Talk:White Sea–Baltic Canal

Old talk
I would like to know more about the living conditions of the prisoners who built the canal. What werethe working conditions? How was their diet and how did they die? Where were they buried? Rgámez, San Jose, CA,USA

If you want to know everything about the living conditions (if it could be called "living") read The Gulag Archipelago by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn. It'll show you that there was NOTHING "glorious" about the USSR. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.209.105.33 (talk) 20:43, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Single story by an author is all you need to reinforce your viewpoint? Really?

The article is very sloppy. It takes a book or two that reinforces one slanted side and then speculates on the intentions or 'what they really thought' of those who were actually there. "Hey, let's throw 100k death toll, no evidence what so ever, but it makes Russia look evil."

-G — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.24.151.188 (talk) 06:07, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Death toll
Can anyone verify the death toll on the project? At the beginning of the article it states that 100,000 prisoners died during construction but later on it states the entire work force was 100,000 prisoners. These would imply a 100% mortality rate which seems a bit extreme. I haven't been able to verify the reference provided for the death toll as it points to an educational site in Britain that requires a fee to join.Tgpaul58 (talk) 19:40, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Later in the article it says there were 100,000 people working there over the 20 months and a death rate of 8.7%. This would mean 8,700 or if it was an annual rate about 13,000. At the very least the 100,000 so dubious it should not be allowed to stand alone. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.18.22.227 (talk) 15:09, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

They put more and more work slaves to the camp after the first ones died. The flow through was fast and large. About 270 000 died. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.78.161.177 (talk) 08:47, 30 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I think this is the correct interpretation, most figures I've seen place the death toll in the hundreds of thousands, the reason this canal is so infamous is because they were trying to meet a tight deadline and worked through the harsh winters. The prisoners were extremely underfeed, under dressed and over worked, and because of this there were exceptionally high death tolls and people would quickly freeze to death. That said I'm open to hearing other estimates. Haxonek (talk) 07:51, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Regardless of his accounts of life in the gulag, I do not believe Solzhenitsyn is considered a credible source for estimates of numbers of prisoners and death toll. Zetaeta (talk) 18:06, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Lake Ladoga
This article mentions two of the lakes on the canal's length, but not the biggest, Lake Ladoga. (It seems to be part of the canal, at least according to the map.) Maybe someone should add it to the relevant section. --JamesHoadley 09:14, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually Belomorkanal connects the White Sea and Lake Onega - you can see its map in the russian wikipedia article. Other parts on the map refer to Mariinskaya Waterways System which was built before Russian Revolution. RamBow 19:08, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
 * OK, I get it. Thanks. --JamesHoadley 13:47, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
 * You are welcome. And you are right - the article needs improvement in this area. It consists good political overview but there is obvious lack of geographic and technical information. RamBow 19:58, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Too much about those writers
There is too much speculation about that team of Russian writers and artists and what they knew. Is that visit especially notable? --Apoc2400 06:21, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

yes it is very important. gives a whole different perspective on the gulags —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.239.201.31 (talk) 09:20, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

depth limited?
Is canal really challenged by its depth ( citation? )? Being 4m deep, it conforms with depth of river waterways in Russia. Maybe it's locks' width that create some difficulties ( most popular cruise ships and volgo-don size freighters don't fit them). Linefeed 00:25, 5 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Depth is important. Waterways that can accommodate ocean going vessels do not require cargo to be trans-shipped.  Trans-shipping cargo from one form of transport to another is expensive.


 * Consider Bremen and Hamburg, consider Wuhan -- inland river-ports on rivers deep enough to accommodate ocean going vessels. Cities develop at the most inland riverport before trans-shipment becomes necessary.  Geo Swan (talk) 18:54, 17 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Is it very expensive to make it deeper? Andries (talk) 20:22, 3 December 2009 (UTC)


