The Danube–Black Sea Canal () is a navigable canal in Romania, which runs from Cernavodă on the Danube river, via two branches, to Constanța and Năvodari on the Black Sea. Administered from Agigea, it is an important part of the waterway link between the North Sea and the Black Sea via the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal. The main branch of the canal, with a length of , which connects the Port of Cernavodă with the Port of Constanța, was built in 1976–1984, while the northern branch, known as the Poarta Albă–Midia Năvodari Canal, with a length of , connecting Poarta Albă and the Port of Midia, was built between 1983 and 1987.
Although the idea of building a navigable canal between the Danube and the Black Sea is old, the first concrete attempt was made between 1949 and 1953, when the communist authorities of the time used this opportunity to eliminate political opponents, so the canal became notorious as the site of labor camps, when at any given time, between 5,000 and 20,000 detainees, mostly political prisoners, worked on its excavation. The total number of prisoners used as labor force during this period is unknown, with the total number of deaths being estimated at several tens of thousands. The construction works of the Danube–Black Sea Canal were to be resumed 20 years later, in different conditions.
Geography The course of the canal follows mostly the course of the former river Carasu, originally a tributary of the Danube. Therefore, hydrographically it also has the function of conveying the runoff from a drainage basin to the Black Sea.
The main branch extends from Cernavodă on the Danube to Poarta Albă. On this reach it goes near or through the settlements of Cernavodă, Saligny, Mircea Vodă, Medgidia, Castelu, and Poarta Albă. On this reach the canal is joined on the north bank by tributaries (from west to east): Valea Cișmelei, Valea Plantației, Agi Cabul, Castelu and Nisipari. On the south bank it is joined by tributaries (from west to east) Popa Nica and Medgidia.
At Poarta Albă the canal bifurcates into two branches. The main canal goes to the south, towards the Port of Constanța Sud Agigea. It passes near the settlements of Murfatlar, Cumpăna and Agigea. On its reach it is joined on the northeast bank by tributaries Valea Seacă and Lazu and on the southwest bank by the Siminoc, Șerplea, Potârnichea and Agigea.
The northern branch, the Poarta Albă–Midia Năvodari Canal, goes towards the Port of Midia. It passes near Nazarcea, Lumina, Ovidiu and Năvodari. On its reach it is joined by tributaries Cocoș, Nazarcea and Valea Adâncă.
Motivation The main reasons for the building of the canal were to circumvent the Danube Delta which is difficult to navigate, shorten the distance to the Black Sea and several issues related to the loading and unloading of ships.Nicolas Spulber, "The Danube – Black Sea Canal and the Russian Control over the Danube", in Economic Geography, vol. 30, no.3 (July 1954), pp. 236–245
In its delta, the Danube is divided into three main branches, none of which is suited to optimal navigation: the Chilia branch is the deepest, but its mouths were not stable, which made navigation dangerous; the Sulina branch is not deep enough for maritime ships and it also used to be isolated from the railroad system; the Sfântu Gheorghe branch is shallow and sinuous.
At the time when the decision to build the canal was taken, it was officially announced that these works would also serve a secondary purpose, that of land reclamation, with the drainage of marshes in the area. Also during the construction period, the Danube–Black Sea Canal was advertised as a fast and direct connection between the Soviet Volga–Don Canal and Central Europe.
Dimensions
The main branch reduces the distance by boat from Constanța to Cernavodă by ca. .Tibor Iván Berend, An Economic History of Twentieth-Century Europe, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2006, pp. 155–156Adrian Cioroianu, Pe umerii lui Marx. O introducere în istoria comunismului românesc ("On the Shoulders of Marx. An Incursion into the History of Romanian Communism"), Editura Curtea Veche, Bucharest, 2005, Chapter 9.4, pp. 300–307United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, Inland Transport Committee TRANS/SC.3/2003/3 It has a width of and a depth of ; the northern arm has a length of , width of and a depth of . The radius of its sharpest bends is for the main branch, and , for the northern branch.
The waterway passes through the towns of Medgidia and Murfatlar, both of which have been turned into inland ports. It was designed to facilitate the transit of convoys comprising as much as six towed barges, up to 3,000 in tonnage each (respectively, a total of 18,000 in tonnage), in length and wide (ships of up to 5,000 in tonnage, as long as and with as much as in beam and in draft can also pass through the canal). The structure is bound by four locks (in Cernavodă and Agigea, and in Ovidiu and Năvodari, respectively).
In its final phase, the canal took over nine years to construct; of soil were excavated (greater than the amount involved in building the Panama and Suez canals),David Turnock, "The Danube – Black Sea Canal and its impact on Southern Romania", in Geo Journal 12:1 (1986), pp. 65–79 and of concrete were used for the locks and support walls.
