Kiel Canal Kiel Canal The Kiel Canal (, literally "North-[to]-Baltic Sea canal", formerly known as the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Kanal) is a long freshwater canal in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. The canal was finished in 1895, but later widened, and links the North Sea at Brunsbüttel to the Baltic Sea at Kiel-Holtenau. An average of is saved by using the Kiel Canal instead of going around the Jutland Peninsula. This not only saves time but also avoids storm-prone seas and having to pass through the Sound or Belts. Besides its two sea entrances, the Kiel Canal is linked, at Oldenbüttel, to the navigable River
White Sea–Baltic Canal the entrance of the canal into the White Sea. There was even a play, a comedy, written about the canal by Nikolay Pogodin. A memory of the canal is also preserved in the Russian language, in the words ""zeka"", ""zek", "z/k"" for "inmate". In Russian, "inmate", "incarcerated" is (), usually abbreviated to "" in paperwork, and pronounced as "" (, "zeh-KA"), which gradually transformed into "" and "", "zek" (both pronounced as ). The word is still in colloquial use. Originally the abbreviation stood for (), literally "incarcerated canal-army-man". The latter term coined in an analogy with the words meaning