Yesterday there was news in latvian Delfi about super-mega project vision of some businessmans who want to link the Baltic Sea with the Black Sea through the Daugava and the Dnepier rivers. Costs of these project is calculated about 10 mld USD. Initiators of this project plans to organize referendum in Latvia, Belarus and Ukraine because of grandiosity of project. They say, that for Latvia it means 900 mio USD profit per year. It is planned that the cargo turnover through canal could reach 140 mio tonns per year which is 2 times more than present cargo turnover of latvian ports. And the time in where project could be finished could be 10 years. However many people are sceptical about this idea now, says that is utopia. There is concerns about the impact to environment also. But it seems that noone doubts - if the project will be realised, it will be the bonanza for latvian economic. I have no concrete and detailed standpoint at this moment because I don't know possible environmental risks but in overall I am for it. What's your thoughts?

Here is the links (sorry, only in latvian):

http://www.riga-hersona.lv/ekologija.html

http://www.db.lv/Default2.aspx?ArticleID=e23be491-2276-443a-9e53-e45a87e5768d

And some plannings of how it would be possible to cross Daugava's HES:

http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/1871/hesrigasgs2.jpg

http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/6928/heskegumsws1.jpg

http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/7553/hesplavinasdj0.jpg

My first reaction to this: :righton: x 1000

I have been thinking myself about the possibility of something like that, including the transportation of ships through the hydro-electric power-plants from time to time.

After all, the route Baltic see - Daugava - Dniepr - Black sea was already used by Vikings. And it makes 100% sense to bring this ancient trade route back to life.

Basically, I am wishing all possible luck and success to the project initiators, also hoping that Luddites who commented the Dienas Bizness article are not in the majority.

So yeah, Riga-Herson shipping route FTW!

This is one hellova project !:shocked:

Absolutely idiotic project. It would really do enormous harm to environment and it is not clear in what way this slow transportation (remember - sluice gates and speed limitations - if the ships would like to go above 25 - 30 km/h it will require rebuilding of coastal cities and constant washing out of coast) is better than railway.

This waterway won't be used by oceangoing ships and it means - unloading the oceangoing ship to rivership in Black sea entrance and unloading the rivership to oceangoing ship in Riga.

In general - 10 billions thrown in wind and heavily damaged environment.

An absurd project that will never be realised

Many have already done that trip by ship. Viking ship. http://www.skyscrapercity.com/images/smilies/righton.gif A guy from my hood probably did that - there's a rune-stone about how he died in Greece. Hardcore partying by the Med is an old tradition for Scandis.


realistically tho... wouldn't it be cheaper to just build a 3 or 4 track rail line or how about upgrading the current tracks and electrification? surely cheaper and transport potential is just as big for far less environmental impact and possible to do incrementally.

Forget this project...

Actually with this project might only gain some exact people, surely not the population in general, maybe just in a very long-run.. It's really terrible to imagine what kind of ecological disaster would this raise! :ohno: I just doubt this way we'll make a prosperity even in those coastal cities and towns along the future route, that would bring much more problems than profit!

This project is like at least 15 years old, and it comes up to surface each 3-4 years, when elections in LV coming closer. And each time they are claiming that "pretty soon we will start". It reminds me this idea -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantropa