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Volga-Don Shipping Canal was opened
On May 31 1952 at 1.55 p.m. took place an inauguration of the Volga-Don Shipping Canal, which connected the Volga River and the Don River. On July 27 1952 the Volga-Don Canal was named after Vladimir I. Lenin. On this very day the first motor vessel “Joseph Stalin” opened navigation. Volgograd became the port of five seas. The canal’s length amounted to 101 km, depth of the canal was about 3,5 m.
The first attempt to connect the Volga River and the Don River in their confluence area is said to take place in the middle of 16th c. In 1569 the Sultan Selim II of the Ottoman Empire sent 22,000 soldiers to the upper reaches of the Don River to dig the canal between two rivers. However a month later Turks retreated, explaining that “even the whole Turkish nation could hardly do anything here within a hundred years”.
In the end of 17th c. an attempt to build a shipping canal was undertaken by the Russian Emperor Peter the Great. In accordance with a construction plan the canal was to be dug between tributaries of the Volga River and the Don River, the Kamyshinka River and the Ilovlya River. The canal works were launched in 1697. In 1701 due to the Great Northern War with Sweden the construction work was abandoned. By 1917 there were over 30 projects of connecting the Volga River and the Don River. However neither of them was implemented.
In 1920 according to GOELRO plan the government of the country once again posed a question of creating the canal. The project was prepared by the middle of ’30s. However the Great Patriotic War made it impossible to implement it. Works were resumed only in 1943, immediately after the end of the Battle of Stalingrad.
The canal works were conducted by an experienced constructor and hydraulic engineer Sergei Zhuk, who administered construction of the White Sea-Baltic Sea Canal and the Moscow-Volga Canal. In February 1948, after the approved scheme of the Volga-Don complex during the session of the USSR Council of Ministers, excavation works were started. The canal was being built by hands of the “enemies of the people” — political prisoners, convicted according to Article 58 of the Criminal Code of that time. The construction works were fulfilled within four and a half years, becoming a unique term in the world history of hydraulic engineering. The canal’s key function was water-transport service between the capital of the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc countries.
Currently there are plans of the international consortium creation for building the second line of the Volga-Don Canal, to improve its throughput and shipping service between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea.
Lit.: Белов А. В. Волго-Донской канал. СПб., 1911; Бернштейн-Коган С. В. Волго-Дон. Историко-географический очерк, М., 1954; Волго-Донской канал [Электронный ресурс] // Фото Волгограда. 2005-2012. URL: http://www.volfoto.ru/volgograd/kanal_volgo-don/; Волго-Донской судоходный канал [Электронный ресурс] // Памятники Волгограда. 2002. URL: http://monument.volgadmin.ru/start.asp?np=4-1; Вольф М. Б. Волго-Донской судоходный канал // Большая советская энциклопедия. Т. 5. М., 1971; Коблев И. И., Кривошей В. А., Шестаков В. Я. Волго-Донский судоходный канал. Волгоград, 2008; Смирнов Н. Н. Тайны Волгодонстроя (1948-1952): исторический очерк. Волжский, 2002; Строительство канала Волго-Дон-II и водохозяйственный баланс Волги / Под ред. Ю. М. Арского и др. М., 1991.
Based on the Presidential Library’s materials: