lock. It comprises four lock chambers, between which lies the basin of the Gorodets Ship Repair Yard.

Construction began on 22 April 1951. The first lockage was carried out on 14 August 1955. They are one of the five oldest hydraulic structures on the Volga.

The upper-pool locks are numbered No. 13-14, the lower-pool ones No. 15-16. Locks No. 14 and 15 are the busiest by vessel traffic and number of lockages on the entire Volga-Don Waterway.

Description

The locks of the Gorky Hydroelectric Complex were built on the left bank. There are two of them, and each has two chambers. Chamber dimensions: length — 280 m, width — 29 m, depth — 5 m.

The entrance to the upper lock is protected from waves by dams. The distance between the upper and lower locks is 1850 meters.

The difference between the upper and lower pools of the Gorky Reservoir is 16-18 m. In the chambers, vessels are lowered or raised by about 8 m.

The sills of the lower lock chambers remain a metaphysical barrier between the Upper and Lower Volga. The refusal to modernize the lower locks, and the resulting theoretical impossibility of active dredging works near Gorodets, are the formal catalyst behind the Cheboksary Catastrophe). The problem of the Gorodets Locks stems from the fact that the planned economy of the USSR needed to develop maritime shipping inland, which led to excessive dredging works on the stretch from Gorodets to Nizhny Novgorod. The annual volume of dredging was 95-140 thousand m3/km of route, whereas the average for European Russia is 10-25 thousand m3/km, and in the USA — 3.5 thousand m3/km.

In the 1990s, JSC "Giprorechtrans" worked on developing options for building a third line and additional chambers of the "Gorky Locks", but in the 2000s switched to the option of a low-head dam.

The Gorodets Locks are among the few through which zero-draft vessels on an air cushion passed.

On 22 May 2018, a caisson gate was launched, which after completion will replace the old maintenance gate. Construction of a second floating gate was also planned.

On 1 October 2018, at the cargo port of Volgograd, modernized working gates for the locks of the Gorodets Hydroelectric Complex were loaded onto a barge and prepared for shipment to Gorodets. Production of another pair of such gates was planned to be completed by the end of December 2019.

Reconstruction

There are several options for reconstructing the locks:

  • Construction of a third line of lower locks.
    This is the best option for vessels, both during construction and during operation. The cost of design work in 2011 prices, by analogy with the Nizhny Svir Lock, is 340 million rubles, and construction of the lock — 12.5 billion rubles.
  • Construction of one or two third-level chambers.
    When using third-level chambers, lockage time will be an hour longer. The cost of one chamber is less than or equal to the cost of the third line.
  • Reconstruction of one of the chambers to a lower elevation.
    Depending on the technology used, this could turn out to be the cheapest option or more expensive than the third line. If the reconstruction work is carried out to a high standard, the restrictions on navigation will be almost the same as for the third line.

Sill elevation level:

  • at a lock sill elevation of 63.3 m in the Baltic height system, combined with channel-narrowing works, a guaranteed depth of 4.0 m will be ensured. The margin for dredging works will be more than one meter. This elevation will make it possible to maintain the increased head of 17 m (design value 14 m) and not reduce power generation at the Nizhny Novgorod Hydroelectric Station.
  • a guaranteed depth of 4.0 m is also achieved at the existing sill level, but requires a flow of more than 1300 m3/s. Any lowering of the sill reduces water flow and shortens the time during which the required depth is reached. The issue is not the throughput capacity of the locks as such, but the economic inefficiency of the Soviet fleet. In addition to the Volga losing out to its younger siblings (with depths of 2..2.4 m) in terms of cargo volume, river transport worldwide as a whole is losing ground to rail and road transport, shrinking its network and share of total freight traffic.

Navigation

Operation is carried out by the Gorodets RGSiS, a division of the Volga State Basin Authority.

Navigation through the locks is possible only 7 months a year; they are inactive 40% of the time. Thus, vessel passage in 2008 opened on 28 April, in 2012 and 2018 it opened on 25 April; in 2007 and 2018 it closed on 19 November; in 2011 — on 21 November.

As of 15 July 2012, guaranteed depths at increased flow from the Nizhny Novgorod Hydroelectric Station were 3.5 m on the Balakhna and 3.8 m from Balakhna to Nizhny Novgorod.

One of the earliest Soviet projects was to narrow and deepen the Volga, which would have provided year-round navigation with the help of icebreakers. But the construction of dams made winter navigation impossible. And along with winter navigation, the sturgeon disappeared too.

Losses from insufficient depths are estimated at 0.5 billion rubles a year according to state estimates, and 0.7 billion according to private ones. RusHydro cites precisely this half-billion problem as its main argument when it wants to inflict 820 billion rubles of damage on the state.

Construction of a third line at the Gorodets Lock is the most sensible option for ensuring navigation, but it is not advantageous for power generators.

Links

Photos

See also