. Then they, confusing cause-and-effect relationships, in violation of all the laws of logic, make erroneous conclusions that take them further and further into the jungle of delusions. For example, having seen cobs of corn on the frescoes of a building dug up in Pompeii, some begin to moan about the "remake", arguing their arguments with the "well-known fact" that corn could not have been in Europe before the "discovery of America."
The tale of the deaths of Pompeii and Herculaneum in October 79 AD e. so firmly established in their minds that even such convincing facts as bronze water taps and frescoes depicting maize found under a layer of volcanic ash are not able to break the stereotypes inherent in the school. For the "happy" owners of a fairy-tale consciousness, myths about the ancient Roman Empire become an insurmountable obstacle on the way to knowledge of the world around them.
Promotional video:
It is so difficult for them to put together a realistic whole picture of the past that the temptation to expose the falsifiers of history by accusing them of forging frescoes overshadows the mind. But a person with critical thinking is more likely to suspect historians of forgery. This is what happened. And for a long time. And for more than a dozen years, thinking people have known that the eruption of Vesuvius, as a result of which Pompeii and Herculaneum perished, did not occur in ancient times, but on December 16, 1631. By the way, half a year after the periodical La Gazette went on sale, which was distributed throughout Europe (the prototype of the current Twitter).
It is the fabulous consciousness that does not allow our contemporaries to make correct conclusions in order to understand the obvious: the columns of the Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg, which exist today, were created quite recently, using quite modern technologies of concreting and plastering. Miracles do not happen, fairy tales are a lie, and there is no need to “look for the guilty” among Atlanteans and Hyperboreans.
In fact, everything is trite: the building, radically rebuilt at the end of the nineteenth century, and must date from the end of the nineteenth century, but not the first mention of what was once built on this site. The situation here exactly repeats the situation with the dating of the construction of the Cologne Cathedral. Only our historians, unlike European ones, who are still more modest, attributed only a hundred years. Could have been a thousand. But…
Historical science has its own hierarchy. Only the Vatican is supposed to have exceptional antiquity, the Middle Ages are given to Protestants, and Orthodox Christians are allowed to amuse themselves with the history of architecture, starting only from the sixteenth century. Here I will make a reservation: to consider seriously the reliability of the dating of the Church of St. John the Baptist in Kerch (1500 years old) or the Church of Elias in Nizhny Arkhyz (1100 years old), with all my liberal mindset, I cannot bring myself to even making titanic efforts.
The situation is the same all over the world: “antique” cities are being dug up, partially restored, and partially rebuilt. The only difference is that in Russia they are given two hundred years for everything about everything, and those who are in the territory controlled by the Vatican are assigned an age of "one hundred thousand milion years before the dinosaurs." Interrogation of the first skeleton made it possible to verify the validity of this thesis in full. Now let's see what the second skeleton, St. Isaac's Cathedral, will tell us about.
Based on the results of the first interrogation, Dmitry Gorkin and I predictably came to a common version that in this case, too, most researchers become victims of childhood stereotypes that do not allow them to see an objective picture even at close range. Almost all of them mistakenly rely on the official dating of the construction of the cathedral. They had enough reason to understand that they were a deception, but they did not have enough common sense to look for a catch where it could really be hiding. Respected "alternatives" together began to look for evidence of an older age of Isaac's columns. And along the way, they also try to discern traces of the use of high technologies.
You can understand them. It is very difficult to part with the tales of our great "Hyperborean" ancestors, who didn’t need to move mountains with their thoughts, to carve columns weighing a thousand tons with a plasma blaster, to throw nuclear charges across the ocean at the Atlanteans, etc. according to the list. In this investigation, the “traditionalists”, “turners” and “concrete workers” are also joined by “extruders” who advocate the version according to which the columns were made from geopolymer paste using special equipment by extrusion in the manner of making minced meat or pasta.
But let's start in order. What we know from the "Petersburg Tales" of certified historians:
As always, the main heroes of "theirs" time, of course, again became Auguste Montferrand and Samson Sukhanov. Nicholas I himself produced the construction, Karl Opperman was the chairman of the Commission on the construction of the cathedral, but they did not forget about the simple Russian peasant again. As a consolation prize, as a handout, so that we do not grieve too much that, they say, “all the damned foreigners did again, as if the Russians could not do anything themselves,” the following gems were left:
Like this. It turns out that supporters of the patriotic-Hyperborean version still have something to be proud of. But this is all lyrics that have little to do with reality. And regarding the columns (we will not consider St. Isaac's Cathedral itself), we have the following facts:
- Number of front columns - 48 pcs. There are 16 columns in the north and south porticos, and 8 columns in the west and east (There are 116 columns in the cathedral in total.)
