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
Convention on the legal status of the Caspian Sea approval of the convention (1996–2018) between the parties were held 51 meetings of the special working groups, more than ten meetings of foreign ministers and four presidential summits in 2002 in Ashgabat, in 2007 in Tehran, in 2010 in Baku and in 2014 in Astrakhan. Convention on the legal status of the Caspian Sea The Convention on the legal status of the Caspian Sea is a treaty signed at the Fifth Caspian Summit in Aktau, Kazakhstan, on 12 August 2018 by the presidents of Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Iran and Turkmenistan. The dispute began after the dissolution of the Soviet Union