than those on the Volga River, however they can bear ships of up to 5,000 tonnes cargo capacity. The smallest locks are long, wide, and deep. The maximum allowed vessel size is long, wide and deep (the Volgo–Don Max Class). The canal is filled from the Don, with three powerful pumping stations that maintain water levels. Water is also taken from the canal and used for irrigation. Cargo transported from the Don region to the Volga include: coal from Donetsk, Ukraine, minerals (both directions), building materials, and grain. Cargo transported from the Volga to the Don includes lumber, pyrites, and petroleum products (carried mostly by Volgotanker boats). Tourist cruisers travel in both directions. The canal and the Tsimlyansky water-engineering system (whose chief architect was Leonid Polyakov), form part of an architectural ensemble dedicated to the battles for Tsaritsyn during the Russian Civil War and for Stalingrad during the German-Soviet War. The Russian classical composer Sergei Prokofiev wrote the tone poem The Meeting of the Volga and the Don to celebrate its completion. According to the Maritime Board (Morskaya Kollegiya) of the Russian government, 10.9 million tonnes of cargo were carried over the Volga–Don Canal in 2004. An alternate source claims 8.05 million tonnes of cargo was transported through the canal in 2006. Most of the cargo was moved from the east to the west: 7.20 million tonnes, and only 0.85 million tonnes the reverse. Just over half of all cargo was oil or oil products (4.14 million tonnes), predominantly shipped from the Caspian region. It was reported in 2007 that in the first 55 years of the canal's operations 450,000 vessels had passed through carrying 336 million tonnes of cargo. Recent cargo volume stood at 12 million tonnes a year. In 2016, the core of Belarusian nuclear power plant VVER-1200, which weighed 330 tonnes, was 13 meters high, and 4.5 meters in diameter, was transferred to its destination by exploiting Tsimlyansk Reservoir, the Volga–Don Canal, the Volga–Baltic Waterway, and two other connections. Stamp gallery Future options In the 1980s, construction started on a second canal between the rivers. The new canal, dubbed Volga–Don 2 (; ) would start from the township of Yerzovka on the Volgograd Reservoir, north (upstream) of the Volga Dam, as opposed to the existing Volga–Don Canal that starts south (downstream) of the dam. This would cut the number of locks that ships coming from the Volgograd