The Lenin Volga-Don Shipping Canal, connecting the Volga River (which flows into the Caspian Sea) and the Don River (which flows into the Black Sea) at their closest points, near today's Volgograd, was constructed between 1938 and 1952 (with an interruption between 1941 and 1945 because of the Eastern Front campaign). The canal and its facilities were mostly built by gulag prisoners. In 1952 (a year before Stalin's death) the number of convicts employed in construction topped 100,000.
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