PC/WI: A Dneiper-Daugava canal?

What if a canal would have been built between the Dneiper River and the Daugava River in Tsarist times? :

europe-rivers-lvl2-labeled.gif


Would this have been practical and realistic?

Also, would Kherson and/or Riga have become much more populous cities as a result of this canal being built?

What effect would this canal have on Russia's trade and economy?
 
that a huge distance and would be like the similar choot dejierd thread a couple months ago you would need someone only liek the Kievan thread
 
that a huge distance and would be like the similar choot dejierd thread a couple months ago you would need someone only liek the Kievan thread
It doesn't seem like a huge distance for a canal considering that the Dneiper and Daugava Rivers almost border each other.
 
The Dniepr below Kiev is famous for its rapids. So a canal would have to built to bypass the rapids before a cross-basin link could be built.

The Dniepr-Bug canal was built in the 18th century in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonweath, so a similar link in Tsarist Russia at around the same time should be doable.
 
The Dniepr below Kiev is famous for its rapids. So a canal would have to built to bypass the rapids before a cross-basin link could be built.

The Dniepr-Bug canal was built in the 18th century in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonweath, so a similar link in Tsarist Russia at around the same time should be doable.
How'd the Dneiper-Bug Canal deal with the rapids problem?
 
https://pribalt.info/abc.php?month=3&news=170

Initially, this [Dnieper-Daugava] way was used for predatory raids, but then the soldiers gave way to merchants, and Neva-Daugava-Dnieper, Riga Gulf-Daugava-Dnieper became important transit corridors connecting Northern Europe with the wealthy Byzantium. However, the fragmentation of Russian principalities, the decline of Byzantium, the Tatar-Mongol invasion over time have negated the importance of these waterways.

The idea of a revival of this path first appeared only at the end of the 19th century, and in the first decade of the 20th, even two projects appeared, the author of one of which was military engineer von Rukteshel. With some technical changes, the idea was almost put into practice: a syndicate emerged in Paris, which, with the support of two large banks, was ready to finance it. Alas, the work did not start: the First World War put an end to this grandiose project.

So delay WW1 and you'll have your Dnieper-Daugava canal.

It isn't even that far (83 km, which is less than the Augustow Canal), but the terrain is wet and marshy, so you'd best need to do this in the late 19th or early 20th centuries.
 
How'd the Dneiper-Bug Canal deal with the rapids problem?

I don't think it did. The goal of Dniepr-Bug was to reinforce Polish control of Kiev. The mouth of the Dniepr at the time was still controlled by the hostile Ottoman Empire. It was only in the 1930s that the rapids were flooded by a hydroelectric project (which included locks to bypass the dam and allow navigation from Kiev to the Black Sea).
 
What if a canal would have been built between the Dneiper River and the Daugava River in Tsarist times? :

europe-rivers-lvl2-labeled.gif


Would this have been practical and realistic?

Also, would Kherson and/or Riga have become much more populous cities as a result of this canal being built?

What effect would this canal have on Russia's trade and economy?

Probably you have to define a time frame but the whole Kherson (founded in 1778) thing implies that it is, at best, the end of the XVIII century. What it'd do for the Russian trade? Probably not too much: as per explicit policy established by Peter I bulk of the Baltic trade had been channeled to St-Petersburg, mostly at the expense of Riga. Riga still was an important port but remote secondary to the capital and its active development started only in the late XIX when it became the 3rd biggest city in the empire in the terms of industrial workers working in (400,000). Until (at least) the reign of Alexander I Riga was pretty much controlled by the local "patrician" families who were rather conservative in their approach to the trade and economy and definitely did not welcome the newcomers: AFAIK, business rights of the Russian (and Latvian) merchants had been strictly limited. Then, of course, there was a matter of the direction. Flow of the imports through Riga to the South would have limited consumers because it completely bypasses the most important areas of the Russian Empire. In the later times when the Novorossia became a major grain exporter it would be pretty much useless because, as I understand, products of the Southern governorships had been exported via the Black Sea ports (esp. Odessa).

It can be somewhat useful for the domestic traffic but I'm not sure if Kiev - Daugava line had too many industrial or commercial centers along it (Kiev, Riga, what else?): centers of the Russian trade and economy had been elsewhere.

So the OTL system of canals linking St-Petersburg with Volga was a clear priority. Construction of Maryinskaya System (1125 km so technically Daugava - Dnieper should not be a major problem) took 11 years (1799 - 1810) during the reigns of Paul I and Alexander I.
 
Tsarist Russia temporarily built a canal from Don to Volga, so Dnieper-Daugava shouldn't have been any more difficult except for ongoing political difficulties with Poland-Lithuania.
 
Throw the Neva in together for good measure

Read about the Maryinskaya System, the canals constricted in the early XIX to connect St-Petersburg with Volga. This system did make sense because it was reflecting the real flow of merchandise between St-Petersburg and Central Russia.

OTOH, Daugava - Dnieper idea reflects pretty much nothing besides the fact that it looks cute on the map: products of the Southern governorships had been routinely exported via the Black Sea ports (not to mention that the rapids on Dnieper had to be dealt with to make the route viable) and there was not too many Ukrainian consumers of the imports coming through Riga to make canal worthy of efforts.
 
"Shipping" implies that there is a meaningful flow of the goods within the route. Now, what exactly would make such a flow meaningful in this specific case? Which merchandise would you be moving in the early XIX between these two points?
Im not expert on the subject, but these riverways used to be trade hubs in the medieval period. Slaves, furs and other goods were traded on them.
 
Im not expert on the subject, but these riverways used to be trade hubs in the medieval period. Slaves, furs and other goods were traded on them.

Yes, but to the best of my knowledge there was no noticeable fur or slave trade along Daugava - Dnieper line in the XVIII - XIX centuries so what you wrote is not quite relevant unless you are advocating the early medieval canal construction between these two rivers (which would have problems of its own). :)
 
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