Volga–Don Canal

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Lore & Background

There has been a trade and military route between the Volga and Don rivers since 400 BC. The presence of the fortified settlement Tanais in the Don River delta since the time of the Bosporan Kingdom, c. 438 BC–370 AD, strongly suggests the route was sufficiently notable to be fortified for over two thousand years. The Sarkel fortress on the left bank of the lower Don was the main control of this Volga trade route. The Don–Volga portage got its name from its trade importance 1000 years ago. There were several attempts to build a canal to replace the portage after 1500, first by the Ottomans during the 16th century, then by the Russian Empire in the 17th and 18th centuries, and finally, more successfully, by the Soviet Union in the 20th. In 1569, the Ottoman Empire attempted to connect the Volga and Don rivers via a canal. According to most historians, the Ottomans managed to dig one-third of the canal before work was abandoned because of adverse weather. Peter the Great ordered the earliest Russian attempts to connect the Volga and Don rivers. After capturing Azov in 1696, he decided to build a canal — later named Petrov Val — on the Ilovlya River and the Kamyshinka river. It was much shorter than the modern canal, connecting a gap of just 4 kilometers (2.5 mi), but was abandoned in 1701 because of a lack of resources and other problems. He initiated a second attempt, the so-called Ivanovsky Canal between Yepifan and Ivan-Ozero, under the administration of Knyaz Matvey Gagarin. Between 1702 and 1707, twenty-four locks were constructed, and in 1707, about 300 ships passed through with difficulty. In 1709 owing to financial difficulties from the Great Northern War, the project was halted. In 1711 Russia left Azov under the terms of the Treaty of the Pruth, and Peter the Great lost all interest in the canal, which was abandoned and fell into ruin. The horse-drawn Dubovsko-Kachalinsky railway and the Volga–Don railway were built in 1846 and 1852, respectively, to link the Volga and the Don at the shortest distance. They were 68km and 73km long respectively.

Reader's Guide

The construction of today's Volga–Don Canal, designed by Sergey Zhuk's Hydroproject Institute, began prior to the Second World War, which interrupted the process. In late 1948, the Volga–Don Canal was among the first projects to partake in the reform of the Soviet forced labour system. Construction works continued from 1948 to 1952 and the canal was opened on 1 June 1952. The canal and its facilities were built by about 900,000 workers including some 100,000 German POWs and 100,000 gulag prisoners. A day spent at the construction yard was counted as three days in prison, which spurred the prisoners to work. Several convicts were even awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labour upon their release. Upon completion, the Volga–Don Canal became an important link in the Unified Deep Water Transportation System of the European part of the USSR. The canal begins at the Volga's Sarepta backwater, south of Volgograd. It ends in the Tsimlyansk Reservoir of the Don at the town of Kalach-na-Donu. The canal's highest elevation is the Varverovskoye Reservoir between locks 9 and 10, 88 m (289 ft) above the Volga and 44 m (144 ft) above the Don river. It uses nine single-chamber canal locks on the Volga slope to raise and lower ships 88 m (289 ft), and four canal locks of the same kind on the Don slope that raise/lower ships 44 m (144 ft) from river height. The locks can handle ships of up to 5,000 tonnes cargo capacity. The smallest locks are 145 m (476 ft) long, 17 m (56 ft) wide, and 3.6 m (12 ft) deep. The maximum allowed vessel is 141 m (463 ft) length, 16.8 m (55 ft) beam, and 3.6 m (12 ft) draught (the Volgo–Don Max Class). The canal is filled from the Don, with three powerful pumping stations to maintain water levels. Cargo transported from the Don region to the Volga includes coal from Donetsk in Ukraine, minerals, building materials, and grain. From the Volga to the Don, cargo includes lumber, pyrites, and petroleum products. Tourist cruisers travel in both directions. The canal and the Tsimlyansky water-engineering system form part of an architectural ensemble dedicated to the battles for Tsaritsyn during the Russian Civil War and for Stalingrad during the German-Soviet War. The Russian classical composer Sergei Prokofiev wrote the tone poem The Meeting of the Volga and the Don to celebrate its completion. According to the Maritime Board of the Russian government, 10.9 million tonnes of cargo were carried over the Volga–Don Canal in 2004. It was reported in 2007 that in the first 55 years of the canal's operations 450,000 vessels had passed through carrying 336 million tonnes of cargo. In the 1980s, construction started on a second canal between the rivers, dubbed Volga–Don 2. The project was abruptly cancelled to cut expenditure on 1 August 1990, by which time more than 40 percent of its funds had already been spent. Since then most of the stone and metal in the abandoned canal and locks has been looted. As of 2007–2008, Russian authorities were considering two options for increasing the throughput of navigable waterways between the Caspian basin and the Black Sea. One option, which reuses the name 'Volga–Don 2', is to build a second parallel channel of the Volga–Don Canal, equipped with larger locks 300 metres (980 ft) long. The other option was to build the so-called Eurasia Canal along a more southerly route in the Kuma–Manych Depression.

Did You Know?

• A day spent at the construction yard was counted as three days in prison, spurring prisoners to work; several convicts were even awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labour upon their release.
• The canal's highest elevation is the Varverovskoye Reservoir, 88 m above the Volga and 44 m above the Don river.
• In 1569, the Ottoman Empire attempted to dig a canal here and managed to dig one-third before abandoning the work due to adverse weather.
• Sergei Prokofiev wrote the tone poem 'The Meeting of the Volga and the Don' to celebrate the canal's completion.
• In the first 55 years of operation, 450,000 vessels passed through carrying 336 million tonnes of cargo.