Talk:Danube–Black Sea Canal/Archives/2012

Vessel dimensions?
So, the maximum draft is 5.5 metres, what is the maximum length and beam of vessels? Are there locks on the canal? -- Geo Swan 18:40, 10 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Sea vessels and river-sea vessels with a maximum deadweight of 5,000 tons, length of 138.3 metres, beam of 16.8 metres and draught of 5.5 metres may also navigate the canal. (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe report).
 * bogdan 18:46, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Removed copyvio
these fragments were copy-pasted from here Anonimu 17:31, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) over 40,000 detainees were held in its camps, along with another 20,000 so-called "volunteer workers"
 * 2) The labour force was made up of "reactionary elements" the majority of whom had been "administratively arrested", without trial, for terms varying between 12 and 60 months. The Canal was named, in the terms of the Gheorghiu-Dej regime, " a graveyard of the Romanian bourgeoisie".

Wow!
Great job, Dahn! I did the best I could to get the story of the Canal going, but you are a real pro. At any rate, I think this is an important story, one that should be told before it all goes down the memory hole. Keep up the good work. Turgidson 04:00, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Thank you so much! (Only by standing on the shoulders of giants: when I first came to this article, it needed lots of work, so I was quite surprised to see how much you and others had improved it.) I'm thinking of expanding on the trial and probably make it a separate section - I have just glanced over the Ziua article, and it looks quite intimidatingly long for facts I am only vaguely familiar with (and it's early morning over here); I'll see about it tomorrow. Cheers. Dahn 04:23, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Now it's better.. of course it could do better without socor's fallacies and quoting of quotations. Anonimu 14:13, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

To Dahn: the phrase reffers to the construction during Ceausescu. Also, i think the part about payed labour and that about the true construction (post 1976 one) should be under separate headings. Anonimu 14:26, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
 * The part about payed labor in the 1950s should not be under a separate heading - as pointed out by Cioroianu, its fluctuations were directly connected with measures taken by officials (from number of prisoners to Securitate overseeing); everything else would be apologetic. The info about your magnanimous satrap is covered under a separate heading, so I don't see your concern there. Dahn 14:46, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Is Cioroianu the author of this article or the (supposedly NPOV) internet community? If you won't, i'll do it.. you don't own the article... Anonimu
 * NPOV imposes not to separate interconnected facts for the sake of making a point. If x decreased because of y (and observation which should be made available to each and all), separating x and y will only be ensuring that reality gets filtered by "oh so neutral" Anonimu. As for the "own" part, thank you very much, but I'm afraid you'll have to make a point about proposed changes,not just propose them. Dahn 15:03, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, but in this case you can't prove that x decreased only because of y, and not also, let's say, z (like problems with the funds). ba si mai usor.. daca'ti sare mustaru asa repede nu'ti vad un viitor prea stralucit... fii linistit... Anonimu 15:14, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
 * What I have is a "so it was", what you have is a "let's say". Let's say you have no point. (Also, you could do without the ad hominems.) Dahn 15:18, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
 * So what? I see no impediment to put another heading. What ad hominem? It was just some advice. Oh, btw, what's with that over-referencing.. i mean, 4(four) references for the fact that the construction was halted for 23 years?!? And since you're currently expanding the article, you should also speak about the irrigation system that developed thanks to it (about 220,000 hectares of irrigated land). Anonimu 23:52, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Hopefully, this is the moment when you learn something about referencing, other than "how to machine-gun with tags". As you may have seen, I generally tend to reference the other way (several sources per each footnote, instead of the current every footnote an individual source). Having said that, what I generally do is reference an entire source or as much of it as is available (i.e.: not one glimpse into a large book such as Tismăneanu's, but everything Tismăneanu has to say about x topic) - btw, I have borrowed the Ro edition of Tismăneanu and I am turning citations into the original US edition equivalents (using the index on google books). Dahn 00:46, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

