 The Manych Ship Canal is one of several variants of water transport connection being considered between the basins of Azov-Black and Caspian Seas to improve the transport performance in the Caspian region, including southern Russia.The -long Manych Ship Canal includes the existing Manych Waterway through Lake Manych-Gudilo and the Veselovskoe and Proletarskoe reservoirs, and could be extended to the Caspian Sea via the sparsely populated steppes of Kalmykia.The watershed divide between the Azov and Caspian seas has a western slope elevation of and an eastern slope elevation of .