History
Precedents The earliest plans for building this canal were drawn in the late 1830s. The 1829 Treaty of Adrianople canceled the trade monopoly of the Ottoman Empire in the Danubian Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, allowing these countries to build their own fleets by 1834. Both Romanian and non-Romanian ships used mostly the Danube port cities of Brăila and Galați, which saw an economic boom. But there were a number of barriers to this trade: the Ottomans controlled the navigation regime on the Danube, while the Russian Empire controlled access to the Black Sea in the Danube Delta, and there was little the Danubian Principalities could do to rectify this situation. Both countries welcomed the Austrian Empire's 1834 decision, endorsed by Count István Széchenyi, to extend the steamboat navigation to the maritime Danube. The Austrian initiative was badly received by the Russians, who considered their trade through Odesa and ports in the Crimea threatened by the development of Brăila and Galați. Without resolving to direct measures, the Russian Empire, who controlled the Sulina branch, started to show rigidity, instituting on February 7, 1836, a compulsory quarantine on the island of Letea, collecting taxes to cover the Russian financial deficit, and by not performing maintenance for the navigation on the Sulina branch to remove the continuous deposits of sand.Petrescu, pp. 136–137
This prompted the Austrians to conceive the idea of building a canal to connect the Danube with the Black Sea at the shortest point before the Delta, between Rasova or Cernavodă (Bogaz Köi) and Constanța (Küstendjie), and a parallel railway. The Austrian project, however, was rejected by the Ottoman Porte. Western diplomats and newspapers accused the Russian government that through bribing and intimidation, it determined the Ottoman officials to reject the proposal of Szechenyi's company. In 1839, Széchenyi got the approval of his and Ottoman governments to ensure the transport of goods and people without getting to Sulina by a transshipment on dry land. Carts and coaches made a 7–8 hour trip from Cernavodă to Constanța, where people and goods were boarding other ships for Istanbul. The enterprise was scrapped after 4 years due to non-profitability because of a low number of passengers, high cost of transport, and poor conditions of cargo handling in the unfit roadstead of the port of Constanța.Petrescu, p. 138
In its place, a new Brăila–Istanbul route was established. However, by 1844, the depth of the Sulina branch had decreased to 7–9 feet, from 13–14 feet in 1836, due to lack of dredging by the Russian authorities which controlled the passage. The Austrian government made a new attempt to cut a canal, sending the military engineer Colonel Baron Karl von Bigaro to prospect the land. But the idea had to be abandoned again due to technical problem, first of all due to the unfitness of the port of Constanța for large international trade.Petrescu, pp. 138–139
In 1850, the Moldavian scholar Ion Ionescu de la Brad proposed yet another project, supported by Ion Ghica and by the Scottish diplomat David Urquhart, the secretary of the United Kingdom's Embassy in the Ottoman Empire. Ghica lobbied Brad's project to Ahmed Vefik, who gave a negative response for fear of provoking Russia.Petrescu, p. 139
The Crimean War of 1854–1856, added a military and strategical dimension for this plan. The British and French allies landed at Varna in the summer of 1854, followed by the withdrawal of Russian troops from Wallachia and Moldavia and the advancement of Ottoman and Austrian ones. In 1855, the French government put forward an initiative, and the Ottomans approved it, for the cheapest solution: build a strategic road between Cernavodă and Constanța. Engineer Charles Lalanne was put in charge of these works, that started in the summer of 1855 and were finished by the year's end. According to the newspaper Zimbrul of Iași, the work was performed by 300 physically strong men of moderate character selected in Moldavia and Wallachia.Petrescu, pp. 139–140
The building of the road did not eliminate, however, the need for a canal, and the Austrian government renewed its persuading efforts. According to Gazeta de Transilvania in July 1855, Baron Karl Ludwig von Bruck, the Austrian Finance Minister, founded a stock company to build the desired canal. According to an article in Zimbrul on July 23, 1855, the project was of interest to Britain, the French Empire and the Austrian Empire, who were asking the Ottoman government to allot the concession of the canal and the fitting of the port of Constanța to a consortium under the direction of the three countries. The Ottomans were to lease a league of land on each side of the canal for 99 years, where colonist could be settled. Goods were to travel freely, with ships having to pay only a per tone tax, significantly lower than the one on the Sulina branch. According to the newspaper Steaua Dunării from January 24, 1856, the Sultan issued a firman to the Anglo-French–Austrian consortium Wilson–Morny–Breda, represented by Forbes Campbell, authorizing it to build the canal which was to be called Abdul Medjid. The 12 articles of the Concession Act were published in Bukurester Deutsche Zeitung.