- Height - 17 meters.
- Diameter - 1.85 m.
Now about what is considered to be facts along with these three points:
- Weight - 114 tons.
- Material - rapakivi granite from the Puterlax quarry.
- The initial weight of the workpiece is about 165 tons (more than a thousand poods).
In my opinion, the last three points cannot be considered facts until they become proven and obvious.
Let's start with the material from which, according to legend, the columns of the western aisle of the Kazan Cathedral, the Alexander Column on Palace Square and the front columns of St. Isaac's Cathedral are made. All of them were allegedly carved by Samson Sukhanov in the Puterlax quarry near Vyborg, and all were installed by Auguste Montferrand in St. Petersburg.
I will not practice mathematical calculations in order to understand exactly how many tons of granite needed to be cut in one quarry, how much volume such a heap of monolithic rock should take, and how much it would take to deliver it all. I will say only for those who do not know that historians, saying that the Puterlax granite quarry is located "near Vyborg", forget to specify its geographical coordinates: 60 ° 34'12.2 "north latitude and 27 ° 43'49.8" east longitude …
Few people know that "a quarry near Vyborg" means in Finland, in a deep forest, near the cottage village of Hirvisaari.
To understand what problem the transport workers of the early nineteenth century were solving, it is enough to mention that the straight distance from the quarry to St. Petersburg, if you fly by plane in calm weather, is 160 kilometers. In general, there are two quarries, and from one of them to the sea is only 150 meters. But the depths in the coastal zone do not exceed 2.4 meters in the deepest place (see depth maps), and at the very coast in general the water level at a distance of a hundred meters from the edge of the surf is no higher than the knee of a person of average height. There are no berths, no fairway. How were they loaded? The question is rhetorical.
Depth map from Finland's online service.
Puterlahti. Google Map 2019
Puterlahti. Map overlay 1810
The album, allegedly left by O. Montferrand himself, contains an illustration depicting the moment of delivery of the pedestal for the Alexander Column, and judging by the draft of the vessel, the load should be 500-600 tons, no less.
The dimensions of the barge area are comparable to the cargo area. Its drawdown must be at least 1.5 meters, and it is being pushed by two steam ships! Because you can hardly carry such a load on sails. But what can be taken away on sails can be clearly seen in the next photo.
Pier Puterlahti.
Both quarries of Puterlahti (No. 1 and No. 3) are rather small, it is hard to believe that it was here that they mined all that burst of granite from which so many monolithic columns were built.
And here is a genuine example of rapakivi. Let's remember how it looks. It will be useful to us more than once.
Both photos are publicly available on the info network, the author is not identified.
Now let's consider three samples of columns, the material for the manufacture of which, as historians say, was mined in the same quarry:
A - column of the western side-chapel of the Kazan Cathedral, B - Alexander Column, B - front column of St. Isaac's Cathedral.
Visual inspection, unfortunately, does not allow making an unambiguous and reliable conclusion about whether the same granite was used for all three samples or different. However, for operational purposes, such an analysis may be quite valid, and my conclusion is that there are three different types of granite in the photo. Moreover, they all differ from the sample recorded in the photo in the Puterlax quarry.
Does this prove anything? Not. And, above all, for the following reasons:
- One quarry may contain granite of various colors, textures and even mineral composition.
- All three samples were taken from different distances under different lighting conditions.
- Each of the samples is not in the same environmental conditions.
- All three samples are in place for a different period of time.
But for our investigation, all these circumstances are not particularly important. Because we have other, more powerful data to push versions. And I will voice them immediately.
Let's assume that we have no samples to compare at all. Then we are forced to consider each object separately, and it turns out that all the columns in the western aisle of the Kazan Cathedral are absolutely identical to each other in all respects: in color, texture, mineral composition and processing quality.
