White Sea-Baltic Sea Canal (Russian: Belomorsko-Baltiyskiy Kanal (BBK)), opened on August 2, 1933 is a ship canal that joins the White Sea and the Baltic Sea near St. Petersburg. Its original name was Belomorsko-Baltiyskiy Kanal imeni Stalina, "White Sea-Baltic Sea Canal in the Name of Stalin" and it is known under the abbreviation Belomorkanal. During the construction up to 100,000 Gulag prisoners died.

The canal runs partially along several rivers and two lakes, Lake Onega and Lake Vygozero . The total length or the route is 227 km (141 mi). Its economic utility at present is limited by its depth, only twelve feet, which prohibits many vessels from using the canal.

The Soviets presented the Canal as an example of the success of the First Five Year Plan. Its construction was completed four months ahead of schedule. The entire Canal was built over the course of twenty months, between 1931 and 1933, almost entirely by manual labor.

In fact, the Canal was the first major project constructed with the forced labor of Gulag inmates. BBLAG, the Directorate of the BBK Camp, serviced the construction, supplying a workforce of an estimated 150,000 convicts. The Soviets portrayed the project as evidence of the efficacy of the Gulag. Supposedly "reforging" criminals through "corrective labor," the working conditions at the BBK Camp were brutal. A carefully prepared visit to Belomorkanal hid the worst of the brutality from a group of Russian writers and artists, including Maxim Gorki, Aleksey K. Tolstoy , Victor Shklovsky, Mikhail Zoshchenko, who compiled a work in praise of the project.

The Canal was commemorated by the brand of Russian cigarettes Belomorkanal.

The Canal, over its entire length, is between ten and twelve feet deep, making it useless to most vesels, and today only gets light traffic, between 10 and 40 boats a day. Even though it was said to be a complete failure at the time, Stalin denied this and was apparently very proud of the Canal.

References

• Paul R. Gregory, Valery Lazarev and V. V. Lazarev, Economics of Forced Labor: The Soviet Gulag, Hoover Institute Press, October, 2003, trade paperback, 356 pages, ISBN 0817939423

External links

• Belomorkanal
• Photos and some info from Open Society Archives
• Chapter from Economics of Forced Labor: The Soviet Gulag