The sun is the source of life on the planet. Its rays provide the necessary light and warmth. At the same time, ultraviolet radiation from the Sun is destructive to all living things. To find a compromise between the beneficial and harmful properties of the Sun, meteorologists calculate the ultraviolet radiation index, which characterizes the degree of its danger.

What kind of UV radiation from the sun is there?

Ultraviolet radiation from the Sun has a wide range and is divided into three regions, two of which reach the Earth.

  • UVA. Long-wave radiation range
    315–400 nm

    The rays pass almost freely through all atmospheric “barriers” and reach the Earth.

  • UV-B. Medium wave range radiation
    280–315 nm

    The rays are 90% absorbed by the ozone layer, carbon dioxide and water vapor.

  • UV-C. Shortwave range radiation
    100–280 nm

    The most dangerous area. They are completely absorbed by stratospheric ozone without reaching the Earth.

The more ozone, clouds and aerosols in the atmosphere, the less the harmful effects of the Sun. However, these life-saving factors have a high natural variability. The annual maximum of stratospheric ozone occurs in spring, and the minimum in autumn. Cloudiness is one of the most variable characteristics of weather. The carbon dioxide content also changes all the time.

At what UV index values ​​is there a danger?

The UV index provides an estimate of the amount of UV radiation from the Sun at the Earth's surface. UV index values ​​range from a safe 0 to an extreme 11+.

  • 0–2 Low
  • 3–5 Moderate
  • 6–7 High
  • 8–10 Very high
  • 11+ Extreme

In mid-latitudes, the UV index approaches unsafe values ​​(6–7) only when maximum height The sun is above the horizon (occurs in late June - early July). At the equator, the UV index reaches 9...11+ points throughout the year.

What are the benefits of the sun?

In small doses, UV radiation from the Sun is simply necessary. The sun's rays synthesize melanin, serotonin, and vitamin D, which are necessary for our health, and prevent rickets.

Melanin creates a kind of protective barrier for skin cells from the harmful effects of the Sun. Because of it, our skin darkens and becomes more elastic.

The hormone of happiness serotonin affects our well-being: it improves mood and increases overall vitality.

Vitamin D strengthens the immune system, stabilizes blood pressure and performs anti-rickets functions.

Why is the sun dangerous?

When sunbathing, it is important to understand that the line between the beneficial and harmful Sun is very thin. Excessive tanning always borders on a burn. Ultraviolet radiation damages DNA in skin cells.

The body's defense system cannot cope with such aggressive influence. It lowers immunity, damages the retina, causes skin aging and can lead to cancer.

Ultraviolet light destroys the DNA chain

How the Sun affects people

Sensitivity to UV radiation depends on skin type. People of the European race are the most sensitive to the Sun - for them, protection is required already at index 3, and 6 is considered dangerous.

At the same time, for Indonesians and African Americans this threshold is 6 and 8, respectively.

Who is most influenced by the Sun?

    People with fair hair
    skin tone

    People with many moles

    Residents of mid-latitudes during a holiday in the south

    Winter lovers
    fishing

    Skiers and climbers

    People with a family history of skin cancer

In what weather is the sun more dangerous?

It is a common misconception that the sun is dangerous only in hot and clear weather. You can also get sunburned in cool, cloudy weather.

Cloudiness, no matter how dense it may be, does not reduce the amount of ultraviolet radiation to zero. In mid-latitudes, cloudiness significantly reduces the risk of getting sunburned, which cannot be said about traditional places beach holiday. For example, in the tropics, if in sunny weather you can get sunburned in 30 minutes, then in cloudy weather - in a couple of hours.

How to protect yourself from the sun

To protect yourself from harmful rays, follow simple rules:

    Spend less time in the sun during midday hours

    Wear light-colored clothing, including wide-brimmed hats

    Use protective creams

    Wear sunglasses

    Stay in the shade more on the beach

Which sunscreen to choose

Sunscreen varies in degree of sun protection and is labeled from 2 to 50+. The numbers indicate the proportion of solar radiation that overcomes the protection of the cream and reaches the skin.

For example, when applying a cream labeled 15, only 1/15 (or 7 %) of the ultraviolet rays will penetrate the protective film. In the case of cream 50, only 1/50, or 2 %, affects the skin.

