FEBRUARY 2010

What types of ships are there?

POMORian VESSELS

In the previous issue, in the story about Viking ships, we noted that the Scandinavian traditions of ship building took root well in Rus'. It's time to get acquainted with our ancient ships.

Already in the 12th century, Novgorodians reached the shores of the Arctic Ocean. And later, in the Russian North, a unique seafaring culture of the Pomors, the Russian inhabitants of the White Sea region, developed.

Pomors already in the 16th-17th centuries. made long trips across the Arctic Ocean - to Novaya Zemlya, Spitsbergen (the Pomors called this archipelago from the Norman Grumant). They caught fish and sea animals at sea and traded with Norwegian ports. The sailors of the Russian North had their own names for the cardinal points and main compass points (directions), and special designations for navigational hazards - pitfalls and shoals.

Navigation conditions in the Arctic Ocean are very difficult for wooden ships. Any collision with a large ice floe threatens death. The ship's hull, sandwiched between ice fields, can easily be crushed. To sail in the Cold Sea, the Pomors learned to build special vessels - kochi. Kochi were very strong, with additional ice belts on the sides. The body of the koch was shaped somewhat like a nut shell and was pushed upward when the ice compressed. The plating of Pomeranian ships was somewhat reminiscent of the plating of Scandinavian ships - it was also made “overlapping”, with the plating belts superimposed on each other. But when assembling their ships, the Pomors used a very interesting technique. The plating of the kochs and other northern ships was assembled not on nails, but on juniper pins - they did not loosen over time and did not leak.

Each large Pomeranian village had its own shipbuilding tradition. For short trips near the coast and for fishing, small karbas boats were built. For long-distance trade voyages on the White Sea, large three-masted vessels were used - boats capable of transporting large quantities of cargo. The Pomors used such boats to travel to northern Norway, reaching the city of Tromsø. And in the east, Pomeranian ships were used for voyages along the Siberian rivers and polar seas off the coast of Siberia.

OUR REGATTA

And the new question of our Regatta is connected precisely with the voyages of Russian sailors of the 17th century, or more precisely, with the pioneers of Siberia and the Far East.

A Russian explorer first passed through this strait in the 17th century, a second time it was discovered and mapped by a Russian navigator in the first half of the 18th century, and the strait received its name in honor of this navigator already in the second half of the same century from one of the participants in the expedition of the famous English traveler. It is necessary to name the strait, both its discoverers and the English navigator.

However, in fact, the history of ice-going ships dates back to the 12th century.
Then enterprising Novgorodians came to the coasts of the White and Barents Seas. In search of fish and sea animals, they boldly set out into the Studenoye Sea and soon reached Novaya Zemlya, Pechora, Grumant (Spitsbergen), the islands of Kolguev and Vaygach.

At first, the Novgorodians sailed on boats that were no different from those on which they sailed in the Baltic Sea, but after some time they were adapted to the harsh conditions of the Arctic. Already “in the 12th century, northern Pomerania became the center of Russian shipbuilding, a Pomeranian boat was created, more advanced than the Novgorod one,” notes V.S. Shitarev, a researcher of domestic navigation in the Far North.

We are talking about a koch or kochmar, adapted for sailing or oaring in clear water and broken ice, as well as for dragging across not very wide and relatively flat ice fields. Such vessels can withstand impacts from ice floes and are maneuverable, which is important when moving in bays, near the shore, in shallow water, and also in waterways. By the way, their shallow draft allowed the Pomors to enter river mouths and land on the shore almost anywhere.

