Alexander's Column briefly. Alexandrian Pillar (Alexander's Column)
storm100 in EXTRAORDINARY LIGHTNESS IN THOUGHTHow and why a xenophobic survey appeared on the Ekho Moskvy website and why it is still hanging there
On the website of the radio station “Echo of Moscow” there is a “polls” section. The results of voting, which are carried out both on the Echo website itself and by telephone, are posted there. At the moment when I am writing this column, the website shows the results of three surveys: “Does Russia need Foreign tourists?”, “Are you able to save money with energy-saving lamps?” And between them there are the results of the Echo of Moscow audience’s answers to the question: “Meet a representative of what nationality in dark time are you afraid of the day? The first two questions each have three possible answers: “yes”, “no” and “difficult to answer”. The third one also has clues: “Ukrainian”, “Chechen” and “difficult to answer”. The latter, apparently, is just in case. If the listener of “Echo” has not yet decided for himself who is scarier: a Ukrainian or a Chechen.
These are the everyday questions that are relevant to Russians and are offered to them by the most popular and pluralistic Russian radio station. Based on the voting results, the Echo audience can look in the mirror and find out that the majority in this audience, 54%, believes that Russia does not need foreign tourists, and also that only 39% manage to save on light bulbs. And in the meantime, find out that 57% of those who took part in the survey - there were more than 9 thousand of them at the time of writing - are afraid of Ukrainians, 31% are afraid of Chechens, and 12% have not yet decided which of the representatives of these two peoples they fear more .
It is clear that media polls have about the same relationship to real public opinion as canned food has to the conservatory. It is clear that studying public opinion in a country creeping from an authoritarian regime to a totalitarian one, the task is very unusual, and in today’s Russia it is poorly implemented. It is clear that this survey about “terrible Ukrainians” and “terrible Chechens” was designed in such a way that among its participants there were only a minority of those who took this foulness seriously and actually made a choice in a situation where it is clear to a more or less sane person that and there is no such question. With the same success, you can invite the Echo audience to answer the question: “Who would you like to abuse this evening: your mother or your father?” Well, it’s cool, isn’t it “Echo people”?
From the comments in in social networks It became clear that the “leadership” of Ukrainians in this “survey” was ensured by the citizens of Ukraine, who, having learned about yet another disgrace on “Echo,” decided to have fun and vote for themselves, the “terrible ones.” Troll the organizers of a stupid survey, bringing it to the point of complete absurdity. However, a certain number of Echo fans took part in this event seriously…
The idea to conduct a stupid survey arose during the “Personally Yours” program with Vasily Oblomov, who, in fact, made this proposal. This is where “it” grew from. The conversation turned to Chechnya, about Kadyrov.
V. Oblomov: “You can conduct a survey among Echo of Moscow listeners: “Do you think that Russia... who actually won this Chechen war, in the first, and in the second - who really won? Moreover, if you conduct a survey among viewers of Channel One, who is more feared during an ordinary meeting on the street - an American, a Ukrainian from Western Ukraine, a Western Bandera member, a native Russian, a Chinese or a Chechen - and ask him the question: who is for you personally poses a great threat - it seems that all three of us sitting here can guess which answer will take the leading position. Conduct a survey, submit a question right now!”
