After the successful construction, 12,484 prisoners were freed as reward, and for 59,516 prison terms were shortened. 7 on December 11 after the Red Army had retreated. The route of the northern slope runs through five large lakes; Lake Matkozero between locks 8 & 9, Lake Vygozero between locks 9 & 10, Lake Palagorka between locks 10 & 11, Lake Voitskoye between locks 11 & 12 and Lake Matkozhnya between locks 13 & 14. Omissions? More than 100,000 prisoners dug a 141-mile canal with few tools other than shovels, wheelbarrows, and pickaxes GULAG is an acronym for the Chief Administration of Corrective Labor Camps and Colonies of the Soviet Secret Police. According to official records and accounts in the works of Aleksandr... Get premium, high resolution news photos at Getty Images By signing up for this email, you are agreeing to news, offers, and information from Encyclopaedia Britannica. What do you think?" During the 2007 season, the canal carried 0.4 million tonnes of cargo along with 2,500 passengers. By Mia Bennett 09-10-2015 10:10:12 In summer above the Arctic Circle, the sun does not set. Originally the abbreviation stood for zaklyuchyonny kanaloarmeyets (Russian: заключённый каналоармеец), literally "incarcerated canal-army-man". The White Sea–Baltic Canal (Russian: Беломо́рско–Балти́йский кана́л, Byelomorsko–Baltiyskiy Kanal, BBK), often abbreviated to White Sea Canal (Belomorkanal) is a ship canal in Russia opened on 2 August 1933. The canal was the first major project constructed in the Soviet Union using forced labor. We have double checked and the max height of the Canal is 102 meters, and 12 locks from there to the White Sea. This would significantly reduce the travel time and the cost of transporting goods, since it would not be necessary to bypass Scandinavia through the Barentsevo, Norwegian, Northern and Baltic Seas. The canal begins near Povenets settlement in Povenets bay of Lake Onega. Usage rose gradually in the 21st century, but remained well below the Soviet-era peak, with just 0.3 million tonnes in 2002. Volgotanker's alleged failure to contain the spill resulted in the Arkhangelsk Oblast authorities shutting down the oil transfer operation with only 220,000 tonnes exported. According to official records and accounts in the works of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, between 12,000 and 240,000 laborers died during the construction of the canal… Cargo tonnage peaked in 1985, with 7.3 million tonnes transported. The workforce for the Canal was supplied by the Belbaltlag camp directorate (White Sea–Baltic Corrective Labor Camp Directorate, WSBC) of the OGPU GULAG. The principal cargo on the system is timber, much of it for paper mills and timber-working enterprises along the route. The White Sea–Baltic Canal is 141 miles (227 km) long, 23 miles (37 km) of which is manmade. White Sea - Wikipedia However, in the 1930s the White Sea – Baltic Canal was built, and the Northern Dvina Canal lost its significance. The canal, called The White Sea Canal (Belomor Canal), connects the Eastern Sea with the White Sea, and is one of the largest forced labour projects in history. The company had plans to carry 800,000 tonnes of fuel oil over the canal during 2003, and to increase the volume to 1,500,000 t (1,476,000 long tons; 1,653,000 short tons) in 2004. After the canal had been completed and opened for navigation, the Belbaltlag (White Sea-Baltic Camp) was reorganized into the White Sea-Baltic Combine (Baltiysko-Belomorsky Kombinat [BBK]), still within the NKVD system, by an order of the Council of People's Commissars of August 17, 1933. The History of the Construction" (, Беломорско-Балтийский канал имени Сталина. The first massive construction project was the White Sea-Baltic Sea Canal. Genrikh Yagoda, Deputy Chairman of the OGPU, as well as Berman, Firin, Kogan, and Rappoport were awarded medals for the completion of the canal by the Politburo on July 15, 1933.[18]. The canal gave its name to the Belomorkanal Soviet cigarette brand. The horizontal axis is the length of the canal. Gorky, who had previously visited the Solovetski Islands labor camp in 1929 and written about it in the Soviet journal Our Accomplishments,[23] organized the White Sea trip, but did not himself join it. In November, a caravan of passenger vessels evacuating families of Povenets canal workers and residents, along with equipment, froze into the ice of Lake Vygozero. The canal project also gave the Russian language the slang word "zeka", "zek, z/k" for "inmate". On June 28, the canal was bombed for the first time by the Finnish Air Force, targeting Locks No. Rebuilding was completed by July 1946, with navigation through the canal restored on July 28, 1946. For example, in the summer of 2007, a large piece of equipment for Rosneft's Siberian Vankor Oil Field was delivered by the Amur-1516 from Dzerzhinsk on the Oka River, via the Volga–Baltic Waterway and the White Sea