The main feature was the ovoid shape of the hull, thanks to which, when the ice compressed, the ship was not crushed, but pushed upward.
(In 1891, having begun designing the research ship Fram, intended for long drift in the ice of the Northern Ocean, the Norwegian shipbuilder K. Archer borrowed the shape of a Pomeranian Koch for it, and the Fram successfully withstood a number of very strong ice movements. Russian Admiral S.O. Makarov did the same when creating the world’s first Arctic icebreaker “Ermak”)
And then, in the 12th - 13th centuries, according to the chroniclers, “they made strong kochi, and the wood in them was good, small, and sewed, and caulked, and resin, and did everything efficiently so that those kochi for the sea passage were reliable " In particular, the parts of the set were made mainly from pine and larch.
The keel was a “matitsa” - a trunk, at the ends of which inclined “corgis” (stems) were installed, and along the entire length, at intervals of about half a meter, “urpugs” (frames) and “hens” (ridges-hoops) were placed. From above, both were connected by “seams” (beams), and the upper deck was laid on them. Below it, to the frames, with staples and, more rarely, nails, they fastened battens and sheathing - outer cladding boards, filling the grooves with tarred tow.

Additional skin, the so-called “ice coat” or “kotsu,” was laid slightly above and below the waterline. Most likely, this is where the name of the ship itself comes from. Note that the kocha, invented by the Pomors, turned into a steel ice belt in the 20th century, which became an indispensable accessory of icebreakers and ice-going vessels.
Particular attention was paid to the strength of the bottom, which was most often subjected to impacts from underwater rocks and when dragging ships along strong and uneven ice.

The kocha body was usually divided into three “lofts” (compartments). In the bow there was a “fence” (kubrick) for the crew, and a stove was also placed there. A cargo hold with a waterproof “creature” (hatch) was installed in the center; passengers - merchants and industrialists - were placed here. The aft attic was allocated for the “breech” (cabin) of the helmsman - the captain.

One or two “shags” (masts) were installed above the deck, resting on the matrix, secured at the sides with “legs” (guys), in modern terminology - stays and shrouds. A strong “raina” (yard) “made of good mahogany” was hoisted onto the mast with wooden or, less often, iron rings freely sliding along it, to which a rectangular sail with an area of ​​up to 100 - 150 sq.m. was attached. Raina was raised using a rope “drogue”, and the sail was controlled by “vazhi” (sheets). By tightening them on one side and loosening them on the other, the helmsman placed the sail in the most favorable position relative to the wind. “It is difficult to say where the opinion came from that the Pomors set sail only with a fair wind,” writes V.S. Shitarev. “The rich maritime terminology of the Pomors convincingly indicates the opposite; their ships sailed in the wind on the same tacks as modern sailing ships . They were also familiar with the close-hauled course, when the ship goes steeply into the wind.”

By the way, for quite a long time there was an opinion that the Pomeranian koch was an extremely heavy and clumsy vessel. And although the Arctic researcher, corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences V.Yu. Wiese stipulated that “Russian Kochi are vessels with undoubtedly very low seaworthiness, which is why it is customary in the literature to vilify them in every possible way (“fragile”, “somehow put together”, “ clumsy”, etc.), in this case, represent, in comparison with foreign ships, rather some advantage, because they sailed... not in the open sea, but close to the coast, that is, along an extremely shallow fairway,” he thereby reduced them to small coastal vessels.
But could the Pomors sail on such “watercraft” to the mouth of the Ob, to Novaya Zemlya and Spitsbergen?

Main characteristics of the Pomeranian Koch
Length, m 10 - 15 20 - 25
Width, m 3 - 4 5 - 8
Draft, m 1 - 1.5 2
Speed, knots 7 - 8
Passenger capacity up to 50 people
Load capacity up to 30 t

In the 60s and 70s, experts carefully examined fragments of nomads found during archaeological excavations. Then, based on them, they reconstructed a Pomeranian ship, organized experimental trips to the polar seas and... refuted such judgments.
In particular, it turned out that with favorable winds and seas, Pomors could travel up to 80 miles per day, and some even more, up to 120 miles. For comparison, English merchant ships sailing to Arkhangelsk in the 17th century traveled at best 60 miles per day, and Dutch ships even less.
It's not just about the experience of the feeders. The high driving performance of the kochs is explained primarily by a successful design, well-thought-out hull contours, and high quality work. It is not for nothing that the Pomors passed down from generation to generation the names of famous “nomadic craftsmen”, such as the Kholmogory residents Deryabins, Vargasovs and Vaigachevs, the Kulakov brothers from Arkhangelsk, the Pinezhans Pykhunov and Tarasov.

