In the park area of ​​Rybinsk, located on the Volga embankment, not far from the Old pilot Grain Exchange, is the only worldwide memorial monument Burlacu. This sculpture is associated with the collective image of the Volga workers - porters, boatmen and kryuchnikov.

Installation of the sculpture came in 1977 on the street Proletarian, which coincided with the 200th anniversary of Empress Catherine II assigning so-called Fish settlement status of the city. The architect of the project was N. Losev, and in the face of the sculptor made Pisarevsky L. The height of the sculpture reaches 1, 6 meters. She poured in bronze and set on a large boulder. Nearby there is a memorial marble plaque on which is written the text: "Burlak. Sculptor Pisarevsky LM (1906-1974 g). The monument was erected in the city of Rybinsk - the former capital of the boatmen - the day of the 200th anniversary of the city in 1977 ". In mid-1996 it was decided to postpone the monument on the waterfront - a pilot exchange. The sculpture is included in the excursion program of Rybinsk.

As you know, Rybinsk has always been famous as a fishing settlement, the capital of the boatmen and the state grain market. Over the years, the fresh fish - sturgeon and sturgeon - served to the prince's table. There was a period of time when there is grain trade was focused all the Volga. This city could only be compared Odessa and St. Petersburg, but almost all of the water surface was occupied by small boats or large ships. In the navigation period here crowd huge numbers plavschikov forest, sailors and boatmen. Boatmen work is described in detail in the literature, NA Nekrasov, Gilyarovski VA and some other popular poets and writers.

It was believed that the boatmen worked Artel, while the number of employees reached more than three hundred people. At the age of 18 years Giljarovsky VA He was held with the team of the way, from Yaroslavl and Rybinsk ending, as he later wrote in a story titled "My wanderings." The book was written even verbatim words that haulers pulled their boats.

To be more precise, the Boatmen were wage earners, while the name has become a tradition from the 16th century. Boatmen manually moved the riverboats using twine, rope and oars. These people were peasants - immigrants from non-black earth provinces - it turns out that they had to pay taxes in the form of rents. Number of boatmen largely reduced to the middle of the 19th century - after all this time have been applied horses, and, after a while, began to appear steam engines to move the court. According to reliable sources, in 1851 in the city of Rybinsk, there were approximately 150 thousand boatmen.

For the transportation of grain or other products used in a variety of vessels move that could no one way. For example, a large boat could deliver anchor weighs about 200 kg ahead for 1 km and then it dropped into the water at depth and then returned to the boat and unwound the rope. While on board, every worker snapped a strap that is attached to the rope, and so they went up one after the other on the deck. For the general concentration of forces it was necessary to accompany your move some sad singing - these efforts could move in the direction of the vessel directly to the anchor. Summarizing, we can say that this is how the ship was held for about 30 km. With regard to the second method, it is provided that the vessel was attached to the mast with the longest cable length of 200 meters. Haulers themselves wore special straps and pulled them - the ship was moving at a speed of 25 km per day.

Apart from the indigenous Russian people as boatmen were out of town and, for example, the Chuvash and Tatars. It is clear that the work was very hard, thankless and exhausting, but not always in the boatmen came from acute needs - some choose this type of activity by vocation, because many were just prone to such works.

Exhausting life boatmen had been completed with the first ring of ships. Today we can see only one has come down since the time Burlacu, and is made of bronze.