The very edge of European Russia, the Rybachy Peninsula, is an ambiguous and amazing place. It will not leave you indifferent: someone will conquer the rare beauty of many waterfalls, lakes, littoral and sand dunes, someone will be surprised by the unique combination of dynamics and statics - the majestic calmness of the rocks and the continuous movement of the sea, while to someone this region will seem harsh and inhospitable.
Several years ago, after almost half a century of "isolation" from the rest of the world, Rybachy again became available to travelers.
Just 100 kilometers from Murmansk, the magnificent and mysterious northern region begins.
Coast of the Rybachy Peninsula.
For a long time already, civilization left these places and now everything here breathes history: mysterious stones standing from the time of fishing for Lapps, seids, mysterious stone guards, numerous batteries, fortified firing points and trenches - the echo of war, which is heard especially clearly on Rybach. Traveling to this legendary land allows you not only to touch the secrets of the past, but also to test the strength of technology and yourself. It will give you incomparable pleasure of discovery.
On the roads of Rybachiy there are all sorts of people: a jeep from Krasnodar, a motorcyclist from Munich and a caravaner from Belarus. And this is not surprising, because Rybachy is not just a place on the map, it is a different life. Maybe that's why he so easily wins the hearts of those who crave adventure.
Rybachy Peninsula - geographic information
The Rybachy Peninsula, the northernmost part of Russia, is located on the Lapland coast of the Arctic Ocean. Geographically, it belongs to the Murmansk region.
Not everyone knows that Rybachy actually consists of two peninsulas: Rybachy proper and Sredny. They are connected by a small isthmus about a kilometer long. And very often, if no special clarifications are required, the peninsula is called by one name - Rybachy.
Fragment of a physical map of the Kola Peninsula.
The Sredny peninsula is separated from the mainland by another isthmus, on the continental part of which the Musta-Tunturi ridge is located. The middle one is a plateau that drops abruptly into the Barents Sea. It is composed of limestone, sandstone and shale. The maximum height on the peninsula is 334 meters.
The length of Rybachiy from Cape Nemetsky to Cape Gorodets is about 60 km. The width of the largest southeastern part of the peninsula is 25 km.
The local shores are made of black slate rocks, above which, in the inner part of Rybachiy, hills and mountains covered with tundra vegetation are located. The highest of them is called Eina, its height is 299 m.
Washing water peninsulas Barents Sea thanks to the North Cape Current, they do not freeze all year round. There are many fish in the coastal waters: capelin, cod, herring.
The northernmost part of the Rybachy Peninsula is Cape German.
The climate of the Rybachiy Peninsula is special due to its location practically in the middle of the Barents Sea. The weather on the peninsulas can seriously differ even from the villages of Pechenga or Zaozersk located near the sea. This is due to the nature of the Barents Sea, and to the fact that the peninsulas are separated from the mainland by the relatively high Musta-Tunturi ridge. The mountains may not let bad weather, but on the contrary, they can block the path of rain clouds that will hang over the Fishing months.
In summer, the sun hangs over the horizon all day long, therefore local times the years do not coincide too much with the generally accepted seasons. It is cold here all year round, even in summer the average monthly temperatures do not rise to 20C, and at the same time the weather changes very sharply.
On the Rybachy Peninsula in early summer. View of the Middle. On the horizon is the Musta-Tunturi ridge.
The best time for the rally is the second half of summer, when the peninsula is still warm by local standards. In June-July mosquitoes and midges are found on Rybach, in August they are no longer there.
Local roads are special too. It is not worth moving along them in an unprepared machine, especially without installed crankcase protection. It should be borne in mind that they were built a very long time ago, during the period when the peninsula was a closed zone, and were operated mainly by the military, who have their own requirements for cross-country ability. For the last twenty years, after most of the garrisons were closed, no one here has taken care of the roads. The conclusion from all this suggests itself unequivocally.
On the other hand, with an experienced driver extreme points Fisherman was also reached by ordinary passenger cars.
A brief historical outline
The first people came to these lands during the Mesolithic period, that is, about 10-12 thousand years ago. Their sites, characterized by a small area and a thin cultural layer, have survived. Scientists argue that this indicates that the first settlers to Rybachy were few in number and led an active lifestyle. They collected and hunted reindeer.
Archaeologists have noticed an interesting detail: the settlement of the peninsula proceeded from two directions - south and north-west. They proved that for a long time Rybachy was inhabited by people from the Volga-Oka interfluve and from the territories of modern Finland, Norway and Karelia.
Later, the Sami or Lapps, a Finno-Ugric people who were engaged in deer breeding and fishing, lived on Rybach. Pomors, the descendants of Novgorodians who once came to these regions rich in fish and furs, got along well with them. The Pomors were exclusively engaged in trade and "sea" business.
Waida-lip today.
Since the beginning of the 16th century, active fishing has been carried out in these parts; there are 16 fishing camps, numbering 109 fishing huts. These encampments, which included Tsyp-Navolok, Vaida-guba, Zubovo and others, periodically fell into desolation and flourished.
In 1865, the Russian emperor invited Norwegian and Finnish colonists to these lands, who came here from Finnmarken and Varanger fiord. They, unlike most of the Pomors and Sami, who by that time appeared on Rybach only in the summer, began to settle down in the harsh land.
After Finland gained independence, the western part of the peninsula was given to it. The border went along the isthmuses and cut the Middle one almost in half.
Immediately after the Soviet-Finnish war in 1940, the separated territories were returned to the USSR. The new border between the countries was drawn by water to the west of the Sredny Peninsula.
Mass grave of Rybachy's defenders.
During the Patriotic War, fierce battles took place on Rybach and in its coastal waters. The peninsula became a key area of defense on the way to Murmansk. Throughout the war, the Nazis did not manage to advance an inch in this direction, for which the inflexible Rybachy was named the Granite battleship. For almost four years, the Nazis could not take the peninsula and break through to Murmansk.
At the end of hostilities, the peninsula is rapidly developing. The military plays a special role here, which is explained by the close proximity to the border of Norway, a NATO member. Several secret military facilities are stationed on the peninsula, so its territory was closed to any visit.
Despite this, work is being carried out at Rybach to restore and increase the reindeer herd destroyed during the war years. Geologists are also working here. In the 70s of the last century, the geological base of the Academy of Sciences was opened on the Middle. Its employees are engaged in unique research crust using magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) generators.
Unfortunately, since the mid-90s, life on the peninsulas has come to a standstill. Most of the military garrisons are disbanded or withdrawn, geologists and geophysicists are also curtailing their activities. Buildings and property remain abandoned. Since that time, the peninsula has been opened for visits by Russian citizens.
The history of the Rybachiy peninsula is associated with many interesting facts, which can encourage the traveler to study the history of the region more deeply, and move away from the well-trodden routes.
Not far from Tsyp Navolok there is Mount Anikievka, on the slope of which is the grave of Anika the warrior. This rather unpleasant character distinguished himself by taking away part of their catch from the fishermen who sailed to Tsyp-Navolok. He said that he would stop extortion only when a person was found who would defeat him in a fair fight. This turned out to be Ambrose, a monk of the Pechenga monastery. They fought for a long time in a stone circle, in which later they buried Aniku the warrior killed in a duel.
The famous poem "The Son of an Artilleryman" was also born on Rybach. In the fall of 1941, Konstantin Simonov arrived on the peninsula. Among the stories about the battles for Musta-Tunturi, he was especially engrossed in the story of how the regiment commander sent his friend's son to adjust the artillery fire. The spotters were behind enemy lines and called fire on themselves. Simonov worked all night on the work, in the morning it was already ready and over time it became one of the best poems about the war.
Nikolai Bukin, the author of the words of the famous song "Farewell, rocky mountains", also served on Rybach. A participant in the first battles for Rybachy, an artilleryman and a correspondent for a front-line newspaper, he managed to find words that touched everyone's soul, so many consider this song a folk song.
Another relic of those years is carefully preserved on Rybach - the border sign, which remained on Musta-Tunturi, on the territory not captured by the enemy. Despite the fact that this was a section of the old border, the significance of this fact was enormous.
The history of the first Russian research vessel Perseus is also connected with the peninsula.
The ship, rebuilt from a whaler, embarks on its maiden voyage in 1922. Perseus took part in 99 expeditions, conducted scientific, commercial and hydrological research, his contribution to national science would be truly fundamental.
In July 1941, the legendary ship was sunk by fascist bombers in the Eina Bay of Motka Bay. At the same time, the skeleton of Perseus was covered with stones and turned into a pier. Thanks to this, fragments of a ship's hull set can still be found on the shore.
Historical landmarks
There are many seids on the peninsula. This is the name of boulders of various shapes and sizes that stand separately in an unstable position. Most often they are round, from 0.5 to 10 m long. Locals believe that the Sami sorcerers - noids, when dying, turn into such stones, therefore, they consider them sacred. Scientists have proven that seids transmit energy, transferring it from stone to stone, and change the level of radiation above them.
