How Czechia plans to connect Europe’s major rivers
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- Опубліковано 21 гру 2023
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#Czechia looks to dig a new canal to connect three peripheral seas: the #BlackSea, the #BalticSea, and the #NorthSea. #European commerce and trade would flow uninterrupted from one end to the other.
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4:10 ??? Was that filmed in June or something? Why are those flags everywhere?
Welcome to Shirvans House of Cope
@@Seventh7Art Why do you care so much, you in the closet or something?
End the eu empire! Free Czechia, free Slovakia, free Hungary, free Poland, free Italia, free Britannia!
Poor Czechia, its at such a disadvantage for trade. Worst disadvantage of all the EU countries.
Anyhoo ....greetings from Ireland. Hold my transport bill.
As a Czech, I can safely say this will NEVER happen
Is it because the Czecks protect their natural environment and are smart with public spending?
As an Austrian I can safely agree...
Why? Please explain. I really want to know.
@@tombuxi8867Why?
@@mattbonanza9032 It would destroy the environment and only the former president wanted this. There isn't a single political party that wants this
Outdated info, pal. Im Czech. This plan was scrapped last year by the government. This canal was just a pipe-dream of people with backward economic thinking. It is no longer in any development plans. And also .... "When Elbe and Oder reach Czechia...?" Both of those rivers originate in Czechia.
Zrušenie toho kanála bolo len aktom pomsty Zemanovi, ktorý bol jeho zastancom. Dúfajme, že budúca vláda bude normálna a že sa to bude dať napraviť bez väčších škôd.
@@Horan24 Zrušení toho kanálu je racionálním krokem, protože se kanál ekonomicky nevyplatí a z krajiny by odčerpal ještě víc vody, než se z ní ztrácí teď.
You are a small minded person who will live an irrelevant life.
Slovakia still haven't connected 2 of its largest cities. The highway is under construction since the 70s, and it's always "just 10 years away". I don't see this happening anytime soon.
Hire the Netherlands, we'll do it over the weekend somewhere January.
Sounds like Elon Musk’s promises
@@siertje100china will do it in one night.
sounds like Romania :)
The Czechs are not the Slovaks, that's why the countries separated and went their own ways.
As a Pole I must admit that the Czechs are far more if not outright BEST organised Slavic nation out there. Hence their so far prosperity compared to both Poland and Slovakia let alone other nations in the region.
Only because the Slovaks inherited slightly too much of the negatives from the Russian/Soviet rule times it doesn't mean the Czechs are the same.
As a Czech, I really appreciate that my favorite youtube channel covers something connected to my country. But frankly, this was just a wet dream of our former president Milos Zeman, who uncritically advocated it.
I like phrase "wet dream" We had it the same with Baltic and Zalew Wislany Canal. It was build costed around 500 mln Euros and no one is using it. Only tourist ships
@vaclavmudra is a German agent
@@MrKostkapotocki One of the reasons why Britain is out of the EU. Poor people in Britain were sick of paying vicious, regressive and extortionate tax to pay for this sort of corruption. I could have project managed the construction of a simpler but every bit as effective canal for less than one tenth of that cost. Why were the Belgians involved ? They have never built a sea canal themselves. The Nazis built the Albert Canal for them. The Nazis finished the construction in 1939. The Belgians paid for it and then the Nazis invaded less than a year later and took it for themselves. Clever people these Germans.
@@MrKostkapotocki:
@@terryhoath1983 Poor people in Britain are always going to pay for some sort of corruption. It does not have to come from EU when half of your land is still owned by your nobility and you had decades of rule by Tories (Labour party is only marginally better though)
As a Czech, I know this plan will never be realised. Both funding and ecological damage would be so wast, there is just no way it would happen.
as an austrian hydroecologist i second that. it would finish off what little is left of our ecosystems
You never know. Look at the canal works made in the Netherlands. If the economic incentive is there, I am sure people will find adequate reasons a plenty. In a way it could cut emissions from land transport. In terms of co2 they may be able to spin this as an investment when it comes to the ecological climate.
@@edelachtbare100 connecting two oceans will create problems way beyond that. do you like drinking water?
One big point, which was not mentioned, is that big parts of the already existing rivers would have to be widened and deepened. It was mentioned in the beginning of the video That Elbe river is not wide and deep enough, even on the border with Germany. Now you have to realize, that the river flows trough many cities, towns and villages, which are mostly centralized around the river. All of the historical structures, river banks etc. would be totally destroyed. Plus all of the natural wildlife in the rivers would be ruined. It really is much more complex, than digging the two red lines shown in the video.@@edelachtbare100
@@edelachtbare100 I dont understand how Caspian glosses over this. Yeah there might be ecological damage but having trucks carrying all your in- and exports will hurt the environment even more in the long run.
Being Czech and seeying how things are done around here puts your videos into perspective for me. Now I know when you talk about big projects, its just random stuff on paper that will never see the light of day.
💯
Sometimes, governments make choices that lack sound judgment.
@@CaspianReportMost of the times idiot. Sometimes only they do good that's also accidentally.
