Where the Volga flows. Volga river

It flows through the European part of the country, and its mouth is located in the Caspian Sea. It is officially believed that the length of the Volga is 3,530 km. But if we add some more reservoirs to this figure, it turns out that the length of the queen of Russian rivers will be 3,692 km. The Volga is the longest river in all of Europe.

The area of ​​its basin is 1 million 380 thousand square meters. km. It is interesting that there are mentions of the Volga already in the works of the ancient Greek scientist Ptolemy. He calls it “Ra” in his studies. And the Arabs once called the Volga the word “Itil”, which means “river”.

Barge Haulers and Volga

The Volga has gone down in history for all time due to the use of heavy barge labor. It was necessary only at a time when the movement of ships turned out to be impossible against its current, that is, during floods. During the day, the Burlatsky artel could travel up to ten kilometers. A total the number of working barge haulers for the entire season could reach six hundred.

Sources of the great river

The river originates at Not far from the village of Volgoverkhovye, several springs gush out from under the ground. One of these springs is recognized as the source of the great Volga. This spring is surrounded by a chapel. All the springs in this area flow into a small lake, from which, in turn, flows a stream no more than a meter wide. The depth of the Volga (if we conventionally designate this stream as the beginning of a great river) here is only 25-30 cm.

It is believed that the Volga exists mainly thanks to snow. About 60% of its total nutrition comes from melting snow. Another third of the Volga is provided groundwater. And on rain power accounts for only 10%.

Upper Volga: depth and other characteristics

Moving further, the stream becomes wider and then flows into a lake called Sterzh. Its length is 12 km, width - 1.5 km. A total area is 18 km². The Sterzh is part of the Upper Volga Reservoir, the total length of which is 85 km. And already beyond the reservoir, the name Verkhnyaya begins. The depth of the Volga here averages from 1.5 to 2.1 m.

The Volga, like most other rivers, is conventionally divided into three parts - Upper, Middle and Lower. The first big city on the path of this river is Rzhev. Followed by ancient city Tver. In this area there is the Ivankovskoye Reservoir, which stretches for 146 km. In his area the depth of the river increases to 23 m. The Volga in the Tver region stretches for 685 km.

There is a section of the river in the Moscow region, but in this territory it occupies no more than 9 km. Not far from it is the city of Dubna. And next to the Ivankovskaya dam, its largest tributary in the Moscow region, the one of the same name, flows into the Volga. Here, in the 30s of the 20th century, the canal named after. Moscow, connecting the Moscow River and the Ivankovskoye Reservoir, the waters of which are indispensable for the economy of the capital.

Further downstream is its length of 146 km. The depth of the Volga at the Uglich reservoir is 5 meters. which is the northernmost point of the Volga, has a depth of 5.6 m. Beyond it, the river changes its direction from northeast to southeast.

Depth of the Volga and other indicators in the middle and lower sections

The section of the Middle Volga begins at the point where the Oka, the largest right tributary of the river, flows into it. At this place stands Nizhny Novgorod - one of the largest settlements Russia. The width and depth of the Volga here are as follows:

• the width of the channel ranges from 600 m to 2 km;
• maximum depth is about 2 m.

After merging with the Oka, the bed of the Volga becomes increasingly wider. Near Cheboksary, the great river encounters an obstacle - the Cheboksary hydroelectric power station. The length of the Cheboksary reservoir is 341 m, width is about 16 km. Its greatest depth is 35 m, the average is 6 m. And the river becomes even larger and more powerful when the Kama River flows into it.

A section of the Lower Volga begins from this point, and now it flows into the Caspian Sea. Even further upstream, after the Volga bends around the Tolyatti Mountains, the largest of all its reservoirs is located - Kuibyshevskoye. Its length is 500 m, width - 40 km, and depth - 8 m.

What is the depth of the Volga in its delta? Features of the Great River Delta

The length of the delta near the Caspian Sea is about 160 km. Width - about 40 km. The delta includes about 500 canals and small rivers. It is believed that the mouth of the Volga is the largest in all of Europe. Here you can meet unique representatives of the animal and plant world - pelicans, flamingos, and even see a lotus. Here it is already difficult to talk about such a parameter as the depth of the Volga. The maximum depth of the river in its delta is, according to various estimates, up to 2.5 m. The minimum is 1-1.7 m.

In size, this section of the Volga exceeds even the deltas of such rivers as the Terek, Kuban, Rhine and Meuse. It, like the river itself, played a very important role in the formation of the first settlements in these territories. Trade routes passed here that connected the Lower Volga with Persia and other Arab countries. Tribes of the Khazars and Polovtsians settled here. Presumably in the 13th century. here a Tatar settlement called Ashtarkhan first appeared, which eventually became the beginning of Astrakhan.

What is unusual about the Volga delta

The peculiarity of the Volga delta is that, unlike other deltas, it is not sea, but lacustrine. After all, the Caspian Sea is inherently big lake, since it is not connected to the World Ocean. The Caspian is called a sea only due to its impressive size, which makes it look like a sea.

The Volga flows through the territory of 15 constituent entities Russian Federation and is one of the most important waterways for industry, shipping, energy and other important areas of the state.