It is worth noting that in our time almost any free-standing stone is taken as a seid. But most of them are products of the destruction of rocks, or even simply brought by the glacier. But it is better to look for real Saami seids with an experienced specialist.
Map of attractions and memorable places of Rybachy and Sredny. From the book of M. G. Oreshets "Orphaned shores".
The northernmost center of rock art in our country was found in the Zubovskaya Bay. Local petroglyphs have one peculiarity: the image painted with ocher on the rock was later duplicated with some kind of sharp tool, scratched out on a hard surface.
Several sites of ancient people from the Paleolithic and Mesolithic times were also discovered on Rybach. They are located in the Zubovskaya Bay, on the Päiva and Maika rivers. There are “shaman circles” here, as the burials of people of the Stone Age are called, and the sacred stones of the Sami in the Middle, to which the ancients sacrificed.
On Anikiev Island (located opposite Tsyp-Navolok) you can see a unique stone chronicle. The slab is covered with carefully carved names of skippers who went to Murman for fish in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. Here are the names of Dutch, German and Danish sailors. Russian merchants were also noted on the plate. The famous Rybachi ethnographer Mikhail Oreshet managed to find the earliest autograph of V. Malashov, who visited this region back in 1630.
One of the pillboxes guarding the Rybachi coast.
Most of Rybachiy's monuments belong to the period of the Great Patriotic War. They are scattered across the peninsula: preserved bunkers, fortifications, memorial signs and mass graves. There are a lot of them at Musta-Tunturi, where the bloodiest battles took place.
If you climb the ridge, you can see the German fortifications, carved into the rocks, there are also memorial signs and many burials. At the foot of Musta-Tunturi there is a museum dedicated to the memory of Rybachy's defenders. It was created and preserved by Yuri Aleksandrovich Kobyakov, a former geophysicist who worked here. This museum also houses an unconquered border sign taken from Musta-Tunturi.
The abandoned position of the anti-aircraft missile battalion with the callsign "Lockout".
There are many other "monuments" on Rybach. These are abandoned military towns, which once housed military units. Skorbeevka, Ozerko, Four, Lockout, Zubovka ... The list goes on. These villages were born with difficulty, they lived joyfully and brightly, they died absurdly and hard. Today it is a kind of museum of the frozen Soviet era, ghost villages lost in the tundra, which are occasionally visited by travelers.
Abandoned 152mm artillery battery.
Natural attractions of the peninsulas
The nature of the Rybachiy Peninsula is unique and extraordinarily beautiful. It takes your breath away from the views. If you get out of the car and walk along the tundra, you will get a lot of pleasure: you can see everything miles ahead and you will find something interesting at every step. Either an exotic animal or bird, or handsome reindeer, or a rusty "echo of war". And how many berries and mushrooms! Blueberries, cloudberries, rosebush, white and even northern ginseng.
It consists of two parts, the Rybachy Peninsula proper and the Middle Peninsula. They are connected by an isthmus, which is about 1 km long. These peninsulas are connected to the mainland by another isthmus, which is about 2 km long. The length of the Rybachy Peninsula from Cape Gordeev to Cape Nemetskiy is about 60 km, the width at the north-western end reaches up to 10 km, and in the southeastern end up to 25 km.
The shores of the peninsula are composed of black shale rocks, over which, inside the peninsula, there are low hills and mountains covered, and partly with grass. On the banks of the rivers and in the valleys between the hills are partly, partly dry with good grass. There are also small copses of birch, willow and other shrubs.
There are many lakes in the northern part of the peninsula. Of the latter, the most significant lake, Bezymyannoe, is up to 10 kilometers long and up to 1 kilometer wide. From it flows the Mainvolok River, which is up to 10 km long. Other rivers on the Rybachy Peninsula include the rivers Zubova (about 13 km long), Olenka (about 12 km), the source of Lake Olenka and other water bodies.
The peninsula has a large number of different bays and bays. Although few of them can serve as reliable shelters for ships. Starting from the south-west, there are bays: Malaya Volokovaya, Bolshaya Volokovaya, on the north-western coast - Vaida Bay. In the northeastern part of the peninsula there are bays: Skarbeeva, Zubova, Mainavolotskaya, on the east coast of the bay: Tsyp-Navolok, Korabelnaya, Anikieva and Sergeeva.
On the southern coast of the Rybachy Peninsula is the vast Mitavsky Bay with the lips of Eina, Mocha, Motka and Novozemelskaya harbor; on the south-western coast there is Kutovaya Bay. The most famous of the capes are: Cape Gordeev, located on the southeastern tip of the peninsula, capes Sharapov, Bashenka and Sergeev, located on the eastern coast. In the northeastern part of the peninsula there are capes Tsyp-Navolok and Lavysh, Lok, Lazar, Mainvolok, Skorbeev; in the north-western region - Kekur and Nemetsky capes; on the western part of the peninsula is the Zemlyanoy Cape and some others.
The highest points of the peninsula are located on the capes: Gordeev, Kekur and Gremyashchinskaya buttermilk (its height reaches about 1450 m above sea level). Other capes have a height of 900 to 1800 m. The northeastern coast of the peninsula is low-lying. The northwestern coast is elevated and in some places reaches 6000 m. Beyond the Bolshaya Volokovaya Bay, the shores again become sloping. Middle peninsula approaches the fiord with tundra shoals.
The fishing peninsula was formerly inhabited by the Lapps (the population of the Finnish tribe). Since 1865, colonies of free migrants began to settle here, mainly Finns and from the western coast of Varangerfjord and the Norwegian Finnmarken. These peoples passed into Russian citizenship, but economically they gravitated towards their former homeland. The Rybatsky and Sredny peninsulas made up the Rybachye rural society. Lopari almost all migrated from the peninsula to the mainland. Russians (up to 600 people) came here only in summer, for fishing, in some fishing camps, for example: Vaida-gubu, Zubovo and Tsyp-Navolok.
Then both the Norwegian and Finnish colonies settled well. Many of them flourished thanks to fishing, cattle breeding, trade and other industries. There were about 9 colonies on the Rybachy Peninsula in total. They had about 500 inhabitants. On the Rybachiy Peninsula in the colony Vaida-Guba, which is considered one of the main places in Murmansk for the abundance of cod fishing, from 400 to 500 thousand kg were caught per year. The colonists had up to 100 fishing vessels, on which they catch up to 1130 thousand kg of sea fish and up to 80 thousand kg of fish oil. On the same ships, they carried out trade with the Norwegian towns of Varangerfjord.
In the second half of the 19th century, the famous thinker Nikolai Fedorovich (he was the teacher of Tsiolkovsky) proposed to establish the capitals of Russia on the territory of the Rybachy Peninsula. After the revolution at the beginning of the 20th century, the territories of the western zone of the Rybachy Peninsula and the Middle Peninsula began to belong. In 1940, after the Soviet-Finnish war, these territories were returned to our country again.
On the territory of the Rybachy Peninsula there are deposits of hydrocarbon, oil, etc. In the 70s of the last century, searches were carried out here, but as a result of insufficient research, these searches were unsuccessful. In 1994, seismic surveys were made on the peninsula, which revealed oil deposits. Oil deposits are located from the peninsula to the sea. The open spaces of Rybachy and Srednee are used for grazing reindeer.
A feature of the waters washed by the coast of the Rybachy Peninsula is that they do not freeze even in winter. The rise in water here is influenced by the North Cape. At present, following the results of the expedition of scientists to the territory of the Rybachy Peninsula, it was decided to establish protected areas here in order to preserve the fauna of these places.
MMP-1966 - 2008 Heroic Rybachy. (Part 1).
Almost a large part of my life connected me with the Rybachy Peninsula. For the first time I got to Rybachy in July 1966 on the Ilya Repin steamer, when I arrived in Murmansk, as a cadet of the LMU - for an annual practice. Later, I went to the Rybachy Peninsula, already in navigator and captain positions on MMP passenger ships: Ilya Repin, Petrodvorets, Akop Hakobyan, Vologda, Klavdia Elanskaya, Kanin and mx "Polaris". My last visit to Rybachy was at mt "Polaris" in the summer of 2007, when Rybachy was being mastered by specialists from the Murmansk Shipping Company who were looking for oil on the peninsula. I then told N.V. Kulikov that he would not get oil in these places. And so it happened ...
I have the best memories of this land, sacred for all Murmansk residents. Many of my years were devoted to the peninsula, when the ships of the shipping company stood on the regular passenger line Murmansk - Ozerko, providing the inhabitants living all over the peninsula with everything they needed. Communication with the mainland was carried out at that time mainly through the MMP passenger ships. Another year I visited Ozerko up to a hundred times a year, walked and traveled the peninsula far and wide. I have special and best memories for the period 1988-2003, when Colonel Viktor Viktorovich Kudelya, my good friend and the last commander of the entire peninsula, was in command of the brigade in Ozerko. Despite the fact that a lot has been written about the Rybachy Peninsula in the literature, and especially about its heroic pages during the Great Patriotic War, I want to devote my attention to my beloved land in terms of my memories. I also want to make a small historical excursion into the past of the Rybachiy Peninsula.
Rybachiy Peninsula (Sami village Giehkirnjrga, Finnish Kalastajasaarento, Norwegian Fiskerhalvya) is a peninsula in the north of the Kola Peninsula. Administratively Rybachy is part of the Pechenga District of the Murmansk Region. It is washed by the Barents Sea and the Motovsky Bay. It is a plateau that abruptly drops off to the sea. The plateau is composed of shales, sandstones and limestones. Height up to 300 m. Tundra vegetation. Off the coast of the peninsula, the sea does not freeze all year round thanks to the warm North Cape Current. The coastal waters are rich in fish (herring, cod, capelin, etc.). The Sredny peninsula is located to the south of the peninsula. From the north, a relatively large bay - Zubovskaya Bay juts out into the peninsula for 3.5 kilometers.
Since ancient times, the coastal waters of Rybachy Pomors have been fishing. In the 17th century, there were 16 fishing camps with 109 fishing huts. Since the 16th century, the name Rybachy Peninsula has already been mentioned. The Dutch traveler Guyen van Linshoten (English), a member of the 1594 expedition, mentions that he saw "the land of Kegoth, called the Fishing Peninsula." Stephen Barrow (eng.) June 23, 1576, after traveling to northern shores Russia, during interrogation, claims that he was in the village of Kigor, and in his diaries for 1555 he mentions the Kegorsky Cape (now German). At this place there was a lively bargaining through which the Russian state was trading with Europe. In 1826, when the border between the Russian Empire and Norway was drawn, the peninsula was assigned to Russia, despite the fact that Norwegian settlers lived on the peninsula. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were 9 colonies of Norwegians and Finns on the peninsula, in which 500 people lived. After Finland gained independence, the western part of the peninsula was ceded to the Finns, which was returned to the Soviet Union after the Soviet-Finnish war.
During the Great Patriotic War, fierce battles between Soviet and German troops took place on the peninsula and coastal waters. In Murmansk, a street is named after the soldiers who defended the strategic peninsula. After the end of the war, the peninsula was heavily militarized, as it was in close proximity to a NATO member country - Norway. Currently, most of the military garrisons are completely closed here. Quite recently, the territory of the Rybachy Peninsula was finally opened to the public. And immediately dozens of jeeps, all-terrain vehicles and hundreds of northern extreme lovers poured here ...
The Rybachiy Peninsula is truly the end of the earth. The northernmost point of the European part of Russia is located here. You feel this especially acutely, standing on a cliff, at the edge of the ocean, squinting from the strong north wind... Behind the back - the "space balls" of the radar station and the pointing finger of the lighthouse, and in front, as far as the eye can see, there is water space. Naturally, Rybachy is a closed area. But it was possible to get here absolutely legally by requesting the appropriate permission from the border guards in advance. The only people to whom the entrance is still closed are foreigners. Previously, this small bare patch of land, surrounded on all sides by water, was literally stuffed with military units. Norway, a NATO member, is just a stone's throw away, and all the waterways to our northern ports pass by. Now everything has changed.
The troops were withdrawn, the remaining small units look frightening: gloomy shabby barracks, scattered remains of equipment, dirty conscripts looking like a wolf from under their brows. I don't want to look at all this at all.
From Murmansk to Rybachy, if you go by car, it is only a few hours' journey. But this path is extremely interesting. The landscape changes literally every ten kilometers. Still dense forests give way to light forests, they are replaced by "northern dwarfs", and even further north - and they disappear from view. A thin shrub can be found only in the lowlands between the rocks, and everywhere mosses, lichens and some kind of grasses that have taken root here, which also manage to bloom here, dominate. This is the real tundra. Only the tundra is not low and swampy, but rocky. Small mountain ranges run across the entire peninsula, forming a fantastic, inimitable relief. In the valleys, if you can call them that, there are a great many transparent lakes, swamps, streams and rivulets. All this, following the usual cliche, I would like to call a space landscape, but in fact, of course, the landscape is the most earthly, it is just difficult to find the appropriate epithets in order to describe it. It is much easier to tell about the tropics, where there is a riot of colors and a constant celebration of life. And here there seems to be nothing but wind, rocks, stones, water and moss, but all this is so mesmerizing that sometimes you want to look at this picture, without stopping, for hours.
But back in the thirties it was crowded here, Russians, Finns, Sami lived here, there was even a whole Norwegian village with the bird's name Tsyp-Navolok. Here is what is written about the former population of Rybachy in the "Guide to the North of Russia" (S.-Pb., 1898, p. 78):
- “On the eastern coast of the Rybachy Peninsula, next to Tsip Navolokom, there is Korabelnaya Bay, which for a long time was revived by the activity of the factor, founded here by the St. Petersburg merchant Pallisen, who then passed on to the merchant Zebek and from him to the Rybak society. The ship factor left a noticeable trace of its activity in our Murmansk and White Sea fisheries by using the American purse seine to catch herring and capelin and by introducing frostbite to preserve the bait. " I borrowed this quote from the book of my friend, a great connoisseur of the Kola land, the Murmansk writer Mikhail. Nutlets "Orphaned Shores" published on the Internet at his own website. In the photograph placed there - Mikhail Oresheta with a beard and a megaphone in his hands, together with an unnamed border guard, as well as our former enemy and now German friend Gerhard Dag and the head of the North Sea schoolchildren Galina Penkova. Misha is a local historian and historian who has dedicated his life to our northern region.
Walking on the tundra is a pleasure - you can see everything many kilometers ahead and almost at every step you meet something unusual and different, now an exotic beast, now an unexploded mine that has lain from the war. Here, literally, a motley partridge jumps out from under your feet and, diligently pretending that she is not all right with her health, begins to lead you away from her brood. Usually, pretending to believe, I go after her, keeping a distance, not moving away, but not letting close either. Then I turn around and see how she, making sure that I am at a safe distance for her family, squeaking loudly, hurrying back from both her paws - to the children.
Of course, fish is also found here - where would the name Rybachiy Peninsula come from then? And this fish is truly royal: brown trout, trout, delicious salmon.
All over Rybachye there are hundreds of streams, rivers and lakes with this wonderful fish. I fished constantly on Rybachye in all seasons and with great success.
And once upon a time, in the middle of the 19th century, Rybachye and whales were "swung" not without success. The last time, in my memory, a real whale was thrown onto a sandbank in the Zubovka area in 1993. I saw this whale to the east of Kildin Island when I was going to Gremikha on the Kanin, and even approached it at a very close distance to film it floating up and fantanizing on a video camera.
For fish in the 80s - 90s, you didn't have to go far. I caught her in the Ship Brook, and in Poltyna, and in Ein with their crystal and cold waters. The fish could be seen directly from the shore. If tropical islands are called coconut or banana-lemon paradise, Rybachy is undoubtedly a cloudberry-blueberry-mushroom paradise. To pick mushrooms for frying or berries for jam, we did not have to move further than 200-250 meters from the pier where the ship was moored - there were a great many mushrooms and berries. And if Viktor Viktorovich gave me a car, then there were so many mushrooms that you simply couldn't carry them away. They paid attention to russules only at the very beginning of the mushroom season, until the brown birch trees started to appear, but they also ceased to be of interest when they crawled out into the world and immediately in such quantity that “even though they were scythey,” strong red-headed boletus boletus.
I knew places where porcini mushrooms grew in abundance, but, of course, I tried not to give them out to anyone. Who knows northern ginseng? Along the valleys of streams, among the stones, sometimes right on the sheer cliffs, our northern "ginseng" grows - a pink radiola, or, in a simple way - "golden root". I had to meet with him more than once - it was about a quarter of an hour of a leisurely journey from the pier to my nearest plantations. At the golden root, rhizomes and roots are used for medicinal purposes, harvested in the second half of July and the first half of August only from large specimens with at least 2 stems. The rhizomes and roots of the plant contain tyrosol, radioloside glycoside, essential oils, tannins, anthraglycosides, malic, gallic, citric, succinic, oxalic acids, lactones, sterols, flavonols (hyperazide, quercetin, isoquercetin, kaempferol), and sugars (mainly sucrose), lipids.
Pharmacological studies have established that the extract from rhizomes in 40% alcohol has not only a stimulating and adaptogenic effect, similar to the preparations of ginseng and eleutherococcus, but also increases blood pressure.
Autumn on Rybachye comes quickly, hastily, not fussing, but businesslike. The tundra is becoming kind of dark and unfriendly, as it was in summer, and did not have time to look back, and the sun is almost gone. Darkness falls quickly. It is clear that there will be no return: it is said, and basta is serious. She will not, as in St. Petersburg, rush back and forth, but will do her autumn job and immediately transfer her affairs to the winter. Gloomy and unfriendly, it reminds of seriousness with its winds, unleashing its might on Rybachiy. In 1968 I saw when a hurricane demolished and destroyed half of the buildings along the shore of the Ozerko Bay.
All seasons in the North are fairly well defined. They do not rush and do not shy away from one to another. Winter immediately grabs with a stranglehold and will not let go to the end. Here winter does not rush anywhere. I declared it and you will receive it right away. Severe frosts, dense and some kind of solid blizzards immediately show who is the boss here. If not in the spirit, he can spin his devilish dance so that you involuntarily start to respect.
The forest on Rybachye and Sredniy - alder and birch - grows only along the stream valleys, where the winds are not so strong, but even here they make the trees bend in a bizarre way. In August, the slopes are covered with purple-purple willow tea. Autumn begins in September, the tundra becomes burgundy red, lingonberries ripen, replacing blueberries and blueberries, cloudberries leave even earlier, in mid-August. In October, the lingonberry will go under the snow, so that the partridges have something to profit from in the spring - the almighty Nature has thought of everything on this score.
Ein's lip is a kind of oasis on Rybachye. In contrast to the central and northern regions of the peninsula, there is even lush grass, where cattle were even grazed before. Guba is surrounded by high hills with steep rocks, which are worth standing here overnight. During the war, the guba was the main source of supply for the garrison on Rybachye - for this, a pier was built, the remains of which are still visible. Another attraction of the bay is the sunken research vessel Perseus. A two-masted steam-sailing schooner with ice contours was built in Onega in 1918 as a hunting hunting ship, but in 1922 the unfinished ship was modernized in Arkhangelsk and became a research vessel. For its intended purpose, the vessel operated in the seas of the Arctic Ocean from 1923 to 1941. It was a real floating marine scientific institute. I even managed to find some technical data of the ship: displacement - 550 tons, length - 41.5 meters, width - 8 meters, draft - 3.2 meters. There were 7 laboratories on this ship, including 1 meteorological one. It was on this vessel that echo sounders were first used to detect schools of fish (1939)! Since the beginning of the war (since 1941) "Perseus" was handed over to the military, and in the same year it was sunk by German aircraft. So the ship and the scientific laboratory became the basis for the above-mentioned pier. At low tide, his remains are still visible ...
"Bolshoye Ozerko" - ... arose as a colony in 1860 on southwest coast Rybachy ... In 1920 it was the center of Novoozerkovskaya volost. The population in 1926 was 247 people, in 1938 -127 people. In 1930, the collective farm "Pogranichny Rybak" was organized ... In 1960, the village of Ozerko was designated by a row of prefabricated panel houses, popularly called "Finnish" ... Over the years of existence, the anti-aircraft missile systems located on Srednee and Rybachye became obsolete morally and tactically. In the late eighties - early nineties, they began to be reduced ... In the fall of 1994, the last group of soldiers and officers left the village of Ozerko. A period of pogroms began on everything that had been created with such difficulty over the years. At this time, the worst features of our national character- to take everything that lies badly, to beat that which cannot be carried away.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, we got a dubious inheritance: scattered here and there missile system silos, barracks, submarine bases. The construction of these sensitive facilities cost the state many billions, and now they are collapsing under the prickly winds of the Arctic. It hurts that the incredibly complex, expensive mechanisms, which could still be restored, were completely abandoned, as if this was a shed that no one needed. And I myself took part in the construction of many military facilities on Rybachye in Soviet times, transporting thousands of tons of building materials on board Hakob Hakobyan, as well as on other cargo and passenger ships of the shipping company. Therefore, it was doubly painful for me to look at what happened to the peninsula after 1995.
I want to walk around Rybachy in 2007, when I was there for the last time, having driven more than a hundred kilometers on an ATV, in my once native places.
The abandoned structures of the Sredny and Rybachy peninsulas can be used to study the history of their heyday and fall Soviet Union, a story of unfulfilled hopes and unrealized plans. An abandoned village is like a lonely sick person: he seems to live, but there is no joy. We have always been extravagant. It is especially acutely felt here, on the Rybachiy and Sredny peninsulas, on our strategic maritime border. This is a frozen museum of the Soviet era. Abandoned garrisons and defenses are like scars on the body of the tundra. Alien. There are many of them, but each of them is lonely in its own way and each has its own story of escape.
Garrisons, which, at first glance, have everything you need for life - multi-storey buildings, clubs, gyms, but not a single living soul. Ghost villages, lost on the map, orphaned overnight, which are only occasionally visited by lonely travelers. Moreover, there are monuments - with the drooping head of the Rybachi heroes. They are shadows of the past, warlike, saturated with glory that has become useless to anyone. Nothing to say. Now the village looks like an abandoned battlefield. And it will collapse and deteriorate as long as there is at least one more gram of metal that can be handed over, or one more brick that you can take with you. The process of plundering is set on a grand scale ... But, even if there were no plunders, I do not believe that life could ever return to these houses. Our reality is that even good house who loses one owner does not always find a new one. This is especially true of buildings owned by the armed forces.
Rybachy is very favorably located, alas, not only from the point of view of fishing: the peninsula overlooking Norway is an excellent springboard for our troops. It is unlikely that in the near future he, or at least part of him, will become civilian.
Villages on the Rybachy Peninsula, almost all destroyed. Several metalworkers now live in Bolshoy Ozerko, collecting the remains of the metal. It's beautiful and eerie there, like a cemetery.
This is where I started my last trip in Rybachy in the summer of 2007 by ATV, reaching the geologists' camp and back. Practically, starting from the village. Bolshoye Ozerko, there is a road built during the Second World War, and it is radically different from all other "roads" on the peninsula. Compared to them, this is a full-fledged dirt highway; it is through it that cars get to the peninsula (well, of course, only those that could drive through the pass)!
The village of Zemlyanoye (Pummanki), located in the very center of the Middle, was generally surrounded by something that remotely resembled a real forest. Somewhere I heard that Zemlyanoye is still a residential village ... but as soon as I entered the outskirts, there was no doubt: there was no one there for a long time. Abandoned houses, equipment left right in the middle of the road ... If I didn’t know the history of these places, I would assume that about 15 - 20 years ago the war started here and the inhabitants fled, leaving everything they had. But the reality is more sad - such a well-located village with capital buildings was simply abandoned due to the redeployment of military units. But here I have visited my friends of border guards so many times. Here we bathed in a beautiful sauna, fished, hunted, picked mushrooms and berries. There was an excellent shooting range, where I fired at almost all types of weapons, from TT to machine guns and grenade launchers. On the Vykat brook, I set up nets and caught salmon. Naturally, now the bridge across the Vykat was destroyed, but a quite acceptable ford had already been “trodden down” by the cars nearby and I was able to drive on ...
After a few hours of travel, I reached the former camp of geologists, turned back to Sredny, in order to return to Ozerko again.
But while I am driving from Cape Zemlyanoy along west bank along a long 30-meter cliff, made of the finest shale plates, through which many small springs make their way. The famous "Two Brothers". There is some kind of mysticism here - it is not without reason that the Sami have since ancient times considered the Pummanki mountain to be the habitat of sorcerers (noids). According to legend, two of them - brothers Noyd-Ukko and Noyd-Akka - were punished for their atrocities and turned into these stone statues. Beautiful places! The declaration of the Rybachy peninsula as a national park with the obligatory transfer of it from the Ministry of Defense, as a mismanaged and inept owner, to the relevant structures involved in the preservation of natural and other heritage, could contribute to the development of tourism on the Barents Sea coast, which, in turn, would have a positive effect on the preservation and objects of military heritage. Tourists still visit these places with pleasure, but only in a wild way.
Traces of the presence of hydrocarbons, characteristic of gas and oil fields, were discovered on the Sredny several decades ago. In the 70s, the USSR Ministry of Geology recommended starting drilling there, but not even sufficient geophysical research was carried out on the peninsula.
In 1994, the regional administration registered, with the support of several oil companies, the Severshelf company, which carried out seismic surveys on Rybachye. They gave encouraging results for oilmen. Apparently, the oil field stretches from the peninsula to the sea - up to oil field Rybachinskoe. According to experts, in principle, subject to all standards, drilling and oil production on land is an order of magnitude safer than offshore drilling.
In 2002, one of the co-owners of the Murmansk Shipping Company Nikolai Kulikov, former general manager Lukoil-Arctic-Tanker founded a new company - Murmanskneftegaz, which received a license to operate on the peninsula a year later. The company was even registered and located in a building owned by the shipping company. Having issued only a license (MUR series number 11451 NP) in March 2003 for the start of activities and organization of work on the profile in the fall of the same year, Murmanskneftegaz began prospecting work on the Sredny peninsula, in fact, on the isthmus between Sredniy and Rybachy. Equipment began to be brought to the peninsula - a disassembled oil rig, tractors and other equipment. At the same time, the project of work and Required documents determined by the terms of the license for exploration drilling was not developed. The administration of the Pechenga district of the Murmansk region was not informed about the timing of the start of work, which did not prevent the death of a part of the tundra and a conflict situation in this regard. The opinions of local reindeer breeders were not taken into account either.