Sunscreen creates a reflective layer on the body. However, it is important to understand that no cream can reflect 100% of ultraviolet radiation.

For everyday use, when the time spent under the Sun does not exceed half an hour, a cream with protection 15 is quite suitable. For tanning on the beach, it is better to take 30 or higher. However, for fair-skinned people it is recommended to use a cream labeled 50+.

How to Apply Sunscreen

The cream should be applied evenly to all exposed skin, including the face, ears and neck. If you plan to sunbathe for a long time, then the cream should be applied twice: 30 minutes before going out and, additionally, before going to the beach.

Please check the cream instructions for the required volume for application.

How to Apply Sunscreen When Swimming

Sunscreen should be applied every time after swimming. Water washes away the protective film and, by reflecting the sun's rays, increases the dose of ultraviolet radiation received. Thus, when swimming, the risk of sunburn increases. However, due to the cooling effect, you may not feel the burn.

Excessive sweating and wiping with a towel are also reasons to re-protect the skin.

It should be remembered that on the beach, even under an umbrella, the shade does not provide complete protection. Sand, water and even grass reflect up to 20% of ultraviolet rays, increasing their impact on the skin.

How to protect your eyes

Sunlight reflected from water, snow or sand can cause painful burns to the retina. To protect your eyes, wear sunglasses with a UV filter.

Danger for skiers and climbers

In the mountains, the atmospheric “filter” is thinner. For every 100 meters of height, the UV index increases by 5 %.

Snow reflects up to 85 % of ultraviolet rays. In addition, up to 80 % of the ultraviolet reflected by the snow cover is reflected again by clouds.

Thus, in the mountains the Sun is most dangerous. It is necessary to protect your face, lower chin and ears even in cloudy weather.

How to deal with sunburn if you get sunburned

    Use a damp sponge to moisten the burn.

    Apply anti-burn cream to the burned areas

    If your temperature rises, consult your doctor; you may be advised to take an antipyretic

    If the burn is severe (the skin swells and blisters greatly), seek medical attention

Village Verkhniy Uslon is located in the western part of Tatarstan, on the right bank of the Volga. This is the closest to Kazan district center republics. Verkhny Uslon and Kazan are separated by 6 kilometers of the surface of the Kuibyshev Reservoir. Before the reservoir was flooded, there was a big Island, from which only a few islands remain.

Story

Upper Uslon was founded at the end of the 16th century (the dates given are 1575 and 1594). Before that there was a dense forest here. According to one version, the name Uslon comes from the word “oslons” - large woodpiles of harvested wood. Initially, the settlement was assigned to the Sviyazhsk Trinity-Sergius Monastery and was called New Zaimishche.

Being in close proximity to Kazan, Verkhny Uslon was relatively large settlement. Its inhabitants were mainly engaged in river fishing: they fished, worked river boats, rented out ships. At the same time, Verkhny Uslon was a vacation spot for the rich and intelligentsia of Kazan. It was the center of the volost in the Kazan district. In 1931, the village became a regional center.

Attractions

Verkhniy Uslon is a quiet place, sharply contrasting with the noisy Kazan, which is visible from the high banks of the river. Picturesque islands, good fishing attract vacationers here. The architectural heritage of Upper Uslon is represented by the Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, built in 1831.