The great Russian river carries its waters to the sea through three and a half thousand kilometers. Power and strength are associated with the Volga. Everyone knows its breadth, when you can’t see the other from one bank. The delta is famous - hundreds of islands separated by narrow channels. The panorama of the Volzhskaya Hydroelectric Power Station, one of the largest hydroelectric power stations, is fascinating with its combination of natural and man-made, industrial scale. But few people know where the source of the Volga River is, its very beginning.

In the depths of Russia there is a village called Volgoverkhovye. This is a small settlement of just a few houses. Not far from him - old church. Further on there is a swamp with several springs. This is the place where does the Volga River originate?.

Geographically, the source is located in the Ostashkovsky district of the Tver region. After several kilometers of travel, the river flows into a chain of lakes:

1. Small Verkhity.
2. Big Verkhits.
3. Rod.

Behind the Rod is the first active dam, which regulates the flow of water into the upper reaches. The slope of the riverbed is quite small. Along its entire length, it is no more than 250 m. The source, where the movement of water begins, is located at an altitude of 229 m above sea level. In the upper reaches of the Volga - no deep river. Only after connecting with Selizharovka, which flows out of Seliger, does it become wider and its channel deepen. Upper Volga beishlot ( hydraulic structure for draining water) was built specifically to maintain the water level at a minimum level for navigation.

The place where the Volga begins is national treasure Russia. It is under state protection: a state reserve is located on an area of ​​more than 4 thousand hectares. The protected forests in the area of ​​the reserve are a natural monument, and the source itself belongs to the objects recreational use.

The source of the river, like most of the Upper Volga, is located in the forest zone. In winter, the river is covered with ice, which melts only in March. In April-May the flood begins. Basic nutrition is provided:

• Melt (snow) waters - 60%.
• Groundwater (soil) water - 30%.
• Rain (sedimentary) water - 10%.

In the Tver region, before the construction of the Volzhskaya hydroelectric power station, the river overflowed its banks, rising almost 11 meters. Currently, this figure has decreased sharply. At the Verkhnevolzhsky beishlot, the water flow is m#179;/sec (for comparison, at Volgograd it is 8,050 m#179;/sec).

A little history

Volga, the most ancient river of the Central Russian Plain, appeared more than 20 million years ago. The warm Paleogene sea moved south, leaving many lakes and rivers. The largest was the Volga, which captured all the small rivers. Once upon a time its beginning was on the western slope Ural mountains. Traces of that ancient Volga have hardly survived.

Presumably, it flowed where the rivers are now located. Belaya and Kama, near Chistopol, turned south, towards Zhiguli. On average, the Volga was located 100–160 km east of its current position. The mouth, presumably, was located near the Absheron Peninsula, serving as a place for the accumulation of organic materials for Baku hydrocarbons.

During the glaciations, serious changes occurred in the landscape; the melting of glaciers produced huge flows of water that formed the modern valley of the Great Russian River. Over the course of a long time, the Volga underwent repeated and complex changes before taking its usual position on the geographical map.

Sights and tourist route

The river, which is a symbol of Russia, has long been originates on the Valdai Hills. Having moved from the slopes of the harsh Urals to a Tver village, the source of the Volga River is now located in a small swamp. A chapel was erected at this place, inside there is a hole directly above the source. In 1999, the stream under the chapel was consecrated by the Patriarch of All Rus'. A prayer service is held here every year.

The first bridge is located a little further downstream. A typical Soviet-era engineering structure is three meters long. It is used for walking through several streams that have merged into one, a little more than half a meter wide. Here you can jump over the Volga or just step over it.

The source is also marked in granite - an inscription on a black slab informs that the beginning of the great Russian river is located right here. Near the temple there is still a huge boulder laid on June 22, 1989; on a memorable day for the Russian mentality.

How to get there

​ From the town of Ostashkov to the destination it is just over 65 kilometers. Beyond Lake Seliger, the road needs repairs, so you will have to forget about a comfortable route for a while. And after about an hour of travel, the asphalt surface ends and the dirt road begins. The village has parking areas for cars and tourist buses, and a small market where you can buy souvenirs and have a snack.

A wooden gate with the inscription “Source of the Volga” marks the last stage of the route. Having crossed the wooden bridge to the chapel, the traveler can take a breath and recharge with energy, being near one of the “brace” of the Russian people and state.

Video

If you don’t have the opportunity to go on a trip to the source of the Volga, you can get to know it with the help of this video.

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Description: Volga (in ancient times - Ra, in the Middle Ages - Itil, or Ethel) is a river in the European part of Russia, one of the largest rivers on the globe and the largest in Europe. Length 3530 km (before construction of reservoirs 3690 km). The basin area is 1360 thousand km2.

