The Lighthouse on the Basargin Cape
As any other seaside town, Vladivostok is famous for its lighthouses, each of which has its own name and unique history. The Basargin Lighthouse standing at the city's main sea gates is recognized as one of the most famous and beautiful among them. Being among Vladivostok's most recognizable symbols, it has been serving as an important navigation reference for the vessels that enter the Zolotoy Rog Bay through the Eastern Bosphorus strait for 75 years now.
The lighthouse stands on the Basargin Cape that is located on the southeastern extremity of the namesake peninsula that separates the Patrokl Bay from the Ussuri Bay. The cape is a high rock overgrown with grass and connected to the cliffs by the low rocky isthmus, whose shores are covered with picturesque boulders. The Basargin Cape's area is very difficult and dangerous for navigation because the cape is rocky and precipitous, ringed with above- and underwater reefs.
Therefore, in 1937, it was decided to install a lighthouse here that would show the safe way to the ships entering the Vladivostok port. It was named - the same as the peninsula and the cape - after Vladimir Basargin, the prominent vice-admiral, round-the-world navigator and Peter the Great Gulf's researcher. Lighthouse's first tower was wooden and had a pretty primitive structure. At that time it was called not the lighthouse, but the shining navigation mark because the acetylene fire was used in it.
20 years later the wooden sign was replaced with eight-meter high stone octahedral tower, painted - as the most lighthouses - in red and white horizontal stripes. Somewhat later maintenance building for the sound signal device - nautophone - was built near the rocky isthmus. Today the Basargin Lighthouse shines the green light that can be received up to ten nautical miles away.
It still performs its main function failure-free - provides for safe navigation in the Eastern Bosphorus strait - and together with the lighthouse on the Skryplev Island forms gates to Vladivostok port. In addition, it invariably attracts numerous travelers and sea romance seekers.
It is not easy to reach the lighthouse on the Basargin Cape: the access is restricted and the territory is guarded. The simplest way to get to the cape is to reach it on your own by sea.