Before talking about Verkhny Uslon, I’ll say just a few words about how we ended up there. We arrived in Kazan on June 10 at about noon, and settled down at the “base” - in a rented apartment on Pavlyukhina Street. Specifically for tourist purposes, this place was perhaps not the most convenient, but another factor that did not concern me played a role here. Yes and with transport accessibility there were no special problems. Right next to us, on Esperanto Street, there are bus stops three key routes at once, a five-minute walk from the house is the Sukonnaya Sloboda metro station. The quality of the road to Kazan (more precisely, to the border with Tatarstan) was extremely disgusting, so upon arrival it took several hours to recover. As a result, it was decided to postpone the energy-consuming trip to Baumanka and the Kremlin until the next day, and use today’s day for the easiest and most enjoyable activity - a trip to Verkhny Uslon. The next flight there was to depart from River port at 16 o'clock, and the remaining time before that we used for a walk along the street adjacent to it. Esperanto parts of Peterburgskaya street. But about her some other time.
We got to the River Port by bus route number 1. The Kazan bus generally left the most pleasant memories: the cars are red, clearly visible, very clean and comfortable, stops on some routes are announced in three languages ​​at once - Russian, Tatar and English. For the first route, the “River Port” stop is the final stop, and the appropriate audience is selected here by the end of the trip.
The fact is that the Kazan River Port is an extremely atypical phenomenon for today’s Volga region cities. The only hydrofoil line on the Volga currently operates here. Not even that: there are similar lines in other cities, for example, if I’m not mistaken, in Nizhny Novgorod, but these ships serve there tourist routes. Here the line is a living one, a transport line, and local residents use it. The Kazan agglomeration stretches up and down the Volga for several tens of kilometers, on both banks of the Volga, and the nearest road bridge on the M-7 highway is located more than twenty kilometers upstream from Kazan. Under these conditions, the local passenger fast fleet- really a solution to the problem. Directly opposite Kazan there are two dacha suburbs - Verkhniy Uslon and Pechischi. From seven o'clock in the morning until six o'clock in the evening, a hydrofoil ship departs there every two hours - it is used by both summer residents and residents of these villages, who thus get to their places of work in Kazan. There are also purely dacha satellite villages - Rudnik and Morkvashi, where a small motor ship on a regular line to Sviyazhsk calls twice every day (we will use them later). There is also a long-distance high-speed line that connects Kazan with Nizhny Uslon, Kzyl-Bairak, Kamsky Ustye and Bolgar. In winter, the lines do not stop operating, and the “Rockets” and “Voskhods” are replaced by hovercraft (there are fewer tourists, and for local residents these Vehicle quite enough).
The river station in Kazan, which lost its main function after the closure of the regular Moscow-Astrakhan line, is currently being converted into a hotel. But next to it there are suburban ticket offices, where you can buy a ticket for the SPK (hydrofoil) to Verkhniy Uslon. We went to look for berth number 8 in front of the large station building, where it was already moored cruise ship"St. Petersburg" (I once went on it from St. Petersburg to Kizhi). Time was running out, we didn’t find the required pier there, and as a result I didn’t have time to photograph the ship. But behind the checkpoint and anti-terror control, both our pier and our Voskhod-74 were discovered. Verkhniy Uslon is 13 kilometers away by water; the SPK, also winding between numerous islands, flies there in 15 minutes. There is not even a pier in Uslon - a harsh wooden Soviet landing stage, in the stuffy depths of which sits a colorful, moderately sober cashier at the ticket office, who does not speak, but purrs like a sleepy cat.


Our Voskhod-74 goes to neighboring Pechischi, and from there back to Kazan

In Verkhny Uslon, I was mainly interested in two things - the local church above the Volga and views of Kazan. But for some reason I didn’t want to go there from the very beginning, and next to the landing stage I found a beach of extraordinary beauty and emptiness, where I simply wandered for an hour in knee-deep water along the river bank.

Verkhniy Uslon is an extraordinary place. With a population of over 4 thousand people, it is the regional center of the Republic of Tatarstan, and the closest to the capital - only 8 kilometers separate it from Kazan in a straight line. But the Volga serves here not just as a dividing strip - rather, it is an entire border between two worlds. On the other side of the river there is a noisy city of over a million people with thousand years of history, where wide streets hum, metro trains rush by, where crowds of tourists run, who in just a month will be replaced by spectators and athletes from all over the world. But here everything is much simpler. Silence, once again silence, calm water on an unusually wide expanse of river, calm wind, and streets on a cliff cascading down to the river. It’s really far from here to the city, at least 35 kilometers by road. The Volga does this in this place sharp turn, Kazan is surrounded on three sides by Verkhniy Uslon, and in due time this place will inevitably become part of the city. There are already plans to build a suspended cable car through the Volga (like Borskaya), which will make Uslon one of the districts of Kazan. But this is a project, and for now the village lives its own life. Over the Volga and Kazan.

Half an hour before the return boat arrived, I decided to climb up to the cape. The climb looks scary, but in reality it turned out to be surprisingly comfortable and not very difficult. As I climbed the rural streets, I could not really appreciate how high I had climbed and how far I was from the point from where the local St. Nicholas Church would be visible against the backdrop of Kazan.