The Volga originates on the Valdai Hills at an altitude of 228 m and flows into the Caspian Sea. The mouth lies 28 m below sea level. The total fall is 256 m. The Volga receives about 200 tributaries. The left tributaries are more numerous and have more water than the right ones. The river system of the Volga basin includes 151 thousand watercourses (rivers, streams and temporary watercourses) with a total length of 574 thousand km. The Volga basin extends from the Valdai and Central Russian Uplands in the west to the Urals in the east. At the latitude of Saratov, the basin narrows sharply and from Kamyshin to the Caspian Sea the Volga flows without tributaries. The main, feeding part of the Volga drainage area, from the sources to Nizhny Novgorod and Kazan, is located in the forest zone, the middle part of the basin to Samara and Saratov is in the forest-steppe zone, the lower part is in the steppe zone to Volgograd, and to the south - in.

semi-desert zone

The Volga is usually divided into three parts: the upper Volga - from the source to the mouth of the Oka, the middle Volga - from the confluence of the Oka to the mouth of the Kama, and the lower Volga - from the confluence of the Kama to the Caspian Sea. After the construction of the Kuibyshev reservoir, the border between the middle and lower Volga is usually considered to be the Zhigulevskaya hydroelectric station above Samara. The source of the Volga is a spring near the village of Volgoverkhovye in the Tver region. In its upper reaches, within the Valdai Upland, the Volga passes through small lakes - Verkhit, Sterzh, Vselug, Peno and Volgo. At the source of Lake Volgo, a dam (Verkhnevolzhsky beishlot) was built back in 1843 to regulate water flow and maintain navigable depths during low water periods. Between Tver and Rybinsk on the Volga, the Ivankovskoye Reservoir with a dam and a hydroelectric power station near Dubna, the Uglich Reservoir (HPP near Uglich) and the Rybinsk Reservoir (HPP near Rybinsk) were created. In the Rybinsk-Yaroslavl region and below Kostroma, the river flows in a narrow valley among high banks, crossing the Uglich-Danilovskaya and Galich-Chukhloma uplands. Further, the river flows along the Unzhenskaya and Balakhninskaya lowlands. Near Gorodets (above Nizhny Novgorod), the Volga, blocked by the dam of the Nizhny Novgorod hydroelectric station, forms the Gorky Reservoir. upper Volga - Selizharovka, Tvertsa, Mologa, Sheksna and Unzha. In the middle reaches, below the confluence of the Oka, the Volga becomes even more full-flowing. It flows along the northern edge of the Volga Upland. The right bank of the river is high, the left is low. The Cheboksary hydroelectric power station was built near Cheboksary, above which the reservoir of the same name is located. For a number of reasons, the hydroelectric power station has not yet reached its design capacity, and the level of the Cheboksary reservoir is 5 meters below the design level. In this regard, the section from the Nizhny Novgorod hydroelectric station to Nizhny Novgorod remains extremely shallow, and navigation on it is carried out thanks to water releases from the Nizhny Novgorod hydroelectric station in the morning. At present final decision filling the Cheboksary reservoir to the design level has not been accepted. As an alternative option, the possibility of constructing a low-pressure dam combined with a road bridge above Nizhny Novgorod is being considered. The largest tributaries of the Volga in its middle reaches are the Oka, Sura, Vetluga and Sviyaga.

In the lower reaches, after the confluence of the Kama, the Volga becomes a mighty river. It flows here along the Volga Upland. Near Tolyatti, above the Samara Luka, which is formed by the Volga, skirting the Zhigulevsky Mountains, the Zhigulevskaya Hydroelectric Power Station dam (formerly the Volzhskaya Hydroelectric Power Station named after V.I. Lenin) was built; Above the dam lies the Kuibyshev Reservoir. Downstream, in the area of ​​the city of Balakovo, the Saratov Hydroelectric Power Station dam was erected. The Lower Volga receives relatively small tributaries - Samara, Bolshoi Irgiz, Eruslan.

21 km above Volgograd, the left branch, Akhtuba (length 537 km), separates from the river, which flows parallel to the main channel. The vast space between the Volga and Akhtuba, crossed by numerous channels and old rivers, is called the Volga-Akhtuba floodplain;

The width of the floods within this floodplain previously reached 20-30 km. On the Volga between the beginning of Akhtuba and Volgograd there is the Volzhskaya Hydroelectric Power Station (formerly the Volzhskaya Hydroelectric Power Station named after the 22nd Congress of the CPSU).

The Volga is mainly fed by snow (60% of the annual runoff), groundwater (30%) and rainwater (10%). The natural regime is characterized by spring floods (April - June), low water availability during the summer and winter low water periods and autumn rain floods (October). The annual fluctuations in the level of the Volga before the construction of the cascade of waterworks reached 11 m at Tver, 15-17 m below the Kama estuary and 3 m at Astrakhan. With the construction of reservoirs, the Volga flow was regulated, and level fluctuations sharply decreased.

The average annual water flow at the Upper Volga beishlot is 29 m3/sec, at Tver - 182, at Yaroslavl - 1110, at Nizhny Novgorod - 2970, at Samara - 7720, at Volgograd - 8060 m3/sec. Below Volgograd, the river loses about 2% of its flow to evaporation. In the past, the maximum water flow rates during flood periods below the confluence of the Kama reached 67,000 m3/sec, and near Volgograd, as a result of a flood along the floodplain, did not exceed 52,000 m3/sec. Due to flow regulation, maximum flood flows have sharply decreased, and summer and winter low flows have increased significantly.

