The dream a whole country brought to life
Volkhovskaya HPP — The “first-born” of GOELRO
The “first-born” of GOELRO (a Soviet plan for national economic recovery and development), one of the country’s oldest hydroelectric power plants (HPP), a cultural monument of national importance, an example of non-standard architectural solutions, an example of Northern Modernism... the Volkhovskaya HPP is all of these. First put into operation on December 19, 1926, the plant recently celebrated its 90th birthday.
Art Nouveau on the banks of the Volkhov
The first design for the Volkhovskaya HPP appeared as far back as 1904. It was upgraded following changes in engineering, and in 1914 the final version emerged, the blueprint to which the HPP was built. Its author Genrikh Graftio took everything into account, even its appearance: in the course of travels across Scandinavia the Russian engineer had been impressed by the buildings in the Northern Modernist style. The idea of building such an HPP with all its visible advantages met fierce resistance from a powerful lobby of joint-stock companies, whose steam power plants supplied the northern capital with electric power. Nobody was going to let a competitor offering cheaper resources gain access to the market.
After October 1917 everything changed. A new country was face with new conditions – Britain stopped supplying coal, and difficulties appeared with the transportation of coal from Donetsk and oil from Baku. Graftio’s project had lived to see its hour: it came to the attention of Vladimir Lenin.
The Volkhovstroi organization was set up to build the power plant. The time was difficult: a fuel crisis, the fever of the Civil War, a shortage of experts and technology. A significant part of the labor contract went abroad – the main part of the equipment (turbines, generators, transformers, electric equipment) was given to the Swedes.
However, professional honor surged up in the workers of Petrograd – they announced that they were ready to begin manufacturing machines. As a result parts of the order were given to in-house production – the Elektrosila, Baltic and Metal plants, and the Krasny Putilovets factory were engaged in the work. The workers and engineers dealt admirably with the task of import substitution!
A monument to science
It is no coincidence that the Volkhovskaya HPP has been recognized as a monument to science and engineering. Ninety-year old placards, marble panels, unusual lanterns, a checkerboard floor pattern... All this creates a unique atmosphere.
“We have preserved everything here,” says Natalya Bystrova, Director of the North-West Power Engineering History Museum. ”The big lancet windows with divisions, the rail on the main staircase. We have preserved even the staircase itself, though it has chips in the steps, which only emphasize its historic nature.”
The school of hydroelectric construction
Western papers referred to the Volkhovskaya HPP as one of the Soviet wonders.
”That was a dream implemented by the whole country,” says Alexei Barvinok, CEO of TGC-1. “Fifteen thousand people worked during the most difficult years of destitution and hunger, in frosty winters and summer heat to harness the river and make it serve the benefit of people.”
It is no coincidence that later Volkhovstroi was labeled the school of the Soviet hydro-electric construction. Featuring a number of uncommon designer solutions, the uniqueness of the plant is seen from afar: it was not built directly across the Volkhov River, but at an angle, in order to accommodate more machines. Today the plant, now part of the Ladoga Cascade HPP, comprises eight units (six main and two auxiliary). Most of the machines are units made by LMZ and Elektrosila.
“The Volkhovskaya HPP resembles an integrated organism, where everything is interrelated,” says Stanislav Guts, Chief Engineer of the Ladoga Cascade HPP. “For instance, the heating is interconnected with the generating equipment: the units are not provided with forced water cooling – air cooling is used, while heated air is supplied for heating the turbine hall. An other peculiarity: as a rule, nowadays every unit at plants is provided with its own control system and oil pressure installation, responsible for pressure in the unit. This problem is solved at the Volkhovskaya HPP by means of a single pump and a network of connecting pipelines – a kind of umbilical cord connecting all the machines”.
On July 28, 1926 through shipping traffic was opened along the Volkhov via the HPP sluice. During the same year in the early hours of December 5 the plant began to supply electric power to the plants of Leningrad, and on December 19 the first three hydraulic units were launched at a grand opening with the participation of members of the government. In 1927 the remaining units were also launched. At the very beginning the plant’s capacity amounted to 58 МW, but by the beginning of World War II in the USSR it had grown to 66 МW.
Life hanging by a cable
At the end of 1941 German troops were advancing rapidly towards Volkhov, so the generating equipment was dismantled and moved away. The employees of LMZ and Elektrosila participated actively in this work. The same employees reinstalled it in 1942 — the situation at the front had changed, and it had become a matter of urgency to restore Leningrad’s power supply. Three units of 8 МW each were have installed and started. The “Cable of Life” laid across the bottom of Lake Ladoga supplied the besieged city with power from the Volkhovskaya HPP and helped it withstand the most difficult period of the Nazi siege.
In October 1944, Building & Construction Department No. 1 of the Svirstroi trust of the People’s Commissariat of Power Plants finished restoring and putting into operation the plant’s eight main hydraulic units, with a total capacity of 64 МW. The HPP was completely restored with victory in 1945.
A hydroelectric power romantic
This is how Genrikh Grafitio was labelled and he fully justified his nickname. In 1922, at his urging, Carrara marble was brought specifically for the turbine hall of the Volkhovskaya HPP, and black and white tiles for the floor were brought from Prague to a country bled white by the Civil War. The engineer appeared to be a real perfectionist — the same as Oscar Munts, the architect heading this project — a most rare example of the so-called “rationalism” (1920-s Constructivism).
To mark the plant’s anniversary, TGC-1 has opened a monument in honor of the builders and power engineers of the Volkhovskaya HPP, exhibiting one of the HPP’s first radiaxial runners. This 38-ton cast iron assembly with 12 blades served faithfully for many years – from 1926 until reconstruction in 2009.
A museum devoted to the plant’s history was opened in the building of the Volkhovskaya HPP to mark the anniversary, displaying unique documents, pictures and technical exhibits. Special atten- tion was paid to Oscar Munts, the building’s architect, Genrikh Graftio, the man who built the plant, and his wife and muse Antonina. In her honor Genrikh Osipovich put both the Volkhovskaya HPP and the Nizhne-Svirskaya HPP back into operation on December 19 – the date of Graftio’s wedding.