 * As I understand, the canal has been upgraded in the 1960s to the standards of the United Deep Waterways System of European Russia (ru:Единая глубоководная система Европейской части Российской Федерации), i.e. something like 4 m deep. This is supposed to enable boats of the standard sizes to travel all over from the Sea of Azov and Caspian Sea to the Baltic and the White Sea, via the Don, the Volga, the Volga-Baltic Canal and the White Sea-Blatic Canal, the Svir and the Neva. The boat class involved is referred to as "Reka-More" in Russian (i.e., River/Sea ships), meaning that they are small enough to operate in major rivers, but seaworthy enough to enter Russia's coastal seas. Making this particular canal deeper and wider - to enable bigger boats than this standard to go through - would make little sense unless one also wanted to deepen at least some other major sections of the system. (E.g., if you want a deeper waterway from St Petersburg on the Baltic to Belomorsk on the White Sea, you'd have to create a deeper channel over the Neva and Svir rivers, and the Ladoga and Onega Lakes.) Which probably would not be feasible, or at least not cost-effective for the length of the waterways and the cargo volumes involved. -- Vmenkov (talk) 04:37, 16 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Bremen and Hamburg (or Dudinka or Arkhangelsk) are somewhat different from Petrozavodsk or Nizhny Novgorod: they are located in the lower course of their respective rivers, so enabling the access of ocean ships to them involves the dredging of comparatively short shipping channels in those rivers. Wuhan is quite different as well: no offense to the Volga or the Svir, but I think that the Yangtze is way deeper (6-7 m in the lower course; maybe a bit less by Wuhan) than these Russian rivers, so the Chinese can operate bigger boats there. -- Vmenkov (talk) 04:37, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Naming names, "Jewish conspiracy"??!
User:BigChillClassic put in some editorial comments and a list of people responsible for the deaths on the canal. This was reverted, I though unecessarily so, it should have just been edited. So I put in the following:
 * "Some of the administrators and security officers believed to be responsible for the many deaths are Naftaly Frenkel, Yakov Rappoport, Matvei Berman, Lazar Kogan, Genrikh Yagoda and Sergei Zhuk."

As it stands it uses "weasal words" so it would be much better to say who thinks they are responsible (beyond BigChill). Frenkel is obviously responsible, and Yagoda certainly is responsible for things just as bad, and probably this as well. The other names ring a bell from having read a couple of books on the topic, but that's really not good enough in the long term (I think gradualism can apply here, it is not a BLP issue).

Unfortuneately, in doing some basic internet checks, it seems that this list (usually in the same order) is posted all over the internet in anti- (Jewish,Semetic,Zionist take-your-pick) sites. There seems to be a common source, perhaps Gulag Archipeligo - but who knows. I do not want to associate myself or Wikipedia with those sites, but I do think that naming names is important here. For example, I can't imagine an article on Nazi concentration camps that doesn't name Hitler or Eichmann.

Any help, suggestions appreciated. Smallbones (talk) 20:16, 26 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I removed this list once, as unreferenced, chaotic and pointless. For example, why would Yagoda be responsible for deaths? He was a governmental chief of the whole GULAG at these times. The (first) chief of the Canal constructioin was Frenkel. By this logic the whole Politburo must be added in this list, with Lenin and Stalin and all, who were in charge of everything. If there are particular cases of brutality, they must be decribed in the corresponding bio article. And I am removing it again. What might be of use is the chain of command for the SWBK. `'Míkka>t 00:56, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
 * P.S. BTW you are right about "Jewish conspiracy" issue: there were quite a few non-Jews amonmg management; the russian wikikipedia article lists some of them. `'Míkka>t 01:18, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
 * As for Hitler and Nazi camps, you are a bit confused and mistaken. Yes Hitler and others are ultimately responsible for the whole Holocaust. But you don't need them to be mentioned in each Holocaust article. Each level of events has its own list of immediately guilty, who must be blamed, not Hitler. Please remember it was the favorite line of defense of Nazis: "I was only executing the command. Don't blame me, blame my boss." `'Míkka>t 01:24, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, you are right naming names is significant. There is a good deal of confusion who was chief of what and when. I will start adding them in a proper way. `'Míkka>t 01:26, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

According to Yuri Slezkine, "all the top leadership positions were held by Jews" so it appears the information removed about Jewish involvement in building the canal was correct. Dmcw127 (talk) 18:31, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

a useless symbol?
I'm not sure where in the article it'd go, but it seems this claim, from Marshall Berman (All That Is Solid Melts into Air, 1982, p. 76) is relevant:
 * Stalin seems to have been so intent on creating a highly visible symbol of development that he pushed and squeezed the project in ways that only retarded the reality of development. Thus the workers and engineers were never allowed the time, money or equipment necessary to build a canal that would be deep enough and safe enough to carry twentieth-century cargoes; consequently, the canal has never played any significant role in Soviet commerce or industry.