Before the creation of reservoirs, during the year the Volga carried about 25 million tons of sediment and 40-50 million tons of dissolved minerals to its mouth. The river water temperature in mid-summer (July) reaches 20-25°C. The Volga opens near Astrakhan in mid-March, in the first half of April the opening occurs on the upper Volga and below Kamyshin, throughout the rest of the length - in mid-April. The river freezes in the upper and middle reaches at the end of November, in the lower reaches at the beginning of December; It remains ice-free for about 200 days, and near Astrakhan for about 260 days. With the creation of reservoirs, the thermal regime of the Volga changed: on the upper reaches the duration of ice phenomena increased, and on the lower reaches it became shorter.

Historical and economic-geographical sketch. Geographical position The Volga and its large tributaries determined by the 8th century. its importance as a trade route between East and West. From Central Asia Fabrics, metals, and furs, wax, and honey were exported from the Slavic lands. In the 9th-10th centuries. centers such as Itil, Bolgar, Novgorod, Rostov, Suzdal, and Murom played a significant role in trade. From the 11th century trade weakens, and in the 13th century. The Mongol-Tatar invasion disrupted economic ties, except in the upper Volga basin, where Novgorod, Tver and the cities of Vladimir-Suzdal Rus' played an active role. From the 14th century the importance of the trade route is restored, the role of such centers as Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Astrakhan is growing. Conquest by Ivan IV the Terrible in the mid-16th century. The Kazan and Astrakhan khanates led to the unification of the entire Volga river system in the hands of Russia, which contributed to the flourishing of Volga trade in the 17th century. New large cities are emerging - Samara, Saratov, Tsaritsyn; Yaroslavl, Kostroma, and Nizhny Novgorod play a major role. Large caravans of ships (up to 500) sail along the Volga. In the 18th century main trade routes move west, and economic development the lower Volga is constrained by weak population and raids by nomads. The Volga basin in the 17th-18th centuries. was the main area of ​​action for the rebel peasants and Cossacks during the peasant wars under the leadership of S. T. Razin and E. I. Pugachev.

In the 19th century there is a significant development of the Volga trade route after the connection of the Mariinskaya river system the Volga and Neva basin (1808); A large river fleet appeared (in 1820 - the first steamship), a huge army of barge haulers (up to 300 thousand people) worked on the Volga. Large shipments of bread, salt, fish, and later oil and cotton are carried out along the Volga. The Nizhny Novgorod Fair is acquiring great economic importance.

During Civil War 1918-1920 major military operations took place on the Volga, and it acquired important military-strategic significance. Since the late 30s. In the 20th century, the Volga also began to be used as a source of hydropower. During the Great Patriotic War

1941-45, the largest Battle of Stalingrad (1942-43) took place in the East. In the post-war period, the economic role of the Volga increased significantly, especially after the creation of a number of large reservoirs and hydroelectric power stations. After the completion of the construction of the Volga-Kama cascade of hydroelectric power stations, the total electricity production reached 40-45 billion kWh per year, the surface area of ​​the reservoirs was about 38 thousand km2, the total volume was 288 km3, and the useful volume was 90 km3. Volga is connected to Volga-Baltic waterway; with the White Sea - through the White Sea-Baltic Canal and the Severodvinsk system; with the Azov and Black Seas - through the Volga-Don Canal. An important role is played by the Moscow Canal, which connects the Volga with Moscow and was created for the purposes of navigation, water supply to the capital and water supply of the Moscow River. Currently, regular shipping on the Volga is carried out from the city of Tver. (Based on the site: www.riverfleet.ru)

A.S. Gledneva report "The Volga River - and its significance"

There are many large and beautiful rivers, such as - IRTYSH, LENA, ANGARA, OB. One of the largest and most beautiful Russian rivers in Europe is the Volga River, the 16th longest in the world.

“Every country has its own national river,” wrote Dumas. “Russia has the Volga - the most big river in Europe, the queen of our rivers - and I hastened to bow to her majesty the Volga River! "Geologists determine from sediments in the earth's crust that over the immeasurably long history of the Earth, significant areas of the present Volga region have more than once turned into the seabed. One of the seas slowly retreated to the south about twenty million years ago, and then the Volga River flowed in its footsteps, not in Valdai, but near the Ural Mountains. It seemed to cut a corner, taking the direction from there to Zhiguli, and then carried waters much further east than now. crust, the formation of new hills and depressions, sharp fluctuations in the level of the Caspian Sea and other reasons forced the Volga River to change direction.

RA - this is what the Greek scientist Ptolemy called the Volga River in his “Geography”. He lived far from the Volga, on the coast of Africa, in the city of Alexandria, but rumors about the great river reached there too. This was in the second century AD. ITIL, ETHIL, ATIL... Such names of the Volga River are noted in medieval chronicles.

The source of the Volga River is on the Valdai Hills, where groundwater emerges. Volga - typical lowland river. The Volga River flows into the Caspian Sea. At its confluence, the Volga forms a delta with an area of ​​19 thousand square meters. km.

For almost 370 km. It rolls its waters from them for 3500 km. Vessel traffic is allowed. At this distance it descends no more than 250 m. The fall of the river is small. average speed currents - less than 1 m/s.

Most rivers are tributaries of other larger rivers. OKA is the right tributary of the Volga, KAMA is the left tributary of the Volga River. Smaller rivers, when they flow into larger ones, form the basin of the main river, thanks to which the rivers are full-flowing. The Volga River basin is 1360 thousand square meters. km.

