Lighthouses of Russia series on postage stamps

Lighthouses of Russia series on postage stampsGelendzhik Front Range Lighthouse

The Gelendzhik Front Range Lighthouse is the oldest working lighthouse on the Black Sea coast. It is a monument of architecture. The Front Range Lighthouse is located in Gelendzhik at the address: 1 Mayachnaya Street, Lermontovsky Boulevard.

The lightnouse was built on August 19, 1897. The author of the building is considered to be French architect François Joseph de Tonde. Range lighthouses, unlike identification beacons, which are used to indicate a point or danger, always work in pairs. They point to a certain line and warn sailors of a necessity to change course. Range lighthouses are built in different heights. The rear range of a lighthouse is always higher. The one on the quay is the front range, closest to the ship. The tower of the lighthouse is provided with a built-in box with shutters, which are, in fact, the ranges that gave the name to this type of lighthouses. These ranges cover the light of green and red lanterns. The green light signals that the ship is to the right of the safe area for the ships approaching the shore, and the red light signals that the ship is to the left of that area. In this way, lighthouses regulate a safe entry into the bays.

Krasny Partizan Lighthouse

The Krasny Partizan Lighthouse came into operation on July 14, 1897, and until 1926, it had the name of the Nikolaevskii Lighthouse. The author of the project and the main builder of the lighthouse was engineer in the rank of Lieutenant Colonel K. Leopold. The building of the lighthouse is located on the shore of the Tatar Strait, 60 meters from the shoreline and 12 km from the town of Sovetskaya Gavan.

The one-story, rectangular in plan building was constructed of granite blocks. On the eastern side of the building, there is a triangular tower of the lighthouse cut into the building space. In 1919, during the Civil War, a battle between the partisans and the White Guards punitive forces took place near the lighthouse. In memory of these events, the cape and the lighthouse were renamed Red Partisan, and in 1926, a memorial obelisk was mounted on the place of the execution. The lighthouse is registered in the list of objects of cultural heritage of Russia.

The postage stamps feature the Gelendzhik Front Range Lighthouse against the background of the map of Gelendzhik Bay in the Black Sea and the wind rose and the Krasny Partizan lighthouse against the background of the map of Cape Krasny Partizan in the Tatar Strait and the wind rose.