What is a caravan? When pronouncing this word, most of us will imagine the endless desert, a string of heavily loaded camels, drovers in spacious robes, whose heads are shrouded in heat from bedspreads, and footprints in the sand ...
Indeed, in the original definition, a caravan is a group of people crossing desert or steppe places together. Whether they were merchants delivering goods from one settlement to another, whether they were pilgrims to holy places, nomadic tribes, or simply travelers. All these groups went with different goals, together people united only to not only reach, but also survive.
Land caravan routes
Caravan routes were initially laid out in areas where the climate is severe and there is a risk of meeting unfriendly Aboriginal or predators. The most famous of these "roads" was, for example, the Great Silk Road. It was laid back in the II century BC and connected the coast of the Mediterranean Sea and China with other Asian countries.
For the movement and transportation of goods camels, donkeys, mules and horses were used. Basically, of course, camels are like the most unpretentious, hardy and strong animals. It is well known that they can do without water for a long time, even in the heat of the African desert.
German zoologist and traveler Alfred Edmund Brehm in his famous book "Animal Life" reports that camels
make up the greatest wealth of the nomadic tribes engaged in their breeding, support the existence of many people and, in addition, make it possible to trade and travel, and, consequently, civilization in countries that were hardly inhabited without them ...
Today, all this is true only in relation to the past, since caravans of people and pack animals in the 80s of the last century, if they were also used to transport ammunition, weapons and drugs, in particular, through the Pakistani border to Afghanistan, subsequently became increasingly replaced by vehicles, i.e. car caravans. They are less secretive, more convenient as a type of movement and much faster.
And here is the road connecting Moscow with the Buryat town of Kyakhta, which was already on the border with China. Political and trade relations between Russia and European powers with Asian countries were carried out along this transport corridor.
Day after day, year-round, carts of goods traveled with this economic caravan, merchants, immigrants, travelers, service people carrying mail were moving. Finally, along the Siberian Highway , as it was called by the people, the Decembrists were led to the penal servitude by shackle. And not only them, of course. And it was a caravan - but already a caravan inevitably.
And once upon a time, gypsies still roamed in their motor homes. Today it is no longer horse drawn carts, but residential trailers designed for caravanning.
By the seas, by the waves
We have already understood that a caravan is an association of those going or going one after another. And with what purposes could ships unite?
Naval vessels could follow the icebreaker, which torpedoed their way in the Arctic Ocean. Thus, to this day navigation is carried out along the Northern Sea Route.
Just like in the case of convicts, a sea caravan is a convoy consisting of several guided ships with prisoners on board who followed the flagship - the main warship.
Tugboats, as a mode of transport, were designed specifically to transport non-self-propelled barges and rafts to their destination. Most often they were used in the waters of rivers and canals.
In the sky
Follow, lined up one after another - that’s what a caravan means. It is not for nothing that there is a “bird” synonym for such a movement. They say: "Guskom."
With long-distance migrations, birds fly behind the leader of the flock - this is how geese, ducks, cranes, and pelicans fly. True, cranes and ducks fly in a wedge - a kind of caravan that diverges in two. And herons and geese fly in a real line.
This is why - and for large birds this is especially important - because under the flapping of each of the wings of a wedge flying in front (usually this is the strongest and most experienced bird in a flock), two paths of rarefied air and air turbulence are formed by a corner. Such air has less resistance to the wings of fellow tribesmen flying next, which significantly reduces their energy consumption for the flight. None of the birds, being in such a formation, will leave him - otherwise the flight loads will increase, and she, of course, will immediately feel it.
But it turns out that the caravan is not for small migratory birds. This aerodynamic nuance is completely unimportant for them, therefore, without making up any system, thrushes, larks, finches, etc. fly to the warm edges with a common flock, so to speak, in a heap.