A. Naryshkin: “We have two possible answers...”
V. Oblomov: “Let there be Ukrainians or Chechens.”
I cannot help but note the amazing ease with which Vasily Oblomov pronounces the ethnofolism “Khokhol”. Let me remind you that we are not talking about some kind of cave xenophobe. In the Echo studio sits a young, talented poet of quite clearly democratic convictions, the author wonderful texts no less remarkable project “Good Mister”, who spoke at the 2011 rally. He has many bright and precise words about the Putin regime. Here, for example: “the symbol of Russia may not become St. George Ribbon, but insulating." Well said, isn't it? And such a wonderful young man sits on the air, when many thousands of people listen to him and see him, and he utters a word for which it’s time to hit him in the face. As in a normal company, people have long been punched in the face for ethno-pholism, which denotes a Jew. By the way, I don’t think a derogatory nickname for Jews could have come out of anyone’s mouth on Echo. Because there is a consensus on the “Holocaust” in the liberal community and 6 million victims are already automatically turning into a scoundrel everyone who utters the word with which Jews were sent to the gas chambers. Apparently, for the Russian liberal crowd, 10 thousand Ukrainian citizens are not enough for the same taboo to be used to humiliate Ukrainians. By the way, if the leaders of Roskomnadzor had brains, instead of four completely harmless swear words, with which the Russian language has long ago dealt with it, and Russian culture has long given them their place of honor in a dark but well-ventilated cultural basement, all words of “hate speech”, to which ethno-folisms relate in the first place, would be prohibited.
Let's return to the “survey”. If we ignore the trolling on the part of Ukrainian citizens who decided to laugh at the “echo” fools, then the remainder will be what is called a “formative survey.” This is often done by dirty political strategists before elections. They ask, for example, the question: “Will you vote for Ivanov, who wants to make pensions 5 thousand euros, or for Petrov, who wants to abolish them altogether?” Then the survey data is published and citizens inclined to conformism add their voice to the formed majority.
The results of the xenophobic survey are posted on the Echo website and, at the time of writing, they were viewed by tens of thousands of people. What's the result? The initiator of the xenophobic survey, poet Vasily Oblomov, undoubtedly acted stupidly and disgustingly. He is not a media executive. Not Chief Editor. He is a poet who easily and quickly writes sharp and biting poetry. This is a special head device. “The ease of thought is extraordinary.” This is, for example, Dmitry Bykov. Sometimes it seems that words don’t go through their heads. They just don’t have time to process it in the brain. The main thing is that they can write good poems on the topic of the day, and may God grant them both health and inspiration, both Bykov and Oblomov. But, have mercy, this does not mean that everything that comes out of their mouth should immediately be turned into metal. Bykov, for example, admires the Soviet project, so what do you order: revive the USSR?
There are no questions to Oblomov’s interlocutors, to the two Alexei, Solomin and Naryshkin, who “filmed down” a completely Nazi question on “Echo”. These are two chicks of Venediktov’s nest, from among those that AAV breeds with the help of special selection. Here appeals to reason and conscience are meaningless, since there are no addressees. It’s the same story with the editor-in-chief of the “echo” website, Vitaly Ruvinsky. This is the one who filmed an interview with Viktor Shenderovich about Putin and his criminal and sports circle from the Echo website. Ruvinsky then lied a lot online, endlessly repeating: “I removed it (Shenderovich’s interview) from the site, there were personal insults throughout the entire broadcast.” The text of this interview still hangs on the website of Radio Liberty, it is called: “Shenderovich stopped joking.” There you can see how Ruvinsky is lying and why this interview was actually removed.
You could, of course, ask Alexey Venediktov if he likes what he has on his website (just don’t pretend that the website is a separate media outlet!) There has been Nazi crap hanging for two days now. But for some reason I don’t want to ask. Let it hang and be identification mark for everyone who has not yet understood what “Echo of Moscow” is and who Alexey Venediktov is.
Once upon a time, during Soviet times, two book series, very similar in theme, volume, format and, accordingly, low price, were published in Moscow and Leningrad. The Moscow one was called “Biography of a Moscow House” (later it was supplemented by “Biography of a Moscow Monument”), the St. Petersburg one - I don’t remember how. Experts called it “black” by the color of its covers. In them one could find many interesting facts, associated with this or that house (or, more broadly speaking, a building), but... only facts. Legendary, and even more so mystical, hypostases were not in honor. So why not now fill in what is missing with small books with legends associated with this or that mansion or monument?
