Note 289 — Chapter XVIII · ON THE COMMERCE OF THE SEA OF AZOF.

The project of uniting the Volga and the Don, so as to complete the communication between the Baltic, Black, and Caspian Seas, is very ancient. Seleucus Nicanor, then Selim II., and afterwards Peter the Great, undertook the execution of it, and, if it has not yet been effected, the delay must be attributed to other circumstances than to the difficulty of the enterprise. If the Tlavlia, which falls into the Don, and the Kamitchiaka, which falls into the Volga, were rendered navigable, the distance necessary to unite these two mighty streams would only be 3 miles. The difficulty which Peter the Great encountered was, that the level of the Don was higher than that of the Volga by a distance which the academician Lovitz found to be 300 feet. The celebrated Pallas then suggested a junction below the Tlavlia, where the Don, making an angle, approaches the Volga within 50 versts (about 35 miles), and the ground is a bed of sandstone easy to work. They might also be joined by a canal from the Karpovka, on the left bank of the Don, and the Sarpa, a tributary of the Volga; and this would be easy, because of deep ravines and valleys near a convenient point of junction.

Peter the Great, however, united the Voroneje, which falls into the Don, with the Niaza, by a canal; and as the last river flows into the Racovna, the Racovna into the Oka, and the Oka into the Volga, it is possible to navigate from Moscow into the Oka, and thence into the Don.—Vsevolovski, Dict. Hist. de l’Empire Russe, art. ‘Don.’