Canal to Arkhangelsk, and from there by the ocean-going SA-15 class Arctic cargo ship Kapitan Danilkin to Dudinka on the Yenisei River. The canal was constructed by forced labor of gulag inmates. From inside the book . View Homework Help - 1.1 White Sea Canal Exercise 052012 from PROJECT MA 6K285 at University of Iowa. Deaths on the White Sea Canal, 1931-1933 According to official figures, during the construction of Belomor, the White Sea Canal, 2.24% of the prisoners in the BelBaltlag camp complex died in 1931 (1,438 persons), 2.03% died in 1932 (2,010 persons) and in 1933, due to famine in the USSR and the rapidly approaching deadline to finish the project, 10.56% of the prison workforce died (8,870 persons). The White Sea-Baltic Sea Canal project took the lives of 12,000 of its construction labor workforce, which was made up entirely of inmates. The White Sea Canal: A Hymn of Praise for Forced Labour. The White Sea – Baltic Sea Canal (Russian: Беломо́рско–Балти́йский кана́л, Belomorsko–Baltiyskiy Kanal, BBK), often abbreviated to White Sea Canal (Belomorkanal) is a ship canal in Russia opened on 2 August 1933. By the time construction began, the Soviet Union had already begun to execute several similarly grand, … White Sea Canal The White Sea-Baltic Canal is a grand Soviet construction built in 1931-1933 where prison labor of the Gulag was used for the first time. On the night of November 12/13, another boat caravan froze in Zaonezhsky Bay near Megostrov Island, and was later captured by Finnish troops. [36], During World War II, in August–September 1941, the canal was used to move a number of submarines from the Baltic Fleet to the White Sea, including submarines K-3, S-101 and S-102, L-22. The White Sea is an important traffic centre of northwestern Russia, interconnecting various economic regions and providing an outlet to the foreign routes. Two major seas … (История Карелии с древнейших времён до наших дней / Науч. The White Sea–Baltic Canal links it through Lake Onega to the Baltic Sea and the major city and port of Saint Petersburg. and what this canal allowed? After many years of interruption, Volgotanker resumed the canal route in 2003. Updates? Alternatively, from Lake Onega river ships can sail eastward into the Volga–Baltic Waterway. Supposedly "reforging class enemies" (political prisoners) through "corrective labor", the working conditions at the BBK Camp were brutal, with the prisoners given only primitive hand tools to carry out the massive construction project. In all, the Combine's employees accounted for about 25% of the population of the Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. The air bombings of the Povenets lock ladder succeeded in interrupting boat traffic on the canal only from June 28 to August 6, and then again from 13 to 24 August 1941. The White Sea canal. It connects the White Sea, in the Arctic Ocean, with Lake Onega, which is further connected to the Baltic Sea. Lock No. Finally, six months before the end of the canal’s … In particular, he emphasizes that politics and public relations ruined the usefulness of the canal: Stalin seems to have been so intent on creating a highly visible symbol of development that he pushed and squeezed the project in ways that only retarded the reality of development. The locks and the surrounding areas are newly renovated, including new fences with barbed wire at the top. Once the locks of the Povenets Ladder had been destroyed, water from the watershed lakes poured freely into Lake Onega through Povenets village, which was nearly completely destroyed by the flood. Stalin White Sea – Baltic Sea Canal is a 1934 Soviet historical volume detailing the construction of the White Sea-Baltic Sea Canal and the labor used to construct it. and early in its history the Northern Fleet's first warships sailed along the canal to the White Sea from the Baltic,[34][35][25] Before World War II, the canal was used for the transfer of military vessels between the two seas on 17 occasions. One of the most important construction projects of the first five-year plan (1929–32). There is a monument at Povenets for the prisoners who perished during the construction, and a smaller memorial in Belomorsk near the White Sea end. Still there isn’t a lot of traffic. On December 6 in a -37 °C frost, Finnish troops captured Povenets, the southern entrance to the BBK. BACKGROUND The notion of a canal that would connect the Baltic and White Seas From 1932 to 1933, a 227 km-long canal was dug to the north of St Petersburg. The White Sea Canal was the regime's first “storm project” complete with an agenda for a project of national significance. Once in Lake Onega, ships can exit the southwest shore through the Svir River (and its two locks) to reach Lake Ladoga and then proceed down the Neva River to Saint Petersburg and the Baltic Sea. On August 28, the fifth and final bombing raid of the 1941 navigation season took place against