The Volga River connects with Moscow by the Volga Canal, which was built by laborers under the Stalinist regime. There is no way to see this part of Russia like taking a boat from Moscow north through the Moscow/Volga Canal and either connecting up with the westward flowing Svir and Neva in the north (toward St. Petersburg) or heading north for a while, then south again to Nizhny Novgorod and on past Volgagrad and Samara to the Caspian Sea.