A holy place is never empty
A book about one of the symbols of St. Petersburg - the Alexander Column on Palace Square, opened 180 years ago, on September 11 (August 30, old style) 1834, on the day of the transfer of the relics of the holy noble prince Alexander Nevsky.
When excursion groups enter the Palace Square, the guides memorize the well-known “objective” that the height of the structure erected according to the design of Auguste Montferrand is 47.5 meters, the height of the column itself is 25.6 meters, the height of the angel figure is 4.5 meters, total weight the entire structure is 704 tons, that the column is the tallest monolithic column in the world, and so on. Finally they add: “And on top of the column there is a life-size figure of an angel...”
This is one of the most famous jokes about the building that immortalized the victory in Patriotic War 1812. Initially, however, at this “point” - a holy place is never empty - it was planned to erect a monument to Peter I by the elder Rastrelli: the piles for its foundation were discovered during preparatory work. As for the angel - it was sculpted by the sculptor Orlovsky - a special conversation.
But the introduction of the new structure into urban folklore began immediately. It is quite natural that, contemplating the tall figure of Nicholas I at the opening of the column, someone dropped a short formula: "Pillar of pillar - pillar". That is, in translation, a monument built by Nicholas I in honor of Alexander I. Let us also pay attention in passing to how the memory of the “blessed” capital was honored: Northern - with a purely military monument, Mother See - with a public garden near the Kremlin.
And where is Rosneft looking?
And, of course, one of the first to appear was the legend that at the first strong gust of wind the granite colossus would immediately collapse - the column, as you know, is supported solely by its own 600-ton gravity. Many great creators went through similar trials: Filippo Brunelleschi and Matvey Kazakov had to personally prove the strength of the domes they designed and built. Montferrand did not need to climb “to the top”: he simply walked with his dog every morning, almost until the day of his death, right under the column...
Among the first to emerge was the version that the Alexander Column was made, as they say, from waste. That is, one of the “extra” columns was allegedly installed on the pedestal St. Isaac's Cathedral. And it never occurred to anyone to simply estimate, even by eye, that the maximum height of the cathedral’s columns is only seventeen meters, and they weigh almost five times less.
It is known that when laying the foundation, a box with 105 coins minted in honor of the victory in the Patriotic War of 1812 was placed at the base of the monument. There is also a platinum medal with the image of the Alexander Column. So to speak, the original project - did Montferrand really foresee the coming revolutionary storms? True, no one in Northern Palmyra wanted to repeat the experience of Gustave Courbet, at whose suggestion the Vendôme Column in Paris was destroyed. In the most “fierce” years, the angel was simply covered with plywood shields. During the years of perestroika, a lot was written in the St. Petersburg press that it was supposedly supposed to install either a statue of Lenin or a bust of Stalin on top of the column... But all these “versions”, rather, are also among the later urban legends.
And the box with coins in the imagination of local inhabitants immediately turned into a box with selected champagne. (And again, no one thought that, according to the rules of winemaking, champagne is not subject to long-term storage.) At the end of the twentieth century, in accordance with technical progress, a legend was born that supposedly a huge oil (!) lake lies under Palace Square, and the Alexander Column is nothing more than a huge plug. And as soon as the column is removed, right in front Winter Palace a fountain of currently so valuable hydrocarbons will hit. And where is Rosneft looking?
Along the spiral ladder
In the memoirs of the then French ambassador in St. Petersburg, there is a mention that Montferrand initially supposedly intended to break through the thickness of the column trunk - to access its upper tier - a narrow spiral staircase. As a result, a legend was born that the column is actually hollow. This folklore is already from the category of pure anecdotes: both Montferrand - not only a talented architect, but also a capable engineer, and the emperor - a pure technician by education, could not help but understand that in this case the age of the column, especially in the St. Petersburg climate, would be very short-lived ...
