Oginsky Canal

The canal is named after Mikhail Kazimir Oginsky , the initiator of the construction (kanal wieki Pinski czyli port Oginski). The construction cost 12 million zlotys, most of which were allocated by Matey Butrimovich - the Pinsk swordsman and city judge. It was Matei Butrimovich who performed all the organizational work: he invited specialists, hired workers.

The main tools of the builders were saws, axes and shovels. As transport, carts drawn by horses and oxen were used. In gratitude for the development of the region, Rzeczpospolita planned the construction of a monument to Oginsky (which was reflected even in the constitution of 1768), granted him the town of Lagisin and the village of Myszkowce. The maintenance fee was charged for passing ships.

The canal was commissioned in 1783. In the XIX century, steamboats ran daily on the following routes: Pinsk - Telekhani and Pinsk - Slonim (every two days). In addition, navigation along the Yaselda and the Oginsky Canal to Vygonoshchansky Lake was carried out by horse and human traction. Thanks to the canal, the active growth of adjacent villages and villages began.

The Oginsky canal was not deep, so in dry years the movement along it and the rafting of the forest were difficult. Therefore, in accordance with the decree of Paul I dated February 23, 1795 , it was decided “to proceed with the repair of the canal in order to bring more benefits to Russian citizens,” which allocated 60 thousand rubles. Repair continued from 1799 to 1804. After reconstruction, its width reached 10 meters. By the decree of Alexander I of February 23 ( March 6 ), 1804 ^[2] , the states and charges “approved of the passage of ships and rafts” were approved.

From the statements of the Grodno Statistical Committee of 1837 it is known that the cost of goods that were transported through the Oginsky Canal in 1836 (salt, wheat, vinegar, flax seeds, oats, lard, peas, rye, clay and earthenware, glass, brick, tobacco, etc.) amounted to 1.5 million rubles. The channel also delivered iron (and its products) and even jewelry from abroad, and silk and wine were brought from the south.

The channel was badly damaged during the First World War . All hydraulic structures were blown up and burned.

After the accession of Western Belarus to Poland, the Polish authorities actively took up the renewal of the water artery. The canal was quickly restored, modernized (in 1926 and 1928) and successfully operated until 1939. Opposite the village of Gortol, a metal bridge was thrown over it, which, when passing the steamer, was bred. Mostly the canal was used for rafting, but passenger ships with steam engines went here on both sides.

From 1939 to 1941, the canal was used only for timber rafting and occasionally for shipping.

In 1942, as a result of a battle between Soviet partisans and German troops, the canal’s navigation system was destroyed and was no longer restored.

After the war, it was planned to restore the water system (as the shortest route from the Caspian and Black Seas to the Baltic) with the assignment of its status, as they used to say, to “an object of allied significance,” but these plans were not destined to be realized. ^[3] The canal finally fell into disrepair in the 1960s , when the remaining locks and dams were blown up.

The canal has become a tourist attraction. The channel has not yet been restored, and the question of its restoration is still open. The condition of the canal is deplorable for almost its entire length (from the 1st to the 45th km), only two sections of the canal are in normal condition: the resting place of the residents of Telekhan is Lake Vulkovskoye, which is part of the canal, and Lake Vygonoshchanskoye, with a four-kilometer puncture and the remnants of the 10th gateway. And the condition of the canal from the 15th kilometer to Lake Vulkovsky is especially sad.

In 1980, at the exit from Lake Vygonovsky, the canal was blocked by an earthen dam ^[4] .

As of 2007, the canal is not operational. In many places, the width of the canal does not exceed 10 m, the depth is 0.5 m. The communications and bridges erected after World War II do not allow the canal to be used for shipping.

Repeatedly proposed projects to restore the channel, but they were recognized as ineffective. According to preliminary calculations, the reconstruction of the canal will require more than 40 billion bel. rubles. ^[5] In 2007, due to weather conditions (drought followed by torrential rains), the Oginsky Canal together with the Shchara River turned into an ecological disaster zone; then the stock of fish, especially pike, fell sharply. The incident occurred due to the pumping of stagnant water in the swamps into the canal and the Shchara River, which led to the mass death of fish.

Reconstruction of the canal involves the restoration of only a certain part of the canal (Lake Vygonoshchanskoye - Vygonoshchi village - checkpoint of the reserve), that is, almost only 5 km of the canal. And the compelled reconstruction of the 10th lock is connected only with the fact that its gate became unusable and began to pass water from Vygonoshchansky Lake into the Shchara River. This led to the fact that the canal on the site village Vygonoshchi - the village of Vulka Telekhanskaya almost turned into a ditch with standing water. And the level of Lake Vulkovsky without feeding it from Vygonoshchansky Lake also began to fall. A canal at the intersection of roads to Lake Vygonoshchanskoye and Bobrovichi presents a 50-centimeter puncture in the poured earth across the channel of the canal, and the water level from the side of Vygonoshchanskoye is lower than the level of the puncture pipe.

The canal, this artificial waterway connecting the Neman with the Dnieper basin, is called the engineering miracle of the 18th century. It is hoped that perhaps the channel will be included in the UNESCO World Heritage List .

• Oginsky Canal (neopr.) . www.radzima.org . Date of treatment April 28, 2019.
• Oginsky waterway. Old map. (unspecified) . www.karty.by . Date of treatment April 28, 2019.
• Oginsky channel on Yandex.Maps (Russian) . maps.yandex.ru . Date of treatment April 28, 2019.