How so? But what if in a quarry there is not enough material of the corresponding standard for at least one column? What to do then? Will one or more of the supports be of a different color and pattern? This is an embarrassment! But that didn't happen. For both Kazan and Isaac, solid pieces of monolithic granite with a homogeneous structure were enough for one hundred percent. The probability of the occurrence of such an event tends to zero. Stone cutters will confirm that it is an incredibly difficult, almost impossible task to find granite of the same quality in such volumes. This simply does not happen in nature.
But it is also necessary to take into account losses from rejects during production, from accidental destruction of columns during transportation, loading, unloading and installation. And what … There were no losses? But this is impossible when we are talking about at least 254 columns (including the one that stands separately in the Academic Garden). We will omit the weight of the columns; I have already mentioned the problems of transporting such goods in the previous part of the article.
In general, almost all available objective data indicate that the objects of our investigation can still be made of solid pieces of natural granite, but with such a probability that this version is pushed to the very end of the list as the least probable. And if so, then the version that is ardently defended by the "concrete workers sect" comes to the fore. Well, or supporters of the geopolymeric version of the origin of the columns.
If this version is correct, then first of all it should be confirmed by the data obtained as a result of measuring the radioactive radiation with the help of the dosimeter at our disposal. Unfortunately, the survey did not produce results that could help to draw an unambiguous conclusion. Each of the columns has its own radiation level (which is rather strange), but on average it turned out to be quite high, albeit almost half the radiation level that we recorded from granite on the Fontanka embankment - only about 30 μR / h.
Inspection of the columns with a thermal imager yielded no results, since at that time they were in the shade, and there was no longer a temperature difference that would allow recording the features of their internal structure.
But the visual inspection gave itself quite objective data. An instrumental measurement of the curvature of the column surface was not even required. It is clearly visible to the naked eye that such a surface could not have been obtained in the case of processing the column on a lathe.
Now you should pay close attention to the following details of the columns:
As I said earlier, granite doesn't crack like that. All granitoids, and not only them, but practically any stones "do not know how" to crack not through and through, while not completely collapsing. That is, long linear cracks in the columns from top to bottom of several meters, or even along the entire length, should lead to a complete split of the column, which is also partially loaded from above by the weight of the portico. It is these physical principles and natural properties of the stone that are used by stone miners. Otherwise, they would not have been able to be mined in the quarries using the wedge method. This is what happens to a stone when a crack appears in it:
There is one more feature of rapakivi is that under the influence of weathering it crumbles from the outside in layers, falling off with scales of different sizes. Poor-quality concrete behaves in about the same way.
Therefore, the previous photo does not show a crack in the granite, but a trail of peeling of not dried plaster. It doesn't matter what the core of the column is made of. It can be made from:
1.concrete, like the columns of the middle part of the Kazan Cathedral or columns near the Temple of Jupiter in Baalbek (Lebanon):
Photo by Alexey Klevtsov.
2.blocks of natural or artificial stone, such as in Egypt:
3. Shaped bricks, as was done everywhere in the second half of the nineteenth century:
Columns of the Stroganovs' estate Volyshevo near Porkhov (Pskov region).
4.and even wood:
Column base in the Kuskovo estate, Moscow. Photo by Andrey Tyunyaev.
Wood, of course, disappears immediately. No calculations are required in order to understand that there are no technologies that allow such a fragile material to be used in the construction of bearing supports for structures of large dimensions and mass. More precisely, making them is not a problem, and they will even fulfill their function for some time, because the load from the roof of the portico is ridiculous compared to the load that is applied to the bases of the columns under the influence of their own weight. But they will stand at most thirty years. And then with a big stretch.
So the columns are cast? Perhaps, but this version is opposed by supporters of turning origin. Among their arguments is one with which they try to explain the presence of rectangular patches at the base of the columnar trunks.
According to the "turners", such grooves were made specifically for installation on the chuck jaws of a lathe, and after the columns were made they were covered with patches.
I admit that it was so, but it's too unlikely. This method of fastening is impossible due to the extreme fragility of granite. The grooves can break even before the lathe shaft starts to rotate. For this to happen, the self-weight of the column is sufficient. And not a single evidence has survived that such a method of fixing a part in the spindles of stone lathes could be used somewhere. But there are many facts of a different method of fastening columns in machine tools. It is always end-face and multi-point.
