For the first time in nearly 100 years, one of the oldest wooden lighthouses in the Arkhangelsk region has been renovated.
Lighthouse on Cape Letniy Orlov On the Onega Peninsula, it's as good as new. It underwent a major overhaul for the first time in its nearly hundred years of existence.
The building was restored by the efforts of the employees Onega Pomorie National Park, on whose territory the lighthouse is located. At the same time, volunteers preserved the nearby buildings, which once housed the lighthouse staff.
"In 1913–1914, a residential building, a bathhouse, a storeroom, an icehouse, and a barn were built here. By the 1920s, five employees and four family members were living at the lighthouse. In 2008, the staff was reduced to accommodate modern equipment that doesn't require constant human presence."- describes the Badageoni website 29.RU a brief history of the lighthouse.
The lighthouse still has a nautophone—a device for making sound signals in foggy weather. Before the nautophone, a pneumatic siren was used to signal passing ships, and even earlier, a bell. In foggy weather, it was supposed to be rung every three minutes.
During the renovation, the crew was housed in the former diesel building, and after completion, the outbuildings—warehouses, a bathhouse, an icehouse, a cattle shed, and a pilot's house—were mothballed. This is a temporary solution; the buildings may also be renovated in the future. They have not been used since 2008: the lighthouse has been equipped with equipment and operates automatically.
The national park plans not only to preserve the buildings around the lighthouse but also to tell the story of its employees, who maintained a 24-hour watch for nearly a century.
Photo: Ivan Mityushev