FIRST SHIPS, CONSTRUCTION ACHIEVEMENTS ON VOLGA-DON CANAL

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-00809A000700070566-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 18, 2011
• Sequence Number: 566
• Publication Date: August 15, 1952
• Content Type: REPORT

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/08/19: CIA-RDP80-00809A000700070566-5
CLASSIFICATION CONMENTIAL
CENTRALSIN E 1 MINES REPORT
INFORMATION FROM
FOREIGN DOCUMENTS OR RADIO BROADi;ASTS CD NO.
INFORMATION 1952
Economic - Construction projects, Volga-Don Canal
DATE
PUBLISHED 1 Apr - 17 Jun 1952
DATE DIST. IJ Aua 1952
SUPPLEMENT TO
REPORT NO.
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FIRST SHIPS, CONSTRUCTION ACNIZVEMWTS
ON VOLGA-DON CANAL
Numbers in parentheses refer to appended sources
On 31 May 1952, the waters of the Volga and the Don rivers met in the Volga-
Don Canal between lock No 1 and lock No 2. On 1 June, the 1.5-kilometer-long
canal below the Tsimlyanskaya Reservoir which connects locks No 14 and No 15,
was also filled with water, thereby rendering the waterway from Krasnoarmeysk
on the Volga to the Azov Sea navigable along its entire length.(1)
On 2 June, a vessel passed from the Tsimlyanskaya Reservoir into the lover
Don through locks No 14 and No 15 and the connecting canal.(2) Diesel-propelled
tug No 306 was the first vessel to start the westward journey from the Volga and
through the locks of the canal. It had several floating docks in tow which were
to be moored along the canal for passenger service. (1) The tug was at lock No 5
at 2000 hours, on 2 June (3), and at lock No 10 on 5 June.(4) By 17 June, the
tug had safely completed its trip to Kalach-on-Don and back to Krasnoar2eyeI and
was already on its second voyage to Kalach. The steamer Akademik Lebedev ar-
rived at Tsimlyanskiy Port from Kalbch on 16 June. (5) On 14 June the steamer
Akademik Vyshinskiy with a cargo of Ural lumber for the Donbass arrived at the
watershed from Krasnoarmeysk.(6)
It is estimated that 40,000 cubic meters of water will be drained from the
canal into the Volga for every vessel passing through the canal-(7)
The first aggregate of the Tsimlyanskaya GES was put into operation on
6 June and started supplying power to the transmission network of the Rostoven-
ergo syste-n.(8) By 16 June the aggregate had produced several million kilowatt-
hours for the needs of Donbass mines, industrial centers, and villages of the
Don Region. The additional power fed into the network from the GES improved
power supply conditions considerably in the cities of Rostov-on-Don, Taganrog,
Novocherkassk, and Novoshakhtinsk. In the meantime, installation and assembly
work on the second and third aggregates of the GES is proceeding at full speed.(9)
STATE
ARMY
NSRB
FBI
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r
In the course of the construction of the Volga Don Canal, 200 million cubic
meters of earth were shifted, 40,000 tons of metallic structures installed (10),
and 2.9 million cubic meters of concrete placed.(11)
The total capacity of all the electric motors used on the construction
reached the capacity of the Volkhov GES, and the electric power consumed was as
much as the power consumption of 15 large cities the size of Astrakhan',
Poltava, and Zhitomir. The total rating of engines of all the motor vehicles
tcluding tractors amounted to over 500,000 horsel,ower. During construction,
16 automatic concrete-mixing plants were in operation day and night.
In addition to the building materials supplied for the construction lo-
cally, crushed stones were brought from Makhachkdla, and stone was quarried
near Pyatigorsk at the foot of the Beshtau Mountain a uL near the villages of
list' Bystrinskaya, Repnaya, and Zhirnovo in Rostov Oblast'. Gravel was hauled
from the Gul'kevich Quarry on the Kuban River and sand from DubovLa in Stalin-
grad Oblast.(10)
About 80 million cubic meters of earth were excavated and shifted to con-
struct the Tsimlyauskkaya nydraulic center. The rate of excavating and shifting
reached 314,000 cubic meters every 24 hours. The total amount of concrete
placed was 1,870,000,000 cubic meters. The construction of the center required
338,000 railroad carloads of building materials and equipment, including 10,000
carloads of metals. Very often, ,ver 1,000 cars had to be unloaded in a day
during the construction work.(8)
1. Moscow, Promyshlennost' Stroitel'nykh Materialov, 4 Jun 52
2. Moscow, Komsomol'skaya Pravda, 3 Jun 52
3. Moscow, Trud, 3 Jun 52
4. Moscow, Vechernyaya Moskva, 6 Jun 52
5. Trud, 17 Jun 52
6. Moskovskaya Pravda, 15 Jun 52
7. Moscow, Izvestiya, 1 Apr 52
8. ProotysY.ennost' Stroitel'nykh Materialov, 7 Jun 52
9. Moscow, Pravda, 16 Jun 52
10. Moscow, Ogonek, No 23, 1 Jun 52
11. Moscow, Nauka i Zhizn', No 5, May 52
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