Volga River
The Volga, widely viewed as the national river of
Russia, flows through the western part of the country. It is
Europe's longest
river, with a length of 3,690 km , and forms the core of the largest river system in Europe. Some of the largest reservoirs in the world may be found along the river.
Encyclopedia
The
Volga, widely viewed as the national river of
Russia, flows through the western part of the country. It is
Europe's longest
river, with a length of 3,690 km , and forms the core of the largest river system in Europe. Some of the largest reservoirs in the world may be found along the river.
Nomenclature
The Russian hydronym
??´??? is akin to the Slavic word for "wetness", "humidity" . It is transliterated as
Volga in English and as
Wolga in
German.
The
Turkic populations living along the river formerly referred to it as Itil or Atil.
Attila the Hun might have been named after this river as well. In modern Turkic languages, the Volga is known as
Idel in
Tatar,
??a? in Chuvash and
Idil in
Turkish. Another version of the same root is represented by Mari
?? .
A still more ancient hydronym is the
Scythian name of the river,
Rha, which may reflect the ancient
Avestan and
Sanskrit names
Rañha and
Rasah for a sacred river. This ancient name survives in the modern Mordvin name for the Volga,
??? .
Description
Rising in the Valdai Hills 225 m above sea level north-west of
Moscow and about 320 kilometres south-east of
Saint Petersburg, the Volga heads east past
Sterzh,
Tver', Dubna,
Rybinsk,
Yaroslavl,
Nizhny Novgorod and
Kazan. From there it turns south, flows past
Ulyanovsk,
Tolyatti,
Samara,
Saratov and
Volgograd, and discharges into the
Caspian Sea below
Astrakhan at 28 metres below sea level. At its most strategic point, it bends toward the
Don . Volgograd, formerly Stalingrad, is located there.
The Volga has many tributaries, most importantly the
Kama, the
Oka, the Vetluga, and the
Sura rivers. The Volga and its tributaries form the Volga river system, which drains an area of about 1.35 million square kilometres in the most heavily populated part of Russia. The
Volga Delta has a length of about 160 kilometres and includes as many as 500 channels and smaller rivers. The Volga freezes for most of its length during three months of each year.
The Volga drains most of Western Russia. Its many large reservoirs provide
irrigation and hydroelectric power. The Moscow Canal, the Volga-Don Canal, and the
Mariinsk Canal systems form navigable waterways connecting Moscow to the
White Sea, the
Baltic Sea, the
Caspian Sea, the
Sea of Azov and the
Black Sea. High levels of chemical pollution currently give cause for environmental concern.
The fertile river valley provides large quantities of wheat, and also has many mineral riches. A substantial petroleum industry centres on the Volga valley. Other minerals include natural gas, salt, and potash. The Volga Delta and the nearby
Caspian Sea offer superb fishing grounds.
Astrakhan, at the delta, is the centre of the
caviar industry.
Confluents
Reservoirs on the Volga
Nine major
hydroelectric power stations and several large artificial lakes formed by dams lie along the Volga. The reservoirs, upstream to downstream, are:
- Volgo Lake
- Ivankovskoye Reservoir
- Uglich Reservoir
- Rybinsk Reservoir
- Gorkovskoye Reservoir
- Cheboksary Reservoir
- Samara Reservoir
- Saratov Reservoir
- Volgograd Reservoir
Human history
The ancient scholar
Ptolemy of Alexandria mentions the lower Volga in his
Geography . He calls it the
Rha, which was the Scythian name for the river. Ptolemy believed the Don and the Volga shared the same upper branch, which flowed from the Hyperborean Mountains.
The downstream of the Volga, widely believed to have been a cradle of the Proto-Indo-European civilization, was settled by Huns and other Turkic peoples in the first millennium AD, replacing
Scythians.
Subsequently the river basin played an important role in the movements of peoples from Asia to Europe. A powerful polity of
Volga Bulgaria once flourished where the
Kama river joins the Volga, while
Khazaria controlled the lower stretches of the river. Such Volga cities as Atil, Saqsin, or Sarai were among the largest in the medieval world.
Khazars were replaced by
Kipchaks, Kimeks and
Mongols, who founded the
Golden Horde in the lower stream of Volga. Later the Empire broke into the
Khanate of Kazan and
Khanate of Astrakhan; subsequently they were conquered by Russians in the 16th century.
In modern times, the city on the big bend of the Volga, currently known as Volgograd, witnessed the
Battle of Stalingrad, the bloodiest battle in human history. The Russian people's deep feeling for the Volga often finds echoes in their songs and literature .
Ethnic groups
The indigenous population of Upper Volga were Finnic
Merya, that were assimilated to Russians. Other Finnic ethnic groups are Maris and Mordvins of middle Volga. Turkic populations appeared in the 600s and assimilated some Finnic and Indo-European population at the middle and lower Volga, later they were transformed to Christian Chuvash and
Muslim Tatars; also to
Nogais, which were supplanted to
Daghestan later. Mongolian Buddhists
Kalmyks resettled to Volga in the 17th century.
The Volga region is home to a German minority group, the
Volga Germans.
Catherine the Great had issued a Manifesto in 1763 inviting all foreigners to come and populate the region, offering them numerous incentives to do so. This was partly to develop the region but also to provide a buffer zone between the Russians and the Mongol hordes to the east. Because of conditions in German territories, the Germans responded in the largest numbers. Under the
Soviet Union a slice of the region was turned into the
Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic to house many of the Volga Germans. Others were executed or dispersed throughout the Soviet Union prior to and after WWII.
Navigation
The Volga is of great importance to inland shipping and transport in Russia: all the dams in the river have been equipped with large
ship locks, so that vessels of considerable dimensions can actually travel from the
Caspian Sea almost to the upstream end of the river. Connections with the
Don River and the
Black Sea are possible through the Volga-Don Canal. Connections with the lakes of the north ,
Saint Petersburg and the
Baltic Sea are possible through the
Volga-Baltic Waterway; and a liaison with Moscow has been realised by the Moscow Canal connecting the Volga and the
Moskva rivers. This infrastructure has been designed for vessels of a relatively large scale and it spans many thousands of kilometers.
Until recently access to the Russian waterways was only granted on a very limited scale. The increasing contacts between the European Union and Russia have led to new policies with regard to the access to the Russian inland waterways. It is expected that vessels of other nations will be allowed on the Russian rivers soon. ]
References
See also
External links