The history of the world's first ice-swimming ship ended at the end of the 18th century, when all Russian shipbuilders were ordered by the highest authorities not to be self-willed, but to work only according to Western European models. But among them there was nothing comparable to the Koch; they were created for sailing on the open sea. Since then, some historians of the Russian fleet have begun to characterize Pomeranian ships extremely negatively. Although they in no way deserved such treatment and were “rehabilitated” by the works of enthusiasts only in the second half of the 20th century.
Pavel Veselov.

Where there are icy dawns

Russian settlers appeared on the shores of the White Sea at the beginning of the last millennium. They were attracted to these regions by rich fishing: on land - furs, poultry, salt; at sea - fish, sea animals, primarily walruses, whose tusks (“fish tooth”) have always been highly valued. In addition to mining, the desire to explore the world around us also attracted people to the North.

The northern lands were explored by different people: envoys of the Novgorod boyars and rich merchants, ushkuiniki, “dashing people”, runaway peasants... They usually did not settle on deserted shores, they chose places closer to the settlements of the indigenous inhabitants - Karelians and Sami, mixed with them or shared the shore, and then they were simply forced out. Over time, the firmly settled fishermen began to be called Pomors - “living by the sea”, and the entire area of ​​their settlements - Pomorie.

Already from the 12th century, Pomorie became the center of Russian shipbuilding. Here boats (sea and ordinary), ranshins, shnyaks and karbass were built. But the highest achievement of Pomor engineering was the kochi - special ships designed for long voyages in the northern seas.

How to survive in ice

Koch (other names - kocha, kochmora, kochmara), which appeared in the 13th century, was adapted both for swimming in broken ice and in shallow water, and for moving by drag. It is believed that its name comes from the word “kotsa” - “ice coat”. This was the name of the second hull skin, made of durable oak or hardwood boards in the area of ​​the variable waterline. It protected the main hull from damage when sailing among the ice. According to historian and archaeologist Mikhail Belov, the peculiarity of the kocha was its body, which was shaped like an egg or a nut shell. Thanks to this shape, the ship did not crush the ice when compressed, but simply squeezed the ice floes onto the surface, and it could drift along with them. During new excavations in 2001-2009 in Mangazeya, archaeologists collected many ship parts. It is possible that their analysis will be able to change the prevailing ideas about ships sailing in the Arctic seas.

Koch had two anchors of four and a half pounds each and several smaller anchors - two pounds. They were used both at sea and for portage: if the ship was in ice fields and could not sail or oar, the sailors descended onto the ice, inserted the arm of the anchor into a cut hole, and then selected the anchor rope and pulled the ship through.

The boat craftsmen did not have drawings and during construction relied on experience and their own instincts. The master outlined the contours of the vessel with a stick in the sand. The construction of the kocha began from the bottom: it was most destroyed when sailing in the northern seas, so it was made especially durable. The kocha's keel reached 21.6 m in length. It was protected from damage during dragging or grounding by a false keel - boards or beams sewn from below. This invention of the Pomors was subsequently borrowed by foreign craftsmen - it was used until the end of the era of wooden shipbuilding.

The parts of the ship were sewn together using spruce or pine roots (vica). This made koch cheaper and easier. The side plating boards were joined in a special way: at the seams they were covered with strips attached to the sides with small staples - a method of sealing the sides typical for Northern Russian shipbuilding. To completely “scrape” the koch, several thousand metal staples were required. The grooves of the sheathing were caulked with tarred oakum. On top of the main sheathing, a kotsa was attached - an ice sheathing, the boards of which were nailed smooth.

The koch had an original part that had no analogues either in Russian or Western European shipbuilding - koryanik. It formed a bend in the side and gave it additional rigidity. The width of the koch reached 6.4 m. Although the large width-to-length ratio (8:17) made the vessel yaw, this was eliminated due to the increased rudder area.