Lathe for the production of marble columns. Early 20th century
On the enlarged fragment of the photo, the end spindle of the machine is clearly visible:
And I have not been able to find any evidence of the use of stone lathes with a chuck equipped with cams. The next photo clearly shows that, on the one hand, the workpiece of the stone column was clamped with an axial single-point spindle, and on the other, with an end multi-point spindle:
And this is what the classic multi-point end spindle of a stone lathe looks like:
Redstone quarry, New Hampshire, USA. Photo by Andrew Morang.
So what are these patches? One more artifact, quite little known to lovers of the history of architecture of St. Petersburg, can probably bring the solution closer. This is the Molvinskaya Column, installed in the Yekateringof Park.
Montferrand again. For completeness and completeness of the tale, it is not enough just to compose what Samson Sukhanov cut down this column. And the view of the column is quite decent, there are no linear cracks and patches in it, as well as any traces of repair. And the polish is even better than that of Isaac's columns!
The artifact is undoubtedly outstanding, considering that such cuts in three planes can only be made with a modern electric hammer.
But without special devices, as well as with the help of a hand tool, it is almost impossible to achieve such accuracy and quality, even when using a vibrating cutting tool. In addition, if this version were relevant, then the remaining questions, one way or another, bring it to nothing.
First: why were these grooves made and why are they all of different sizes and configurations?
Second: why there are notches only on a few columns out of hundreds, because if they were technological seating surfaces for the cams of a lathe, then there would be on all columns without exception.
And not only the St. Isaac's Cathedral, but all other columns, both in St. Petersburg and in other cities of the world. But we do not observe this. Therefore, we have yet to figure out their purpose.
All this means that the facade columns of St. Isaac's Cathedral (we are talking only about them - the most monumental and grandiose ones) could not have been made using a lathe. In addition to the characteristic curvature of surfaces, unfinished cracks, as well as previously exfoliated and later restored fragments, everything that was said above, there is another piece of evidence that puts an end to the disputes about the design of the columns. This is again a visual inspection. Moreover, this does not require any instruments and tricks. The naked eye can clearly see that these are prefabricated structures.
But the picture is best seen in the picture with the use of a light filter:
Author of the photo: Denis Vysokikh.
It remains only to find out the following: were the columns made up of solid-cast sectors, or was it only plaster that was applied sectorally? Common sense dictates that the builders were not crazy and used only proven, previously reliably proven technologies. By virtue of common sense, they simply had to act in the same way as in the construction of objects that had already been built earlier, for example, the same Kazan Cathedral.
If so, there should be a concrete core inside the columns. Moreover, if we assume that today we are not examining the columns that were originally installed, but their improved copies. After all, it is known that already in the second half of the nineteenth century, the technical condition of St. Isaac's Cathedral turned out to be critical, and urgent reconstruction was required. This is how the whole structure "floated" in 1870:
To prevent further changes, complex column alignment work was required. They began in 1873, continued until 1898, and were led by the architect E. A. Sabaneev. Obviously, due to the deviation of the supports from the vertical axis, the load on the bases shifted, and cracks began to form at the base of the shafts, which we see today.
Perhaps the fragments on which the patches were installed suffered the most, crumbled, and had to be cut out completely. How exactly this was done is a separate question. After all, they did it very skillfully on the Molvin Column. How deep did they cut? According to the data provided by the user of the Livejournal service, which is registered under the network name vakomi, the depth of the cut groove is 13 centimeters.
Everything would be fine, but only other researchers are convinced that the columns are generally hollow. The author of the youtube channel REALKALININGRAD in his video:
convincingly demonstrates how the light from the flashlight, passing through the gap between the outer wall of the column and the patch, is reflected from the opposite inner wall.
Here about thirteen centimeters is no longer even a question. It is this fact that forms the basis of the version about extrusive, or, as it is also jokingly called - pasta, technology. Its supporters are convinced that the columns of St. Isaac's Cathedral are made by analogy with pasta, only not from dough, but from geopolymer concrete.
Actually, why not? Let's say that making a pipe in the same way as making pasta will be difficult, especially given the size of such a pipe. The stanochek will need to be so monumental that its construction will be comparable in cost to the construction costs of the entire cathedral. But this does not negate the possibility that the columns could have been cast ring by ring from bottom to top using the so-called sliding formwork.
Scheme for the production of vertical supports using sliding formwork.
One of the stages in the production of a concrete support using sliding formwork.
