The island of Hogland. Islands of the Gulf of Finland

The Gulf of Finland in St. Petersburg, despite its external restraint and even "coldness", has many amazing corners, full of natural beauty and dramatic history. One of the pearls - Gogland - a large island in the Leningrad region. Everyone who has visited Gogland, speak of him as a land of majestic and unique.

Etymology

The Swedish name of the island of Hogland is translated as "High Land". Indeed, there are relatively high mountains covered with forests, rocky beaches, almost vertically flowing into the water. In general, the landscape is typical for Eastern Fennoscandia. From time immemorial Finns have called the island Suur-Saari, in translation - "The Great Land."

Dimensions

The island of Hogland is the largest in the Russian waters of the Gulf of Finland. It is located 10 km east of the maritime border of Russia with Finland. From north to south, it extends about 11 km, and its width is from 1.5 to 3 km. The whole area of the island is 20.65 km ² .

Location:

An exotic scrap of land has a convenient and therefore an important strategic position. On the right, in 180 kilometers is located St. Petersburg, the Gulf of Finland with the fortress of Kronstadt, large Russian ports (Primorsk, Vysotsk, Vyborg, Ust-Luga). Left - Finland and Estonia.

The island separates the western, more deep and saline part of the Gulf of Finland, from the eastern part - the shallower and the fresh. Geographical coordinates of the island:

• 60ᵒ01 '- 60ᵒ06' s. W .;
• 26ᵒ56 '- 27ᵒ00' in. E.

The nearest Finnish city of Kotka is located 43 km to the north-east. In the south, the Estonian coast of the bay is approximately 55 km, and Bolshoi Tyuters island southeast, at a distance of 18.5 km from the southern cape. The distance along the line to Ust-Luga is 85 km.

Islands of the Gulf of Finland: Hogland

The relief of the island is heavily dissected, the absolute marks vary from 108 m in the northern part (the Pokhijskorka Upland) to 175.7 m in the southern (Lounatkorkia Upland). Often there are rocky ledges up to 10 m high and more, maximum height (50-70 m) they reach on the western slopes of the Uplands Myakinpiyallus and Haukkavuori.

Along the east and west coasts there are small coves and several small islets. The beaches are mostly rocky, in coves - pebble with boulders, and only in the bay of Suurkulyanlahti - a clean sandy beach. This closed and convenient for ships bay is in the northeast of the island. It is protected by a mole and has a depth of the channel at the entrance of 4.2 m, with an entrance width of 90 m. To the south of the bay of Suurkulyanlahti there is an old Finnish cemetery.

Lighthouses

There are two lighthouses on the island. The northern Gogland lighthouse, located on the heights of Pohjeiskorkia, was built under Peter the Great in 1723. Southern Gogland was laid in 1905 by the decree of Nicholas II. Since 2006, there is a remote monitoring station for ships, built near the South Lighthouse. The only dirt road runs through the whole island, connecting both buildings.

Scientific activity

The Gulf of Finland is a unique natural laboratory for scientists, where, despite active human activity, the ecosystem has remained intact. Complex ecological expeditions of the Biological Research Institute of the St. Petersburg University for the study of the islands of the Russian part of the Gulf of Finland, including the island of Hogland, were held annually from 1991 to 1995 on the initiative and with the direct participation of the director D. V. Osipov.

Then they were continued in 2003-2004 in the framework of joint projects of BINIE and the Finnish Environment Center (CSPF). In 2004, the research received financial support from the Ecological Fund of the Leningrad Region. Geological exploration of the island was started in 2001 and continued in 2003-2004. Collection of materials for the description of vegetation was carried out by the Botanical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1994-1998 and in 2004-2006. The accumulated material made it possible to compile a botanical, zoological and geological map of the region, and also to trace changes in nature based on previously obtained data.

Under the flag of UNESCO

The island of Hogland is not only a natural attraction. In 1826 on the island the German-Russian astronomer, the director of the Pulkovo Observatory V. Ya. Struve founded a unique point, which is part of a grandiose project designed to calculate the size and shape of the planet Earth. The so-called "Struve Arc", stretching from the shores of the Arctic Ocean to the Danube, is recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage site.

According to the register, two objects - "Point Z" and "Point Mäkipällus" (after the name of the same name rock) - are located on this remote from the coast of the land. Here Viktor Yakovlevich observed angles and azimuths, which allowed obtaining valuable astronomical data. This shows how important the Gulf of Finland is.

In St. Petersburg there was a conference devoted to the items "Struve Arcs". A special expedition was sent to the island, which assessed the actual state of the UNESCO site. Two astronomical signs are installed here in memory of the historical event. The first is on the hill of Myakinpiaallus. It is a memorial plaque with the inscription "Geodesic point Myakinpiyallus laid in 1826 V. I am Struve. Before Ismail 841657 toilets, to Gummerfast 660130 toilets. The first measurement of the arc of the meridian in Russia from 1816 to 1855. "

Near the Suurkulyanlahti Bay, in the forest, at the fork of the road leading to the Northern Lighthouse, another monument was erected, also dedicated to measuring the meridian V. Ya. Struve. This astronomical sign "Hogland Z" was installed by the staff of the Pulkovo Observatory.