The stern of the kocha along the waterline had a point of about 60°. Above the waterline, the stern point turned into a round stern. This design first appeared among the Pomors. The stern was almost vertical, the bow strongly inclined. The maximum draft of the koch was 1.5-1.75 m, giving it the opportunity to move at shallow depths. The hull was divided into compartments by transverse bulkheads. In the bow compartment there was a cockpit for the crew, and a stove was also laid out there. The middle part of the ship was allocated for cargo hold, and the hold hatch itself was waterproof. In the aft compartment there was a helmsman's cabin. The carrying capacity of the koch varied from 500 to 2500 poods (8-40 tons).

Pomeranian faith

The Pomors walked “according to their faith” - that is, according to their handwritten directions. They described noticeable and dangerous places, shelters from menacing waves and winds, approaches to them, anchorages, indicated the time and strength of the tides, the nature and speed of sea currents. The first directions were written on birch bark. Seafaring experience was highly valued, and the records made were passed down from generation to generation.

Wooden crosses and houris (pyramids of stones that serve as identification marks) also helped to navigate the sea. In the White Sea and on the Murmansk side, on Matochka (Novaya Zemlya) and on Grumant (Spitsbergen), sailors encountered these signs, placed by someone unknown and when, and they themselves placed their own. Huge crosses were erected not only as identification markers, but also as votives, in memory of fallen comrades, successes or failures. They were distinguished by carved designs, copper icons mounted on them, and awnings for protection from rain and snow. And these special signs made it possible not only to identify the area, but also to determine the direction of the path - after all, the crossbar of the cross was always directed “from the night to the flyer” - from north to south.

Usually the pilot kept the pilot's guide on the ship in the headrest, and at home - behind the shrine. A prayer was written on the first page of some sailing directions: the sailors knew what a difficult journey they were embarking on. The Pomors were characterized by a special religious feeling, which combined love of freedom and humility, mysticism and practicality, reason and faith, as well as a spontaneous feeling of a living connection with God.

While signs are visible on the shore,— wrote Mikhail Prishvin (1873-1954), — Pomor reads one side of the book; when the signs disappear and a storm is about to break the ship, the Pomor turns the pages and turns to Nikolai Ugodnik.

The Pomors considered St. Nicholas the Wonderworker the patron saint of navigation. That’s what they called him - “Nikola the Sea God”. In the minds of the Pomors, he acted as a healer, a liberator, a driver on the waters of the sea of ​​life, a pacifier and calmer of storms and misfortunes. In addition, the North Sea residents had humble respect for “Father the Sea.” The Pomors perceived the maritime court as divine. They never said “drowned”, “died at sea”, they said: “The sea took over.” The righteous judgment of the sea took place on a ship, which is why it was called a “ship,” that is, the place where the fate of the human soul is decided. It is not for nothing that there was a widespread saying among the Pomors: “Whoever has not been to the sea has not prayed to God.”

The constant proximity to a dangerous area of ​​the sea (just like the connection of the Russian Cossacks with the “wild field”) determined such properties of the Pomeranian character as love of freedom and freedom. It was in these areas of the Russian state that the traditions of popular self-government were preserved for the longest time.

Pomeranian language

Northern Russian sailors went fishing not only in the White and Barents Seas. They possessed the secrets of navigating many sea routes in the Kara, Norwegian and Greenland seas. At the end of the 15th century, the Pomors walked to the northern coast of Scandinavia along the eastern coast of the White Sea and the northern coast of the Kola Peninsula, portaging through the Rybachy Peninsula. In Pomeranian navigation practice, this path was called “Going to the German end.” In the 16th-17th centuries, the area of ​​fishing and trading activity expanded even further. Fishermen and sailors explored new sea routes and lands - they went to the polar territory of Western Siberia to Mangazeya and the mouth of the Yenisei, to Novaya Zemlya and Spitsbergen.

Of the European peoples, the Pomors interacted most closely with the Norwegians. Russian sailors have visited their shores since the 14th century. These frequent contacts led to the development of their own language among Russian and Norwegian industrialists, traders and fishermen - Russenorsk. It contained about four hundred words, of which approximately half were of Norwegian origin, slightly less than half were of Russian origin, and the remaining words were borrowed from Swedish, Lapp, English and German. Roussenorsky was used only during the period of navigation and fishing, therefore the concepts it contained were limited to the area of ​​\u200b\u200btrade and maritime life. It is interesting that the Russians, speaking Russenorsk, were convinced that they were speaking Norwegian, and the Norwegians did the opposite.