This phenomenon of trusting a source until it is just blatantly wrong about something you actually know about (and then being sceptical of everything else from that source) is common in life with journalism. You just have to remember the person writing it is as limited in their perceptions of the world as you are, its more about drawing value from the why and how of the journalist's sources that are informing other people who make decisions on the info.
I still like caspian report because what he says is largely based on the perspective of world observer in the former soviet union (well, closer to moscow post soviet). Their analyses can be just as flawed as a western world observer, but in this case is indirectly helpful as often when shirvan is wrong, this is the same wrong perception that russians and russia-adjacent people will be making decisions on this info as shirvan did.
@@CaspianReportits not even a choice. its just empty promise. they know they arent gonna do it.
Yeah no, that's not gonna happened. This was a megalomaniac dream of the last president Zeman and made absolutely no sense as it would completely destroy the local ecosystem especially since even now there's not enough water to navigate the Elbe a lot of the time. Also, the canal would have big problems outcompeting the very expansive rail network here. Thankfully the current government canceled all future plans for this environmental and economic catastrophe.
💯
The Oder isn't built for container ships either, it's an ecosystem heavily under pressure
Right, you come across a railway crossing all the time in Czechia. Why do something like this when train infrastructure is great already.
I’m from south africa, so no bias towards any side, but I know that Fresh water shipping costs often out compete even ocean shipping costs, and thats saying alot considering that maritime shipping is a whole category cheaper than Rail❤
You can try being a naysayer over minor issue, without the canals of Europe, there wouldn't be so much prosperity and goods shipment.
We, Europeans will forever be stuck in the middle ages because of our "can't do" spirit. Everything in Europe sucks because of this. People care more about trees than developing a modern prosperous society.
As a Czech I must say this and many of your videos are very well researched. Channel Odra Labe Dunaj is considered something of the past here. The economical benefits cannot and will not outweigh the disruption to the environment, wild life and the lives of Czechs. Boosting rail/road network is the alternative. Anyway, thanks for covering Czech Republic in your videos. Your faithful viewer ;)
not a fan of the new name "Czechia"? 😅
@@RogerYeahmon nope, f*ck that. And it is not new, just a wrong short version for less fortunate and lazy people who cannot comprehend Czech Republic in its complexity with regard to historic and social development. Using Czech Republic in every occasion is perfectly fine and most importantly, correct.
@@SP-kh7cs who created the name? it doesn't look or sound remotely Czech.. but the worst thing is that people will confuse it with Chechnya..
@@RogerYeahmon you are correct. Probably same people who wanted channel Odra-Dunaj-Labe ;)
@@SP-kh7cs i'll just assume it was the yanks that created that ignorant, incorrect name.. the Odra-Dunaj-Labe channel must be tempting, though.. to have container ships and oil tankers passing through the heart of historic Europe would be a very strange sight at first but surely it would bring some economic growth..
This was a megalomaniac plan by the former Czech president Zeman. When his presidency ended, the plans to build this canal ended with it. The plans were officially cancelled by the government. It was only quietly supported before that, because politicians wanted to stay on the good side of the president, but everyone always knew it was not feasible. So no, Czechia is currently not planning anything like this.
At next election, a different and better government will be elected.
Greens party's(=Pirates) will no longer block Stage 1. of this project.
The project maybe viable today, but who knows about the future. To call it megalomaniac is shortsighted.
I cannot stand the term Czechia. Use Czech Republic, or Czechlands.
you are against czechia and for "czechlands" wtf??@@jiritichy7967
@@jiritichy7967 no one use Czechlands and Czechia is official name of country(same as Czech republick)
This has almost nothing to do with Zeman the president, because the president has almost no power in the Czech political system. The plan was introduced by Zeman the prime minister, a 15+ years younger but no less drunk version of Zeman the president. Nevertheless, neither Zeman the prime nimister nor Zeman the president could possibly make the entire nonsense happen. Trucking had become way too cheap and way too flexible back in the 90s for a massive canal project to make sense.
Saying Czechia is planning this is a major overstatement. The plans have been cancelled multiple times, most recently in early 2023; it is I think also important to note that in the last decade, they were mostly kept alive due to the fact that this river connection was heavily advocated for by the now former Czech president Milos Zeman, mentioned in the video. Very few other officials and / or common people want to see this realised, as the immense financial, environmental and other costs not only overweigh the benefits, but would be much better invested elsewhere.
The project is now cancelled forever. Government did not only cancelled planning phase but they also disbanded all land reserves for the canal. That means that construction can begin in its route which makes it even more unfeasible then ever before because it would require vast demolitions of private houses.
As a skipper on European rivers, this is unfeasible economically. Both the Elbe and the Odra have very low water theoughout most of the year and they are anyway made redundant by the Main Donau Kanal connecting further to the Rhine, Waal and back to the Elbe and Odra through the Mitteland Kanal
Problem with that is that Main Donau Kanal has like 30 sluices and takes several days to traverse.
Also, EU is investing in transport corridors from Scandinavia to the south, going down the Rhine is a major detour in that case. Trains of course are faster, but water transport is quite cheap and has high volumes, as Im sure you know.
