At the world-famous English town of Greenwich is something similar to the two suburbs of St. Petersburg – Pulkovo, the famous observatory and Strelna, with its Naval Academy named after Admiral Makarov. Greenwich is part of the so-called Greater London, also Pulkovo Strelna located in St. Petersburg. Similarity even in the fact that access to Greenwich can be reached by water from the Victoria Embankment in London, as in Peterhof – from the Palace Embankment. Greenwich, although it is not on the beach, yet is truly a maritime city. And the famous sailing ship "Cutty Sark", set in the dock – a clear confirmation. The most high-speed tea clipper was designed specifically to by delivering Chinese leaf tea did not have time to rot or otsyret.
Greenwich is proud of its National Maritime Museum. And also in this city is Old Marine College, created Christopher Renom. But, of course, the most important attraction is still the Royal Observatory, planted in August 1675. She also created to ease navigation. While the most important objective Astronomy has been precisely determine longitude. Because of the impossibility of determining longitude shipwreck occurred, and many other problems, such as, for example, the inability to re-find previously opened navigators of the earth. British long could not find a solution to this problem. Built his own observatory, scientists have identified a zero meridian.
But only in 1884 International Conference officially recognized and recorded in the Greenwich meridian – zero. And from that time he became a lap time-calculation on the entire earth. Following this, one European country after another began to join such a time-calculation. But Russia has recognized the this system of reporting time only in 1919. And to this day Pulkovo Observatory works closely with the Observatory in Greenwich.