Having reached the right place, I just stood rooted to the spot for several minutes - it’s very high and very beautiful

You can look at this picture - a cliff, a church, a river and a city - endlessly. That’s why the views of Uslon and Kazan beyond, no matter what day I got here, would in any case become a prelude to the city itself. And if you arm yourself with a telephoto lens, you can see Kazan in detail. In a good way, it would not hurt to build one large panorama here, but I don’t know how to do this, so I will show several photographs of individual buildings and small city sectors, moving in a circle, from north to south.
The first notable place is the Temple of All Religions, located in the Kazan district of Old Arakchino. Its construction began in 1994 by public figure Ildar Khanov, and the final finishing touches are being completed now, after the death of the project’s initiator several months ago. At first I was going to go to Old Arakchino, but a logistical failure cut short my conscious attempt, and then I managed to look at the temple in detail from the ship to Sviyazhsk and decided not to go here specifically.

New city water intake (active), erected during the filling of the Kuibyshev reservoir (1957)

To the right of it is the Old Water Intake, which served, among other things, the Kazan State Powder Plant. The water intake was built at the end of the 19th century and was in operation just before the creation of the reservoir, since it was not designed to operate at the new water level. Nowadays it is located on an island and is in an abandoned state. To the right, a little further away, you can see the buildings of the Zilantov Assumption Monastery (founded in 1552). I got there eventually, so more detailed story will be linked to a specific post.

Now - a view of the western part of the Kazan Kremlin. The leftmost of the noticeable buildings is the Tainitskaya Tower, to the right is the greenish Presidential Palace, the palace Vvedenskaya Church, the Syuyumbike Tower, then the Cannon Yard complex of buildings. The impressive size of the Annunciation Cathedral stands out, a little to the right in front of it is the Western Tower of the Kremlin wall, and in front of it is the circus (1967), which I would simply demolish. To the right of it, the buildings stand in three rows: in the foreground, covered by trees, the Central Stadium is visible, behind it is the Kul-Sharif Mosque, and even further away are the historical buildings of the museum complex. All this, of course, will also be given sufficient attention in the corresponding post.

This is already the eastern part of the Kremlin. The passage Preobrazhenskaya Tower is visible against the background of the large beige building of the Public Offices, and to the right of the tower is a complex of buildings of the former Transfiguration Monastery. Even further to the right in the foreground is the corner South-West Tower, and behind it is the whitewashed Spasskaya, the Kremlin gate. If you move further, you can highlight the exit down to Bulak, the building National Museum(far to the right of the Spasskaya Tower), directly below it is the new building complex "Pyramid". From here it is not as striking as from the Kremlin. To the right of it, right next to the Pyramid, you can see the bell tower of St. John the Baptist monastery, behind it is Gostiny Dvor, and even further to the right is the barely noticeable green roof and domes of the monastery Church of the Vvedenskaya.

There are so many things mixed together in the next two photographs that it is difficult to single out anything noteworthy. This is an area of ​​the city center where the Bulak Canal and pedestrianized street Bauman. In the first photo, the Peter and Paul Cathedral is clearly visible, and its true scale is visible here (it’s not easy to see them in the narrow courtyard of the cathedral, but it simply dominates the city!)

In the second photo, if you really want to, a little lower and to the left of the skyscraper you can see the bell tower of the Epiphany Cathedral - the main dominant feature of Bauman Street, if you don’t count the wretched box of the Tatarstan Hotel. She didn’t make it into the frame, and it’s not a pity.

River port area. In the center is a building River station, the motor ship "St. Petersburg" is moored right in front of it. To the left are the berths of the local fleet, to the right are the berths of the largest cargo port on the Volga, Kazan, and in the very foreground is the breakwater, the outflow of the lake spaces of the Kuibyshev reservoir.

The motor ship "Fedor Chaliapin" enters the port from the Lower Volga - where else could he work if not in Kazan?

Finally, here are a few more views of Verkhniy Uslon, taken first from the street clearing above the St. Nicholas Church, and then simply on the way down the serpentines of local streets.

House over the River

And the road to the River

Local wooden carvings can hardly be called particularly lush, but one trend can be traced here - the emphasis on one wide carved belt above the windows.

We returned to Kazan not on the Voskhod, but on the slow Moskva-186, returning from Sviyazhsk.

This was the end of the foreplay. In the next post - already about the center of Kazan, about the Kremlin and what is located around it.
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