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
Svinoy, Caspian Sea Svinoy, Caspian Sea Svinoy, Sangi-Mugan Island or Muğan daşı (, Russian: "Ostrov Svinoy"), is an island in the Caspian Sea located south of Baku, Azerbaijan. This island lies south of the Baku Archipelago, 16 km off the shore. Svinoy is about 1 km in length and 0.6 km wide. Although geographically quite far from Baku, This island is considered part of the Baku Archipelago. On Svinoy Island, there is an automatic station for the monitoring of local water pollution. Stenka Razin's Cossacks crushed the fleet of the Safavid Shah Suleiman I of Persia in the waters off Svinoy Island in