Biały Słoń
Biały Słoń (German "White Elephant"; Ukrainian Білий Слон / Bilyj Slon , Russian Белый слон / Bely slon ) is the name of a Polish astronomical and meteorological observatory located on the summit of Pop Iwan at an altitude of 2028 m in the Chornohora area Carpathian Mountains near the village of Dzembronja . This area belonged to the Second Polish Republic between the World Wars and is now part of Ukraine . Biały Słoń, which was completed in the summer of 1938, was the highest building in Poland that was permanently occupied. The building, built in the style of constructivism , had 43 rooms and a conference room. The tower had a copper dome 10 meters in diameter.
Establishment
The recommendation to build the Biały Słoń goes back to a group of influential Warsaw astronomers who wanted to win General Leon Berbecki , director of the “Airborne War Gas Defense League” to support the project. The project was also supported by General Tadeusz Kasprzycki , Minister for Military Affairs.
Construction began in the summer of 1936. The walls were built from sandstone that was available in the area. Since there were no roads for transportation, all materials were brought in by local workers with the help of horses, supported by the 49th Hutsul Rifle Regiment . The cost of construction was one million zlotys .
The architecture was based on the Przemyśl Castle , the floor plan was L-shaped, supplemented with a tower. Biały Słoń had five floors with 43 rooms. The upper floors were available to astronomers and meteorologists, most of them were employed by the State Meteorological Institute and the Astronomical Observatory of the University of Warsaw ; Włodzimierz Zonn , Jan Gadomski and Eugeniusz Rybka were among the scientists . The lower floors were used as accommodation for the Carpathian Regiment of the Border Guard Corps of the Polish Army . In total, however, no more than twenty people lived there.
July 1938 to September 1939
The opening took place on July 29, 1938. The official name meant observatory of the State Meteorological Institute , but the name Biały Słoń soon became common due to the white walls. The observatory was equipped with a specially made astrograph with a diameter of 62 cm and a reflecting telescope from the English company Grubb Parsons . It had its own energy supply through two diesel generators and central heating; the oil for this was brought in barrels from Boryslaw . Two special radio telephones were available to the military .
The observatory was in a remote, lonely area. The nearest shop and post office were in Żabie , 20 km away, a doctor 50 km and the nearest train station in Kołomyja was 120 km away. One of the main problems was the supply of water, which was brought from the river 6 km away.
1939 and after
On September 18, 1939, after the Soviet occupation of eastern Poland , the staff left the observatory and the most important instruments were taken to Hungary.
At the end of the month, the Red Army took over the building and used it as a meteorological station. In the summer of 1941 the Wehrmacht took possession of it and left it to the Hungarian troops, who used it as accommodation until 1944. After 1945 the abandoned building fell into disrepair, although it was not damaged during the war.
In the mid-1990s, researchers from the Lviv National Polytechnic University and the Warsaw University of Technology proposed reconstruction ; Conferences on this topic were held in Lviv and Yaremche in October 1996 , but so far without any result.
credentials
- ^ Institute for Natural Sciences, Geography and Natural History - The highest peaks of the Ukrainian Carpathians and their geomorphological regions , doroga.ua, accessed on January 11, 2015
- ↑ a b Archived copy ( memento of the original dated December 12, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Pip Iwan on doroga.ua , accessed January 11, 2015
- ↑ a b c [1]
- ↑ a b c http://www.atomnet.pl/~geodeta/1997/24text.htm ( Memento from March 15, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
Web links
Coordinates: 48 ° 2 ′ 49.2 ″ N , 24 ° 37 ′ 39.3 ″ E