Investing in canals and sluices in the other rivers in Europe will be necessary anyway in the next decades to manage water levels throughout the year. As the current flooding along Rhine and Donau shows, there needs to be both capacity to increase water flow in times of heavy rainfall, beyond what is currently possible, and to retain water during droughts, that can be used to irrigate the land and prevent crop failure.
The reason we can manage water levels in the Netherlands in these circumstances is because we invested in building this infrastructure, and thus, our rivers are traversable in all but the driest summers, and nobody's house gets flooded except in extreme rainfall, much worse than what we are getting currently.
Greetings from Holland :)
@@TheSuperappelflap **Discussions about kanals and hydroengineering exists**
*the Dutch have joined the room* :D
“While the youth understand the rules, the Elders understand the exceptions” ~~well said
Kaspian report talking wisdom
i disagree with that. Elderly follow rules more than anyone
@@HistoryPanda-ng3wc the elders also understand and follow the rules but with more experience, they already know the exceptions
I feel like its the opposite. The elders understand the rules and the youth understand the exceptions.
@@user-mm1nt1it5v Elders have seen once grand projects fail which the youth know nothing about. See *'Cross-Florida Barge Canal'.*
I feel like the steps taken by the Czech government to cancel this plan should've been mentioned...
Well the govt. that pushed for the idea changed. So hey, all you need to do is vote that guy back...😉
@@ArawnOfAnnwn I'd rather emigrate than vote for Babiš, and a lot of people feel the same...
Exactly and there is little public support for this enviroment disrupting monstrosity. I am a river lover and I strongly oppose this project, and I am happy that it never had enough traction and now it's being cancelled, which I appreciate.
This video presents as if the Danube-Oder-Elbe canal project is still on the table. In the meantime, it has already been abandoned.
The Czech government decided in February 2023 to abandon the reservation of land along the planned Danube-Oder-Elbe canal project. Thus, the land can be used for other investment projects, as the local authorities had called for, and the idea of building the canal was definitely buried.
The government's decision removed the reservation of land, which until now could not be used for any other purpose than the construction of a possible waterway.
The thing is: The Oder isn't currently navigable. And while the Poles wanted to change that, the German eco--activists strongly oppose it and even got the German border Land governments onboard. There is also the incident with the pollution of Oder last year by some private company.
The plan has been officially cancelled after MANY years. It would definbitely look cool but I think there are other more important projects to focus on. The use would probably not be as big as many people expect. Also there are still many problems that would need to be solved to build such thing, such as how do you want to get water above the river sources without having to keep pumping it up there which would cost a lot of energy.
I have seen some proposals for that, and they messed up the design, either on purpose or by ignorance. It seems like they tried to cut costs by having few tall locks, but their height rendered them virtually impossible to operate under natural conditions in which they were supposed to operate. There simply would not be enough water to fill them in reasonable time and with reasonable impacts on flows. If they would go either fit flights of locks or boat lifts the story of this project could have been very different.
As yet another Czech, I have to say that we were building only like 17km of highways per year (on average in the last 10 years and for crazy amount of money). No way we'll build that megaproject.
Yes, we had this problem, but this year it was 77 km of new highways, next year it should be roughly 113 km and in 2025 in theory 70km as well. So it is improving, I would say. And most importantly the D35 seems to be going on pretty well.
Brăila is not a major port that this project is supposed to link. Constanța exports by far most of the Ukrainian grains and it’s one of the main ports in Europe. Constanța is linked to the Danube river by the Danube-Black Sea canal.
I was about to say that lol
Is this connected to the new plan circumventing the Black Sea? I've read something about the Ukrainian grains being exported via Romania up the Danube till Croatia and then by railway to the Adriatic ports.
It seems that the author failed to document his video properly :P
Yeah, on the Romanian side the Black Sea port of Constanța is a far more important port than Brăila. And, as you've said, Constanța port is easily accessible from the Danube through the Danube-Black Sea canal.
Due to the existence of the kiel channel and the rhine-danube channel i think the usefulness of this project is somewhat overstated in your video.
Especially the part going to the elbe, between black sea and baltic sea you definitely could save a lot of time compared to all the waterways i know of but the way from Świnoujście to Hamburg really isn't long enough that i could see it being worth the extra work
Edit: just to be sure i don't think that the overstating is intentional, after all that's how most people in favor talk about it while those against it attack problems other than usefulness
also Oder is right now not operatable for any units on at least half of its length as Poland is not really investing into midland water transport
Watch to the end
@@user-mm1nt1it5v i think I did (literal hours ago so if I tuned out 3/4ths of the way through I don't remember now)
If you think he said something relevant because you saw it put the timestamp or explain it instead of just saying watch.
Currently the only thing I can see you meaning from memory is that he mentioned the rhine-danube canal later on... That doesn't really let people know how easy it is to get from the Rhine delta to Hamburg, ships are very fucking efficient
Its also that these rivers are simply not wide or deep enough. I live on the Danube. There is actually no way significant trade is going to be going trough there. Railways seem like a safer, easier option.
