Black Sea–Caspian Steppe The Manych Depression is not much more than 65 feet above sea level and the area around Astrakhan and part of Kalmykia is below sea level. Rivers: Through the center runs the northwest-tending Kuma-Manych Depression. This was once a strait connecting the Black and Caspian Seas and is now marked by the Manych River which is basically a chain of lakes. It will probably be the route of the Eurasia Canal if that great engineering work is ever built. In the south the rivers that flow north from the Caucasus are caught by the west-flowing Kuban River and the east-flowing
Caspian Sea Monster prior to the first flight a bottle of champagne was broken against its nose, a tradition for the first voyage of a boat. On June 22, 1966, the completed KM began transportation to the testing grounds in the Caspian Sea near the town of Kaspiysk. It was transported from Gorky along the Volga in secret, covered in camouflage and moved along the river at night. The aircraft's first flight was on October 16, 1966, performed by V. Loginov and Rostislav Alexeyev himself, which was very unusual as most Soviet aircraft designers never piloted their own creations. All the works were