The Gulf of Finland in St. Petersburg, in spite of external restraint and even âcoldnessâ, has many amazing corners filled with natural beauty and dramatic history. One of the pearls - Gogland - a large island in the Leningrad region. Everyone who has visited Gogland speaks of him as a majestic and unique land.
Etymology
The Swedish name of the island of Hogland translates as "High Land". Indeed, there are relatively high mountains covered with forests, rocky shores, almost vertically extending into the water. In general, the landscape is characteristic of Eastern Fennoscandia. The Finns from time immemorial called the island of Suur-Saari, in translation - "Big Land".
Dimensions
Gogland Island 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 stretches for about 11 km, and its width is from 1.5 to 3 km. The entire area of ââthe island is 20.65 km 2 .
Location
An uninhabited piece of land has a convenient and therefore important strategic position. On the right, 180 kilometers away is St. Petersburg, the Gulf of Finland with the Kronstadt fortress, large Russian ports (Primorsk, Vysotsk, Vyborg, Ust-Luga). Left - Finland and Estonia.
The island separates the western, deeper and salty part of the Gulf of Finland, from the eastern part - more shallow and fresh. Geographic coordinates of the island:
- 60á”01 '- 60á”06' s. W .;
- 26á”56 '- 27á”00' c. d.
The nearest Finnish city of Kotka is located 43 km northeast. In the south, the Estonian coast of the gulf is approximately 55 km, and the island of Big Tyuters - southeast, at a distance of 18.5 km from the southern cape. The distance in a straight line to Ust-Luga - 85 km.
Gulf of Finland Islands: Gogland
The relief of the island is strongly dissected, the absolute elevations vary from 108 m in the northern part (Pokheyyskorkia Upland) to 175.7 m in the southern part (Lounatkorkia Upland). Often there are rocky ledges with a height of up to 10 m or more, maximum height (50-70 m) they reach on the western slopes of the hills MÀkiinpÀÀllus and Haukkavuori.
Along the east and west coasts are small coves and several small islands. The shores are mostly rocky, in coves - pebble with boulders, and only in Suurkuljanlahti bay - a clean sandy beach. This enclosed and convenient for ships bay is located in the northeast of the island. It is protected by a pier and has a fairway depth of 4.2 m at the entrance, with an entrance width of 90 m. To the south of Suurkuljanlahti Bay there is an old Finnish cemetery.
Lighthouses
There are two lighthouses on the island. The North Hogland Lighthouse, located on the Pohjeyskorkia Upland, was built under Peter the Great in 1723. Southern Hogland was laid in 1905 by decree of Nicholas II. Since 2006, a remote monitoring station for ships, built near the South Lighthouse, has been operating. The only dirt road runs through the entire island, connecting both structures.
Scientific activity
For scientists, the Gulf of Finland is a unique natural laboratory where, despite active human activity, the ecosystem has been preserved in its original form. Comprehensive environmental expeditions of the Biological Research Institute of St. Petersburg University to study the islands of the Russian part of the Gulf of Finland, including the island of Gogland, were carried out annually from 1991 to 1995 on the initiative and with the direct participation of Director D.V. Osipov.
Then they were continued in 2003-2004 as part of the joint projects of the BiNII and the Finnish Environment Center (TsOSF). In 2004, studies received financial support from the Environmental Fund of the Leningrad Region. Geological exploration of the island was begun in 2001 and continued in 2003-2004. The collection of materials for describing 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, as well as to trace changes in nature based on previously obtained data.
Flown by UNESCO
Hogland Island is not only a natural attraction. In 1826, a German-Russian astronomer, director of the Pulkovo Observatory V. Ya. Struve, founded a unique point on the island, which is part of a grandiose project designed to calculate the size and shape of planet Earth. The so-called âStruve Arcâ, 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 - âPoint Zâ and âPoint Myakyaplylusâ (named after the rock of the same name) - are located on this land plot remote from the coast. Here Viktor Yakovlevich observed angles and azimuths, which made it possible to obtain valuable astronomical data. This proves how important the Gulf of Finland is.
In St. Petersburg, a conference was held on the items âStruve Arcsâ. A special expedition was sent to the island, which assessed the actual condition of the UNESCO site. In memory of the historical event, two astronomical signs are installed here. The first is on the hill MĂ€kiinpĂ€llĂ€us. It is a commemorative plaque with the inscription âGeodetic site MĂ€kiinpĂ€llĂ€us was founded in 1826 by V. I Struve. Prior to Ismail, 841657 toaz, to Hammerfast 660130 toaz. The first dimension of the meridian arc in Russia from 1816 to 1855. "
Not far from Suurkuljanlahti Bay, in the forest, at the fork of the road leading to the North Lighthouse, another monument was erected, also dedicated to measuring the meridian of V. Ya. Struve. This astronomical sign "Hogland Z" was installed by the Pulkovo Observatory.
Historical essay
The islands of the Gulf of Finland have been inhabited by people since time immemorial. The SĂĄmi were the first to master them. This is evidenced by sacred objects found on the tops of hills - hats, seids, âaltarsâ, which are similar to the Sami cult buildings of the Kola Peninsula.
In historically foreseeable times, Hogland was part of Sweden. Traditions say 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 landscape was a wonderful refuge for filibusters who plundered ships that went from the west to the Neva and Novgorod.
The island moved to Russia in 1743 after the conclusion of a peace treaty with Sweden. In July 1788, a battle between the Russian and Swedish fleets, known as the Battle of the Hogland, took place near Gogland. It ended with the victory of the Russian fleet, as a result of which Russia secured the right to own the island.
Ship cemetery
The island of Hogland is located across the Gulf of Finland, in its very heart, therefore, from ancient times, a busy sea route passes nearby. A large number of underwater and surface cliffs caused frequent shipwrecks off the coast of Gogland. Contemporaries remembered the story of the death of the Russian three-masted sailing ship âAmericaâ that happened on the night of October 1856. The ship sailed with cargo of logs and iron to Tallinn, but, having fallen in a storm off the northeast coast, flew into the cliffs and sank near the North Lighthouse. Two graves can be seen in the cemetery near the village of Suurkyla, in which 2 officers and 34 sailors from the crashed ship "America" ââwere buried. In 1999, the remains of another sunken sailing ship were found by members of the Estonian club Ihtiander in Maahelli Bay off the west coast of the island.
The birth of radio
The island was truly world famous for the scientific experiments of A.S. Popov, when in late January 1900 the first wireless communication was established between Hogland and the Finnish island of Kutsalo near Kotka. Significantly, the reason for conducting radio communications tests was also the crash of the ship. The battleship General Admiral Apraksin, who was traveling for the winter from Kronstadt to the port of Liepaja, on November 13, 1899, ran into an underwater cliff off the southeast coast.
It was not possible to remove it from the cliff in the conditions of the onset of winter weather and the rapid formation of ice cover off the coast of the island. To organize rescue operations, it was necessary to establish uninterrupted communication with the nearest settlement, which was the city of Kotka, and through it, with Petersburg. After a series of fruitless attempts to establish the first radiotelephone line on January 24, the first radiogram was finally successfully transmitted from the Lonatkorkia Upland (now called the Popov Hill). In memory of this event, a stella and a monument to A. S. Popov were installed on the site of the first transmitter.
Century XX
Since 1917, when the Republic of Finland gained independence, the island of Hogland moved to Finland. There were two Finnish villages - SuurkylÀ (translated as Big Village) and KiiskinkylÀ (Ershovaya Village), whose population was about a thousand people, who were mainly engaged in fishing and seals. So, according to the 1929 census, 896 people lived on the island. Solid foundations of houses, stone fences, cleared fields - all these evidence of the former peaceful life of the islanders have been preserved on the site of 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, ships carrying refugees - children, women, tried to break out of besieged Tallinn to Kronstadt, but were destroyed by German aircraft. The sailors of the detachment of ships under the command of Admiral I. G. Svetov saved more than 12 thousand people who were in the water. According to the testament of the admiral, he was buried in 1983 on the shore of the Suurkuljanlahti Bay near the grave of fallen soldiers. At this place an obelisk was built.
In the Great Patriotic Gulf of Finland became the arena of the Soviet-German confrontation. Fierce battles were fought between Soviet, Finnish and German troops and on Gogland. The monument to fallen soldiers is an old wooden cross, set on the shore of Lake LiivalahdenjÀrvi.
Current state
In the postwar years, defensive structures were created on the island, a powerful air defense radar station was recently deployed, recently dismantled. Now there is only a small border post and there are employees of the navigation service serving the lighthouses, as well as employees of the meteorological station operating on the island from the middle of the 19th century.
Administratively, Gogland is part of the Kingisepp district, (Gulf of Finland, Leningrad region). A tourist center is developing at Suurkyulanlahti Bay. A two-story Euroclass hotel has already been built, already hosting tourists. Thus, from an outpost island on the border of Russian territorial waters, Gogland is gradually turning into a tourist mecca of the Eastern Baltic.