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[CONSTRUCTION OF MOSCOW CANAL] Soyedineniye Volgi s Moskvoy-rekoy: Sb. materialov po soyedineniyu verkhov’yev Volgi s Moskvoy-rekoy [i.e. Junction of Volga with Moscow-River: A Collection of Materials on the Junction of the Upper Reaches of Volga with Moscow River].

Item #1303

Moscow: izd-vo Mosoblispolkoma, 1932. 64 pp., 1 map: ill., maps. 20x12.9 cm. In original illustrated publisher’s wrappers. Fine.
Scarce. First edition. Edited by S. Chernyavsky. A book dedicated to the junction of Volga with Moscow River.
Printed in 1932, the same year the construction of the Moscow canal began, this edition was intended to shed light on the peculiarities of one of the most ambitious industrial transformations in the 1930s USSR.
By the early 1930s, due to population growth, a shortage of drinking and industrial water began to affect Moscow. At the June (June 15, 1931) plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party, L. Kaganovich’s report on the tough situation with water stimulated the Soviet authorities’ decision to use the resources of Volga (flowing 120 kilometers north of the capital) for water supply and to build the Moscow-Volga canal. A year later, three options for laying the canal were presented to the government commission, differing in routes and methods of water supply. At the first stages, the project of the engineer Avdeev was considered the most appealing. Avdeev proposed to build a 40-meter-high dam near the town of Staritsa: the water had to go by drift to Moscow. The «drift» project, however, found many opponents, and after Gleb Krzhizhanovsky’s comment “I am the enemy of any drift, both in technical and in party life,” the fate of the project was decided. In 1932, the Council of People’s Commissars approved the Dmitrov canal construction project. According to this option, the total length of the canal was 128 km, the route began at the confluence of the Dubna River with the Volga and headed south through Dmitrov and Iksha station. The project provided for the construction of a dam on the Volga near the village of Ivankovo ​​to ensure uniform water intake into the canal. The construction process headed by the former chief of the OGPU Belomorstroi L. Kogan started in 1932 and lasted 5 years. The canal was built by over 200,000 gulag prisoners under direction of the Soviet secret police. Moscow-Volga canal is up to date considered one of the most ambitious and gigantic industrial transformations undertaken in the 1930s in the USSR.
According to the preface to the edition, the decision to publish this work was bolstered by the wish to fill the gap in the literature devoted to the construction. In the book, the authors elaborate upon the early version of the route proposed by Avdeev. The authors review each and every detail of the later-unreleased project and offer information on such aspects as natural conditions of the territory, cost and terms of execution, shipping prospects, main dimensions of the main channel, etc. The edition also includes two articles on the construction of the reservoir on the river Istra: the dam near the village Andreevsky and the dam near the village Zelenkovo. Andreevsky water bypass canal, that was supposed to be to the south of Gorky Park, was never implemented due to higher rates of expenditure, and the Soviet authorities settled on the second choice. The edition includes numerous tables (expenses, the slope of the Volga channel, changes in the width of Volga) and maps showing the project of the watering system proposed by Avdeev, reservoirs on the river Skhodnya, Khimka, Likhoborka, scheme of the main river routes of the European part of Russia, diagram of the connection of Volga with Moscow River in the project of Avdeev, etc.

No copies found in Worldcat.

Price: $750.00