Lock No. Stalin White Sea – Baltic Sea Canal (Russian: Беломорско-Балтийский канал имени Сталина), published at the end of 1934. White Sea–Baltic Canal, system of rivers, lakes, and canals in northwestern Russia that connects the White Sea to Lake Onega, where it joins the Volga-Baltic Waterway (q.v.). The White Sea is an important route connecting the economically active portions of northwestern Russia with Russia’s Far Eastern ports and with foreign countries. In Russian, "inmate", "incarcerated" is заключённый (zakliuchyonnyi), usually abbreviated to "з/к" in paperwork, and pronounced as "зэка" (IPA: [zɨˈka], "zeh-KA"), which gradually transformed into "зэк" and "зек", zek (both pronounced as IPA: [ˈzɛk]). Corrections? Source for information on White Sea Canal: Encyclopedia of Russian History dictionary. Media in category "White Sea-Baltic Canal" The following 107 files are in this category, out of 107 total. and is it true that the Soviet leaders after opening the gates drowned 1000s of the men who were forced laborourers who built this? Ring in the new year with a Britannica Membership. Another upgrade took place in the 1970s. The BBK led to the development of Belomorsk as a major industrial city. The northern slope has twelve locks numbered 8–19. From Povenets, at the northern end of Lake Onega, the canal runs northward to Lake Vygozero (using seven locks), from which the canalized Vyg River (with 12 additional locks) leads to the White Sea. [37][38] After Finland left the war in September 1944, the damage to the canal, including the complete destruction of its southern section and the town of Povenets and damage to lighthouses and other structures, was repaired. Korablev, V.G.Makurov, Yu.A.Savvateev, M.I.Shumilov; Petrozavodsk, Periodika Publishers, 2001. The canal’s speedy completion provided an impetusforothersimilarprojects,suchasDalstroiandtheMoskva-Volga Canal. The canal was seemingly a small part of the agency's overall shipping business, which in 2007 amounted to 4.6 million tonnes and 155,000 passengers. https://www.britannica.com/topic/White-Sea-Baltic-Canal, Presidential Library - The White Sea-Baltic Canal Construction was Completed, Stanford University - Hoover Institution - The White Sea–Baltic Canal. [41], Coordinates: .mw-parser-output .geo-default,.mw-parser-output .geo-dms,.mw-parser-output .geo-dec{display:inline}.mw-parser-output .geo-nondefault,.mw-parser-output .geo-multi-punct{display:none}.mw-parser-output .longitude,.mw-parser-output .latitude{white-space:nowrap}62°48′N 34°48′E / 62.800°N 34.800°E / 62.800; 34.800, Profile of the canal showing the locks and elevation, Беломорско-Балтийский канал имени Сталина, Сроки работы шлюзов (Lock operation periods), from the site of the Russian Shipping Companies' Association. WHITE SEA CANAL The White Sea (Belomor) Canal in Karelia rises from Lake Onega in the south to a maximum of 108 meters (118.1 feet) at Lake Vyg and then descends to the White Sea in the north. 944 pages. White Sea–Baltic Canal, Russian Belomorsko-baltiysky Kanal, system of rivers, lakes, and canals in northwestern Russia that connects the White Sea to Lake Onega, where it joins the Volga-Baltic Waterway (q.v.). White Sea Canal Class Activity: Project Planning Triple Constraint Assignment 1.1 In the early The Finns crossed the canal and captured Gabselga village to the east, but after a few days of fighting they were pushed back to the canal's western side. [24], A major part of the Combine's workforce consisted of 75-85 thousand Beltbaltlag prisoners. Until 1961, its original name was the Stalin White Sea–Baltic Canal (Belomorsko-Baltiyskiy Kanal imeni Stalina). The White Sea–Baltic Canal is 141 miles (227 km) long, 23 miles (37 km) of which is manmade. The company was fined and future operations were refused. "History of Karelia from antiquity to our time", editors: N.A. [30], In Soviet times, the canal was used for shipping oil products from refineries on the Volga River to consumers in the Murmansk Oblast and overseas. the White Sea–Baltic Canal in the history of the Gulag. At least 12,000 workers died during the building process, according to the official records,[4] while Anne Applebaum's estimate is 25,000 deaths,[5] and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn estimated up to 250,000 deaths.[21]. (Беломорско-Онежское государственное бассейновое управление водных путей и судоходства), which is also responsible for shipping on Lake Onega and in the Belomorsk harbor area (but not in the open waters of the White Sea). The settlements of Povenets, Segezha, Nadvoitsy, Sosnovets, and Belomorsk are located along the canal. Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. Evacuated from Medvezhyegorsk to Lock No is manmade pickaxes, shovels, and for prison. Is the elevation of the population of the new canal between the White Sea–Baltic canal is 141 miles a! 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