Great Expeditions

However, it would be a mistake to think that the koch, created as a fishing vessel, was used only by industrialists and traders. Koch turned out to be indispensable in great expeditions.

To implement this plan, a special vessel was required. An ordinary ship would inevitably be crushed by ice. Resistance to ice pressure was the main idea in the construction of the Fram. Nansen clearly imagined what this ship should be like and described it in detail. When reading this description, one gets the feeling that he was going to build a koch.

The most important thing in such a vessel is that it is built in such a way that it can withstand the pressure of the ice. The ship must have such sloping sides that the ice pressing against it does not receive a foothold and cannot crush it[…] but they would squeeze it upward […] For the same purpose, the vessel should be small in size, since, firstly, it is easier to maneuver in ice with a small vessel; secondly, during the compression of ice, it is easier to squeeze upward, and it is easier to give a small vessel the necessary strength[…] A ship of the indicated shape and size cannot, of course, be comfortable and stable for sea navigation, but this is not particularly important in ice-clogged waters […] True, before getting into the ice region, you will have to go a long way on the open sea, but the ship will not be so bad that it is impossible to move forward on it at all.

The trans-Arctic drift of the Fram brilliantly confirmed Nansen’s calculations: after spending almost three years in captivity in the ice, the Fram returned to Norway

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An attentive reader may notice an alleged inconsistency and ask the question - was this how Russian ships were built before Peter the Great or not?

I answer. Before Peter there was a fleet in Rus', and the “reformer” tsar practically ruined it, just as he ruined everything he could get his hands on with his playful little hands. I will not analyze the consequences of his activities in all spheres of life of a great country, this is a separate topic, I will limit myself to the “great leap” in the field of shipbuilding.

So, I repeat - there was a fleet in Rus'. According to ancient legends, the Kyiv princes Oleg and Igor did not go to Constantinople on rafts, but on boats and red plows. And Stenka Razin didn’t push his annoying lover off a cliff into the Volga, but threw it over the side of a sharp-chested canoe. By the way, he brought it, according to legend, from Persia, where the Cossacks went “for zipuns,” crossing, among other things, the Caspian Sea.

You say: “Fi, man! Me too, navy!

No more was required for combat operations. Just imagine a Spanish 50-gun galleon with a displacement of 1,500 tons on the Dnieper and Volga expanses! But a Caspian trade bead with the same displacement looked quite appropriate. Beads were built in the upper reaches of the Volga, loaded with goods and floated down on them, reaching Persia. There were no special requirements for seaworthiness or quality of construction, since these ships almost never returned home, but were sold along with the goods.

Peter I, preparing for the Persian campaign, forbade the construction of beads, and ordered the construction of ships according to the Dutch model, much more complex, and therefore much more expensive. The Persian campaign was very successful from a military point of view - the western and southern coasts of the Caspian Sea with the cities of Derbent and Baku were annexed to the Russian Empire. But after the death of Peter, Tsarina Anna Ioannovna successfully lost these possessions.

Along the way, the technology for making beads was lost.

A similar story happened in the North. Pomors living on the shores of the White Sea have long built kochis - magnificent ships, ideally suited for navigation in ice, unlike the high-speed European ones. The steep-sided body, reminiscent of a nut shell, simply squeezed out of the water when compressed. Suffice it to say that brave sailors on Kochs calmly went to Mangazeya - a city on the Taz River, northern Western Siberia, to Matochka - Novaya Zemlya, Grumant - Spitsbergen. Semyon Dezhnev and his comrades for the first time in the world passed the strait between Asia and America. But this strait bears the name of Bering, who passed the same way 80 years later. It’s good that the cape was named after Dezhnev.

