Everyone loves the navy. But Russia is a river power, and the real navy of Russia, one of the greatest in the world, is the river fleet. But society hardly notices it. That is, it does not notice the country in which it lives.
Rus' turned into Russia, spreading along the rivers. The pioneers went on barges and boats, planks and barges. Peter I turned his state into an empire and built the first canals for the capital, and Catherine II, continuing Peter's work, established navigation rules on them. Then these rules were extended to all the rivers of the Fatherland. Thus, from a motley mass of river vessels, a "regular" fleet was formed. River fleet.
The first Russian steamship was a river ship, and the first motor ship was too. There were never enough roads in the country, and progress made its way to Russia along the rivers. It was carried by river vessels. Advanced technologies, industrial, economic and social, first appeared on the river fleet. The river fleet participated in all the affairs of the motherland. Peasants freed from the serfdom went to work as steamship operators, and the first companies were shipping companies. The heyday of capitalism was river trusts and syndicates. The civil war was the battles of river armored fleets. The bravura Stakhanovite movement, the grandiose construction projects of industrialization, and the cruel GULAG had their own ships. During the Great Patriotic War, river ships evacuated thousands of factories and millions of people, river ships fought the enemy at the front. And the post-war heyday of the USSR was the heyday of the river fleet, when giant dry cargo ships moved along the rivers, passenger liners proudly sailed, and hydrofoil ships flew swiftly. This book tells not only about the development of the river fleet, but also about the people who created the river history of Russia. About the internal structure of river life. About its interrelations with politics and culture. About the disasters that shook the country and the river fleet. About amazing projects and fantastic dreams. About the inseparable kinship of the common man and the river steamer. In the end, this book tells about the fate and soul of the nation, because a ship is always both a fate and a soul.