Posts tagged with “History”
The red double-decker bus is the sign of England like Queen, Big Ben and football. But there was double decker in USSR! By the end of 30th of the previous century, there were two levels trolley buses YaTB-3 (ЯТБ-3, it’s abbreviation of Yaroslavl Trolley Bus) on Moscow streets. They were made on Yaroslavl automobile plant. After 70 years there are no those trolley buses, no those plant which produced them (now it’s Yaroslavl Diesel Engine Plant “Avtodiesel”). How did they appear and why did they disappear?
The first YaTB-3 was made on June, 22th in 1938 year and in four days — the second. Initially there were only two machines, but in 1939 else eight were produced.
The basis of a construction was two levels city trolley bus (the model of 1935 year) of England company “English Electric Company”. At the first time the design was changed a bit for our conditions: the steering wheel was transmitted from the right side to the left side. English variant had only one back entrance, but YaTB-3 had both front and back doors. The trolley bus was 9,5 meters in width and 4,7 meters in height, could contain 72 sitting passengers (32 — on the first floor and 40 — on the second) and 28 standing passengers but only on the first level. The engine had 75 kilowatt (101 hp) and could reach 54 k/h.
At that time YaTB-3 had lot of new technical features: a ventilation, an electrical heating, a stylish cabin, an indicator board “There are no seat left”. The trolley bus was all metal.
Unfortunately, experience suggested that it was very complicated to control this machine in our Russian condition. Also there were lots of disadvantages of the machine: high center of gravity, low height of the cabin, bad driving in the winter and others.
By the end of 1939 year Moscow government decided to discontinue the exportation of the trolley buses. Alack, there are no any example of those trolley buses — it was the only double-decker trolley bus which was produced outside England.
Addition materials concerning Yaroslavl double-decker on the Internet (all in Russian):
March 10 (February 25), 1909 the government of Russian Empire decided to create a great bridge over Volga near Yaroslavl city. Before the main line of North Railways between Moscow and Arkhangelsk has had a gap in Yaroslavl. The building was entrusted to the engineer S. Olshevsky and all works cost approximately 5 million rubles.
And in July 25, 1911 the assembly of the first bridge span was started. The width of this building was 376 sazhen and the weight was 376000 poods. It was the construction of society Putilovskih plants. The contractors were the brothers Stanislav and Ignaty Ron.
The construction ended in 1913. Yaroslavl bridge got the official name “The bridge of Emperor Nikolas II”. There are photos and some extra information on Yarcenter.
And now we are starting another new section of our website — History. We will write some historical notes and stories related to Yaroslavl. Today I’m going to tell you about Old Yaroslavl and its taverns (pub or bar, Russian: кабак, Transliteration: kabak).
Yaroslavl residents acquainted with vodka in early of XVI century. Just about this time residents started to use the word kabak. Alexander Borodkin, PhD in History:
Yes, residents of Yaroslavl drank before vodka was invented and drank a lot. They “wormed a soul” with honey and beer. There was a brewery in each respectful house. And everyone had own secret of brewing.
After a while Yaroslavl would have completely competed with Bavaria if there had not been vodka.
Unlike “joyful” honey and beer everybody was becoming crazy when everyone got drunk. That’s why residents initially embarrassed to drink vodka and drank it at home. But the government understood that alcoholism was advantageously. And taverns begone to open.
The first kabak was near the present circus, another was on Gradusova street over the Kotorosl river. The center of trade was an area of Znamenskaya tower.
A peculiarity of kabak was that owners didn’t give any snack and they poured out vodka as much as visitors could drink. The owners were giving a drink while the visitors could stood. After they were taken away the street… Wives couldn’t enter to kabak.
There were only three pubs in 1630 in Yaroslavl, but by the end of XVII century there were lots of them. Especially there were a lot of pubs along Volga Embankment. Not far form that place there was a market with “fake” vodka. People from the whole country drank that vodka.
via Ярославль кабацкий article
