Volgodonsk navigable canal connects the Don and the Volga in the place where they are closest to each other. It is located near Volgograd. The Volgodonsk Canal, the photo and description of which you will find in the article, is part of the deep-sea transport system operating in the European part of our country.
First attempt to connect two rivers
Even in the middle of the 16th century, the first attempt was made to connect the Don and the Volga in the place of their closest approach. In 1569, Selim II, the Turkish sultan who became famous for his campaign against Astrakhan, ordered 22,000 soldiers to be sent up the Don. They had to dig a canal connecting the two rivers. But a month later the Turks had to retreat. According to the chroniclers, they declared that nothing could be done here even by all the people in 100 years. However, traces of this attempt to connect the two rivers have survived to this day. This is a deep ditch called the Turkish Wall.
Attempt of Peter I
After 130 years, the second attempt to build the Volgodonsk Canal was made by Peter I. However, it also failed. By the end of 1701, construction was partially completed, and several locks were completely built. However, in the midst of the work, an order was issued to destroy the canal, since the war with Sweden had begun. By the way, this project also left a mark - Petrov Val, which is located next to the city of the same name.
The construction of the canal between the Volga and the Don was moved to another place - to the area of Ivan Lake. The Ivanovsky Canal built here connected the Don River with the Tsna River (a tributary of the Oka) through Lake Ivan and the Shat River, which flowed from it. Approximately 300 ships passed through it 5 years after the start of construction. However, this system turned out to be low-water.
Main Projects
More than 30 projects for connecting the Don to the Volga were created before 1917. Most of them were divided into the following three groups:
- southern, which planned the connection directly between the Azov and Caspian Seas or the mouths of the Don and Volga;
- the middle one, which united the canal construction projects in the place of the closest approach of the Volga and Don;
- northern, which included projects to connect the tributaries of the Don with the tributaries of the Oka.
Hydrologists believe that the northern projects could not be of interest, since they involved the confluence of shallow rivers that are unsuitable for the passage of modern ships. The southern projects would not have been successful either, since the route of the canals in this case would have been too long, which would have made the construction cost very high. Engineers recognized that the most rational aremiddle group projects.
However, none of them came to fruition until the middle of the 20th century. Two circumstances prevented this. First, the railroads had private owners who resisted. Secondly, even in the case of the construction of the canal, the movement of ships could only be carried out in the spring, since only then the rivers were full-flowing. Full-fledged navigation without their large-scale reconstruction was out of the question. Nevertheless, it should be noted that Puzyrevsky Nestor Platonovich, a Russian hydraulic engineer, made a great contribution to the study of the interfluve of the Don and Volga. He chose a track that would be suitable for the future channel.
According to the GOELRO plan, in 1920 the country's government again returned to the problem of building a canal. Its project, however, was created only in the mid-1930s. The Great Patriotic War prevented its implementation.
Project approval
In 1943, after the end of the Battle of Stalingrad, work resumed. They were led by Sergei Yakovlevich Zhuk, an experienced hydraulic engineer and builder. Under his leadership, by that time, the Moscow-Volga and White Sea-B altic canals had already been designed and built. The scheme of the Volgodonsk complex was approved in February 1948 at a meeting of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union. After that, land work began.
Who built the canal
Note that the construction of the Volgodonsk Canal was carried out by the so-called enemies of the people, that is, political prisoners who were convicted under Article 58 of the Criminal Code,operating at that time. Heavy physical work, which the prisoners were forced to carry out, was counted by them as a day for two or three servings of imprisonment. However, with the piercing winter cold and exhausting summer heat, the mortality of people who lived in adobe huts and dugouts was very high. Zhuk Sergei Yakovlevich, who led the construction of the canal, is compared by historians of the Hoover Institution with Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi figure who used slave labor.
Construction period and equipment used
The Volgodonsk Canal was built in just 4.5 years. This is a unique period in the entire history of the world's hydroconstruction. For example, the Panama Canal, which is 81 km long, took 34 years to build with the same amount of work. The 164-kilometer Suez Canal took 11 years to build.
During construction, 3 million m3 of concrete was laid and about 150 million m3 of earth were excavated. 8 thousand machines and mechanisms took part in the work: earth-moving shells, bucket-wheel and walking excavators, dump trucks, bulldozers, powerful scrapers.
