What associations does the word "Egypt" evoke in you? Surely you immediately thought of the pyramids at Giza, camels, pharaohs, mummies and hot sand. Did you know that Port Said is located in the northeastern part of Egypt, near which the Suez Canal begins? When planning to visit Egypt, where such a famous resort as Sharm el-Sheikh is located, and no less popular Hurghada, you should definitely see this curious sight.
The Suez Canal, a photo of which should be in the album of every self-respecting tourist who has visited Egypt, stretches straight as an arrow, a blue ribbon, starting from Port Said and ending with the Gulf of Suez, which is located between the coast of Africa and the Sinai Peninsula. In other words, this channel is a direct route from the Red to the Mediterranean Sea and serves as the generally accepted border between Africa and Asia. Its length is 168 km (including access channels to its main channel), the width in some places reaches 169 meters, and the depth allows ships with a draft of more than 16 meters to pass between its banks without worrying about possible shallows.
It is curious that the idea of digging through the shippingThe canal from the banks of the Nile to the Red Sea came to the mind of the ancient Egyptians over 32 millennia ago, even when the pharaohs Seti I and Ramses II ruled. Some part of the remaining old channel was useful for supplying fresh water to the construction site - we are talking about the Ismailia freshwater artery.
About 500 B. C. Darius, then king of Persia, reconnected the Red and Mediterranean Seas after conquering Egypt. There is reason to believe that the Suez Canal of that time allowed two boats to sail side by side.
Then it was the turn of the Europeans. At the end of the XV century. the idea of a new canal haunted many merchants, in particular Venetian merchants. The reason for this is the benefits of trade with India. Indian spices brought considerable profit, however, at that time there were only two ways to deliver them to Europe. The first, sea route, assumed a long journey around the southern part of the African continent, and the second, land method, consisted in transporting goods across the sands from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean coast. Both methods were extremely inconvenient. For several centuries they gathered their strength and finally decided to act.
It is not known what was more, eloquence, talent of a diplomat or entrepreneurial acumen, helped the Frenchman F. Lesseps convince the Egyptian government to give the "green light" to a new grandiose project. The project took more than ten years to complete. Moreover, the vast majority of Egyptians waved picks and shovels - every month the government recruitedsixty thousand people. European countries financed these works and, of course, they were also going to receive most of the income from the channel.
The Suez Canal was opened for shipping in November 1869. For this solemn event, 48 ships with 6,000 passengers arrived in Port Said. Several years passed, economic problems began in Egypt, and England and France decided to take advantage of this opportunity: they bought 15% of the income from using the canal from Egypt. The profit of the Egyptians from ships passing through the Suez Canal was reduced to zero. Such disgrace, of course, could not last long. In 1956, the Egyptian government returned the canal to state ownership, which greatly angered the French and British. Still, such a tidbit was gone! They did not want to accept this decision and began military aggression against the Egyptians, including Israel for loy alty.
This international conflict lasted from the autumn of 1965 to March 1967. Thanks to the determination of its citizens and the support of the USSR, Egypt was still able to protect its interests, and after work was carried out to further improve, starting in 1981, the Suez Canal again began to work and ships began to pass through it, the draft of which reached 16 meters.