The main nutrition of the Volga River is spring melt water. Rainfall, falling mainly in summer, and groundwater, due to which the river lives in winter, play a lesser role in its nutrition. In accordance with this, the annual level of the river is distinguished by: high and prolonged spring floods, fairly stable summer low water and low winter low water. The duration of the flood is on average 72 days. The maximum water rise usually occurs in the first half of May, half a month after the spring ice drift. From the beginning of June to October - November, summer low water sets in. Thus, most of the navigation period when the Volga River is ice-free (an average of 200 days) coincides with a period of low low water levels (2 - 3 m).

The Upper Volga - from the source to Nizhny Novgorod, to the confluence of the Oka, the middle - from the mouth of the Oka to the mouth of the Kama, the lower Volga - from the confluence of the Kama to the Caspian Sea.

From the city of Nizhny Novgorod, after the confluence of the Volga and Oka rivers, as is commonly believed, the middle course of the Volga begins. The width of the river bed immediately more than doubles, then fluctuating from 600 to 2000 m and more.

For middle Volga There are three main types of shores. On the right, the ancient banks rise, unflooded at any water level, descending to the river with steep slopes; sometimes, at a turn, such a bank juts out into the Volga River, forming a cliff. On the left are dominated by extremely gentle sandy banks that gradually rise to the low meadow floodplain, alternating with "jams - steep, almost vertical slopes, clayey, sandy-clayey; in some places they reach a considerable height. "A wide-chested river stretches majestically between them; its waters flow silently, solemnly and leisurely; the mountain coast is reflected in them as a black shadow, and on the left side it is decorated with gold and green velvet by sandy edges of shallows and wide meadows." (M. Gorky, "Foma Gordeev").

The difference between the right and left banks of the Volga River affects the settlement and economic development of the banks of this river. The quiet backwaters of the left bank are widely used for parking, wintering, repairing and building ships: along the entire Trans-Volga coast of the Volga there are settlements of shipbuilding and ship repair plants.

Left bank villages on the Volga River, and settlements are located, as a rule, far from the river, outside the low, flooded floodplain, with the exception in this regard of villages on high ravines. The wide left-bank floodplain is rich in meadows; Collective farmers also come here to mow from the right bank, where the floodplain areas are small. It's a different matter on the right bank. Villages are often located “right above the Volga River,” on the top of the main bank and on the slopes.

The high right bank of the Volga River is fraught with a constant threat of landslides and landslides, which is unfavorable for settlement on it. The condition for their occurrence is the interlayering of aquiferous clayey and aquiferous sandy horizons observed on the right bank, with their exit towards the river. The upper sandy-clayey strata, saturated with water from the Volga River after melting snow or summer rains, begin to slide along the waterproof layer towards the river. This sliding can be very slow, but in the end it can lead to a collapse. Landslides are being combated by strengthening dangerous sections of the banks and constructing drainage systems.

Abstract: Volga River

Volga river

1. Volga - the great Russian river

Our country is rich in rivers: there are almost 200 thousand of them. And if you stretch them one after another, you will get a ribbon about 3 million km long; it could wrap around the globe along the equator many dozens of times.

“Take a look at Russia from above - it’s blue with rivers.”

V. Mayakovsky

“Every country has its own national river. Russia has the Volga - the largest river in Europe, the queen of our rivers - and I hastened to bow to her majesty the Volga,” wrote Dumas.

The Volga is the 16th longest river in the world and the 5th longest in Russia. As if giant tree The Volga spread its branches - tributaries - across the great Russian Plain. It has captured almost 1.5 million km2 within its basin. Originating as a small stream among forests and swamps near the village of Volgoverkhovye in the center of the Valdai Upland, the Volga on its way to the sea receives tribute from numerous tributaries (the largest of which are the Oka and Kama) and turns into a mighty river, the largest in all of Europe, with a length of 3,700 km, carrying its waters into the internal Caspian Sea-lake. In its lower reaches (after Volgograd) it has no tributaries.

“... - seven thousand rivers

She collected from all over -

Big and small - up to one,

What from Valdai to the Urals

Furrowed the globe"

A. Tvardovsky

(poem “Beyond the Distance”)

The Volga is a typically flat river. From source to mouth it descends only 256 meters. This is a very small gradient compared to other great rivers of the world, which gives very great convenience for navigation.

“... slowly moving towards the banks of the Volga - the left one, completely bathed in the sun, spreads along to the edge of the sky, like a lush, green carpet, and the right one waved its forested steep slopes towards the sky and froze in stern peace. A broad-chested river stretched majestically between them; its waters flow silently, solemnly and leisurely..."

M. Gorky

According to their own natural features The natural, former Volga is a typical Eastern European river of mixed water supply with a predominance of snow, with prolonged freeze-up and summer water decline.

Over the course of a year, a huge amount of water flows down the Volga - about 250 km3.

According to its natural features, the Volga is usually divided into three parts. From the source to the confluence of the Oka it is called the Upper Volga, then to the confluence of the Kama - the Middle Volga and from the Samara Luka to the mouth - the Lower Volga. The territory where the river flows is called the Upper Volga, Middle and Lower Volga regions, respectively.

