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
Caspian Sea in the Khachmaz and Lankaran Lakes (or early Balaxani). The period of restriction to the south basin was reversed during the Akchagyglian, when the lake expanded to more than three times its present area and established the first of a series of contacts with the Black Sea and with Lake Aral. A recession of the lake Akchagyl completed stage one. The earliest hominid remains found around the Caspian Sea are from Dmanisi dating back to around 1.8 Ma and yielded a number of skeletal remains of Homo erectus or Homo ergaster. More later evidence for human occupation of the region