Kura (Caspian Sea) drained and reservoirs were created to facilitate development of irrigation in the lower Kura valley. In the 1950s and 1960s, when the Caucasus region was part of the Soviet Union, construction of many of the reservoirs and waterworks in the Kura basin began. Of the major reservoirs in the Kura catchment, one of the earliest was at Varvara in 1952. Large scale construction of dams continued until the 1970s. Kura (Caspian Sea) The Kura (; ; , "Mt’k’vari"; , "Kur"; , "Cyrus"; , "Kuruš" ) is an east-flowing river south of the Greater Caucasus Mountains which drains the southern slopes
Baltic Sea larger on some measurements: The Black Sea is larger in both surface area and water volume, but most of it is located outside the continental shelf (only a small percentage is inland). The Caspian Sea is larger in water volume, but—despite its name—it is a lake rather than a sea. The Baltic Sea's salinity is much lower than that of ocean water (which averages 3.5%), as a result of abundant freshwater runoff from the surrounding land (rivers, streams and alike), combined with the shallowness of the sea itself; runoff contributes roughly one-fortieth its total volume per year, as the volume