| Sailors from Yerevan decided to follow the path of medieval Cilician merchants Last Friday evening, the sailing ship Cilicia, a copy of a 13th-century merchant ship, arrived at the port of Sochi. It was on such boats that the merchants of the Cilician Armenian state, according to the expedition members, plied the seas and oceans. The first stage of this great voyage, which the current, as they call themselves, “land-dwelling” Armenians dared to undertake, was quite successful: in three days the ship covered the path from the Georgian city of Poti to the Russian resort of Sochi. Moreover, for two of these three days, the crew of the 20-meter "Cilicia" fought with a six-force storm, which broke both steering oars. They were repaired on the open sea, and the ship emerged from a serious scrape with virtually no losses, proving that it has decent seaworthiness and is quite capable of reaching the final destination of the planned route - Amsterdam.
In the capital of the Netherlands, "Cilicia" will drop anchor, as expected, in the fall of 2005. The sailing ship must travel seven seas, making port calls in 22 countries. From Sochi the ship will go to Tuapse, then to Novorossiysk. Then there will be stops at the ports of Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Greece, Cyprus, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt. If everything goes well, “Cilicia” will remain in Italy, in Venice, for the winter. And next spring the journey will continue.
“The last time Armenian sailors sailed this route was 800 years ago,” says the ship’s captain, president of the Yerevan Ayas Marine Research Club, Karen Balayan. - Now the main thing is to conduct a historical experiment. For example, we have already determined that on such a ship, with such a sailing rig, it is possible to change course, tack, in three different ways...”
The idea to build a life-size copy of an ancient Cilician sailing ship and set sail on it was born by passionate ship modeler Karen Balayan many years ago. Then he was an electronics engineer, working at the Institute of Applied Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the Armenian SSR. He saw miniatures of such ships and their descriptions in the Yerevan Matenadaran - the famous repository of ancient books. According to historians of the Middle Ages, the Cilician Armenian state, which existed from 1080 to 1385 (its territory was located in the south of modern Turkey), was a great maritime power, and 25 port cities of Cilicia conducted intensive trade with the countries of Europe, Asia and Africa. By the way, Karen Balayan named his marine research club “Ayas”, which brought together more than two dozen project participants, after the largest Cilician port.
The sailboat took exactly 11 years to build. Its “skeleton” is made of oak, the paneling is made of pine. The fasteners are only copper - only 10 thousand rivets, the production of which took more than a ton of copper. With a length of 20 meters and a beam of 5 meters, the vessel has a draft of 1.5 meters and a displacement of 50 tons. It is capable of carrying 10 tons of cargo. One mast rises 13 meters above the deck of the ship; it carries one so-called “Latin” triangular sail with an area of up to 100 square meters. meters. But even with such a relatively modest sailing armament, “Cilicia”, as it turned out, is capable of reaching speeds of up to 18 km per hour.
There are currently 15 people on the Cilicia. Living conditions on board the ship are spartan. The crew lives either in one common wardroom on wooden bunks, or directly on the deck. Only the captain has a separate cramped cabin. Modern parts include a small motor, communication and navigation devices. But on board there are also copies of ancient navigation instruments, the readings of which are constantly compared with data from satellite locators. The crew members even have uniforms made from medieval designs, which they plan to wear to participate in ceremonial receptions. And, as the captain said, for the purity of the experiment, the crew of the "Cilicia" tries to eat only those foods that Armenian sailors could eat in the 13th century - basturma, crackers... For example, potatoes and tomatoes are crossed out from the menu, because in they did not yet exist in this part of the world at that time. Igor GLANIN, Sochi |
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