The Fontanka River: history, photo

2024 Author: Harold Hamphrey | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:06

The Fontanka River is a small water stream, which is one of the channels of the Neva Delta in St. Petersburg. It branches off from the left side of the Neva near the Summer Garden and flows into the Bolshaya Neva south of the former Galerny and north of Gutuevsky Island, at the very beginning of the Gulf of Finland. It crosses the central part of the city in a southwestern direction and serves as the southern border of the delta. The length of the reservoir is 6.7 km, the width varies from 35 to 70 m, the depth - from 2.6 to 3.5 m. These are the indicators of the Fontanka River. Why is it so named and what is its history, you can learn from this article.

The water system of the river, one of the five that form the Neva delta, has 12 watercourses. The water flow at the source is an average of 34 cubic meters. m / s, downstream, after the Moika branch - 24 cubic meters. m / s, and in the southern part, between the connection with the Kryukov Canal and the confluence of the Griboyedov Canal - 22 cubic meters. m/s. The flow velocity on the rod from the source to the Anichkov bridge is on average 0.3-0.4 m/s, and below - 0.2-0.25 m/s.

The name of the Fontanka River

The original name of the river is Erik. When did it startthe construction of fountains, for their supply a special path was built that passed through this stream. First, the hydronym was transformed into Fontanna, and later into Fontanka.

The beginning of the history of Fontanka

Until 1714, the swampy river, which formed small islands in its course, was called Nameless Erik or simply Erik. Before the founding of St. Petersburg, the Russian village of Usaditsa was located on its shore, and closer to the mouth there was an Izhora settlement with the Finnish name Kaljula, later renamed the Kalinkin village. During the construction of the city, by 1711, the Moika River was connected to the Fontanka, before that it was a swampy channel used for washing clothes.

Construction, reconstruction and destruction on the Fontanka

During the construction of the first wooden bridge, the maximum width of such a water stream as the Fontanka River reached 200 meters, but after the death of Peter I, construction work in the city stopped, the watercourse again began to fill up with earth from washed-out embankments, which greatly hampered navigation. In 1743-1752, the embankment was cleared and strengthened. The river received its current name during the reign of Empress Anna Ivanovna, thanks to the fountains installed on its right bank in the Summer Garden. They fed on water that flowed through the Lithuanian Canal to a pool pond (now a public garden), dug at the corner of Grechesky Prospekt and modern Nekrasov Street, and from there it was directed to the park through a pipe. The fountains themselves were destroyed by a severe flood in 1777 and, by decisionCatherine II were not subject to restoration. They reopened only after a major renovation in 2012.

Border

Until the middle of the 18th century, the Fontanka River was considered as the southern border of the city, beyond which the country estates of rich nobles began. The course was straightened, and part of the watercourses was filled up, including the dirty river Tarakanovka. Then the border of St. Petersburg was moved to the Obvodny Canal, but the Fontanka line remained the extreme feature of the front building for several decades. Between the streams of the Fontanka and the Moika, beyond the Kryukov Canal, in the 18th-19th centuries there was a suburban area of the capital, called Kolomna.

Work on the river

In 1780-1789, the Fontanka River was again cleared and the fairway deepened, and according to the project developed by the architect A. V. Kvasov, embankments, entrances and river slopes lined with granite were built. In the middle of the 19th century, the river in the area of the current Vitebsk railway station was connected to the Obvodny Canal with the help of the Vvedensky Canal, which was designed to redirect part of the traffic and was filled up in 1967-1969. In 1892, passenger steamers began to sail along the Fontanka. Currently, two-way traffic of small boats, mainly tourist boats, is carried out along the river. In winter, in pre-revolutionary times, public skating rinks were arranged on the ice at the expense of the City Duma.

Drinking water

Drinking water for the surrounding population has been carried out for two centuries. Water was transported in green barrels, unlike the Neva,spilled into white, and due to heavy pollution, it repeatedly became the cause of epidemics of gastrointestinal diseases. The large-scale construction of treatment facilities and the redirection of sewage to the Neva Bay improved the ecological situation, and in the 1970s, fish returned to the river.

Flora and fauna

There is no large flora, as well as on the Neva in general, there are also no coastal plants, since the water's edge is lined with stone. The Fontanka River (photo below) has a poor fauna. There are fish that live in the lower reaches of the Neva and the delta, including vendace, crucian carp and lamprey. Before the revolution, many cages were kept in the river with live fish brought for sale from the upper reaches of the Neva and Lake Ladoga. At present, due to the improvement in the quality of water purification, there are more and more fish in the Neva Delta, and recreational fishing is practiced on the banks of the Fontanka, although experts do not recommend eating bleak and rotan caught in it. Fishing from bridges is strictly prohibited. The avifauna is represented by waterfowl species common to St. Petersburg - ducks and gulls.

Bridges

The banks of such a water stream as the Fontanka River are connected by 15 bridges, which are its main attractions. The most famous among them are the Laundry, one of the first stone crossings built in St.obelisks. The latter collapsed on the ice of the river on January 20, 1905 due to the resonance that arose during the passage of the squadron of the Cavalry Grenadier Regiment, and was finally restored only in 1955-1956. In the 18th century, seven chain bridges of the same type with wooden spans were built. Of these, Lomonosovsky (former Chernyshev) and Staro-Kalinkin are still preserved as architectural monuments, but their central parts have been replaced with cast iron and steel.

Attractions

Near the Summer Garden in 1715-1722 the Particular shipyard was located, where until 1762 small civilian ships were built. At the end of the 18th century, wine and s alt warehouses were built in its place, which is why the area was called the S alt Town. From this architectural complex, the building of the church of St. Panteleimon has been preserved. The space of the left bank below the Anichkov Bridge was built up in the second half of the 19th century. The School of Law is located there, then the Sheremetevsky Palace (Fountain House) with the Anna Akhmatova Museum, and the former Catherine Institute. At the intersection with Nevsky Prospekt is the palace of the princes Beloselsky-Belozersky, then the former Izmailovsky Garden and the estate of the poet Derzhavin.

On the right bank of the reservoir called the Fontanka River in St. Petersburg, near a branch of the Moika and opposite the Summer Garden, there is the Mikhailovsky Castle, built as the residence of Paul I, and now a branch of the Russian Museum. Next come the Shuvalov Palace, where a privatethe Faberge Museum, the Anichkov Palace, the ensemble of Lomonosov Square with the building of the former Ministry of the Interior, erected in 1830 by Carlo Rossi. Here is the building of the St. Petersburg State Circus, the Bolshoi Drama Theatre, the Yusupov Palace, and near the mouth - the buildings of the Admir alty shipyards. In 1994, a monument to the folklore Chizhik-Pyzhik, one of the smallest in St. Petersburg, was erected on the embankment near the Mikhailovsky Castle. Such is the Fontanka River, whose history is very informative and important for the state.