They also traded with Norway and even reached England. This was called the “move to the German end.” And everything would have been fine, but the crazy Tsar Peter, obsessed with the idea of ​​rebuilding Russia in a European way, was brought to those parts. Seeing the kochi with the ungodly contours of the hull, he became indignant, personally deigned to sketch out a drawing of a “correct” Dutch vessel and ordered to immediately begin building the same ones, according to the highest approved drawing. Don't believe me? Here is the original royal decree: “Upon receipt of this decree, announce to all industrialists who go to sea for fishing on their boats and boats, so that instead of those ships they make sea vessels galliots, gukars, kats, flutes, whichever one of them wants, and for this purpose (until they are corrected with new sea vessels) they are given only two years to sail on the old ones.”

But the Pomors were in no hurry to switch to foreign cars and continued to build in the old fashioned way, fully aware that on the “new-style” ships they would only reach the first ice floe. Therefore, the renegades who reject progress, by decree of March 11, 1719, were ordered to “re-eagle” (brand) all the old sea vessels - lodyas, kochi, karbas and soymas, “to let those eagled reach, and again, not at all if, but if whoever begins to make new decree after this decree, those with punishment will be sent to hard labor, and the courts will chop them up.” Takhtovot!

And the tsar mobilized the bulk of the northern shipbuilders at the shipyards of Voronezh, then the Baltic. There they had to retrain on the fly, because there was a difference between a koch and a frigate.

Pomeranian shipbuilding was ruined. Well, not quite, of course, in remote corners, where the king could not see them with his eyes, kochis were still being built on the sly. And they lived until the 20th century! Fridtjof Nansen's famous Fram is a classic Koch, just with an engine.

I hear the question: “So how did it happen that there was nowhere for master shipwrights to come from in a land country?”

Russia, unlike England, is truly a land country. Pomors and Volgars made up a small proportion of the population, and the majority had no idea about any seas there. It was in states whose economy was based on the fleet that every boy dreamed of sailing the oceans. Stevenson's "Treasure Island" and Jules Verne's "The Children of Captain Grant" write about this well. And in Russia the very idea of ​​sea voyages was incomprehensible to almost no one. “They’ll wander into the navy!” they said ominously to the young recruit, and in the dark night the guy tore his claws to the Don and Zaporozhye, just to avoid ending up in the terrible service. Is it any wonder that the expensive toy of the crowned “romantic” was immediately trashed after his death. The country was literally left with nothing.

And that’s not even the point. It’s just that a fleet in the form that Peter dreamed of having was not needed at that time. Russia did not face any tasks in which ocean-going ships could help. In the era of Catherine, when the state recovered from Petrukhin’s experiments and became sufficiently stronger militarily and economically, where did everything come from! Here you have a modern fleet, and Chesma, and Navarin, and Sinop... And the round-the-world trip of Ivan Krusenstern, and the discovery of Antarctica by Bellingshausen and Lazarev. And a whole galaxy of other brilliant naval officers, who felt equally relaxed and free both in the St. Petersburg palaces and on the bridge of warships, in contrast to Peter’s worn-out “nobles”, with their legs buckling from fear, catching his every word, rowdy, often against their will , in the “All-joking, all-drunken, extravagant cathedral.” Not to mention the serfs, who had hay and straw tied to their feet to teach them how to march. Disgusting, gentlemen...

Just don’t say that Peter laid the foundation for future victories. There was no continuity. This is like saying that Tsiolkovsky laid the foundations of astronautics.

Slaves cannot have their own fleet. If only as a rower on a galley... And don’t twist your finger at your temple. In the entire vast country there was only one free person - Peter the Great, completely undeservedly called the Great. But this is a topic for a separate article...

When it comes to the history of the creation of the Russian fleet, they talk about the three hundredth anniversary. The figure is very strange, it causes bewilderment. It’s hard not to wonder: how did our country live, having so many maritime borders, before Peter I, who is traditionally considered the founder of the Russian fleet? After all, the history of Russia is measured in millennia.

However, numerous reference books provide information regarding the history of shipbuilding in Russia only starting from the times of Peter the Great.