The most popular legend turned out to be that the face of the four-meter angel at the top of the column was given features of resemblance to the face of Alexander I. What can you say? Only that on Palace Square (unlike many other observation points Northern capital) there are no binoculars or telescopes. And somehow - with the help of nine-fold German optics - I had to make sure that, firstly, the angel, despite church canons, under clothes is quite clearly visible female breast(who doesn’t believe it, see the corresponding sites with close-up photography on the Internet). And secondly, the features of an angel have nothing in common with the august original. And it turns out that the more correct version is that Orlovsky sculpted the face of the heavenly messenger from memory from the face of the deceased very young poetess Elizaveta Kulman...
Flying Eagles
Different times - different songs. What looks like a real curiosity is what briefly flashed at the end last century in the information flow there is an assumption that the Alexander Column was not carved from a single piece of Finnish granite, which Montferrand had previously liked at one of the mines, but from separate stone “pancakes” tightly fitted to each other.
But the custom that appeared relatively recently must be taken more seriously. In accordance with it, the groom must carry the bride around the column as many times as they wish to have children. Dr. Freud and his disciples would have a lot to think about.
But at the same time, legends and traditions, no matter how irresistible they may be, do not obligate anyone to anything serious. In contrast to the strict and completely uncharming reality. The features of which, in particular, include numerous ordeals with enormous efforts to restore the fence of the monument: bronze eagles from it, no matter how hard the vigilant guards of their Hermitage try (on the balance sheet of which the column is located), continue to disappear. And the years when the skating rink on Dvortsovaya was flooded were especially fruitful for losses.
No less interesting than the legends, and many pages real story columns. For example, its rise - thanks to the mechanism created by Augustin Betancourt - took less than two hours. A very interesting point: the monument created by a Frenchman in honor of the victory of Russian troops over his compatriots was erected according to the design of his namesake, a Russified Spaniard...
And with the recent restoration of the pillar - almost two hundred years later! - the architect’s true plan was embodied: the cracked brick abacus (the end of the column) was replaced with granite.
I have no doubt: this restoration will someday become a legend.
In the 19th century, construction technology in Europe was not very different from that of ancient Egypt. Thousand-ton blocks were lifted by hand.
Original taken from ikuv in Raising the Alexander Column in 1832
Leafing through an old magazine, I found an article about how our ancestors, who lived about 200 years ago, without any Komatsu, Hitachi, Ivanovtsev and other caterpillars, successfully solved an engineering task that is still difficult today - they delivered the blank of the Alexander Column to St. Petersburg, processed it, lifted and installed vertically. And it still stands. Vertical.
Prof. N. N. Luknatsky (Leningrad), magazine "Construction Industry" No. 13 (September) 1936, pp. 31-34
The Alexander Column, standing on Uritsky Square (formerly Dvortsovaya) in Leningrad, with a total height from the top of the foundation to top point 47 m (154 ft.), consists of a pedestal (2.8 m) and a column rod (25.6 m).
The pedestal, like the core of the column, is made of red coarse-grained granite, mined in the Pitterlak quarry (Finland).
Pitterlack granite, especially polished, is very beautiful; however, due to its coarse grain size, it is easily subject to destruction under the influence of atmospheric influences.
Gray Serdobolsky fine-grained granite is more durable. Arch. Montferand wanted to make a pedestal from this granite, but, despite intensive searches, he did not find a stone without cracks of the required size.
When extracting columns for St. Isaac's Cathedral in the Pitterlak quarry, Montferand discovered a piece of rock without cracks, measuring up to 35 m in length and up to 7 m thick, and left it untouched just in case, and when the question arose about the delivery of the monument to Alexander the First, he, having In view of this very stone, a project was drawn up for a monument in the form of a column made from a single piece of granite. The extraction of stones for the pedestal and column core was entrusted to the contractor Yakovlev, who already had experience in the extraction and delivery of columns for St. Isaac's Cathedral.