2. Historical Volga

The great Russian river Volga has been known to the Greeks for a long time. Ra (which meant “Generous”) - this is how the Greek scientist Ptolemy called the Volga in his “Geography”. He lived far from the Volga, on the coast of Africa, in the city of Alexandria, but rumors about the great river reached there too. This was in the 2nd century AD.

The Finnish tribes who lived on its banks called the Volga River - “Bright”, “Shining”, and the Arabs in the Middle Ages called it “Iishl” - “River of Rivers”. Some geographers believe that the name “Volga” comes from the Russian words “moisture”, “water”. Entire pages of the history of the Russian state and its people are associated with the word Volga. There was a time when the Volga peasants, crushed by extortions, driven from the land, hungry and impoverished, walked to the great river. Here they gathered in artels and day after day they pulled barges along the Volga in rain and snow, in heat and cold. This is well reflected in the painting by I.E. Repin "Barge Haulers on the Volga". Even the strongest could not stand this hard labor and brought many to an early grave. But others made millions from their slave labor. N.A. called the Volga “the river of slavery and melancholy.” Nekrasov.

“Go out to the Volga, whose groan is heard

Over the great Russian river?

We call this groan a song,

Then the barge haulers are walking with a towline.”

In some years in the past, when a lot of snow fell in winter, the rise in water level near Volgograd reached 10-14 m. Then the river overflowed its banks and flooded the coastal banks, villages, meadows, and arable lands for tens (20-30) kilometers. But it was not always so. More often, there were periods when there was little water, and the Volga became very shallow in the summer.

In 1885, the cover of Alarm Clock magazine depicted a sweet picture: a beautiful woman lying on her deathbed - this is Volga. Nearby, her daughters Oka and Kama are sobbing in a knee-jerk position. The saddened stand at the bed of the dying - History, Trade, Poetry. The doctor throws up his hands - there is nothing I can do to help. The shoaling reached such a point that large ships no longer sailed above Nizhny Novgorod.

The Volga and its cities endured many trials during the years of the civil war and military intervention of foreign states. Counter-revolutionary rebellion in Samara (“death trains”), military threat (1918) to Samara and Simbirsk now from the Kolchak army. In the battles for the liberation of these cities, units under the command of V.I. distinguished themselves. Chapaeva. Fierce battles also took place for Tsaritsyn, which was the key to the grain-producing regions of southern Russia and Baku oil.

In the first half of 1918, 5,037 wagons of food were sent through Tsaritsyn to Moscow and Petrograd. That is why the White Guards rushed to Tsaritsyn: they sought to deprive the young Soviet Republic of bread and fuel. In the second half of 1919, the city was occupied by the White Guard troops of General Wrangel, where they brutally massacred the defenders. 3.5 thousand people became victims of terror. In January 1920, the Red Army drove troops out of the city. To fight for the Volga and its cities during the Civil War, at the suggestion of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the first Soviet river military flotilla was created in April 1918. It consisted of river vessels and a group of warships delivered from the Baltic Fleet. The flotilla operated on the Volga and its channels and went down in history as the Volga Military Flotilla. With the participation of the Volga flotilla, the White Guard units near Sviyazhsk were defeated, Kazan, Syzran, Volsk, and Samara were liberated. In July 1919, she became part of the Volga-Caspian military flotilla.

Particular mention should be made of those terrible and difficult months when, during the Great Patriotic War (WWII), the fate of our state was decided on the banks of the Volga. We are talking about the Battle of Stalingrad, which marked a turning point in the course of the war; seeing that it was not possible to take Moscow by storm, the Nazi command changed its plans. It decided to direct the main attack south of the capital, to seize Ukraine and the Volga region with their countless food and material resources. Particular importance was attached to the advance physical destruction of Stalingrad, the largest industrial center on the Volga, which supplied the fronts of the Patriotic War with tanks, armored personnel carriers, guns, and ammunition. Then it was planned to advance to Astrakhan and cut the main channel of the Volga there. The enemy's plans were unraveled. On the near and far approaches to the city, 100 thousand people erected four defensive lines in a short time. Leaving the fortifications, the builders wrote on the walls: “Fighter, be steadfast! Not a step back, remember, behind your back is the Volga, Our Motherland!” From the summer of 1942 to February 1943, the heroic epic of the battle for Stalingrad and the Volga lasted. At the beginning of 1942, the Volga Military Flotilla was re-created from the converted ships of the Volga River Shipping Company, which in the period from November 19, 1942 to December 16, 1942. (during the counter-offensive near Stalingrad) it transferred over 27 thousand people and 1300 tons of military cargo to the right bank of the Volga. The Nazis were squeezed into pincers and then completely surrounded. On February 2, 1943, the Germans capitulated. This battle lasted 6.5 months. For Germany, the battle on the Volga for Stalingrad was a grave defeat, but for Russia it was its greatest victory. After the defeat on the Volga, the Nazis were no longer able to recover. A great turning point in the war has come. The victorious offensive of our troops began on all fronts.

After the liberation of Stalingrad, the Volga Flotilla carried out great job on clearing the Volga from mines.

On the site of the ruins and ashes of Stalingrad, people created a new, even more beautiful city and named it Volgograd, in honor of the great Russian river.

