Baltic and Black Sea Canal
From about 1860 Russian engineers developed a plan to connect the basin of the North Dwina, which falls into the Baltic at Riga, with the basin of the Dnieper.
1900 Mr Consul Woodhouse prepared a report on the scheme and expressed the opinion that if a waterway with a depth of 4ft. to 5ft. could be made it would be of great service to a large section of the country which has no means of getting its produce to a wider market, but that the cost that would have to be incurred in making a deep-water canal would be so great as to preclude any idea of its ever being carried out.[1]
By 1910, Austria had developed an alternative project to join the Danube and the Oder by connecting tributaries of the two rivers with a short canal, and by improving the navigation of the tributaries. The new canal means through water- communication 2700 kilometres long from the Black Sea to the Baltic.[2].