1.Work in a quarry
The method of quarrying both stones was approximately the same; first of all, the rock was cleared from the top of the covering layer to make sure that there were no cracks in it; then the front part of the granite mass was leveled to the required height and cuts were made at the ends of the granite mass; they were made by drilling so many holes in a row that they almost connected with each other.
Pitterlax Quarry (Puterlakse)
While one group of workmen was working on the slits at the ends of the mass, others were engaged in cutting the stone below to prepare for its fall; on the upper part of the massif, a groove 12 cm wide and 30 cm deep was punched along its entire length, after which, from its bottom, wells were drilled by hand through the entire thickness of the massif at a distance of 25-30 cm from each other; then a furrow, completely along the entire length, was laid with 45 cm iron wedges, and between them and the edge of the stone, iron sheets for better advancement of the wedges and to protect the edge of the stone from breakage. The workers were arranged so that there were from two to three wedges in front of each of them; on a signal, all the workers simultaneously hit them and soon cracks became noticeable at the ends of the massif, which gradually, slowly increasing, separated the stone from the general mass of rock; these cracks did not deviate from the direction outlined by numerous wells.
The stone was finally separated and tipped over with levers and capstans onto a prepared bed of branches thrown onto an inclined log grillage in a layer of 3.6 m.
Tilting an array for a column rod in a quarry
A total of 10 birch levers, each 10.5 m long, and 2 shorter iron ones were installed; At their ends there are ropes for which the workers pulled; in addition, 9 capstans with pulleys were installed, the blocks of which were firmly attached to iron pins embedded in the upper surface of the massif. The stone was turned over in 7 minutes, while work on its extraction and preparation for separation from the general rock mass lasted almost two years; the weight of the stone is about 4000 tons.
2. Pedestal for column
First, the stone for the pedestal weighing about 400 tons (24,960 pounds) was delivered; besides him, several more stones were loaded onto the ship, and the total weight of the entire loading was about 670 tons (40,181 pounds); under this weight the ship bent somewhat, but it was decided to install it between two steamships and tow it to its destination: despite the stormy autumn weather, it arrived safely on November 3, 1831.
Delivery of blocks for the pedestal of the Alexander Column
Two hours later, the stone was already unloaded onto the shore using 10 capstans, of which 9 were installed on the embankment, and the tenth was fixed on the stone itself and worked through a return block fixed on the embankment.
Moving the block for the pedestal of the Alexander Column from the embankment
The stone for the pedestal was placed 75 m from the foundations of the column, covered with a canopy, and until January 1832, 40 stonemasons were hewing it from five sides.
The future pedestal under the canopy
Of interest are the measures taken by the builders to trim the surface of the sixth lower face of the stone and install it on the prepared foundation. In order to turn the stone upside down with its lower unhewn edge, they built a long inclined wooden plane, the end of which, forming a vertical ledge, rose 4 m above ground level; under it, on the ground, a layer of sand was poured, on which the stone was supposed to lie when it fell from the end of the inclined plane; On February 3, 1832, the stone was pulled by nine capstans to the end of the inclined plane and here, after hesitating for a few seconds in balance, it fell on one edge onto the sand, and was then easily turned over. After trimming the sixth face, the stone had to be placed on rollers and pulled onto the foundation, and then the rollers were removed; To do this, 24 racks, about 60 cm high, were brought under the stone, then the sand was removed from under it, after which 24 carpenters, working very coordinated, simultaneously hewed the racks to a small height at the very bottom surface of the stone, gradually thinning them; when the thickness of the racks reached approximately 1/4 of the normal thickness, a strong cracking sound began, and the carpenters stepped aside; the remaining uncut part of the racks broke under the weight of the stone, and it sank several centimeters; this operation was repeated several times until the stone finally sat on the rollers. To install the stone on the foundation, a wooden inclined plane was again arranged, along which it was raised with nine capstans to a height of 90 cm, first lifting it with eight large levers (wags) and pulling rollers out from under it; the space formed underneath made it possible to lay a layer of mortar; since the work was carried out in winter, at temperatures ranging from -12° to -18°, Montferand mixed cement with vodka, adding one twelfth part of soap; the cement formed a thin and fluid dough and on it, with two capstans, it was easy to turn the stone, slightly lifting it with eight large waggons, in order to quite accurately install it horizontally on the upper plane of the foundation; the work of accurately installing the stone lasted two hours.
Installation of the pedestal on the foundation
The foundation was built in advance. The foundation for it consisted of 1250 wooden piles, driven from a level of 5.1 m below the level of the square and to a depth of 11.4 m; on every square meter 2 piles were driven; they were driven with a mechanical piledriver, made according to the design of the famous engineer Betancourt; The female copra weighed 5/6 tons (50 poods) and was lifted by a horse-drawn collar.
The heads of all the piles were cut to one level, determined by the fact that before it, water was pumped out of the pit and marks were made on all the piles at once; A layer of gravel was laid and compacted between the 60 cm exposed tops of the piles, and on the site leveled in this way, a foundation 5 m high was erected from 16 rows of granite stones.
3. Delivery of monolithic column rod
In the early summer of 1832, they began loading and delivering the column monolith; loading this monolith, which had a huge weight (670 tons), onto a barge was a more difficult operation than loading the stone for the pedestal; To transport it, a special vessel was built with a length of 45 m, a width along the mid-beam of 12 m, a height of 4 m and a carrying capacity of about 1100 tons (65 thousand poods).
At the beginning of June 1832, the ship arrived at the Pitterlax quarry, and the contractor Yakovlev with 400 workers immediately began loading stone; near the shore of the quarry, a pier, 32 m long and 24 m wide, was made in advance on piles from log frames filled with stone, and in front of it in the sea there was a wooden avant-pier of the same length and design as the pier; a passage (port) 13 m wide was formed between the pier and the pier; The log boxes of the pier and pier were connected to each other by long logs, covered with boards on top, forming the bottom of the port. The road from the place where the stone was broken to the pier was cleared, and the protruding parts of the rock were blown up, then logs were laid close to each other along the entire length (about 90 m); the movement of the column was carried out by eight capstans, of which 6 dragged the stone forward, and 2 located behind held the column during its dimensional movement due to the difference in the diameters of its ends; to level the direction of movement of the column, iron wedges were placed at a distance of 3.6 m from the lower base; after 15 days of work, the column was at the pier.
28 logs, 10.5 m long and 60 cm thick, were laid on the pier and the ship; along them it was necessary to drag the column onto the ship with ten capstans located on the avant-mole; In addition to the workers, 60 people were placed on capstans in front and behind the column. to monitor the ropes going to the capstans, and those with which the ship was secured to the pier. At 4 o'clock in the morning on June 19, Montferand gave the signal for loading: the column moved easily along the tracks and was almost loaded when an incident occurred that almost caused a disaster; due to the slight tilt of the side closest to the pier, all 28 logs rose and immediately broke under the weight of the stone; the ship tilted, but did not capsize, as it rested against the bottom of the port and the wall of the pier; the stone slid towards the lowered side, but stopped at the wall of the pier.
Loading the column rod onto a barge
People managed to run away, and there were no misfortunes; the contractor Yakovlev was not at a loss and immediately organized the straightening of the ship and the lifting of the stone. A military team of 600 people was called in to help the workers; Having marched 38 km in a forced march, the soldiers arrived at the quarry 4 hours later; after 48 hours After continuous work without rest or sleep, the ship was straightened, the monolith on it was firmly strengthened, and by July 1, 2 steamships delivered it to the bay. Palace embankment.
