a navigable canal in Finland and the USSR, on the Karelian Isthmus. It joins the Saimaa lake system near the city of Lappeenranta with the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea near the city of Vyborg. The canal is 43 km long, and it has several locks. It was built in the period from 1845 to 1856 and modernized in 1968. It is accessible to river and lake shipping; the freight turnover in 1973 was about 400,000 tons. The main cargoes are lumber, boards, cellulose, paper, mineral fuel, chemical raw materials, and metals. In accordance with a 1962 agreement between the USSR and Finland, the Soviet section of the canal and the island of Malyi Vysotskii were leased to Finland for 50 years.