Despite this, history preserves the memory of an ancient Pomeranian ship with an amazing name - KOCH. And this word came to the Pomors from the Novgorod land, where “kotsa” or “kocha” meant clothing. The name was not chosen by chance, since the ships literally “dressed in a fur coat” - their hull was protected from the onslaught of ice by double skinning. On such vessels, Pomors could travel thousands of kilometers across the northern expanses of the sea, fishing. Kochi was famous for its durability. Wooden structures made from the best types of wood (larch, pine, mahogany) were secured with iron staples, of which from three to four thousand were carried on the ship, and with nails. In the documents of the Archbishop of Kholmogory for 1695 (!), you can read about Arkhangelsk kochas with a length of 18.5 meters and a width of 5.14 meters, with a carrying capacity of 30-40 tons, which exceeds the size of some modern trawlers.

Pomeranian Kochi covered 150-200 kilometers per day, while English merchant ships - about 120 kilometers, and Dutch frigates - only up to 80-90 kilometers.

On these unique ships, the Pomors reached such Arctic latitudes that were inaccessible to any other ships with a metal hull and mechanical engines. They were unique not only for their protective “fur coat”, but also for their egg-shaped body. The bottom of the body was rounded, resembling half a nutshell. If the ice squeezed such a ship, its hull was not crushed, but squeezed outward. These ships, reputed to be the most durable for five centuries, acquired, thanks to the skill and inquisitive mind of the Pomeranian craftsmen, another unusual feature: the stern and bow had almost the same shape and were cut at an angle of 30 degrees, which made it easy to pull them ashore.

The peoples of the Russian North have preserved the names of the brilliant “nomadic masters” who made up entire dynasties. These are the families of the Deryabins, Vargasovs, Vaigachevs from Kholmogory, the Kulakov brothers from Arkhangelsk, Pinega craftsmen Anton Pykhunov and Efim Tarasov. Some geographical names of the Arctic remind us of the ancient Pomeranian Koch. For example, Nomad Bay at the mouth of the Yana River. It is characteristic that all the craftsmen used only their own, “nomadic” tools during the construction of the nomads: specially sharpened drills, gimlets, saws, adzes, and axes.

Old Russian koch "ice class"

Thus, it becomes obvious that Russia in the field of shipbuilding followed its own, completely special, original path, different from Western traditions. Tsar Peter I, having borrowed foreign shipbuilding experience, decided to transform the Russian fleet according to Western models. Under threat of death penalty, the construction of “old-fashioned” courts was strictly prohibited. According to some sources, the kochi were simply destroyed by order of the king.

But, despite strict measures, the great Russian transformer was unable to achieve complete obedience of the hereditary nomadic masters, who, under the threat of reprisals, managed to preserve the centuries-old experience and traditions of their ancestors, continuing to build kochi.

Thanks to the feat of the Pomors, a number of nomads survived until the beginning of the twentieth century, when they were noticed and appreciated by F. Nansen, who by that time had planned a difficult expedition to the North Pole. When choosing a prototype for the construction of the ship "Fram", which, according to the plan, was supposed to drift in the ice, he abandoned all the latest types of steel ships and decided to build the ship according to the experience of nomadic craftsmen, from the best types of wood, with an egg-shaped hull than ensured the successful completion of the expedition.

Admiral S.O. Makarov, when developing a model of the world's first icebreaker, took Nansen's advice and also opted for an egg-shaped hull and, following the example of the Pomeranian Kochi, cut off the bow and stern. These ingenious inventions of the ancient Pomeranian craftsmen turned out to be so successful that even today, a century after the creation of the world’s first Makarov icebreaker “Ermak”, they are considered unsurpassed for the construction of ice-going ships.

If you open the multi-volume TSB, do not look for the word “koch” in it. He's not there. How could this happen? An oversight, intent or disregard for the historical heritage of the Motherland? A riddle with no answer. There is not a word about them in school textbooks. Only in the explanatory dictionary of V.I. Dahl, low bow to him, there was a short message in a few lines about the glorious ship Koch.

...And today the great-grandsons of the ancient Pomeranian ships ply the icy northern seas - the nuclear-powered ships "Siberia", "Arktika", "Russia", so strikingly similar to their undeservedly forgotten, beautiful, technically perfect ancestor - the ancient Koch.

By the will of fate, they became a worthy monument to him.