3. Great Volga Cascade

The young Soviet state inherited: a shallowing river, pitiful remnants of the fleet, and a destroyed port facility. To prevent catastrophic consequences, it was necessary to transform the Volga system. For this purpose, even in pre-war times, a plan was conceived and developed to transform the Volga into a cascade of dams, reservoirs and the construction of new canals on it. The prophetic words of the poet K.A. came true. Nekrasov:

Other times, other pictures

I foresee the beginning...

Freed from shackles

The people are unforgiving

Will ripen, densely populate

Coastal deserts;

The science of water will deepen,

Along their smooth plain

Giant ships will run

Countless crowd

And vigorous work will be eternal

Above the eternal river.

A large group of scientists and engineers worked to create this grandiose plan. This plan received the strategic name “Big Volga”. It was complex in nature. This means that during its development the needs of shipping, irrigation, energy, water supply and much more were taken into account and provided for. According to the project, the Volga was supposed to turn into a wide waterway, connect with the northern and southern seas, and become a powerful factory electrical energy and direct part of its waters for irrigation in dry areas. The Big Volga project began to be implemented from the moment the construction of the Moscow Canal began.

The canal was built from 1932 to 1937. It was necessary to immediately solve two important problems: to make the capital a large river port and to give it plenty of fresh drinking water. Its length is 128 km. Water through five pumping stations rises 40 meters to the Volga-Moscow watershed, and then follows by gravity.

About 200 structures were erected on this “man-made river”: 10 dams, 11 locks, dozens of bridges. 8 hydroelectric power stations were built. Many buildings are decorated with bas-reliefs, statues, and frescoes. When you float along the canal, it seems that you are in a museum of monumental sculpture. Traffic along the canal never stops.

Ivankovsky hydroelectric complex is the main structure of the canal. Near the village of Ivankovo, the Volga was blocked with a dam and forced to spill over the floodplain. Here the Moscow Sea arose, and the river began to rotate the turbines of the Ivankovskaya hydroelectric station. The news that the Russians, for the first time in history, stopped and forced the greatest river in Europe to work for themselves spread throughout the world. The power of the hydroelectric power station was modest, only 30 thousand kW.

Later, below Ivankov, the construction of the Uglich and Rybinsk hydroelectric complexes began. The Uglich hydroelectric power station with a capacity of 110 thousand kW was built in 1940, and the first stage of the Rybinsk hydroelectric power station - in 1941. During the difficult war winter (1941-1942), the Verkhnevolzhsky hydroelectric power stations supplied up to 3.5 billion kWh. electricity. The Rybinsk “Sea” at that time was the largest artificial reservoir in the world.

The Upper Volga for 1300 km became subject to man. The central power system was filled with new strength, and deep-draft Astrakhan river ships reached Moscow.

In the 50s, the construction of the Rybinsk hydroelectric power station was completed on the Volga. In 1956, the construction of the Gorky hydroelectric power station (Nizhny Novgorod) was completed.

At the beginning of the Samarskaya Luka above the city of Samara in 1950, work began on the Volga near Zhiguli on the construction of the Samara hydroelectric power station. After 8 years, the work was completed, the Volzhskaya Hydroelectric Power Station was created. Lenina (Samara) with a capacity of 2.3 million kW. This is a powerful building. The building of the Samara hydroelectric power station “Palace of Electricity” is longer than the Admiralty building in St. Petersburg (it was considered the longest in the USSR).

A river approximately equal to the Oka flows through each turbine, and the Kuibyshev reservoir occupies about 6 thousand km2. Overall, a titanic job was done. It was necessary to build railway tracks, hang cable cars over the Volga, lay out settlements, drive a steel fence into the bottom of the river, go deep behind it with excavators much below the bed, lay a mountain of concrete, wash a bank of earth across the entire river and launch cars along its crest and trains, raise the Volga by 25-26 meters, install locks and install units - each as tall as an 8-story building, stretch a dam wall 5 km long. Help came from everywhere: automatic concrete plants from Moscow, multi-bucket electric excavators from Kyiv, dump trucks from Minsk, turbines from Leningrad.

In 1951-62. The Volgograd hydroelectric complex with the Volgograd hydroelectric power station with a capacity of 2.5 million kW is being built. The Volgograd and Kuibyshev reservoirs irrigate more than 2 thousand hectares of fertile dry lands.

During these same years, the first hydroelectric power station was built on the Kama, not far from the city of Perm - the Kama Hydroelectric Power Station with an original design (combines a spillway dam and a hydroelectric power station building), thereby achieving savings in the cost of concrete structures.

Then the Volzhskaya HPP with a capacity of 1 million kW and the Nizhnekamsk HPP are built. Since 1967, the first units of the Saratov hydroelectric power station began to produce current. The launch of the Cheboksary hydroelectric power station has practically completed the construction of the Volga-Kama cascade. The entire complex of structures on the Volga was called the “Great Volga Cascade”. The Volga-Kama cascade of hydroelectric power stations has formed a system of reservoirs (from Kostroma to Volgograd), which makes it possible to redistribute water flow according to the seasons in accordance with the requirements of the national economy and to irrigate the arid lands of the Middle and Lower Volga region (more than 2 million hectares, which is about half of all irrigated lands of Russia).

