Classics fantasy – 9. A. Belyaev

in round joint account three hundred fifty – three hundred seventy cubic kilometers. All this mass of water evaporates and therefore the Caspian Sea does not raise more likely goes down in annual level. We cannot evaporate water in our experience and therefore we release superfluous down. Now here what I suggest to make with Volga. – Mikheyev took out a curved plate from a pocket and enclosed it in a groove on a relief below Kamyshin.

      And in the face of the audience the dammed waters of Volga began to rise above “dam”, and below, to the Caspian Sea, only the very narrow stream began to flow.

      – Height of this barrage – thirty seven meters. And, you look, from this horizon Volga spontaneously merges in unimaginable spaces of the Zavolzhye steppes and deserts in three powerful streams.

      The water which rose over a dam stood minute in indecision, as if in perplexity before an unexpected obstacle, and suddenly poured down on the East on a slope, on courses, hollows, hollows, having formed complex network of the Martian channels and lakes.

      – These streams are reached not some artificial and grandiose, costing huge funds, constructions, and, of course, not digging of channels. They flow on natural deepenings, hollows and ravines, of course, with the corresponding capture and the direction of water flows.

      – And why this streamlet flowing into the Caspian Sea is left? – one of the audience asked.

      – The one seventh part of the debit of Volga is left in the direct, direct current to the Caspian Sea on continuous with it, so and with Baku, water communication. A half of it also on acquisition of through direct traffics. Means, about seventy cubic kilometers of the debit of Volga will follow directly to the Caspian Sea. And three hundred cubic kilometers, instead of their present loss in the sea abyss, will go east on revival of lands from Volga across Emba, and on a potusheniye of “the terrestrial fire” there, and, with elimination deserts, on acquisition of new farms, on melioration of the freed lands there.

      – Means, the sea…

      – The Caspian Sea will decrease in the level on two thirds of meter a year, and in thirty seven years the condition of its level will go down on twenty four meters. The Caspian Sea will have here what look.

      Mikheyev opened the crane under a relief board more, water from the Caspian Sea began to flow in a bucket stronger, and sea level began to go down quickly. In a second there passed years, and out soon familiar outlines of the sea was not to find. The Caspian Sea “dried out” almost on a third. The bottom of a northern part to Mangyshlak and Makhachkala was bared. On it there were only a few crossing channels yes of “lakes” in a northeast part.

      – Generally ground spaces will be released on hundred fifty thousand square kilometers, the same to seventy thousand in mouths of the Kura both at the Persian coast and in Cara-Bugaze, and the most important – across Absheron and Cheleken immeasurably valuable spaces of oil lands, too in thousands of square kilometers will be released. At last, all coast of the Caspian Sea will be freed from malaria pernicious there.

      The first stone to this world of new construction puts the project of a piping of Volga.

      Specialists, not the last spokes in a wheel of the Soviet device, worry.

      Desire to give a review of the project of a piping of Volga! VSNKh demands. The People’s Commissariat for Agriculture and the State Planning Committee are interested, RKI presses…

      Strange project and stranger author, as though also the engineer, not the young man. And the project – you do not know, as well as to approach it… Scope is Bolshevist, the idea grandiose and that will leave – Allah knows.

      Old engineers whisper:

      – If this project passes – much kaput. How to be?

      – For the place you worry?

      – What place? If there passes Mikheyev’s project, then many engineers will be required… The place will be. But there you will be…

      – On a mikheevsky mill to pour water? To you manual labor, to it honor? He-he. Do not worry, however, in advance, maybe, still will fail this crazy project. Everything will depend on what response the expert – professor Chichagov will give. Yes here and it, as by the way!. Let’s ask. Hello, Ivan Arkadyevich! Well, how your opinion on a piping?

      Chichagov rumples soft lips and looks through gold points up. It carries the gray-haired head is proud and is careful as a fragile jewelry. In it its capital.

      – Um… yes… piping… I still in detail did not get acquainted with material. Besides I can give a response only on the specialty. Technically, of course, the project is quite feasible. To dam the river – not God knows what knowledge. In it there is even nothing original. Mikheyev suggests to make only on a large scale what is done by the ordinary miller. But in the estimate, it seems to me, the author cruelly is mistaken. Here business smells not three hundred million, but billions, meaning the project in general.

      – In billions? Means, not in power, and? There will not pass number? – The look of the engineer was poured by hope and greedy curiosity.

      But Chichagov did not please with the direct answer but only vaguely shrugged shoulders.

      And what old professor could answer? In his opinion, Bolsheviks only also did that undertook excessive tasks. Will be enough them. Will undertake a piping and… will make, perhaps!

      – And here still I heard – the engineer told opinion of one large expert. – That says that Mikheyev’s project – the absolute nonsense. Fish of the Caspian Sea got used to the water mode with this percent of salinity. Besides fish will have no place to throw caviar.

      – And the representative Narkomzdrava – interfered other engineer – claims that Mikheyev not only will not destroy as promises, and will increase malaria in the terrifying sizes. Think only: to start up waters of Volga spontaneously! They form a set of boggy lakes, zalivchik, water “oaz” as the inventor speaks. What the hell it will turn out, and not only with malaria – the climate of all edge will change to the worst, but not to the best, and. The Caspian Sea will evaporate much less moisture of which eventually clouds are formed.

      – Well, it is not so terrible – Chichagov objected. – The total of moisture in the region will not decrease. New reservoirs will evaporate water too. However, this my personal opinion, opinion of the layman in the field of meteorology – was modestly added by him.

      The engineer wanted to ask one more question, but Chichagov decided that he told and so too much. Having pleaded what hurries on a meeting, venerable professor incurred the precious head further.

      This meeting devoted to discussion of the project of Mikheyev was quite rough.

      In the beginning specialists behaved frostily. Nobody decided “to cover the project with might and main”, but many carefully expressed “fears” which, as a poison drop, had to poison the idea of the courageous project. At the end of a meeting of passion inflamed, and shouts were already heard: “Nonsense! Nonsense! Madness!” The heavy artillery – Chichagov – was reserved by opponents of the project by the end.

      The speech of professor of a form was “very objective”, and in essence he poured out a tub of cold water on enthusiasts, “having expressed the modest opinion” on multi-billion expenses.

      The project hung by a thread.

      But here unexpectedly to the aid of Mikheyev workers of places – the natives of the Volga region living in close proximity with “heat of the earth” moved.

      Their impact was strong and amicable.

      – You give Volga!

      One of them repeated Mikheyev’s words: “At all water of life, neither humus gram, nor meter of height of Volga should not vanish in lowlands of the