Biały Słoń

1935 draft plan (side view)

1935 draft plan (top view)

According to Wladyslaw Midowicz, the first and only director of the observatory, the construction of "Biały Słoń" was suggested by a group of influential Warsaw astronomers who managed to convince General Leon Berbecki, director of the influential Airborne and Antigas Defence League, to support it. General Tadeusz Kasprzycki, minister of military affairs, also backed the construction of the observatory.[5]

The building design was approved sometime in 1935.[6] Construction of this impressive building began in the summer of 1936[6] with an official ceremony for the placing of the cornerstone. Biały Słoń was a very expensive structure with total costs exceeding one million Polish złoty, a huge burden for the state budget of the time. The design was based on the Przemyśl Castle and shaped like a letter "L" with a tower.

The whole complex consists of three major features that could be considered as separate structure connected together, a tower, a main building, and smaller service attachment. Due to relief, "Biały Słoń" had five stories facing the Czechoslovakian side (today Zakarpattia Oblast) and two stories facing the Polish (today Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast).[6] The whole complex was built mostly from local sandstone.[6] Due to lack of roads, the construction materials were brought by horses or either by hand or back of local Hutsuls and soldiers of the 49th Hutsul Rifle Regiment from the Vorokhta train station located some 70 km (43 mi) away.[6][5] The walls of a lower attachment and the semi-basement floor have thickness of 1.5 m (4.9 ft), while upper floors - 1 m (3.3 ft).[6] The roof of a building was covered with copper sheets.[6] At the southern side was located a rotunda on which was located a telescope.[6] The copper dome of the telescope opened automatically.[6]

The "Biały Słoń" had 43 rooms including a conference hall, living quarters, offices, a cafeteria, a battery station, and a boiler room in the basement (the lower structure).[6] The upper floors were occupied by astronomers and meteorologists, most of whom worked for the State Meteorological Institute and Astronomical Observatory of the Warsaw University. Their work was to carry out meteorological observations for the Polish Air Force. In the lower levels, there were lodgings of soldiers of the "Karpaty" Regiment of the Border Defence Corps, with headquarters in Stryj.[4] Altogether, the number of inhabitants never exceeded 20. Among those who worked there were professor Wlodzimierz Zonn, doctor Jan Gadomski, and professor Eugeniusz Rybka.

The opening ceremony of the building took place on July 29, 1938.[7] Its official name was the "Observatory of the State Meteorological Institute", but soon it took on the nickname "Biały Słoń", due to the color of its walls. The observatory was lavishly equipped, with a custom-made astrograph and refracting telescope made by the renowned British company Grubb Parsons of Newcastle upon Tyne. It had its own power plant with two Diesel motor-generators and central heating fueled by oil, which was transported in iron barrels from the "Polmin" company in Borysław (today Boryslav). The military authorities also installed their own equipment, including two radiotelephone prototypes constructed to withstand high altitude.

The observatory was located in a remote, deserted area, with the nearest store and mail office 12 miles (19 km) away (at Żabie, today Verkhovyna), the nearest doctor 30 miles (48 km) away, and a rail station in Kolomyia as far as 80 miles (130 km) away. The directory of the observatory a local of Mykulychyn Władysław Midowicz wrote that the staff's main problem, however, was water, as no waterworks had been constructed and it had to be carried from a stream 4 miles (6.4 km) away.[5]

For fourteen months (July 1938-September 1939) the Observatory was the highest-elevated, permanently inhabited, building of interbellum Poland. As entry was permitted only with a special military pass, local Hutsuls made up several legends about the building and its inhabitants. Wladyslaw Midowicz wrote that the Hutsuls thought that the Observatory was in fact a mighty cannon, capable of attacking neighboring countries.[5]

Search and rescue location

Since 2015 within the building is located a mountain rescue post of the Ivano-Frankivsk branch of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine. The post is unique as it is the most high-altitude government institution in Ukraine. The post is insulated and electrified. There is a Wi-Fi and separate space for visitors.

The tourist traffic over Chornohora Ridge is constant and especially in summer exceeds 6,000 people per month according to statistics of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in 2017. Between summer of 2016 and summer of 2017, the mountain was visited by 4,000 groups with total population exceeding 22,000 people with 9,000 of which were foreigners. Some 420 groups (about 1,500 people) managed to find shelter at the top. The rescue post conducted seven search and rescue missions saving eight people and providing various type of help to 89 others.

In 2017 there was initiated a creation of a joint Polish-Ukrainian mountain rescue service and a school of mountain rescue.[1] During the actively ongoing restoration activities in 2017, main rooms of mountain shelter are not available, but some provisionally space was created without heating capabilities.[12]