The development of Kyiv telegraph

The Kyiv telegraph was founded in 1854, when the aerial line of communication was laid between Moscow and Kyiv. In 1856 the state telegraph office was opened on Vladimirska street, #22 – in the very centre of Kyiv near Saint Sophia Cathedral. Telegraph (from the classical Greek words to write and far away) – is the method in which signals are transmitted through wire, radio or other electric channels of connection.

The history of telegraph originates in 1778, when the optical telegraph was created between observatories in Greenwich and Paris, where fire was used to transmit the signal.

The main part of such a telegraph, the heliograph, is a mirror through which light is directed to a specified location, where an identical mirror is installed. The conventional signs are made by short turns of the mirrors to one side or another.

But it wasn’t until 1780 that a practical device, invented by the Chappe brothers, saw large scale use.The simplest example of this device was a chain of typical constructions including perches and movable bolsters on the roof. These constructions were located within the range of vision to each other. The perches with movable bolsters - the semaphores, were managed by ropes and controlled by special operators from inside the constructions.

Chappe created a special table of codes, where each letter of the alphabet had a matching figure, formed by semaphore, depending on the state of the transversal bolsters to the abutting perches.

The Chappe system gave the opportunity to pass messages at a speed of two words per minute, and quickly gained popularity throughout Europe.

The first electromagnetic telegraph was created by the Russian scientist Pavel Lvovich Shylling in 1832. It was demonstrated to the public at Shylling’s apartment on the 21 of October, 1832. Pavel Shylling had also developed an original code in which letters of the alphabet coincided with the certain combination of symbols of black and white circles that could be shown on the telegraph device.

Following this, telegraphs were constructed in Germany by Karl Gauss and Wilgelm Weber in 1833, in Great Britain by Kuk and Witston in 1837, and in the USA it was patented by S.Morse in 1837.

Coming back to the development of the telegraph in Kyiv, the new telegraph lines between Kyiv and Odessa and Kyiv and Berlin became soon functional. In 1881, the first postal-telegraph offices were opened in the city and. They amounted 14 offices by 1914.

In 1911 the telegraph exchange amounted more than 8 million telegrams. In 1912, the transcontinental Indo-European line was opened, which also passed trough Kyiv.

After the proclamation of the Soviet system in Kyiv, the city telegraph occupied the building of the former Land-bank, located on the Volodymyrska street, 10 (the building by architect Kobelev, 1903).

Prior to the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, the telegraph connection was provided by photo-telegraph between Kyiv and 7 other cities; here the Bodo nine-multiplex apparatus was used which had the ability to pass two or more messages through one wire to one direction, and allowed the handling and exchange of up to one thousand telegrams per hour.

In 1951, the centre of automated telegram receiving was commissioned.The photo-telegraph was first put into operation in 1961 which accepted 14 main newspapers from Moscow. In 1967 the automatic station of the telegraph concentrator began to work. It provided the operational document connection through the teletype network for around 300 subscribers within the enterprises of relevant fields.

In 1972, the commutative telegraph station served 2000 telegraph subscribers and had 1100 lines. In 1978 a new data exchange station began functioning. Its subscribers were computer centers of different companies, and their clients.

With the course of time, the telegraph became obsolete as was replaced by mobile telephony and later the internet.

The word “telegraph” itself has become archaic.

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November 2013