Eurasia Canal

The Eurasia Canal (Russian: Канал "Евразия", Kanal "Evraziya") is a proposed 700-kilometre-long (430 mi) canal connecting the Caspian Sea to the Black Sea along the Kuma-Manych Depression. Currently, a chain of lakes and reservoirs and the shallow irrigation Kuma-Manych Canal are found along this route.

The canal is intended to provide a shorter route for shipping than the existing Volga–Don Canal system of waterways; it would also require fewer locks (or lower-rise locks) than the Volga-Don route.

Manych Ship Canal is the existing canal system that would be the likely route for the Eurasian Canal.

The route of the canal, as usually proposed, would follow the thalweg (the lowest-ground line) of the Kuma-Manych Depression. From the Caspian Sea westward, the canal route would follow:

As the highest point of this route is only 27 meters above the level of the Sea of Azov and 54 m above that of the Caspian Sea, the preliminary design presented by the Hydraulic Facilities Safety Expert Center "GIDROTEKHEXPERTIZA" (Экспертный центр по безопасности гидротехнических сооружений "Гидротехэкспертиза") proposes the construction of three to four low-rise ship locks on the western slope and three mid-rise or six low-rise locks on the eastern slope. The option involving the construction of six low-rise locks on the eastern slope of the watershed can significantly reduce the volume of earthwork and lower by one-third the need for freshwater, which is precalculated as approximately 1.5 cubic km.

This compares favorably with the 13 locks of the existing Volga-Don Canal, where ships use nine locks to rise 88 m from the Volga to the canal's highest point, and then four more locks to descend 44 m to the Don's Tsimlyansk Reservoir.

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