Portrait of workers delivering the convoy
To avoid a similar failure that occurred when loading the stone, Montferand with special attention concerned the arrangement of unloading devices. The river bottom was cleared of the piles remaining from the lintel after the construction of the embankment wall; using a very strong wooden structure, they leveled the inclined granite wall to a vertical plane so that the ship with the column could approach the embankment completely close, without any gap; the connection between the cargo barge and the embankment was made of 35 thick logs laid close to each other; 11 of them passed under the column and rested on the deck of another heavily loaded vessel, located on the river side of the barge and serving as a counterweight; in addition, at the ends of the barge, 6 more thicker logs were laid and strengthened, the ends of which on one side were firmly tied to the auxiliary vessel, and the opposite ends extended 2 m onto the embankment; The barge was firmly pulled to the embankment with the help of 12 ropes encircling it. To lower the monolith to the shore, 20 capstans worked, of which 14 pulled the stone, and 6 held the barge; The descent went very well within 10 minutes.
In order to further move and raise the monolith, a solid wooden scaffolding was built, consisting of an inclined plane, an overpass going to it at a right angle and a large platform that occupied almost the entire area surrounding the installation site and rose 10.5 m above its level.
In the center of the platform, on a sandstone massif, scaffolding was built, 47 m high, consisting of 30 four-beam racks, reinforced with 28 struts and horizontal ties; The 10 central posts were higher than the others and at the top, in pairs, were connected by trusses on which lay 5 double oak beams, with pulley blocks suspended from them; Montferand made a model of the scaffolding in 1/12 life-size and subjected it to the examination of the most knowledgeable people: this model greatly facilitated the work of the carpenters.
Lifting the monolith along an inclined plane was carried out in the same way as moving it in a quarry, along continuously laid beams with capstans.
Movements of the finished column: from the embankment to the overpass
At the beginning of the overpass
At the end of the overpass
On the overpass
On the overpass
At the top, on the overpass, he was pulled onto a special wooden cart that moved along the rollers. Montferand did not use cast iron rollers, fearing that they would be pressed into the flooring boards of the platform, and he also abandoned balls - the method used by Count Carbury to move the stone under the monument to Peter the Great, believing that preparing them and other devices would take a lot of time. The cart, divided into two parts 3.45 m wide and 25 m long, consisted of 9 side beams, laid close to each other, and reinforced with clamps and bolts with thirteen transverse beams, on which the monolith was laid. It was installed and strengthened on a trestle near an inclined plane and the mass was pulled in with the same capstans that pulled it upward along this plane.
4. Raising the column
The column was raised by sixty capstans installed on scaffolding in a circle in two rows in a checkerboard pattern and reinforced with ropes to piles driven into the ground; each capstan consisted of two cast-iron drums mounted in a wooden frame and driven by four horizontal handles through a vertical shaft and horizontal gears (Fig. 4); From the capstans, ropes went through guide blocks, firmly fixed at the bottom of the scaffolding, to pulley blocks, the upper blocks of which were suspended from the double oak crossbars mentioned above, and the lower ones were attached to the column rod with slings and continuous rope harnesses (Fig. 3); the ropes consisted of 522 heels of the best hemp, which withstood a load of 75 kg each during testing, and the entire rope - 38.5 tons; the total weight of the monolith with all accessories was 757 tons, which, with 60 ropes, gave about 13 tons of load for each, i.e., their safety factor was assumed to be threefold.
The raising of the stone was scheduled for August 30; to work on capstans, teams from all guards units were equipped in the amount of 1,700 privates with 75 non-commissioned officers; The very important work of lifting the stone was organized very thoughtfully, the workers were arranged in the following strict order.