@@gamm8939 They are wide enough to support class Va or even Vb with minor modifications and in both directions. Canal parts are also proposed for this class. But In my opinion last iteration of the canal was poorly designed as it's capacity was calculated about the same as of single track line. They had put several nonsensically (up to 26 metre, if I remember correctly) tall locks along the way which would be significantly limiting capacity. Ship lifts would be IMHO better and would provide at least double the capacity of the locks and most likely would shorten the time it would take to go through the canal.
As the existing rivers are already hard to navigate normally, connecting them via a canal to the Danube through more mountainous areas will not improve that, but will create even higher costs that will not be recovered in centuries. There is already a Danube-Rhine canal in Germany uniting the Black Sea with the North Sea and the Kiel Canal uniting the Baltic and North Seas. Instead of digging such expensive canal, they should focus on dredging the existing rivers and make them navigable at all times to import cheaper goods via Germany and Poland, as not so much traffic comes to Europe by the Danube (Black Sea is also a warzone thanks to Russia, so many cargo ships will prefer the longer but safer route to the Mediterranean or North Sea ports). Czechia is not anymore a landlocked country, as part of European Union and the Schengen Area, like any other landlocked state inside the USA or Canada.
❤ hope Prague can recover from such a tragic day 🇺🇸🇧🇩🤝🏻🇨🇿🇪🇺
Thank you, we really appreciate that. 🇨🇿❤
Thank you, we were at the site today, so many candles... God bless...
Whoever would like to see the "potencial" of Elbe river for commercial shipping can easily see it in Dresden ... in summer this river often has less than 1 m depth on many points before, in and after Dresden.
I am from Czechia and I´v never heard of this until now.
The youth know the rules. The old know the exceptions. I like that
Except the youth knows neither
1:22
Yeah he has plenty quotables !!
@@arkrounah they know the rules. Whether they follow them is a different question 😂
Except the old knows how to count the years, but often forgets the value of progress..
Have a good day dinosaur
As a Pole I don't have check this video to know it's impossible to make this project real. There is not enough water in odra river to make it navigable. We would have to make huge reforestation and rebuild swamps in Poland Czechia and eastern Germany. Danube is already connected with north see by canals and rhein. Railway transport is way more reliable. There are still some megalomanic plans of connecting Baltic and Black sea by Vistula, Bug, prypyat, and dnipro. The problem is a lack of proper waterflows.
I couldn't have said it better. Pozdrowienia z Czech!
@@vaclavmudra I hope our governments would complete some more usefull projects like expressway from Świnoujście to Prague or Wrocław Brno. Zdravim z Warszawy
Pierdolamento.
Another reason is that we Czechs are "neskuteční frajeři" (😉) when it comes to building any sort of infrastructure. We still don't have the Metro connected to the Prague airport, there's still no highway to Vienna, and you'd entrust us with a megaproject like this? LOL
Yes and there is a big airport in Berlin. No need to improve on infrastructure in west slavic countries, right?
I am crossing my fingers for Czechs hoping for success! 💪
Perfect timing
Cause of the mass shooting?
I'm convinced that you can talk about breakfast cereal industry and make it sound interesting.
In the treaty of Versailles, the predecessor to the Czech Republic Czechoslovakia was granted a 99-year lease in the port of Hamburg called Moldhafen to allow it to have meaningful access to the sea. The lease expires in 2028. Nice to see how this part of Europe has changed in the approach to trade.
Have they ever used the Moldhafen? With a bit of a brain the Communists would have turned it into Europe's Macao with gambling, prostition and legal drugs. Money from Hamburg and the entire region would have flooded in with no end. They would have never gone bankrupt in Prag with such an asset.
Unfair or one-sided treaties are illegal by international law, which means most treaties imposed after war are invalid by modern standards... or would be if people held governments accountable. If wish I could remember the name for that principle...
@@fusion9619?
I'm really surprised you didn't speak about the fact that part of the canal was actually built in 1930's. Bata canal had little over 50 km and was in fact intended as a part of Danube-Oder canal. It was damaged during WWII and lost it's purpose in the 70's, to be in part revived few decades later as a regional tourist attraction.
This project was always hypotethical. Every person who would study how high is level of water in our river would know that. But there are allways people who can see that. In last years was hardly used Elbe for boat transport using in Czechia.
But I have to say, its well done video which nicely sum up most information about this hypothetical project.
"The youth know the rules, the old know the exception."
These one liners are getting so damn good!
Nice idea, but for cargo transport a better rail integration of Southern Bohemia to the Danube port in Linz would help a lot. Currently this is a single line track , it urgently should be expanded to a double line and updated to modern standards .
That lines goes through hilly terrain and in sections copy old horse drawn railway and even thou it was modernized later on, there could be inclines that would make effective operation of freight trains not possible.
As it happens you can alredy travel from the Elbe river to the Rhine, then the Main and from there to the danube via canals which makes sense for very bulky cargo.
Everything else can be transported via rail which central europe has plenty of.
this will be the main problem for the plan the german infrastructure that can do 80% of what the czech canal would do it makes the cost of the czech project waay to high
@@normalman4762 It would cut down the distance and time quite significantly. As well it should, as some ships used on rivers can cross the Baltic sea, connect industry in southern Silesia and in Central Europe as whole, to ports of Scandinavia and it's ore resources.
3:22 Charles IV, King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor, had a long and successful reign. The Empire he ruled from Prague expaned, and his subjects lived in peace and prosperity. When he died, the whole Empire mourned. More than 7,000 people accompanied him on his last procession. The heir to the throne of the flourishing Empire was Charles' son, Wenceslas IV, whose father had prepared him for this moment all his life. But Wenceslas did not take after his father. He neglected affairs of state for more frivolous pursuits. He even failed to turn up for his own coronation as Emperor, which did little to endear him to the Pope. Wenceslas "the Idle" did not impress the Imperial nobility either. His difficulties mounted until the nobles, exasperated by the inaction of their ruler, turned for help to his half-brother, King Sigismund of Hungary. Sigismund decided on a radical solution. He kidnapped the King to force him to abdicate, then took advantage of the ensuing disorder to gain greater power for himself. He invaded Bohemia with a massive army and began pillaging the territories of the King's allies.
Jesus Christ be praised!
Oh look, its Henry!
I’m feeling quite hungry
Another important elememt here that you didn't mention is that in recent years the water levels of many Europeand rivers has dropped to a point that made some segments unnavigable, including major rivers like the Rhein. Investing so much money in waterways isn't the best of ideas at a time when climate change affects things so deeply.
These seas already are connected, but the connection is made further west between the Danube and the Rhine, which is also connected to the Elba and Oder.
exactly... this means the stupid project described in this video would not have many benefits, would be extremely costly and it would destroy meny river and other ecosystems. Vast majority of Czechs agree this is a stupid project, only former President Zeman wanted to leave something big behind his presidency, he wanted some legacy, ironically though, being the demagogue nad populist he always was, he chose a project with strong public opposition and weak to no support.
Don't bother. I live on the Elbe river in Germany and it is near impossible to build the river here into what would be needed for such a link. It is hard to maintain the infrastructure on the level as it is, with all the different people shouting their claims - and not just environmentalists, also people are afraid of more floods, devalue of their land and drinking water supply and so on.
all the canals in nertherlands or germany are built on flat lands, Czechia is very hilly. It would be extremely hard to built something like that here
well, this is first problem. next rivers here are small, and also this is country of water sources, it is not sustainable by long shot.
The New know the Rules, The Old know the Exceptions. - You always come up with catchy phrases that contain knowledge.
I believe that Vistula river is not useful for transportation from Silesia to Gdańsk because of dam in Włocławek, so I do not think this canal to Visula would be ever built
That's what locks are for. Vistula is very different navigation-wise in its upper and lower course. The lower course is perfectly doable despite the dam. the upper course (above Warsaw) would require more significant works. That's why the Lower Vistula Waterway is the second to be constructed, right after the Odra waterway.
13:45 As a person who lives in this region I can assure you that this project is impossible, because Vistula there isn't deep enough to allow a trade vessel. Even if we artificially deepen the canal, there's simply not enough water to fill it.
During the 19th and 20th centuries Germany build a number of canals connecting its major rivers, for instance the 'Rhein-Main-Donau-Kanal', making the Black Sea and the North Sea already connected with each other. Another currently present connection is the Rhine with the Elbe, by means of the 'Dortmund-Ems-Kanal'and the 'Mittellandkanal'. However, the new canals planned through Czechia would provide a competitive shorter route, and allow for slightly larger vessels. This competition aspect might partly explain why there was some resistance against funding the new proposals.
Exactly. Germany doesn't want the competition.
not really, the thing is the czechs just want the money from all the river trade that it can not get into bc the lack of rivers or canals to the duabe river. Also the canal will never be made bc it will take too much work and cause too much environmental damage that it will fail. not only that but like the video explained at the end, the czechs do not have a lot of factories or mines that will support trade on such new canals. Sure you got germany and poland, but they are exporting their goods outside of europe and not so much within europe, so again access to the black sea is pointless, also anything poland and germany need is not really from the balkans or the black sea region, more from america china and russia, all possible from other way networks and the seas.
there is resistance against funding, because its unfeasable. it would use the march river atz the austrian and slovakian border, which is one of the last almost natural rivers systems all around, and is under strict enviromental protection... from a law perspective its simply impossible for both slovakia and austria to approve the plans.
also its impossible to get the 25% EU funding they calculated, when it means to sacrifice national parks for it.
czechia should think about improving its rail system, and maybe invest in some ports and rail terminals at shipable rivers in its neighbourhood to lower transportation costs
It is a paradox, the foreigners undertand this clearly unlike many brainwashed Czechs that talk against this great idea just bc president Zeman promoted it. As I say it is a psychology issue. They just use economic or enviromental reasons to support their position. But they adopted this position not bc of those reasons but bc of manipulation. They think it's cool to be against their own country standing against any development. Czech Republic is currently in deep spiritual crisis and will pay for it in the future.
@@certaindeath7776 I think the feasibility is very difficult to assess, after all some parts of the canal have already been built in 1930's (it was not mentioned in this video) . But true, it's very doubtful it would have the desired effect in the 21st century. Nevertheless it has been canceled long timeago. As for railroads, I believe Czechia had at some stage by some metrics the most dense railroad system in the world (I know no details, just have seen it as a fun-fact some decades ago), so I don't know what can be done to improve it.
A Czech watching Caspian Report for years at this point opens his subscription feed today like: *"LET'S GOOOOOOOO"*
This projects was an excellent idea 200 - 300 years ago, when canal navigation was game changing, effective mean of transportation in comparison to horse-drawn carriages moving slowly on poor quality unpaved roads. Many great canals were built in Britain, Ireland and other parts of the world.
Today this mode of transport lost its edge and it cannot compete with road and rail transportation in most circumstances.
I was growing in Ústí nad Labem, once important port on Elbe river. In times of Austro-Hungarian Empire it was the busiest port in the monarchy with cargo tonnage higher than empire's biggest sea port of Trieste. But these times are long gone, the Czech Republic doesn't export its coal anymore and whilst the river shipping is still ongoing, its volume dropped dramatically and is practically reduced to small number of bulk commodities like sand, gravel, salt, fertilisers, grains, soy, ores, sometimes timber and the occasional load of oversize industrial equipment. The odd tourist cruise. No containers. There's a container train running daily between Hamburg and Prague, river shipping cannot compete with it.
The Danube - Oder - Elbe sounds great on paper but the challenges it's facing are immense.
1. The technicalities - lack of water a low maximum depth. Elbe above Dresden is navigable, but the maximum debt and gradient limits the size of the vessels significantly. There were proposed locks to be built near the German border, but they face serious opposition from the environmental movement. Water level in Elbe often drops in summer and makes shipping impossible for weeks or even months. In the past conditions on Elbe were so challenging that there was a chain laid on the bottom of the river in a length of more than 100 km from Dresden to Mělník and a special chain tug used to "climb" on it, pulling a train of barges. Oder has similar issues with lack of water. The route of the proposed canal is hilly and would require construction of locks and possibly even pumping of water.
2. Economy. I cannot see commodities that would justify the construction of the canal economically. Similar canals in Germany operate only on a fraction of their proposed capacity.
3. Environment - there are some high value biomes that would get severally affected. On Elbe near the German border and in Lower Moravia.
Great video! As an important note, the canal would link Czechia with the major port of Constanta, Romania, which is directly linked to the Danube via the Danube - Black Sea canal. Constanta is the biggest deep water port in the Black Sea, Braila is a small regional port with little importance on the global stage.
Czechia is already linked to the Black Sea via the March River, which meets the Danube near Bratislava.
@@micha2909 But March is not navigable, let alone navigable for large boats. (For this I am omitting Baťa Canal as it is not used for anything else than recreation)
Love your videos, I find it very informative.
Please be more carful with the maps you use, at 5:40 Austro- Hungary’s boarders are all over the place.
damn i was so confused when i saw that, glad I am not the only one
Also marked Donetsk and Luhansk as disputed territories in Ukraine, but not Crimea.
Either show them as disputed, or show them as Ukrainian.
Wtf is that shitty map?
Always at top. Great job Shirvan.
Excellent video production, as always.
There are like 5 container ships using Danube these days. So the canal would be kinda useless and would only serve as an tourist attraction (hotel ships etc.).
Nice video. Czechia also happens to have the largest lithium deposit in Europe. Would be interesting to see a video about the possible extraction of this game changer.
Germany has the largest lithium deposit in its South-West
Please don’t 🙏
I like how the first 10 seconds caspianreport says the elbe and the oder come together, but they are hundreds of miles apart, and they never meet.
Thank you CaspianReport for making incredible video after incredible video. I hope you find more and more success and never stop making videos
As great as the canals would be when it comes to transportation, I think it's better to invest that money into education and innovation. Czechia actually has potential in being a world leader in these categories as it used to be an innovation hub and has a school system that ranks fairly high. More money there would definitely do wonders.
I think this would be an investmen of the centaury and it would also push the Hunagrians and the Germans to build sluices dams. It would be good but the greens would make a big thing about this...
Everyone is doing that, waterways are permanent.
@@General_Gene Dams, rather weirs in this case, can be certainly design much more eco-friendly than they are designed now. If you think about that, they do not have to be one e.g. 5 metre tall structure, but as locks will be at least 200 metres, they can be designed as set of small steps spread on e.g. 150-200 metres of river, from ecological point of view, there would perhaps be only small difference between natural and man made rapids.
Wake up from your dreams and look around🙏. CZ being a world leader😂. CZ is like a cheap whore, maybe a gold mine for someone except it's own. Look at our roads, sidewalks, trash food in stores, growing burocracy and sleeping economy. Sure there are great tech companies but I don't think it's clever to put all eggs into one basket🤔. And of course the canal would be a great legacy as almost all non-czechs point out in this discussion.
❤ for Prague. 😢.
Ambitious Canal and Dam Megaprojects feel like water is unlimited. 😆
Great plug for Opera! Will totally use it! Had no idea it was so ingenious and useful!
Jsem vazne prijemne prekvapen kolik nasincu kouka na Caspian report. Mozna ma tahle zeme jeste sanci... 🙂
Interesting take on this topic and I agree digitalization and further changes to the economy are more important. Czech republic is pretty much dependent on Germany and while we have somewhat stable economy with minimal unemployment, it's because of a lion share being in assembly plants, not high value industry like Germany has. The canal was something Communists back in the 1970s wanted, it was something our former president wanted to have built. However based on similar canal in Germany the cost would be astronomical and at times of high-speed railways and highways any water way seems outdated and overpriced.
Besides cost there are other factors to consider. Ecological cost, bureaucracy and politics. Current government pushes to speedup highway constructions, building additional super-speed highways comparable to ICE or TGV tracks (instead of mere 160 km/h) or civil nuclear projects (renewal and new reactors, heating pipes from Dukovany to Brno city). All these projects have same issues: Cost, slow down by bureaucracy or activists and each government changing it's priorities. Want to build new highway to Austria? You need to solve the issue with bird reservation, something Austrians would do much faster. You need to build new reactors? Tell it to German speaking neighbours, all the activists and tax payers (Temelin is one of the safest power plants, but with very questionable price tag). Overall all these projects have one thing in common: At some form they have been promised several decades ago, but their realization has been taken at snail pace.
Three-river Canal is another beast, compared to the rest.
it was something Bata Masaryk wanted
Great video. I was waiting for more content on Central Europe (apart from Germany) and this has very cool graphics!
Thank you for another wonderful video
The MAYOR rivers are already connected! The RHINE-MAIN-DANUBE Channel connects the North Sea with the Black Sea!
And you can see hardly any ships on that canal today. It's operating on a fraction of its planned capacity.
What about the plans of France to connect the Seine and the Rhine rivers?
Yeah I think that's actually happening, this is not, it would be very ecologically damaging
that canal has alot more sense since it makes anew journey possible while the czech canal would only really shift alot of the transit from short rail journey to full river transport
"The young know the rules, but the old know the exception" nice incorporation of this quote
An amazing initiative! Good luck Czechs. From PL.
In Bavaria, Germany there is a canal which connects the Danube and the Main river, so that you can ship freight from the black sea to the north sea.
It was in the video in case you didn't see
Another issue is that all these rivers are seeing decreased flows every year because of our old friend climate change... winter in central europe used to be very harsh with tons of snow... not anymore... winter is now basically cold drought season
thanks for the profound resaerch that went into this video! Very interesting
He isn't lying about how long it takes to make a video. It's wild how much time it really takes to do one well.
it would be an ecological disaster. i live here, and in no way the Czechs would allow this to happen.
maybe Charles IV could pull it off as a holy roman emperor.
Assalamu alaikum from Chechnya and Ingushetia!
Wa aleykum salam from Czechia!
Thanks for the insight!
Thank you for this video.
it seems the best solution is to gradually make the connections, starting with the canal to the east in partnership with Poland and Slovakia. This way, it will not be necessary to direct such relevant costs from other areas and it will be possible to monitor environmental impacts.
I live just a few minutes walk from the Morava river, which should be part of the canal. I can tell you this will never happen. The ecological price would be too high and since the canal it also affects Austria (the Morava river is the border between Slovakia and Austria), they will never allow this. I have seen some more detailed proposals around "my" stretch of the canal and I had to shake my head, because the sheer scale of the work would impact the landscape colossally. I am not that much concerned about nature, as even if some ecosystem is disrupted or locally destroyed, a new ecosystem is created at the same time and nature will need only a few years to fully take advantage of it. I am concerned about the financial and long term usefulness of the canal. What I am afraid of the most, is that some scaled down "half-baked" version would be built. Massive cost both financial and environmental for some meager benefits. If this should ever make sense, then it mus be either all or nothing, requiring a complete and lasting support from all countries affected - not just the ones the canal runs across, but also the ones that the canal only forms a border to. The political landscape of "canal countries" is everything but not stable. Elections are held on different years in each country and the canal would most likely be a part of the election topic, causing massive uncertainty every two years or so. Expecting that all parties across all the states affected will cooperate is wishful thinking. Technologically, we could build the canal right now. Economically its potential is questionable. Ecologically nature will eventually cope with every change. But politically it is absolutely impossible in a democracy that is dependent on many countries. Also, Serbia would need to join the EU, as it being outside of it creates barriers navigating the Danube (just ask Austrians about it). The Danube in its full length must run through the EU (and preferably also Schengen agreement countries) to ease bureaucracy for shipping companies to make them competitive against rail/road transport.
You're doing a amazing job. 👍💛👊
thanks! great video
If the Czech government wants to lower transaction costs for imports they could start by adopting the euro
The title could have been "All RIVERS lead to Czechia"
Mister, your words in English reads like poetry. Makes a man yearn for a fine cigar, and a fine whiskey. I tip my hat to you.
omg thanks.. for the opera lol, seriously i have such a mess with tabs and i was just about to look for a solution XD besides.. awesome subject, didhnt know there is such a project, its huge, holding my thumbs
Even if it's not profitable I believe these kind of projects will always be useful. Moving goods along water is still the cheapest way. And it could help in the future if we need transfers of water.
well in a country that is a rooftop of the Europe=a lot of the rivers start here but there is not enough water this is stupid. The canals would have to go trough national park and other protected areas and destroyed them (destruction of habitats, fragmentation, introduction of invasive species by conecting different rivers)... it makes sezo sense to destory half of the country by this project when we can just invest more to freight transit
Oops! 😅 Not the best timing for Czech news.
Interesting! Thank you Shirvan
Not gonna happen. German ecologist already have announced that they will torpedo any attempts of making Odra river navigable, same with Świnoujście cargo port.
Best of luck to Czechia. This sounds like a fantastic project if realized.
Thank you
It's absolute nonsense and there is not a single person in Czech Republic that considers it to anything else than ex presidenta drunk dream
The map shows canals connecting the sources of two rivers. It is obvious that to have a waterway it would be necessary to extend a much longer distance to reach the area where navigation is really possible.
Uggh, there goes the beautiful and unique black-water river the March.
I wonder if this would allow Nato navy ships/subs to travel from the North Sea to the the Black sea since they are currently not allowed to use the Turkish canal and therefore have no access to it.
Rivers are shallow water, and require special shallow draft ships. Typically these are towed flat bottom barges.
Normal sea-going ships have too deep a draft for any but the deepest tidal parts of rivers.
Submarines absolutely can't do rivers.
turky doesnt allow its nato allies to travel through their region? whats the point of joining nato?
It wouldn't, and if it would, the rhine-danube canal would do the same, but it exists.
@@rizkyadiyanto7922Montreux Convention, Article 11-20 are the relevant rules in this regard. Look it up.
@@rizkyadiyanto7922 The Turkish Straights are subject to an international naval agreement that pre-dates NATO.
Wiki up the Montreux Convention for details.
As a Pole, I support this Czech project. I see every project which aims to move the center of economic and logistical heart of Europe to Central Europe as vital to our stability and security. It's essential to make Central Europe the key part of Europe, as opposed to Western Europe. This will balance out the geopolitics of Europe and finally end the peripheral status that our countries have suffered since the occupation by the Soviets ended.
🇵🇱🇨🇿
Europe is one❤.
You guys were periphery before the Soviets ever since Western Europeans started doing colonialism they've been ahead. Why does everyone act like everything was equal when the Soviets showed up?
@@biodiversityfanatic2454 I'd disagree, Czechia was a very advanced state and a very important and equal part of Austria Hungary. Czech Skoda factories were one of the most advanced in the world. Same goes for the parts of Poland that were under German partition, the rail network differences can still be seen today. Poland was of course in a worse state, since we were divided into three empires, but many central european countries were on the same level of development as Germany, having started the industrial revolution during the same period of time.
Damn I love the Czech Republic. Great video
I find the maps you use in your videos very beautiful
Long story short - Germany wants to block this idea because they do not need the countries of Central Europe to develop into something more than just a place of cheap labor for German companies. German "ecologists" face the same problems in Poland. Oddly enough, they do not block any "concreting of rivers" work taking place in Germany
Long story short, absolutely everybody in Czech Republic agrees this whole idea was just another stupid thing nonsense Zeman came up with
@@martinblastak2163 but any arguments or just dislike for a given politician? Maybe calculations that questioned the economic justification for building the canal? Because numbers have no agenda and no political dislikes
@@rayan69pl pretty much every economist in the country said any economic benefits are absolutely dwarfed by the cost, especially given the number of similar canals in Germany that are hardly profitable
Furthermore, the ecological cost to some of my country's most beautiful natural landscapes would be beyond reason even if there was any possibility of profit.
But even these points are meaningless because the rivers that should be connected are hardly sailable by individuals, much less giant cargo ships. Us Czechs are, despite the lack of any large body, aquatic pokémons (our most common everyday greeting is "ahoy") so many of us spend our summers on the rivers and it's a fact that there is less and less water every year.
@@martinblastak2163 Ok, I don't want to argue because it's pointless, but just for the future - profitability calculations are not made by economists, but by large consulting companies. This is not a job to be done by one or a few people. I asked because similar projects are being blocked in our country, talking about "ecology" when German rivers are used for transport, but it is German "environmentalists" who are protesting in Poland, not at Home in Germany. That's why I wanted to know if it's the same for you.
Long live Czech republic🇨🇿
Greetings From Israel 🇮🇱
thanks bro, everybody here loves Israel
Thx. Shivan.
Also, canals are expensive to maintain, in particular in areas where the climate freezes the water in the winter.
There was also a plan for Silesia Canal in Poland, to connect Vistula to Oder. But they withdraw from it for now
WIth currect gov. this project is dead.
It was never alive. Every government would consider it stupid
Nice one. Hope Poland does the same connecting and deepening its main rivers 🙂
I think that adding hydrogen airship heavy lifting capacity to those ports to move the goods closer to the interior would be great as would connetions between the ports but unless they have a lot of water to spare in Czechia, I think that they would not want these projects to move ahead. It would cost them too much water.
The shortcut would be so good but my god that would be hard to do!
This plan has been cancelled, so it probably will never be created. And It's quite stupid ngl.