And all this - despite the fact that, for example, the following clause was added to the license terms: “3.1.4. To begin field geophysical work and well construction only after the development of ... projects of the corresponding types of work. Organize and conduct a procedure for assessing the impact of planned activities on environment(EIA). Include the EIA materials in the composition of the object of the state ecological expertise. “Apparently, the heads of the limited liability company did not even look into the document,” says Sergei Zhavoronkin, head of the Bellona-Murmansk environmental organization.
As it turned out, the land on which Murmanskneftegaz began to develop a vigorous activity, since 1991, has been leased from the Rangifer reindeer breeding farm, which has more than 500 reindeer. Having learned about the expansion of oil workers, the reindeer herders turned to the regional land committee. “The reindeer herders could not have acted otherwise, since they, the tenants, are primarily responsible for the outrages on the territory they lease,” says Sergei Zhavoronkin. In December 2003, the land committee of the Murmansk region established that the oil workers had seized land plot illegally, and attracted Murmanskneftegaz to a fine with the obligation to eliminate the discovered deficiencies within three months. In addition, as the inspectors of the regional administration established natural resources, as a result of the activities of "Murmanskneftegaz" on the peninsula, about 4 hectares of soil cover with lichen, which is the main food of reindeer, was destroyed. The Department of Natural Resources issued an order to suspend the preparatory work and provide the department with all the necessary documents.
However, the work, as I know, is being carried out on the Sredny, to this day. The new capitalists have no guns and tanks, and those that exist have not fired for a long time.
I still have a map of the places where, over the many years of visiting Rybachy, I have walked and surveyed almost every square, every stream, every swamp with berries and every lake with fish. All these are native places. All this is a heroic Rybachy. All this is our common memory - for those who want to remember and to whom all this is dear. I hope Rybachy will someday be reborn. But that will be later.
And where is it happy today? Maybe this "happy today" was seen by the last Rybachy commander - Viktor Viktorovich Kudel? Or thousands of other Rybachin residents? Why did millions of our fathers and grandfathers die in 1941-1945? To be victors or, in the end, defeated? There is no definite answer to these questions. But still! Glory to the heroes of the Rybachy Peninsula! And eternal memory to them!
I returned to Ozerko, having driven more than a hundred kilometers with bitterness in my soul ...
My summer car trip was supposed to be a trip to the Caucasus, the main event of which was to climb Elbrus. But in July, about a month before the start, a friend from St. Petersburg called and spoke with enthusiasm about the Rybachy Peninsula in the Murmansk region, in the north of the European part of Russia: “Ocean, extraordinary beauty species, fields of mushrooms and berries, abandoned military units, strategic objects of the Second World War - lost World... ". His story aroused considerable interest, and I began to think about the possibility of going there. But of course not this time. And if in this, then a good reason was needed.
And such a reason appeared. She began to rain, which, according to the forecast, was expected in the Elbrus region at the end of summer. I don’t know how the forecast turned out to be correct, but .., in general, I easily changed the direction from south to north. Circumstances developed so that at the same time with me a good acquaintance of my St. Petersburg friend was going to go to Rybachy from St. Petersburg with the company. They agreed that we can join him.
According to the navigator's calculations, there are two routes that are approximately the same in time of passage, leading from Moscow to Rybachy. One goes through Peter, the other through Vologda. The length of the first is about 2100 km, the second is about 2000 km. But the first, a little faster than the second, since the Moscow - St. Petersburg highway has a number of toll high-speed sections. Routes go around from different sides Lake Onega and converge in its northern part. Then there is one road - to Murmansk.
I needed to go to Peter. The road to it from Moscow is well known to many. V last years it gets better: there is more good asphalt and fewer areas with strong speed limits. The way to St. Petersburg, which is 700 km, takes almost a day, if you do not rush. Night in St. Petersburg. In the morning to Murmansk. The road to it is generally not bad. There are places with repairs. Cameras, both stationary and mobile, are more likely than few. Occasionally there are traffic police patrols lurking on the sidelines. The trail is notable for the surrounding rocky Karelian nature, an abundance of mirrors of lakes and swamps, in places extending beyond the horizon. Closer to Murmansk, there are fewer forests, and the landscape begins to turn into tundra.
On the way to Murmansk we spent the night with a friend in Kirovsk. The city stands aside, about 30 km from the track, in the massif of the Khibiny mountains, well known to skiers. Returning from Kirovsk to the highway, about 200 km remained to Murmansk.
It is necessary to go to the peninsula, as they say, taking everything. There are no shops there. The Murmansk supermarket is not much different from the Moscow one - the assortment and prices are about the same. At gas stations, the price of diesel fuel is about 3 rubles more than in the capital.
When we were still on our way to Murmansk, 160 km from St. Petersburg, we stopped at a store at the plant in Potanino, which produces canned meat. They bought stew there. I can say with confidence that I have never eaten any other stew better than this one. Slava pointed at the store. The very one, a good acquaintance of my friend, with whom we were going to travel along Rybachy. By the way, Slava knows the peninsula and its history well. Once there was a military unit in which he served in the army. During his service, he was imbued with Rybachy so much that for many years he has been coming there every summer. At the same time, Slava has extensive experience in operating off-road vehicles. Now he drives the Sobol off-road camper, which he has reconstructed with his own hands. Slava became, in fact, our guide, and his car was at the head of the column, the first to explore the off-road. But about the off-road Rybachy later. I'll tell you a story connected with it. My friend from St. Petersburg, seeing the new Mitsubishi Pajero Sport, in which I arrived, was seriously puzzled by how to avoid or at least minimize the damage that he believed the car was waiting for on our upcoming journey. He walked around the car and said: “At least we need to remove the bumper. Well, I don’t know at all, are you ready to leave it there? Or let's leave it here and ride my pickup. " His veteran American pickup truck was parked nearby. I can’t say that it didn’t bother me, but I just said that I wasn’t going to rush into the embrasure. “Well, that's right, if we turn around and go home,” he summed up bleakly.
Rybachy is not connected with the mainland, it is connected by a narrow isthmus with another peninsula, called the Middle, which is already turning into mainland... Therefore, to get to Rybachye, you need to drive through Sredny. As you know, during the Soviet era, the peninsulas were located in a closed area, where a whole cluster of military bases was created. In the "zero" entry for civilians was opened, but with special passes. From 2009 to this day, at the checkpoint (checkpoint) Titovka, they only require a passport, and they can see what is transported in the car. The checkpoint is located on the Kola highway going through Pechenga, about 160 km from Murmansk. The point is in front of the bridge over the river. Almost immediately after it there is a right exit onto a dirt road. Turning onto it, you are not yet on Srednee, to go about 25 km to it, and then about the same to Rybachy. But you can consider that your journey begins at this point.
The road to Rybachy now winds like a serpentine, waddling from hill to hill, now it straightens. There are no sections that are difficult to pass. But this path cannot be called easy either. It will test your nerves, because a significant part of it is solid bumps. It is useless to go around them. I can give only one piece of advice: fix all the things lying in the car, because shaking, if you can call it shaking, will be strong. At first I tried to go slowly and look for the shallowest holes. But at some point, I really wanted it to end as soon as possible, and the principle "more gas - fewer holes" was used. And I find it difficult to say which of these two methods will be better for a person. The second option, in addition to reducing the time, makes it possible to feel like a participant in a rally-raid. True, if you have a robust SUV that has not been tested by time, then the principle of "gas" is probably not worth applying.
They say that the bumps were formed due to heavy military equipment that comes here for military exercises. On way back we were almost participants in these events. The soldiers, as it seemed then, imitated the clearance of the road, they were covered by a tank, and then our Pajero Sport appeared from around the corner. We stopped about thirty meters from the tank, and its turret turned towards us with the barrel of its gun. Was it a joke or following an order-instruction, I don't know. The sensations were ambivalent.
The region where Rybachy is located has quite rich history, but acquaintance with him often turned out to be connected precisely with his military past. Vivid impressions of the beauty of the local views are now and then cut off by memorials with stars - the memory of the fallen soldiers of the Soviet army in the Great Patriotic War.
On the isthmus connecting Sredniy with the mainland, lies the Mustatunturi granite ridge. The northern front line passed along it. The place is legendary, the only one where the Germans could not break through the front line. From one of the officers who defended him, the famous Soviet writer Konstantin Simonov took the image of a hero for his work "The Son of an Artilleryman".
Rybachy played an important strategic role, since it controlled the entrances to the Pechenga bays in the west and Motovsky and Kola bays in the east. The protection of the entire Kola Peninsula with the city of Murmansk and its ice-free port largely depended on this. The capture of this Arctic territory was one of the most important tasks for the German command. It was to be carried out by the "Norway" army, formed from two German and Finnish corps. The capture of the peninsula by the Germans was expected from the sea. In this regard, on the eve of the war, a number of defensive structures were created on Rybachy and Sredny.
