Science: Up Sea, Back Rivers

The planning Russians, who have already drawn big blueprints for everything from history to human lives, now plan to raise the water level of an ancient sea and make a few northbound rivers flow south. The staggeringly complex plan is called the Greater Volga Project. G.V.P., a technically audacious scheme, was laid aside in 1939 and is now being dusted off and revised by a special commission of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. Through a series of dams, canals and reservoirs, G.V.P. would provide an all-water route from Archangel to Batum. Involving cities, towns and villages where 50 million Russians live,...

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