--Delirium (talk) 13:18, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
 * This claim is an opinion; a guesswork based upon a guesswork. While it is good in a thick book, an encyclopedia is better to provide solid facts, rather than various guesswork on what Stalin thought and wanted. Stalin pushed for a very large number of giant projects; many if not all of them were based on forced labor; some of them succeeded, some not; shit happens. No reason to draw profound conclusions from one (or several) failures. - Altenmann >t 23:00, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Name of article?
The article says repeatedly that the canal is called the "White Sea – Baltic Sea Canal" and yet this article is titled "White Sea - Baltic Canal." Can someone change the title so it is correct? I don't see a way to do this myself. 69.125.134.86 (talk) 22:06, 6 July 2013 (UTC)


 * The Russian names (Russian: Беломо́рско–Балти́йский кана́л, Byelomorsko–Baltiyskiy Kanal, BBK), often abbreviated to White Sea Canal (Belomorkanal), translate to White Sea - Baltic Canal, or White Sea Canal, so I don't see any point in including the extra "Sea" after "Baltic". Perhaps you can remove all the extra "Seas" if it bothers you.  Smallbones( smalltalk ) 23:34, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Per wikipedia naming rules, the correct title would be the one commonly accepted in English publications. If anyone can prove that some other name is much more common in English, you re welcome to request article renaming. - Altenmann >t 02:31, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Obvious contradiction
" These teams were pitted to compete against each other in surpassing the norms, and promises were made of shortened sentences, food and cash bonuses for those who would—​​however, the norms were impossible to fulfill, let alone surpass. After the construction, 12,000 prisoners were freed as a reward for their efforts."

So here we are told they were promised they'd be rewarded for passing a set of goals, but those goals were impossible. We are also told 12,000 people passed those goals. How then, are they impossible, if 12,000 people achieve them? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.69.107.122 (talk) 12:36, 4 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Not exactly contradiction, but anyway, I removed the emotional part; this is not wikipedia's style. - üser:Altenmann >t 02:20, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

Dubious numbers for deaths.
In the "Working conditions" sections there is a statement by Alexander Solzhenytsyn describing 250 000 deaths. Solzhenytsyn is not a historian and his claims are not supported by any evidence. The Gulag Archipelago is not a historical reasearch work, and cannot be taken as a source. I would like to remove this claim as counter-productive and unsourced. Thoughts? F.Alexsandr (talk) 15:39, 29 June 2020 (UTC)


 * The Gulag Archipelago is a published source, and its author won the Nobel Prize, so it's not just some crackpot book. Now finding some other sources to back it up would be good, but I don't see a reason to remove it.  CaptainEek  Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 16:22, 29 June 2020 (UTC)


 * The Gulag archipelago is not a historical work. Solzhenytsyn himself called it "artistic fiction study". It is based on letters and oral stories of prisoners, not documents or even some kind of mathematical ststistical estimation. This "estimation" is nothing more than a guess by the author. We have archival Soviet data which clearly take precedence over a wild estimate. I say we remove it. F.Alexsandr (talk) 17:17, 29 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Solzhenytsyn's number is not the only one there, we have several other numbers for context.  CaptainEek  Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 02:55, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Also I would put very little stock in a Soviet estimate, they have every incentive to lie. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 02:56, 30 June 2020 (UTC)


 * The Soviet number is not an "estimate". Its a hard number recorded by the authorities during construction, with breakdown by year. Also you are ignoring my point. The Solzhenytsyn number shouldnt be even allowed here, because it is based on nothing but the authors guess. His guess is no better or worse than mine or yours. Its the same as if "For whom the Bell Tolls" was used as a source for Spanish Civil war. Did Hemingway participate in the Civil war? Yes. Does that mean that his work is a credible source? No. F.Alexsandr (talk) 09:08, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

"deadweight cargo up to 600 kg"
This number in the opening paragraphs is clearly wrong, and presumably should be 600 tonnes. A boat with a capacity of 600 kg would be closer to the size of a large rowing boat or dinghy. A boat of 100 m length by 10 m beam by 3 m draft should comfortably fit down the canal and could have a displacement of approximately 3000 tonnes, about 5000 times greater than the quoted cargo capacity. 217.169.17.163 (talk) 22:27, 30 September 2022 (UTC)