As you know, the western part of the peninsulas from 1920 to 1940 belonged to Finland. This was the result of two Soviet-Finnish wars. As a result of the first of them, in 1920, our country ceded part of its territories to Finland. The second war provided the USSR in 1940 with a significant expansion of its borders in the Finnish direction, including the return of previously given lands. The fortification of Srednee and Rybachy was carried out in a short time and was not completed before the German attack. But the Germans, having broken through the Soviet border, attacked the peninsula from the mainland. And they were stopped at Mustatunturi. A significant contribution to this was made by our Northern Fleet, which provided powerful fire support from the decks of ships. On Mustatunturi, the assault was conducted by elite huntsmen, well equipped and prepared for combat in the northern mountainous conditions. German unit"Edelweiss". The retention of the peninsulas lasted 3.5 years. Needless to say what it cost the Soviet army. This land is watered with blood.
The Mustatunturi area has stunning views. They are especially well demonstrated by the so-called Swabian road, which winds along the lakes and hills. It was built during the war years to support the German army storming the peninsula and comes from Pechenga, which the Germans called Petsamo in Finnish. The turn to it is in front of the pass over the ridge on the way to the Middle. Driving along this road, it is difficult to combine the charm of the surrounding nature with heavy fire and bomb strikes.
The Swabian road is well preserved and surprises with its quality, but the passage on it is complicated by destroyed bridges. To bypass them, you need an SUV with a high ground clearance that allows you to drive through large stones. The Germans built a chain of various engineering structures along the road. From many of them only fragments of walls remain, but they are quite easily recognizable. But there are also buildings that have almost survived.
After World War II, many different kinds of artifacts remained on the peninsulas, and especially on the adjacent mainland, including Mustatunturi, from artillery pieces and ammunition to ordinary household items used by the military. In peacetime, the Soviet army ruled here, many expeditions, search parties and just tourists have visited, so there are significantly fewer artifacts. But, as knowledgeable people say, there are still a lot of them, it just becomes more difficult to search. However, mines, shell casings, and other similar items, heavily rusted, which were not at all spared by time, because of which they no longer represent almost any historical and material value, are often found.
The sights of the Sredny peninsula, like its history, are closely related to Rybachy. Therefore, the Medium is also interesting. But we don't dwell on it. Our goal is Rybachy. It is much larger, and beyond it is the ocean. Yes, the ocean never borders on land. On the maps, the Rybachy Peninsula washes the Barents Sea, which turns into the ocean. And, nevertheless, this is a convention, because there is water between Rybachy and the North Pole.
It was not planned to reach Rybachy on the first day. We stopped for the night, setting up a kerchief camp not far from the road. On the second day, we separated from the Slava group and agreed to meet on the peninsula. And that gave us one plus: the absence big company and support strengthened the impression of the first acquaintance with Rybachy. It began with the abandoned military village of Ozerko, attracting a couple of five-story buildings.
Gray, with blackening emptiness window sockets, they look gloomy. The sky, rain, cold gusty wind and complete desertion added sad colors. Once inside them, you begin to imagine how and who once lived here. These impressions are probably the only thing that visiting them can give. But, and the strength of these impressions depends on their own acuity of perception, awareness, and maybe something else. Inside is not just desolation. Everything is plundered and destroyed there. Although the houses have never seen a war. They were built and abandoned by people in peacetime. What you see in these five-story buildings, then you meet all over the peninsula at all abandoned military facilities. Someone says that in them you can see a picture of the apocalypse. I would call the picture differently, something related to the decline in morality, especially manifested in the nineties, after the collapse of the USSR.
The five-story buildings appeared in the early seventies in addition to other housing infrastructure created for the military. By that time, a number of troops were stationed at Rybachye, including air defense, armed with anti-aircraft missile system... The village of Ozerko was quite well equipped, there was even a hockey court near the five-story buildings. Closer to the nineties, arms reduction began on the peninsula, followed by demilitarization, which ended in the fall of 1994. After the departure of the military, in addition to an established system of infrastructure facilities, a lot of various equipment and equipment remained on the peninsulas, in particular, freight transport, all-terrain vehicles. The material base was mothballed, but this did not protect it during the post-Soviet collapse of the country. They say that a significant part of the technique was sawn into metal.
After getting to know Ozerko, we went to look for a place where Slava was supposed to stand, and got lost. We drove along a hard, rocky road, but then mud appeared, the ground became more and more fragile. A low gear and bridge locks were already engaged, and the car was going harder and harder. And soon we were crawling in the middle of the muddy tundra there, which can hardly be called a road, and a swampy lowland was waiting in front of us. As a result, we turned around.
The evening was beginning, we decided to postpone the search, and stopped for the night on the bank of Bolshaya Volokovaya Bay - in the western part of Rybachy. Long search Beautiful places there was no need for parking, there are many of them. But such places are often not without wind. And it can blow out from the ocean so that the tent will not resist. But we found a quiet place under the rock and did not even put up a tent, we just pulled up an awning against the rain. You won't freeze in a warm sleeping bag at night.
When we arrived at Rybachy, it was cloudy, it rained from time to time. This is the Arctic and in August one cannot count on warm days. At night, the temperature drops to seven degrees. But, as we were told, a few days before our arrival, it was hot, which, in general, is a rarity for this region. Although we also found several sunny days. The winds blow often, but sometimes they are barely perceptible. In the depths of the peninsula, there may be no wind at all, but then, if there is a lake nearby, there is not a small chance of being attacked by clouds of midges.
When they say that the ocean feeds, you can think of fish, some other seafood. But the ocean even provides firewood. On Rybachye there is tundra, water and stone. And the tree can be found by walking along the shore. There are boards and logs. Just choose those that have already lay down and dried up. In general, the ocean throws out everything - both garbage and a lot of all kinds of good. Later, on one of the beaches of the peninsula, we found a huge bay of a good rope. Perhaps it was washed away in the storm from the ship. The rope is such that it can serve as a reliable tow rope for a large SUV.
The next day there was a clear sky, the sun was shining, and we decided to take a walk inland. Its relief is hilly, covered with stones, with many rock formations.
Vegetation due strong winds low, a significant part of it, like a carpet, covers the ground, in some places bush grows densely. It is damp in the lowlands - puddles, bumps. The peninsula is cut by streams and riverbeds, therefore, traveling along it, it will not be possible to bypass them.
In rivers, the flow can be turbulent. We meet such a river. We pass it through the pile of stones.
You might think that where the tundra is, everything looks the same. However, it is not. Here, the tundra, in combination with stones and rocks of various shapes, forms interesting and diverse landscapes.
Their zest is often the ocean or the tundra itself with its bright multi-colored vegetation.
The flora is quite rich. Among it there are many flowers and whole placers of berries.
The most common of these is crowberry. There are many blueberries, cloudberries, which are very popular in Scandinavia.
There are also many mushrooms on Rybachye. Of these, boletus mushrooms are often found. They can be very large.
Boletus mushrooms grow under birch trees. And they are here, only dwarf ones. They can travel along the ground and be very similar to the roots of a plant.
There are also very beautiful mosses here.
By noon, the sun was so warm that when the wind died down, it became warm in the south. At such moments looking at blue waters Big Volokovaya Lip could easily be imagined that this is the south.
There was no need to search for Glory. He found us himself, on a motorcycle. Yes, our group had several motorcycles - cross and pit bikes. They were brought on a trailer.
With such transport, you can quickly get to where it will be difficult or even impossible to get there by car. The motorcycle allows you to see more. In addition, the peninsula will provide the motorcyclist with mud baths, water hazards, rocks, slopes, sands, in general, everything that is needed for an extreme drive on rough terrain. Moving in cars, we did not look for extreme sports, but we could not do without it.
Every day our group on off-road vehicles and motorcycles moved to a new place. Time was limited, so the route ran along the western part of the peninsula, where there is less off-road, and there are many attractions. Rybachye has, in a way, its own main roads. They are well-rolled, well-defined, and can be marked by barrels of poles along them.
Most tourists use them. And if it were not for the numerous waterways flowing into the ocean, and puddles in the lowlands, then it would be possible to drive through them on the most ordinary crossover. Riverbeds are saturated with large stones and can have steep slopes, and the water level can be above the knee. These are not the most serious obstacles of the peninsula, but in order to go around the whole western part, they will have to be overcome, and this may be enough to damage the vehicle. Stones can hit the body, puncture the wheels and break parts under the bottom. When crossing rivers without observing a number of precautions, the car can even be drowned. A torn transfer case protection, a punctured wheel, a broken anti-roll bar, a water-filled interior, scratches on the body - troubles that befell our group, by the way, which consisted of people not without off-road experience.
The interior of the car was flooded, however, not on the river, but on one of the roads running far from the coast through the tundra, where there were huge puddles in the lowlands. One of the SUVs pulling the trailer hooked its towbar onto a concrete slab lying at the bottom of one of these puddles and pulled over to the side of the pit. So the left side of the car was up to the glass in the water and mud. The pit may have been left behind by a stalled military truck. And the slab was probably once laid to cover an area with too shaky soil. Interestingly, the puddle did not look deep and we were not ready for such a nuisance. Another thing is when crossing rivers.