Historical essay

The islands of the Gulf of Finland have been inhabited by people from time immemorial. The first to master them was the Saami. This is evidenced by the sacral objects found at the tops of the hills-the hats, seidy, and altars, resembling the cult structures of the Saami of the Kola Peninsula.

In historically foreseeable time, Hogland was part of Sweden. Tradition says that the distant ancestors of the islanders were pirates and smugglers. These legends are quite plausible, since the island is located near an important trade route, and the rocky terrain was an excellent refuge for filibusters who robbed ships that went to the Neva and Novgorod from the west.

To Russia the island departed in 1743 after the conclusion of a peace treaty with Sweden. In July 1788 at Gogland there was a sea battle between the Russian and Swedish fleets, known as the Battle of Gogland. It ended with the victory of the Russian fleet, as a result of which Russia enshrined the right of possession of the island.

Cemetery of ships

The island of Hogland is located across the Gulf of Finland, in its very heart, so near by has a lively sea route. A large number of underwater and surface rocks caused frequent shipwrecks off the coast of Gogland. In the memory of contemporaries, the history of the death of the Russian three-mast sailboat "America", which took place on October night, 1856, was preserved. The ship was carrying cargo of logs and iron to Tallinn, but, hitting a storm off the north-east coast, flew to the rocks and sank near the Northern Lighthouse. In the cemetery near the village of Suurkulya you can see two graves, in which two officers and 34 sailors from the crashed ship "America" were buried. In 1999, the remains of another sunken sailboat were found by members of the Estonian club "Ichthyander" in Maahelli bay near the western shore of the island.

Birth of radio communication

Indeed, the world-wide fame was brought to the island by the scientific experiments of A. S. Popov, when, at the end of January 1900, a connection was established for the wireless telegraph between Gogland and the Finnish island of Kutsalo near Kotka. Significantly, the cause of radio communication tests was also the wreck of the ship. The battleship "General-Admiral Apraksin", following the wintering from Kronstadt to the port of Liepaja, on November 13, 1899, jumped on the underwater rock off the southeast coast.

It was not possible to remove it from the rock in the conditions of the onset of winter weather and the rapid formation of ice cover off the coast of the island. For the organization of rescue work, it was necessary to establish an uninterrupted connection with the nearest settlement, which was the city of Kotka, and through it - with St. Petersburg. After a series of futile attempts to establish the first line of radiotelephone communication, the first radiogram was finally successfully transferred from the loanatkorkia upland (now called the Popov Hill) on 24 January. In memory of this event on the site of the first transmitter installed a stela and a monument to AS Popov.

Century XX

Since 1917, when the Republic of Finland gained independence, the island of Hogland moved to Finland. There were two Finnish villages - Suurkulya (translated as Big Village) and Kiiskinkylä (Ershovaya Village), whose population was about one thousand people engaged mainly in fishing and seal hunting. So, according to the census of 1929, 896 people lived on the island. The solid foundations of houses, stone fences, cleared fields - all these evidences of the former peaceful life of the islanders were preserved on the site of the former villages. After the end of the Soviet-Finnish war under the terms of the peace treaty (1940), Hogland was transferred to the USSR.

Dramatic events unfolded near the island during the Second World War. In August 1941, the ships carrying the refugees - children, women, tried to break through from besieged Tallinn to Kronstadt, but were destroyed by German aircraft. The sailors of the detachment of ships under the command of Admiral IG Svetov rescued more than 12,000 people caught in the water. According to the will of the admiral, he was buried in 1983 on the shore of Suurkulyanlahti Bay near the grave of the dead soldiers. An obelisk was erected on this site.

In the Great Patriotic Gulf of Finland was the arena of the Soviet-German confrontation. Fierce fighting was fought between Soviet, Finnish and German troops and on Gogland. The monument to the dead soldiers is an old wooden cross, set on the shore of Lake Liivalahdenyarvi.

Current state

In the postwar years, defensive structures were established on the island, a powerful air defense radar station, recently dismantled, was deployed. Now there is only a small border post and live navigational service personnel serving the lighthouses, as well as the staff of the meteorological station operating on the island since the middle of the XIX century.

Administratively, Gogland is a part of Kingisepp district, (Gulf of Finland, Leningrad region). The tourist center of Suurkulyanlahti is developing. A two-storey euro-class hotel has been built, already hosting tourists. Thus, from the outpost island on the border of Russian territorial waters, Gogland is gradually turning into a tourist Mecca of the Eastern Baltic.