On each capstan, under the command of a non-commissioned officer, 16 people worked. and, in addition, 8 people. was in reserve to relieve tired people; the senior member of the team ensured that the workers walked at an even pace, slowing down or speeding up depending on the tension of the rope; for every 6 capstans there was 1 foreman, located between the first row of capstans and the central scaffolding; he monitored the tension of the ropes and conveyed orders to the senior members of the team; every 15 capstans constituted one of 4 squads, led by Montferand's four assistants stationed at each of the four corners tall forests, on which there were 100 sailors who monitored the blocks and ropes and straightened them; 60 dexterous and strong workers stood on the column itself between the ropes and held the polyopast blocks in correct position; 50 carpenters were in different places forests just in case; 60 stonemasons stood at the bottom of the scaffolding near the guide blocks with the order not to let anyone near them; 30 other workers guided the rollers and removed them from under the cart as the column was raised; 10 masons were at the pedestal to pour cement mortar on top row granite on which the column will stand; 1 foreman stood at the front of the scaffolding, at a height of 6 m, to give a signal with a bell to start lifting; 1 boatswain was on the very high point scaffolding at the pole for raising the flag as soon as the column is in place; 1 surgeon was below the scaffolding to provide first aid and, in addition, there was a team of workers with tools and materials in reserve.
All operations were managed by Montferand himself, who, two days beforehand, made a test of raising the monolith to a height of 6 m, and before starting the lifting, he personally verified the strength of the piles holding the capstans, and also inspected the direction of the ropes and scaffolding.
The raising of the stone, at the signal given by Montferand, began exactly at 2 o'clock in the afternoon and proceeded quite successfully.
Beginning of the column lifting
The column moved horizontally with the cart and at the same time gradually rose upward; at the moment of its separation from the cart, 3 capstans, almost simultaneously, stopped due to the confusion of several blocks; at this critical moment one of the upper blocks burst and fell from the height of the scaffolding into the middle of a group of people standing below, which caused some confusion among the workers surrounding Montferand; Fortunately, the teams working on the nearby capstans continued to walk at an even pace - this quickly brought calm, and everyone returned to their places.
Soon the column hung in the air above the pedestal, stopping its upward movement and aligning it strictly vertically and along the axis with the help of several capstans, they gave a new signal: everyone working on the capstans made a 180° turn and began to rotate their handles in the opposite direction, lowering the ropes and slowly lowering the column exactly into place.
Raising the column lasted 40 minutes; the next day, Menferand checked the correctness of its installation, after which he ordered the scaffolding to be removed. Work on finishing the column and installing decorations continued for another two years and it was finally ready in 1834.
Bishebois, L. P. -A. Bayo A. J. -B. Grand opening Alexander Column (August 30, 1834)
All operations for the extraction, delivery and installation of the column must be considered very well organized; however, one cannot help but note some shortcomings when compared with the organization of work on moving the stone for the monument to Peter the Great, carried out under the leadership of Count Carbury 70 years earlier; these shortcomings are as follows:
1. When loading the stone, Caburi flooded the barge, and it settled on the hard bottom of the river, so there was no danger of capsizing; Meanwhile, when loading the monolith for the Alexander Column, they did not do this, and the barge tilted, and the whole operation almost ended in complete failure.
2. Carburi used screw jacks to lift and lower, while Montferand lowered the stone in a rather primitive and somewhat dangerous way for workers, cutting off the racks on which it lay.
3. Carbury, using an ingenious method of moving the stone on brass balls, significantly reduced friction and made do with a small number of capstans and workers; Monferand's statement that he did not use this method due to lack of time is incomprehensible, since the extraction of the stone lasted almost two years and during this time all the necessary devices could have been made.
4. The number of workers when lifting the stone was large; however, it must be taken into account that the operation lasted very short and that the workers were mostly ordinary military units, dressed up for the raising as if for a ceremonial parade.
Despite these shortcomings, the entire operation of raising the column is an instructive example of a well-thought-out organization with a strict and clear establishment of work schedules, placement of workers and assignment to each acting person his responsibilities.
1. It is customary to write Montferand, however, the architect himself wrote his last name in Russian - Montferand.
2. “Construction industry” No. 4 1935.
Thanks to Sergei Gaev for providing the magazine for scanning.