Of course, this level of equipment did not exist in the nineteenth century, but this fact does not negate the fact that most of the principles that are used by current technologies were invented in the nineteenth century. Take, for example, the same railway transport. Yes, today's trains are very different from the steam locomotives of the century before last, but there were no fundamental differences either. And it is not expected in the near future, apparently.
The same applies to the production of artificial stone and products from it. Technologies improve over time, and the principles … That is why they are principles to remain unchanged. What difference does it make in what shape the concrete is cast and what reagents were used in its preparation?
You can fill the silicone formwork with a modern composition to get a fashionable kitchen sink just like from natural stone, or you can pour the remaining solution into a wooden frame to make a tile for facing the building's porch. Not enough solution? No problem! With other castings can be added. Nobody will notice anyway!
The principle of creating an artificial stone is unchanged, as is the principle of creating a wheel. Whether a cart or a modern electric car, it is round and rotates on an axis. So it is with an artificial stone: the quality has improved significantly, but the principle is the same. Here, for example, is a street trash can.
Today these are produced in large quantities, they stand on the streets of our cities, and none of the passers-by even thinks of declaring them the creations of Montferrand and Sukhanov. What is worth putting a dozen of these urns on top of each other? Especially if their main task is decorative, not load-bearing!
The solution to the secret turns out to be obscenely simple. It is appropriate here to recall an old Soviet anecdote.
A warrant officer pushes a garbage cart, heading outside the military unit in which he serves. At the checkpoint, a young officer asks menacingly:
- What did you steal, Sidorov?
- I didn't steal anything, I take out the garbage.
- It cannot be that a warrant officer - and did not steal anything! Go steal something again and want to take it out under the garbage. Inspector, inspect the car!
A soldier dumps rubbish onto the asphalt and finds nothing. And the cunning ensign, taking the cart out of the unit, mutters rather into his mustache:
- What he stole, what he stole … He stole a wheelbarrow!
This is the case in our case. Onlookers walk around the columns and try to figure out how "these infections managed to make them." It's simple. The simple idea that the columns are not load-bearing does not occur to anyone. A whole bunch of them poked around just to divert the eyes and distract attention. They do not carry any load, therefore they can be made even of cardboard. The architect's idea is simple, but brilliant to the point of insanity. He managed so cleverly to calculate the distribution of the load of the entire building that all four porticos literally hang in the air, without exerting a single kilogram of force per centimeter on the front false supports.
Diagram of structural elements of St. Isaac's Cathedral from the book by Andrey Punin "Architecture of St. Petersburg in the middle of the XIX century".
The older generation will probably remember the old Soviet drinking riddle: how to hang two forks on the edge of a glass.
The newcomer, trying to solve it, inevitably fell into a stupor, suspecting that he was being played. But it turns out that the point is not in a joke, but in elementary knowledge of statics - the science of the balance of bodies under the action of applied forces. And you also need to know at least the basics of such a science as resistance to materials; it is a part of deformable solid mechanics, which considers methods of engineering calculations of structures for strength, stiffness and stability while meeting the requirements of reliability, economy and durability.
So, the time has come for the operative part of the protocol of interrogation No. 2
Only one fact can be considered established:
- Facade columns of St. Isaac's Cathedral are prefabricated unreinforced decorative structures, faced with a material similar to one of the varieties of Karelian red granite.
Questions that remained unanswered during the investigation:
- Whether the component parts of the front columns are hewn from monolithic fragments of natural granite or only artificial stone was used for their production.
- Is there a core inside the columns of a material other than the cladding material?
- What is the total volume and configuration of the voids inside, as well as the nature of their origin and practical significance.
CONCLUSION: despite the fact that one of the main questions has been established, the investigation has not been carried out in full. And it requires additional investigation.
Proposed measures to prevent similar violations in the future: reprimand operational officers Gorkin and Kadykchansky. Taking into account the difficult meteorological conditions in which the operational investigative actions were carried out, without entering into a personal file.
So, the tale continues! How else? After all, "… it's boring to live without a bright fairy tale …". And may it not end for a long time!
Continuation: "Interrogation report No. 3-1. Pillar of Alexandria"
Author: kadykchanskiy
The article was co-authored with a researcher at the Institute of Terrestrial Magnetism, Ionosphere and Radio Wave Propagation. N. V. Pushkova (IZMIRAN) geophysicist D. S. Gorkin