The Moscow Canal opened

July 15, 1937 took place the grand opening of the canal linking Moscow with the Volga River for navigation of passenger and cargo ships. In 1947, to mark the 800th anniversary of the city of Moscow and the 10th anniversary of the existence of the canal between Moscow and Volga River, it was named the Moscow Canal.

Initially, the project of connecting the rivers and creating a through waterway from the Baltic Sea via Volga and Moscow to the central regions of Russia, dates to the turn of the 17th – 18th centuries, when Peter I personally took up the study of possible ways of communication. One of the options considered at the time almost coincided with the modern canal route. However, after the death of the emperor, the large-scale project was delayed, and the idea reappeared only in 1825.

Construction lasted almost two decades, but was discontinued due to lack of funds. During this time, the canal was dug, linking the rivers Sestra and Istra, built 38 stone locks, in the valley of the River Sestra an earthen dam was constructed; on the site of the tiny lake there was a reservoir, called "Podsolnechny" or Senezhsky, of 15.4 square km, which was to feed canal locks with water. The total length of the canal was 292 km, and it went along the Moscow River, Istra, Sestra and Dubna, as well as along other three channels. It was assumed that the new water system would provide navigation up to three thousand small boats a year. However, the transportation of goods to the north and west of Russia via Nicholas’ Railway, which was built in 1851 connecting directly Petersburg and Moscow, cost to the state much cheaper, so in 1860, the navigation of ships through the canal was officially terminated.

In the early 30's of the 20th century, due to population growth and the industrial development of Moscow, its immediate problem was to provide residents with water. Therefore, 15 June 1931, the Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), stated: "... to fundamentally solve the problem of flooding of the Moscow River by connecting it to the upper reaches of the Volga." Construction of the canal was an important part of the General Plan for Reconstruction of Moscow and the river transport system of the Soviet Union in the pre-war period.

During the year, the project of the canal construction had been efficiently elaborated. The most effective was found the plan developed by a team of experts jointly with engineer A. N. Komarovsky – the so-called Shoshinsky version, according to which the canal was to go down to the estuary of the River Shosha, and then water was to be supplied to the capital through the locks. After the improvement of the project, in June 1932, the Dmitrov version, based on the first one, was approved.

In the summer of 1932, preparatory work on the route was held, and in the fall of that year, the construction of the canal began. The level of mechanization at the construction site was quite high for the time: widely used were excavators, trucks, hydro monitors, suction dredger. The riverbed of the canal was in average 85 m wide; only 20 km of the canal were formed by artificial reservoirs.

The canal route began near the town of Dubna. Concrete dam and earthen dam, built near Ivankovo, raised the level of the Volga waters by 18 m, forming the "Moscow Sea" (today - Ivankovo Reservoir). Due to this rise, big Volga ships could easily navigate in the Volga River up to Tver. The canal profile represented a broken line, which rose from the Volga to the station Iksha, and then went horizontally toward the station Khlebnikovo and from there went down in the direction of Moscow. Near Tushino the canal fell into the Moscow River. To let the vessels bypass these slopes, the canal was divided into a number of segments, and in each of them the water level was different from the previous one.

The canal construction lasted 4 years and 8 months. May 2 1937, a flotilla of ships and boats, built specially to navigate through the canal, came down from the city of Gorky (today - Nizhny Novgorod) and went through the canal for the first time up to the wharf of the Northern Port of the capital. The official opening of the Moscow-Volga Canal took place two and a half months later.

In addition to the saturation of the city with water, the canal was designed to address a number of other important economic problems. After opening of the Volga-Don and the Volga-Baltic Canals, Moscow was called "the port of five seas": waterways connected it to the Azov, Caspian, Black, Baltic and White seas. Builders paid a lot of attention not only to the functionality, but also to aesthetics of the construction: the canal blended in with the nature of the Moscow region. The buildings of the canal had formed a magnificent architectural ensemble, each lock had a distinct look. Towers of the locks were in the form of decorative add-ons or sculptures. The largest building of the Moscow Canal was the Northern (Khimki) river station, designed by local architects, A. M. Ruhlyadev and V. F. Krinsky.

Construction of the canal caused significant transformations in large territories of the Moscow and Tver regions - new power lines, roads, railways, bridges, piers, modern settlements, rest homes, sport centers were built.

The Moscow Canal is one of the largest structures of the type. Stretching for 128 miles, it has 11 locks, 11 dams, 5 pumping stations, 8 hydroelectric power plants, 7 rail bridges and 12 highway bridges, barrage gates, cargo and passenger berths, two tunnels, two river stations, lighthouses, and a number of other facilities (in total - more than 240 objects).

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Канал имени Москвы: сайт. 2010. URL: http://www.fgup-kim.ru.