The Shukhov Tower on the Oka is a 128-meter hyperboloid lattice tower serving as a power line support, built in 1927–1929 to the design of engineer Vladimir Shukhov on the bank of the Oka, 12 kilometers south of Dzerzhinsk in Nizhny Novgorod Region. It is the only surviving hyperboloid multi-section power line support in the world built as a load-bearing lattice shell, and one of two multi-section high-rise hyperboloid structures by Shukhov that have survived in Russia (the other is the Shabolovka Tower in Moscow).[1] In 2013 it was placed under state protection as a cultural heritage site of federal significance.[1]
Construction and design
The tower was built as part of the GOELRO plan: the complex of support towers carrying the 120 kV NiGRES overhead power line across the Oka was constructed from 1927 to 1929 between Bogorodsk and Dzerzhinsk.[2] In all, six hyperboloid support towers were built — three pairs with heights of 128, 68, and 20 meters; these supports carried 1,800 meters of high-voltage wires.[2]
The 128-meter tower consists of five sections of 25 meters each and rests on a foundation about 34 meters in diameter; it is crowned by a horizontal steel crossarm 18 meters long, to which three high-voltage lines were formerly attached.[3][4] Assembly used a "telescopic" method: the tiers were put together on the ground inside the tower, then raised and fixed to the upper ring of the section already in place — no cranes were needed.[4] The design is based on the principle of the one-sheet hyperboloid: straight beams set along the generatrices of the surface form the characteristic lattice and give the structure a concave shape that resists wind loads and snow accumulation.[4] In height the tower exceeds the "The Motherland Calls!" monument on Mamayev Kurgan (85 meters).[3]
History after construction
In 1997 the route of the power line was changed; four towers 68 and 20 meters high were dismantled for scrap metal.[2] The two remaining 128-meter towers were recognized as cultural heritage monuments of regional significance (August 1997), but in spring 2005 one of them was illegally dismantled for scrap; the second was also under threat — of the 40 beams in its lower section, 28 survived.[2][4] The company "Nizhnovenergo", which holds the tower on its books, carried out three stages of restoration: it reinforced the structure, restored the missing beams and rings, painted the tower, reinforced the riverbank, and built a pedestrian embankment.[1]
In September 2013 the Ministry of Culture of Russia included the tower in the Unified State Register of Cultural Heritage Sites (Monuments of History and Culture) of the Peoples of the Russian Federation as a site of federal significance.[1] In 2019, at a meeting of the Nizhny Novgorod Region government, Aleksey Alekhin, head of the regional tourism department, proposed moving the tower to the Vyksa Industrial and Tourism Park; the implementation of this plan was never publicly confirmed.[2] By 2020 the tower had been developed as a tourist attraction: daily illumination from 6:00 p.m. until midnight was introduced, and visiting the grounds is free and open around the clock.[4]
Significance and assessments
The Shukhov Tower on the Oka is the only operating multi-section hyperboloid power line tower in the world built as a load-bearing lattice shell.[1] Western experts and UNESCO specialists have repeatedly called it more perfect than the Moscow tower on Shabolovka and worthy of inclusion on the World Heritage List; attempts to secure this status have been under way since the early 2010s.[2][3] The tower stands on a spit of land where the Oka makes a bend and is accessible to tourists; next to it is a sandy beach.[3] It can be reached from Nizhny Novgorod via the R-152 and M-7 highways or by river route along the Oka.[5]
Sources
- nn.rbc.ru — Shukhov Tower on the Oka becomes a federal cultural heritage site — RBC
- dzertv.ru — The tower we will lose — Dzerzhinsk TV
- tourister.ru — Shukhov Tower on the Oka, Dzerzhinsk — height, photos, history, how to get there
- travel.ascon.ru — Shukhov Tower on the Oka
- vodoletnn.ru — Shukhov Tower — an engineering marvel on the bank of the Oka