The Slavic camper has a significantly increased, high ground clearance, and in addition to it a low gear, two interwheel and inter-axle locks. He was the first to slide into the water and determine whether the rest could pass. The water obstacles were not long, but they hid large stones and their depth with all kinds of holes. The presence of such a specially prepared vehicle among the standard serial off-road vehicles, even good ones, on Rybachy, as I now think, is not desirable, but obligatory. If you, of course, do not want, as my friend said on the eve of the trip, leave the car there. Although, we also had one more help - motorcycles. They made it possible to quickly find out how passable the section ahead was.
The water level in the rivers of the peninsula depends on the ocean. For example, where the water can be below the knee during the day, in the evening, during the high tide, the level can rise to two or more meters. This feature is also important to consider.
When driving across a river, you do not need to go too fast. It is necessary not to push the wave going ahead, but to follow it, as it were. If the wave is pushed, then the water will begin to penetrate under the hood, which may end in a known way. But when you enter the river, and the water is already at the level of the bumper, you really want to get out on land as soon as possible, and your nerves may not stand it, your leg will add gas. I made this mistake once. Water rolled onto the hood and… thanks to Mitsubishi engineers! Now I'm not saying this for advertising, because this error may have high price... My Pajero Sport went wherever it was necessary, forgiving mistakes, and never let me down.
Before going to Rybachy, having learned about the features of its relief, I was seriously puzzled by what tires to put on the car. I went from a simple one: I called a friend - at Nokian Tires. He recommended Nokian Rotiiva AT. It is a tire, as stated in its description, with reinforced sidewalls protected from side cuts, with a tread that works well off-road, quiet and economical on asphalt. I put it down and got it right. On the highway, the average fuel consumption was kept in the region of 5.5-7 liters.
Some of the people who come to Rybachy do not differ in their thrifty attitude to nature, leaving behind a lot of garbage and spoiling the vegetation layer. There are places where, instead of a multi-colored carpet of tundra plants, a huge muddy meadow, rolled by the wheels of SUVs, turns black.
The desire of people to be surrounded beautiful nature not showing concern for her is a real threat to the Rybachy Peninsula. How to protect him from such a threat is a question. We raised it more than once in our company in the evenings.
Scientists have established that people lived on Rybachy in the Stone Age. This discovery was made in 1979 thanks to a military man who was fishing in the Zubovskaya Bay, who noticed the rock carvings. After that, about thirty sites were found on the peninsula. ancient man... On Rybachye there are Viking graves, a place of sacrifice of the Lapps was discovered. The peninsula was inhabited by Norwegians, Finns and Russians.
Natural resources made it possible to actively engage in whaling, reindeer husbandry, livestock breeding, and, of course, fishing - what gave the peninsula its name. Traces of the activities of people who inhabited Rybachy at different times can be found today. But, frankly speaking, here nothing attracts to itself like nature. She is so attractive that you start to strive to be alone with her.
It so happened that I was not able to go to Cape German - the most north point Rybachy and the entire European part of Russia. In one of last days of our stay on the peninsula, when we had already circled its western part and were on the southern coast, near the Motovsky Bay, I separated from the group and went to Nemetsky alone. Most of the way was known. I met a handsome man on the route sand beach formed by the ebb.
I often stopped and photographed a lot, which was difficult to do, moving in a group, as time went on, and the tide began. Because of this, I faced the difficulty of crossing the river. Popped in two places. In both cases, after the bumper was hidden under the water, fearing to take risks, he switched on the reverse gear. Interestingly, there was no typical tundra vegetation in that place. Around grew tall grass, like reeds, as high as a car, which made it difficult to navigate. These thickets were entangled with a whole network of roads. I returned to the same place several times, but then I discovered a waterfall, found a road that goes above it, and drove through a shallow ford. With the understanding that there were not many bright hours left, my celebration was not strong. One more circumstance also prevented me from being happy - there was little fuel left in the tank, and there was no spare canister with me. To go fast, without things jumping in the cabin, the day before he unloaded almost everything from the car, leaving only a sleeping bag, an ax and some food for the evening and the next morning. Not far from Nemetskoye, on the bank of Waida Bay, there is a small military detection unit (aerial targets). My hopes of getting some diesel fuel from the military did not materialize. Their refusal was so categorical that ... it seems that the tourists are fed up with them.
But once on the shore of the cape, the problem was forgotten. I was alone. By the way, later it turned out that Cape Nemetsky is perhaps the most popular place among tourists who come to Rybachy. Therefore, I was lucky. In German it is beautiful in its own way: the color-saturated tundra spreads like a soft carpet among very unusual rocky formations with a layered structure.
In the sea, to the left in the distance, the coast of Norway is visible.
I am sure that all of you, or almost all of you, have heard about this place at least once, but perhaps did not attach any importance to it. Remember the line from the song "Rybachy melted in the distant fog ..."? So this is what they say about him - about Rybachy, a peninsula covered with eternal glory, located in the very north of the European part of Russia
On Kola Peninsula I have been many times. But all these trips took place in autumn, winter or spring. It was impossible to go there in the summer. But - I wanted to. And so that not just in summer, but necessarily on a polar day, when the sun does not sink below the horizon. And so the trip planned a few months ago seems to be taking shape - and trusted friends are ready to join the company, and there is a suitable car, and the boss does not mind. Let's go! Our goal is the Rybachiy Peninsula.
The Rybachy Peninsula is the northernmost part of European Russia. This is a border area, therefore, to visit it, you need to issue passes at the Murmansk border guard detachment or at the FSB Directorate for the Murmansk region - the procedure is simple, but it can take up to a month of waiting.
TITLE
We got out of Murmansk only in the late afternoon - purchasing food, fuel, packing luggage and cans took almost half a day. We flew about a hundred kilometers on the asphalt and behind the border control post, crossing the Titovka River over the bridge, turned off the road to the right - the journey began! There are four of us - residents of Murmansk Vladimir Kondratyev, Alexander and Evgeny Zarodovs (father and son), as well as the author of these notes. Transport units - prepared for the trophy "UAZ" on "collective farm" bridges and a 500-cc ATV Polaris.
We are moving along Titovka. The history of the name of this river and the eponymous bay in the Motovsky Bay goes back to XVI century However, then it was called Kitovka because of the massive release of whales on land. In ancient times, Sredny and Rybachy were islands and there was a "whale crossing" between them and the mainland. Over time, the land rose, and the age-old instincts of the animals remained.
The exact purpose of these seid stones in Sámi culture is still not clear. Either they served as landmarks in the desert tundra, or were used as religious attributes
Soon we stopped on the shore for a parking lot. We had a snack, admired the completely shameless ducks stealing bread from us, and drove on - there is nothing to waste precious time sleeping. It's light, it's a polar day!
PASS
The only road with Big land Monks of the Pechenga Monastery were also building on Rybachy for their horse carts. Then, after the Soviet sappers, in 1940, the first tank passed through it. During the war, it was occupied by the Germans - until now, everywhere around the fortifications and barbed wire. And on the left and right under the slopes are the remains of equipment, serving as a sobering factor for any driver. The road is tricky - twists and turns, then rises, then descends from the hill to the hill. I can imagine how hard it is here in winter in ice or snowstorm. It is not for nothing, probably, since the wartime, the stream before the rise is called Piany - here it was supposed to take a glass for good luck, and on the descent Sober - in order to drink cold water and take a break, wiping sweat from his forehead ... Around the amazing beauty of the northern landscapes with saucers of lakes, looking into the sky between the hills covered with soft moss and reflected in the water in some unrealistic green color. True, barely descending from the pass, we found ourselves under low dense clouds and a small, sluggish rain that subsequently accompanied us throughout the trip.
HISTORY LESSONS
We go around Motovsky Bay. To the east goes the legendary Musta-Tunturi - a four-kilometer ridge, the only section where German troops could not cross our land border. From June 29, 1941 until the end of the war, the front line here remained unchanged! But the names of all the defenders of Musta-Tunturi are still unknown. Every year, search engines recover and reburial their remains. And here to the right of the road is the camp of one of these teams. Despite the early morning, the attendants are on their feet, water in the cauldron gurgles over the fire. They invite you to sit down, treat you to tea, show your yesterday's find - a military-style flask with the scrawled name of a soldier. We meet the leaders of the group - Alexander and Ksenia. They are from Nikel, they have been working with schoolchildren here for several years already. The city administration supports - allocates tents, equipment. Yes, such history lessons will be remembered by the children for the rest of their lives!
STRICTLY TO THE NORTH
We skip Bolshoye Ozerko - a former garrison of anti-aircraft gunners, almost a city. In 1959, an air defense regiment with a missile system was transferred here from Tallinn, the same from which a U-2 spy plane was shot down a year later near Sverdlovsk. And in the fall of 1994, the last residents left the village.