Opening of the channel, its length and depth
Foreign engineers were skeptical about this grandiose project. They predicted that the spillway dam would not be able to withstand the pressure of the water and there would be a grand man-made disaster. But the Beetle was sure that everything would be successful. He personally oversaw the laying of concrete to prevent theft and assault.
May 31, 1952 at 13:55 on the waters of the Don andThe Volga merged between the first and second locks. Since June 1, ships have already begun to move along the canal. On July 27, 1952, this structure was named after Lenin V. I.
The length of the Volgodonsk Canal is 101 km. Of these, 45 km passes through the reservoirs. The channel depth is at least 3.5 m.
Reservoirs and locks of the Volgodon Canal
Ships to travel from the Volga to the Don must pass 13 locks (the first one is shown in the photo above), which are divided into the Don and Volga lock ladders. The height of the latter is 88 m. It consists of 9 single-line single-chamber locks. The height of the Donskaya lock stairs is 44 m. It includes 4 locks of the same design.
The Volgodonsk Canal connects the Don near Kalach-on-Don with the Volga near Volgograd. It includes Karpovskoe, Bereslavskoe and Varvarovskoe reservoirs. The whole journey takes approximately 10-12 hours. Water coming from the Tsimlyansk Reservoir feeds the Volgodonsk Canal, since the Don lies 44 meters above the Volga. Thanks to a system consisting of 3 pumping stations (Varvarovskaya, Marinovskaya and Karpovskaya), water enters the watershed, and then is supplied by gravity to the Don and Volga slopes. The first and thirteenth locks have triumphal arches. The workers who maintain the canal live in the settlements created along its route.
Channel value
Volgodonsk Shipping Canal named after V. I. Lenin connected the following 5 seas: the Caspian, Black, Azov, White and B altic. He connected the paths of the Dnieper, Donskoy,Northwestern and Volga basins. The path of this canal runs through arid steppes. He brought moisture to the fields of the Rostov and Volgograd regions.
Main Attractions
Tourists are very impressed by the Volgodonsk Canal. Volgograd today is hard to imagine without this structure. Every guest of the city considers it his duty to admire it. Not only fishing on the Volgodonsk Canal is popular, there really is something to see here.
The start of movement along the canal is from the Sarepta backwater of the Volga River, which is protected from currents, as well as from ice drift along the Sarpa River valley. The first three locks are located within Volgograd.
On Sarpinsky Island (at the entrance to the canal) in 1953 a lighthouse was installed, the height of which is 26 meters. On its walls there are cast-iron rostra, they depict the bows of various ancient ships. The author of the project is the architect Yakubov R. A.
If you walk along the embankment from the first lock, you will soon see the Lenin monument (pictured above). When the canal was opened, another monument was erected - I. V. Stalin, located on a high pedestal. This monument was erected in the shortest possible time. Native copper was used to cast the figure of the people's leader. The monument (its photo is presented below) was in place for several years, towering 40 meters above the level of the Volga. However, as a result of the process of de-Stalinization, which was launched in 1961 at the XX Congress, this monument was removed. All that was left of himreinforced concrete pedestal, which passes into the monolithic pile foundation of the embankment.
It was decided to install a new monument on the pedestal, now V. I. Lenin. It is made of monolithic reinforced concrete. The height of the sculpture is 27 m, and the pedestal is 30 m. Architect V. A. Delin. and sculptor Vuchetich E. V. are the authors of the monument. Interestingly, the monument to Lenin was included in the Guinness Book of Records. It is the largest monument in the world, erected in honor of a real person.
Volgodonsk canal today
After 60 years, more than 19,000 ships pass through the waterworks a year. At present, there is a question about the construction of another line of the Volgodonsk Canal, thanks to which it would be possible to increase its cargo flows. It is possible that its construction will take place in the coming years, although due to the crisis, this issue will most likely have to be postponed for some time. However, the president plans to expand the Volgodonsk Canal by building another line, which he announced back in 2007. The construction of the second branch is expected to double the throughput of the canal - up to 30-35 million tons of cargo annually. True, at present, the active Volgodon thread is only half loaded.
