Yachting expedition's goal: to help world discover Ukraine

by Roman Woronowych
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Imagine a round-the-world voyage on a 25-meter yacht with a cement hull. Dmytro Birioukovitch has dreamed it and now wants to make the trip a reality.

He and the enthusiasts he has gathered around him believe that too little is known around the world about Ukraine, and that a trans-global sailing voyage would help the world discover Ukraine.

The 59-year-old owner of the two sailing vessels, the 25-meter schooner Batkivschyna and the 25-meter brigantine Pochaina, said he got the idea for the voyage after sailing the Mediterranean and realizing that seven years after independence few people know something about Ukraine, or even that such a country exists.

"In Israel," Mr. Birioukovitch recalled, "we were amazed at the number of people who came up to our boat and asked, 'That flag, what country does it represent?"

Mr. Birioukovitch and his partner, Roman Maliarchuk, 34, who owns a travel agency in Kyiv, decided that they could let the world know about Ukraine and further their own sailing interests by sailing around the globe in Mr. Birioukovitch's two vessels and acting as goodwill ambassadors for Ukraine.

The "Discover Ukraine" expedition, as the project has been dubbed in English (in Ukrainian it is being called "Let the World Discover Ukraine"), plans 90 ports-of-call during its five-year journey. At each port, crew members will set up a pavilion with information on Ukraine, its history, geography, natural resources, industries, investment possibilities and agricultural potential.

Mr. Maliarchuk said the emphasis will be on getting information about Ukraine out to the general public. "The governments of the world may know about Ukraine, but the average person doesn't," said Mr. Maliarchuk.

The Discover Ukraine expedition will promote Ukraine by making contact with residents of the port cities at which they call with their cement-bottom sailboats.

Mr. Birioukovitch, who will captain the voyage of the two sailing vessels, is a civil engineer and master yachtsman in Kyiv. Along with his two older brothers, has been building ships with Ferro-cement hulls since 1960.

The bottom of the boat is not a single block of cement, as one might imagine. The steel framework of the hulls of the ships that Mr. "the captain," as his crew affectionatly calls him builds are encased in a thin layer of a special cement mix and "smoothed to the consistency of an eggshell," explained Mr. Birioukovitch. The rest of the construction, in which more standard materials are used, proceeds from there.

"Ferro-cement has its unique qualities, which makes it better than other materials," said the yacht builder.

He explained that each material used in the construction of sailboats, whether wood, fiberglass, steel or Ferro-cement, has positive and negative aspects. Mr. Birioukovitch favors Ferro-cement for the skin of the hull because it is inexpensive, does not corrode or crack under stress, is not flammable and can be kept in the water during the winter months.

He admitted that a minor drawback is that Ferro-cement, because it is denser than other construction materials, makes each yacht heavier.

Ferro-cement was introduced as a material for use in ship construction and as a general building material in the early 1950s by Italian architect Pierre Luigi Nervi in several books he authored. Since then it has been utilized in major boat-building centers in France, Australia and New Zealand.

In the Soviet Union the brothers Birioukovitch made use of the Nervi technology in the ships they have constructed since 1960. Today Kyiv is the center of that technique and Dmytro, the youngest of the three Birioukovitch brothers, is the foremost expert on the subject in Ukraine and the former Soviet Union.

The Batkivschyna, the flagship for the expedition, was built in Mykolaiv in 1957 and used to ferry supplies to the Soviet fishing fleet off the coast of that port city. It was obtained by Mr. Birioukovitch in the late 1980s and rebuilt with a cement hull.

Mr. Birioukovitch first used the Batkivschyna in 1990 as a charter craft for people crossing the Black Sea to trade goods in Istanbul, Turkey. Since then it has made several excursions into the Mediterranean and has racked up more than 25,000 nautical miles.

The Batkivschyna also is a star of the silver screen, having been used in a movie directed by Mykhailo Iliyenko of the Kyiv Dovzhenko Film Studios. Mr. Iliyenko has expressed interest in filming the trans-global trip of the Discover Ukraine expedition.

Currently Mr. Birioukovitch uses his two ships for charter excursions along the Dnipro River. All that will change in the spring when the expedition sets sail.

Mr. Birioukovitch's round-the-world journey will consist of three stages. In the first year the two sailing vessels will travel around Europe, by means of the Bosporus, the Sea of Marmara, the Dardanelles, the Aegean Sea, the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, during which the Discover Ukraine expedition will call on 42 ports in 17 countries.

During the second leg, the expedition will cross the Atlantic Ocean and enter the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico before sailing back into the Atlantic Ocean and up into the St. Lawrence Seaway and the Great Lakes.

After traversing the U.S.-Canadian eastern border the expedition will travel into the South Atlantic, through the Panama Canal, into the Pacific, around Australia and into the Indian Ocean, past the horn of India, into the Arabian Sea.

The 60-month voyage of the Batkivschyna, the Pochaina and their crews will conclude after the expedition enters the Red Sea and the Gulf of Suez, moves back into the Mediterranean Sea, and soon afterwards into the Black Sea, heading for home.

The Batkivschyna carries a crew of 11 to 12 sailors and has berths for an additional 10 to 12 individuals, which Mr. Birioukovitch, who will captain the voyage, explained would be utilized for VIP guests and members of the press who might want to tag along for a portion of, or the entire trip.

The planned voyage has received the support of Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which will clear the way for entrance into the territorial waters of the countries and ports at which the two vessels will make calls, and the Embassy of Argentina in Ukraine, which has already extended a formal invitation for a visit by the Discover Ukraine expedition, whose ambassador is tracking the development of the effort.

In addition, Ukrainian National Radio has agreed to cover the details of the expedition in radio broadcasts.

If all goes well - which in the parlance of today's financially strapped Ukrainian sailing community, means "if all the money is raised" - Mr. Birioukovitch plans to begin his journey in May of 1999.

"We would like to be in the United States for a major sailing regatta to mark U.S. Independence Day in the year 2000," said Mr. Birioukovitch. "If we leave Kyiv in the spring of 1999, we would make it on schedule."

Mr. Birioukovitch has assembled an international organizing team to help him implement his dream. He has convinced Roy Kellogg, a lawyer from Toronto, and Ivan Ivanov, a student from Russia who is the son of Russian Embassy's consul general in Kyiv, that his dream can become a reality.

Mr. Kellogg, 43, who happens to be Mr. Birioukovitch's son-in-law as well, said Ukraine needs this type of positive self-promotion. "People are tired of hearing only the negative about Ukraine - like Chornobyl, for example," said Mr. Kellogg.

He said that his father-in-law, above all else, is a staunch supporter of independent Ukraine. "This is one man who would not leave Ukraine no matter what," said Mr. Kellogg.

Unless, of course, it's to sail around the world.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, August 23, 1998, No. 34, Vol. LXVI

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