Vector of our further route points strictly north along Bolshaya Volokovaya Bay. We drive along the coast, breathing in the real arctic wind at the stops. Even inclement weather does not spoil the joyful mood from the anticipation of meeting the peak point of the hike. And that's all, we have arrived! Vaydaguba, Cape German - further only the Arctic Ocean and the North Pole! Historians believe that people have lived here since the Stone Age. In the 16th century, merchant ships moored on Vaida (translated from Finnish as “change”), and trade was conducted. German is usually interpreted as "foreign". It seems that everything is mixed on this small piece: the ruins of an old pier and a monument to the defenders of the Fatherland, a Sami well and a completely modern meteorological station, stones with mysterious signs and ... a payphone operating autonomously on solar batteries.
DESERT SHORE
We collect water from an ancient well into an eggplant and head to Cape Skorbeevsky. Another legacy cold war, another abandoned garrison. An eerie sight ...
We spend the night near the waterfall on Zubovka. It’s hard to believe that these lands used to be so populated that the Dutch traveler, circling the Fishing Sea in 1594, seemed to be alone big city- there were so many buildings on the shore.
SECRET PLANS
It's time to reveal a little secret here. In addition to the usual desire to visit Rybachye, I had one more goal. Now that the "secrecy label has been removed" and the system for issuing passes to the border zone has been worked out, this summer is a real pilgrimage here. Jeepers, motorcyclists, cyclists, pedestrians ... But almost everyone travels along the same route in the central and northwestern parts of the peninsula. There are even firms specializing in off-road tourism, taking customers to pre-determined points, almost like along the Golden Ring, only with planned adventures in the form of fords and destroyed bridges. But nowhere did I find any mention of their visit to the eastern part of Rybachy. Even in Google Earth, this area is hidden for some reason by a veil of "unreadability". Let it be “our little end of the Earth”!
The roads in the tundra are unpredictable. It is unlikely vehicle someday will ride - his destiny is to become the prey of "metal hunters"
BPM
Leaving Zubovskaya Bay, we rush east, towards Tsyp-Navolok, along the rocky coast of the sea. After a couple of kilometers, we see flat sandy surfaces and the remains of many fortifications - during the war there was an alternate airfield here. And soon we find ourselves at BPM. This abbreviation is deciphered both as "Let's drink, guys," Moskovskaya ", and as" The patrimony of fishermen-meteorologists ", and as" Here are the ruins of a lighthouse. " The latest version is now the most correct - since 1953 there has been a fan-shaped radio beacon (BPM). Warships and cargo ships were guided by the signals they sent. A kind of analogue of the modern GPS system. In 1979, the outdated design of the lighthouse was replaced by a new one, but soon nobody needed it. From the former genius of human thought, in addition to the ruins of a two-story building, auxiliary and outbuildings, several 75-meter towers remained, placed for almost five kilometers along the sea.
CHICK-NAVOLOK
We entered Tsyp-Navolok after midnight. As it should be at this time of day, normal people were already asleep. We stopped in the center of the village near the lighthouse and looked around. Nobody. Only a couple of dogs are running around the car and begging, barking softly. We notice that a door opens in a nearby house and a figure of a young guy in a shirt and camouflage pants appears on the threshold. The building is located behind a low fence and a gate with a star. Come on, say hello. It is difficult to talk, because the cold, almost icy wind almost knocks you off your feet. Visitors are rare here, so the conversation is quite official: "Who are they, where from, why, are there passes to the restricted area?" We are at a military facility where civilians are not supposed to be. Zhenya jokingly inquires about the presence of a shop or some kind of stall in the village, which immediately relieves the tense situation - we are invited to the house to drink tea. I have never eaten such delicious bread that sailors bake in Tsyp-Navolok! Better than any croissants! Andrey is a contract midshipman, has been serving here for several years. He grumbles that they pay little, but he is not going to leave yet: “I am at home here, and who will teach these young people? Everything depends on the midshipmen. " Although himself at most 27 years old, no more. And the philosopher: “What is there to do here in winter besides work? Here I am writing poetry out of boredom - last year I filled up the whole notebook! " And after tea, he gives us a real apartment for the night with six soldiers' beds almost side by side and a stove.
VISITING MICHALYCH
The usual drizzle is pouring from the sky, and sleeping under a warm roof, and not in a wet tent, is the height of bliss. Therefore, the morning begins closer to lunchtime and ... with another check - it was the midshipman who dropped in and said that we should show ourselves with the documents at the outpost. The border guards in these parts have all the functions of power - from the primary ones to protect the borders to the police and "fish control" ones. While we were washing and getting ready, the head of the garrison himself visited us. The serious mustachioed officer scrutinized the papers, but looking business card"- a magazine with material about our March trip to Cape Svyatoy Nos, his eyes became kinder and the tips of his mustache crawled up - everything is fine, his own! It's time to sit down at the table together, because besides acquaintance there is one more reason - the most important, perhaps, in this situation - today is the Day of the Navy! After a small buffet table, Andrei Mikhailovich proudly showed his farm. It turns out that behind the shabby facade of the outwardly unprepossessing barracks, there is a completely modern building with all the amenities and renovation. There is a bathhouse and a la swimming pool on the street. It is difficult to imagine how hard it was all built and delivered along the “roads” on which the military “Ural” “strips” three wheels per trip, and the same BPM masts serve as landmarks in winter. But nevertheless, people live and work. On the territory of the village there is a meteorological station, founded already in 1921, an operating lighthouse, from which we have an amazing view of the stormy Barents Sea, Anikiev Island (oh, the weather would be better!) And the deserted shores for many, many kilometers around. But even at the beginning of the last century, there was a fishing trading post of the Savin brothers, the largest buyers of fish in Murman, there were houses of colonists, a church and even a hospital of the Red Cross.
STONE CHRONICLES
Meteorological conditions did not allow us to get to Anikievsky island. Here is what is written about him in the “Guide to the Russian North”, published in 1898: “During the stopping of the steamer in Tsyp-Navolok, it is interesting to visit the nearby Anikeev island, one of the slabs of which is a stone chronicle of Murman. It is all covered carefully and beautifully ... with the carved names of Danish, German and Dutch skippers who came to Murman for fish in the XVI, XVII and XVIII centuries... Especially beautiful are the inscriptions: Berent Gundersen 1595, 1596, 1597, 1610, 1611, 1615 blef jeg frataget skif (“the ship was taken away from me”). Below, under the inscription, a warrior is depicted ... "And even further:" The Russian inscription, carved in curly writing, is beautiful and interesting: Leta 7158 (according to the new chronology it is 1650 - Ed. Note) Grishka Dudin grieved. " And the expedition of M. Oresheta in 1995 found an even earlier Pomor autograph: "There was a Shuerechanin Vasily Malashov in 1630".
ON THE WAY RETURN
Almost a day spent in Tsyp-Navolok flew by unnoticed. In two days we definitely had to return to Murmansk. We say goodbye to the hospitable hosts and, as usual, at night, we start. Although what kind of night it is, rather a slight twilight.
If you look at the map, then there are several roads leading to Ozerk - Rybachy's junction “crossroads”. We choose the shortest, but, as it turns out later, the most difficult - "Zubovsky tract". He walks through the mountains among the tundra swamps flooded by many days of rains. Puddles, often as deep as the hood of an elevated "UAZ" on 35 wheels, come across every 50-100 meters. And stones, stones, stones! The speed of advance is about 3-5 km / h. Sometimes it's even easier to ride a quad, as you can go around obstacles along the edge, but the wind and rain make it a very difficult walk.
STONE GREATS
After 12 hours of non-stop travel, the loop along Rybachy closed, and we descended to Sredny. Now the direction of movement is counterclockwise. From Cape Zemlyanoy we drive along the western coast along a long 30-meter cliff, made of the finest shale plates, through which many small springs break through. The famous "Two Brothers" are gigantic outliers. There is some kind of mysticism here - it is not without reason that the Sami have since ancient times considered the Pummanki mountain to be the habitat of sorcerers (noids). According to legend, two of them - brothers Noyd-Ukko and Noyd-Akka - were punished for their atrocities and turned into these stone statues.
38 STARS
A little further, on the high bank, we meet a practically untouched coastal battery of the 1950s (judging by the nameplate on the gun, 1946). Multilevel system of moves, lubricated mechanisms. During the war, the 221st battery was also based here, which destroyed a German minesweeper on June 22, 1941 and thereby opened the combat account of the USSR Navy. The barrel from one of her guns with 38 stars (according to the number of enemy ships sunk) is now in the ship's cemetery four kilometers from this place.
GLORY TO THE HEROES!
We break the last night on this trip on the outskirts of Sredne, on the bank of the river under the Musta-Tunturi ridge. Sanya Zarodov tells how, as a schoolboy, he participated in the installation of the first obelisk on it. I carried sand upstairs in a backpack for the foundation of the monument. Suddenly our camp is illuminated by the sun peeking out of the clouds - in a week we have already lost the habit of it. We look at the lightened mountains and somehow automatically begin to discuss the route of our next trip to the North. Harsh beauty, the attraction of the North, the end of the Earth - seemingly banal phrases, but ... oddly enough, very honest and appropriate here.
"Two brothers", who were worshiped and feared by the Sami, considering them petrified evil sorcerers. Now at the base of the northern outlier, a geocache cache is hidden.
