It’s interesting: Lithuania and Ukraine are still connected by waterways Life
The post points out that at first glance this sounds strange, because the Nemunas and Dnieper rivers do not connect, and neither do their tributaries. Even the Vikings traveling to Byzantium chose the Daugava River, and even then they had great connections to carry their ships.
However, the record notes, during the LDK era, in 1783. the 54 km long Oginsky Canal was completed, connecting the Baltic Sea with the Black Sea: Nemunas → Šciara → canal → Jaselda → Pina → Pripete → Dnieper. The length of the waterway from Kaunas to Kyiv when traveling along this road is ~2403 km.
The canal had 10 wooden locks, 2 drawbridges and crossed 2 natural lakes, the lake basin was used to regulate the water level of the lock system.
Mykolas Oginskis spent 12 million zlotys. For this, he received the Sluška Palace in Vilnius, lands, a city, a village and the right to collect a fee for using the canal (8 zlotys per oar).
The works lasted for 10 years, the treasury and the state were local donors. The canal made the town of Slonim on the shores of Ščiara the international “Port of Oginskis”.
Ships from the Baltic Sea Canal could reach the Black Sea without going around Europe. After the road was shortened, shipping became more active, and one of the largest cities on this waterway – Kaunas – began to grow faster.
Grain, salt, wine, vinegar, bacon, tobacco, glass, bricks, boards and rasts, metal were transported on canal barges. There were also passengers.
With the advent of railroads, the importance of the canal diminished but did not disappear. During the First World War and the Polish-Russian War (1920), the canal’s hydraulic equipment (and therefore its functionality) was abolished.
The canal was operational again from 1928. until 1941, and all the canal locks were blown up in the 1970s.
Currently, the canal is abandoned and unused, its separate sections are used only by water tourists.