The page is getting better and better, very fast, I think. I'm new to wikipedia, and this is the first time I see how collaboration can really help build things up (something I'd only heard about before). And, by the way, I think the story of the Canal is a worthy subject to investigate in depth. I could talk more about, but just a quick question for now: I found very interesting (and news to me) the involvment of the notorious Securitate officer, Alexandru Nikolski, in this (wasn't he actually a General?). I'd heard of him only in connection with the horrible Piteşti experiment, which involved far fewer prisoners ("only" a few thousands), but plumbed the depths of inhumanity in ways that most likely the Canal prison camps didn't quite reach. At any rate, it would seem worthwhile having a wikipedia page on Nikolski, and his role in all this. I'm thinking of starting one, but some quick searches didn't produce as much information as I thought they would. Any ideas? Turgidson 21:35, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, the man was indeed obscure. In my system, I begun by making the comprehensive list, and I am randomly filling entries in accordance to, well, my whims (yesterday, I've completed Eugen Rozvan). There are some special sources I have access to (Tismăneanu, Cioroianu, Frunză, and various articles in Dosarele Istoriei), so I'll make this a priority. In case you want to start work on it before me, feel free. Dahn 00:46, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the encouragement. OK, I started the page.  After a while, I realized that part of the difficulty in coming up with more info was due to the fact that there are several spellings for Nikolski's name.  Turns out there already was a page on ro.wiki, with the spelling Nicholschi.  Since that was also the spelling already used on the page for Securitate, and in several other books and articles, I went with it. It's still rather rough, but that's all for now...   Turgidson 02:53, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Spulber (1954)
If anyone is interested, I have temporarily uploaded it here :-) bogdan 20:48, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Kewl. Dahn 21:11, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, I'd seen this article, but did not know how to deal with it. JSTOR is a great site, but alas, not freely accessible.  By the way, is there a wikipedia policy on how to use (and/or quote) material from JSTOR?  Turgidson 21:17, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
 * You could cite the paper version of the journal, or you could link JSTOR. But the latter is supposed to be discouraged: from External links: "Links normally to be avoided: Links to sites that require payment to view the relevant content." bogdan 21:22, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I've reviewed it. Will remove the link (I had introduced it only because it was already present, under External links). Dahn 21:44, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I also found another source: Turnock (1986): it's uploaded here bogdan 10:41, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Good find! I used the reference to fill in the missing citation for the amount of poured concrete.  Turn out (acording to Turnock) that there were "only" 3.6 million m^3 used, instead of the 4.2 million figure the article had before.  Since the source looks reliable to me, I went with this lower (more conservative) figure.  By the way, I also added Turnock's comparison with the Panama and Suez canals -- I think it put into perspective what those poor souls were forced to do in the early 50s with only picks and shovels.  My only problem was whether to use "and" as in the original or "or" -- my hunch is that Turnock means the amount of earth dug was greater than either at the Panama or Suez canals, not both, but I'm not quite sure, so I went wth his formulation.  Turgidson 14:19, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Here's a nice documentary (in romanian, subtitled in english) about the construction of the canal. However its a non-streaming 341 MB clip. Anonimu 15:35, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Mirabela Dauer & Dan Spătaru
"Magistrala Albastră" (mp3) from Hulubei.net ;-) bogdan 22:17, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Y'know, I never did listen to those songs. Supposedly, they belong in the text (under "In art") with the link (under "External links"), but I wouldn't know (and, really, I don't want to download them). 1980s stuff, right? Dahn 22:21, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah, 1980s. Awful. :-) bogdan 22:27, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Political background
Should anyone wish to work this into the article, here's some of that:

(88) She supported, for instance, Luca’s dogged resistance to the increasingly grandiose construction projects of the time, arguing “that we shouldn’t spend so much money, that we should build residential units” instead. On these grounds, both opposed constructing the Danube-Black Sea Canal, one of the Soviet bloc’s most notorious postwar symbols of Stalinist repression. Pauker told her family that Stalin himself personally “proposed” the canal in late 1948. Yet Luca sharply criticized the amount of money wasted on its construction, and Pauker did not shrink from expressing her own misgivings at certain party meetings. In contrast, Gheorghiu-Dej, who officially supervised the project, was a passionate promoter of the canal. Consequently, soon after Pauker and (89) Luca’s purge, the construction speeded considerably. Two months following their ouster in May 1952, twenty-five of the canal’s administrators were arrested for sabotage; and with Gheorghiu-Dej pressing for a trial as early as possible, two military tribunals fraudulently convicted them in August and September – resulting in several death sentences and long prison terms. This signaled a renewed push for building the canal. While only three kilometers had been completed during the entire three years of construction before Pauker and Luca’s purge, no less than four kilometers were completed during the year from then until mid-1953, when the project was abruptly abandoned.

Source: Robert Levy, Ana Pauker: The Rise and Fall of a Jewish Communist, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2001 ISBN 0-520-23747-1, pp. 88-9. Biruitorul 16:24, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
 * By the way, Stalin was very interested about this canal. When he heard about it, just after the WWII, he "sugested" Romanian communists that it should be done. When he was told that in Romania there are not enough tractors and trucks, Stalin agreed easily to give us what we need. It seems that Stalin wanted to take us all the Danube Delta. But in 1953 he died... --Alex:Dan 13:25, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Geography
This section says:-

and
 * The Northern Branch, also called Carasu Branch goes to Lake Siutghiol. It crosses the localities of...


 * The Southern Branch, also called Agigea Branch goes to Lake Agigea. It crosses the localities of...

Can anyone fill in the blanks?

Swanny18 (talk) 11:25, 7 April 2008 (UTC)