Maintenance of the waterway, which can be divided into three sections ¬¬-- the Volga section, the Volga-Don canal and the Don section -- is performed by the Volga, Volga-Don and Azov-Don state waterway and shipping administrations. These federal state administrations' sphere of activity includes management of ports -- Volgograd, Astrakhan, Kalachev, Volga-Don, Liskinsk, Voronezh, Azov and Rostov.
The history of creation and operation of inland waterways and the hydro-engineering constructions built on them is connected with the development of the Russian transport network. People used convenient portages between rivers from the earliest stages of economic development.
Portage between the Volga and the Don at their closest points had been used for many centuries, making the Volga-Don route attractive for transportation.
Peter the Great started construction of the canal in 1697, for both strategic purposes and for trade with the Black Sea countries of the Middle East. More than 30 attempts to connect the Volga and the Don were made between then and 1917, but most were never implemented.
The new Soviet government discussed the construction of the Volga-Don canal back in 1918. The project was assigned a top priority status, and construction works were to be implemented in several stages.
The first part of the Volga-Don canal was the Kochetov hydro-system built in 1919 some 178 km away from the estuary of the Don River. It was built to create backwater to ensure maintenance of depths at the confluence of the Don and its first tributary, the Seversky Donets River. Its commissioning had significant economic importance for the waterways of the Don basin, as it enabled regular transportation of coal from the of Donetsk coal basin and of bread produced on the fertile irrigated land of the steppe.
Between 1949 and 1952 the following infrastructure facilities were put into operation:
1. The 101 km long Volga-Don canal with 13 canal locks, 3 pumping stations, 13 dams and dykes, 7 spillways and floodgates, 22 navigation channels, 2 bulkhead gates, 8 rail and road bridges, ferry crossings, stations, piers and a 100 km channel-side highway. This amounts to 96 hydro-engineering constructions on the channel.
2. The Tsimlyansky hydro-system in Volgodonsk, with 2 canal locks, a hydroelectric power station, an earth dam, outside irrigation system and railway and highway crossings.
3. The Don main irrigation canal, the Nizhny-Don distribution canal and the Azov distribution canal.
The canal gets its water from the Don River. Three pumping stations (with a design capacity of 45 cub. m/s each) pump Don water from the Tsimlyansky Reservoir successively to the Karpovsk, Bereslavsk, and Varvarovsk Reservoirs. This water is also used for irrigation and water supply. The pumping stations are controlled from a single control centre which is part of Marinovsk hydro-system. The pumping stations are currently being refitted. Hydraulic units with an enhanced capacity of 20 cub. m/s instead of the original 15 cub. m/s are being installed at the Karpovsk and Varvarovsk pumping stations. Units of the original capacity are installed at the Marinovsk station, but their number will be increased from 3 to 4, with a total capacity of 60 cub. m/s.
The Volga-Don canal connects all the seas of European Russia in a single system.
The Nikolaevsk and Konstatinovsk hydro-systems were built in 1975 and 1982, respectively, on the Don River below the Tsimlyansk hydro-system to ensure the efficient use of the river's water resources and create necessary navigation depths. They also have pressure, navigation and fish way hydro-engineering constructions. Overall dimensions of the navigational lock gate chambers are 150x18 m.
At present, more than 130 hydro-engineering constructions ensure continuous navigation.
The following national economical goals were achieved by the commissioning of the Volga-Don canal and associated structures:
1. Transport connection of the Volga River with the Don River with navigation along the Don to its outflow.
2. Irrigation of large spaces of arid lands along the Nizhny Don, Sal and West Manych.
3. Power supply from Tsimlyansk hydroelectric power station.
During the first years of its operation the main cargo of the Volga-Don canal was timber from the north, and coal, bread and construction materials from the south.
Today, with the development of foreign trade contacts with the countries of Caspian, Black and Mediterranean Seas, the structure of the fleet and cargoes it carries have changed. Large-tonnage vessels up to 5000 tons carry grain, metal, timber, fertilizers, oil and oil products.
More than 450 million tones of cargo have been transported, and over 9.0 million lockings have taken place since the Volga-Don waterway began operations. Pumping stations pumped over 60 billion cub. m of water.
Putting the second line of the Kochetovsky hydro-system into operation will increase the total channel capacity of the whole transit route between the Azov and Caspian Seas. The new lock gate eliminates dangers to navigation and the environment from accidents during the locking through of large-tonnage vessels. Overall dimensions of the new lock gate enable vessels with tonnage up to 5,000 tons to carry full loads. The transportation capacity of vessels can even be increased by 600-700 tons.