Dnieper-Bug Canal

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Dnieper-Bug Canal or Dnepr-Bug Canal, or Dneprovsko-Bugsky Canal is a ship canal that connects Dnieper river and Western Bug. It provides navigational access between the Baltic Sea and Black Sea water systems.

It was built in 1775 during the reign of Stanisław August Poniatowski (1764 - 1795), the last king of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. When the canal was first built, it was called Krolevski canal (Royal Canal), after the Polish king, since he was the initiator of the concept.

Navigation on the Dnieper-Bug Canal has been interrupted by a weir (dam) on the river Bug near Brest, the border town. This dam is the SINGLE obstacle for navigation of small draught vessels between Western Europe and Ukraïne through inland waterways. The waterways from the German-Polish border (Warta, Notec, Bydgoski Kanal, Wisla, Narew, Bug) used to join the Belarus and Ukräinian inland waterways (Mukhovets river, Dnepro-Bugskiy Kanal, Pripyat and Dnjepr), thus forming an uninterrupted liaison between North-Western Europe and the Black Sea.

Recently the dam in the Bug and the impossibility for ships to pass has led to a considerable neglect of the most western part of the Mukhovets; some of the locks have been filled in and Brest Harbour can only be reached by vessels approaching from the East. (Source: NoorderSoft waterways database).

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