Poland completed the first phase of the man-made strait on the Baltic (Vistula) spit, which separates the Kaliningrad (Wislin) Bay from the open sea.

So far, on the spit (length - 65 km, width - from 0.3 to 9 km) there was only one strait, formed in 1510 as a result of a severe storm. After 1945, the spit, like the whole of East Prussia, was divided between Poland and the USSR and the strait ended up on the Soviet section of the spit.

For a long time, this did not bother anyone. Ships went to Polish Elblбg (Elbing) through Soviet, then Russian waters, the transit procedure was routine and not burdensome. But from the beginning of 2000, when the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth began to rise from its knees, talk began of digging its Polish channel.

The arguments against the undertaking were primarily environmental. The Baltic Spit is a product of the dynamic balance of the elements. Sea waves and coastal currents move sand to the shore, and the wind moves to the spit itself, forming dunes. Digging a channel can upset this balance. And also change the salinity of the bay and thereby adversely affect its fauna. Therefore, representatives of the opposition - “Greens” and “Civil Platform” (liberals) - are against and promise to stop construction in case of coming to power. The point is, in principle, possible. Back in 1376, when hydro construction was not a match for the modern, the strait formed as a result of a storm was successfully covered with sand.

The pros are reduced to the need to insure Polish communications against any accident. History knows of cases where a physical map conflicts with a political one. In 2015, it was begun, and in 2017, the construction of the bypass branch of the South-East railway was completed. “Zhuravka-Millerovo” village, thanks to which communication with the North Caucasus began to go along purely Russian territory, until 2017, it was necessary to pass through the Ukrainian patch.

At the Bavarian-Austrian border, the railroad and the highway go along a mountain gorge, i.e., along the only possible path, and the state border is drawn in such a peculiar way that cars and trains end up in Austria, then again in Germany.

If, in the order of delirium, there was a guild revolution in Vienna, then the road idyll could end and the movement would either have to block or punch the road along German soil, digging tunnels, building bridges over the steeps, etc.

True, with regard to maritime communications with the Polish Elblлонg, not a single precedent, nor was there an incident with a violation of the movement of ships through the strait for 75 years. But, probably, Warsaw proceeds from the fact (in any case, when it comes to Russia) that it is not intentions and precedents that should be assessed, but the possibilities, to be surely insured against attempts to block the current strait. A kind of "Nord Stream" bypassing Ukraine - but only in the Polish way.

True, the launch of the bypass branch "Zhuravka - Millerovo", and even the "Nord Stream" was filed in Russia quite calmly. They went around and went around, and what is there to beat in the timpani.

But this is not puffy lyakh. Polish President Andrzej Duda said that “this is an investment that will strengthen Polish sovereignty, strengthen Poland’s independence and Polish freedom”, and in the context of his speeches that “the Intermarium project is not forgotten, I would like us to become such the center of American expansion in the three seas. ”

The idea of ​​“Intermarium”, that is, the long-standing Polish dream “od morza do morza”, from Baltic to Black, was also developed by the Head of the Presidential Administration of the Commonwealth, Krzysztof Szczierski: “The construction of a canal on the Vistula Spit is part of the“ Intermarium ”project.

“I value your plans a lot”, but the task of assimilating Ukraine (how else to get to the Black Sea?) Seems to be not the simplest and not the most feasible. Digging a ditch 1 km long, 20 m wide and 5 m deep in the sand is an important achievement, but cooking porridge with Ukrainian brothers will be more difficult. Russians who have had such an experience can only sympathize with the naive Poles.

The author’s point of view may not coincide with the position of the publisher.