The Volga supplies water to thousands of enterprises and dozens of urban settlements located on its banks.

The Volzhsky and Kama hydroelectric power stations allow saving up to 25-30 million tons of coal annually. In addition, the hydroelectric power station performs the functions of regulating the load schedule of power systems. The cost of energy from hydroelectric power plants is 4-5 times lower than the cost of electricity from thermal power plants in the Volga and Center regions.

The creation of a cascade of hydroelectric power stations improved shipping conditions: a deep-water route with uniform guaranteed depths (3.65 m) was formed over 3000 km on the Volga and 1200 km on the Kama, which reduced the cost of transportation in the Volga basin by 2-3 times compared to other inland waterways. tracks and 2-3 times compared to adjacent railways.

But there were also negative aspects in the transformation of the Volga. In the name of obtaining large amounts of electricity, they resorted to flooding large areas of land. Two million hectares of land, thousands of villages and even some cities were under water. After the construction of hydroelectric dams, the fishery importance of the Volga decreased due to deterioration in water quality (industrial wastewater) and difficulty in fish passage to spawn.

4. Volga - transport route

In distant geological epochs, it so happened that nature “offended” the Volga, depriving it of access to the ocean, and forced it to flow into the inland sea.

This circumstance has long caused great inconvenience to the Russian people who communicated with other neighboring peoples. The lively Black Sea market has always attracted Russian merchants.

The need to connect the Volga with the Don has been long overdue. The first attempt to connect the great rivers was made by the Turks, who wanted to transfer warships, heavy guns and troops by water along the Don and Volga to take away Astrakhan, annexed to Russia in 1556, from us.

To do this, their Sultan Selim II ordered a dig to be made at the portage between the rivers. Ivan the Terrible, having learned about the uninvited guests, sent a large army to the place of work, but they had fled from the inhospitable Russian land even earlier. The “Turkish Ditch” has survived to this day.

Peter I also dealt with the problem of connecting the Volga and Don. But this idea was truly implemented only from 1948 to 1952. The Volga was connected to the Don. The Volgo-Don canal arose here. It starts from the Volga near Volgograd and approaches the Don near Kalach. The length of the route is 101 km. There are 9 locks on the Volga slope, and 4 on the Don slope. Tens of millions of tons of all kinds of cargo move along it. So the Volga gained access to the southern seas - the Azov and Black Seas.

But for her it was no longer enough. She desperately needed access to the northern seas - convenient and accessible for large modern ships. On the site of the outdated Marinka (the waterway that connected the Volga and Neva river basins in 1810), a new large deep road Volgo-Balt - Volga-Baltic waterway 360 km long. Instead of dilapidated small locks, seven new ones with several hydroelectric power stations were built here. In 1964, large ships and motor ships passed through it from the Volga to the Baltic for the first time.

And finally, the White Sea-Baltic Canal connected the Volga with the White Sea.

Thus, the modern Volga is a waterway connected to the five seas of Europe. Day and night, a variety of cargo flows along it in an endless stream - building materials and timber, cars and coal, oil, salt, bread, vegetables and fruits. Two thirds of the republic's river cargo is transported along the Volga and its tributaries. It is home to 1,450 ports and marinas and all the largest cities in the Volga region. The Volga unites them as a great transport route. The freight turnover on it is 10 times higher than the railway traffic in this area.

5. Volga - the economic axis of the Volga region

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the industrialization of the Volga region began. It becomes a major area for the production of commercial grain and the flour-milling industry. The importance of the Volga is increasing. It becomes the “main street of Russia” (grain, oil are transported, timber is floated). The most powerful sawmills in Russia appeared in Tsaritsyn (Volgograd).

The policy of industrialization during the pre-war five-year plans (the largest tractor plant in Volgograd) and the first years of the war (in connection with the evacuation of defense enterprises here in 1941-42) turned the Volga region from an agricultural region into an industrial region, from a flour-grinding region into a machine-building region with the intensive development of the military industry.

In the post-war period, especially since 1950, for two decades the Volga region became the main region of Russia for oil production and petrochemical processing. The main areas of oil and gas production and processing are located in Tatarstan (Almetyevsk, Elabuga), Samara region (Novokuibyshevsk, Syzran, Otradny). The flow of oil has changed. She now went down the Volga. The Volga region has turned into a land of oil and gas.

Currently, the main industries of the Volga region are mechanical engineering and petrochemistry. Mechanical engineering (18.6% of Russian) is represented mainly by military-industrial complex enterprises, the main branch of specialization of which is the aviation and rocket and space industries. The largest centers of the military-industrial complex are Samara, Kazan, Saratov, Ulyanovsk.

A special place in the mechanical engineering of the Volga region belongs to the transport Volga region - the country's automobile workshop. It is the largest manufacturer of cars and trucks (Naberezhnye Chelny, Ulyanovsk, Tolyatti, Nizhny Novgorod).

Other types of transport include aircraft manufacturing (Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Saratov, Samara, Ulyanovsk), shipbuilding (Rybinsk, Volgograd, Astrakhan) - sea and river vessels, including hovercraft (Sormovo, Nizhny Novgorod).

The Volga region is a large manufacturer of tractors (Volgograd, Cheboksary), carriage building (Tver), machine tool manufacturing, instrument making are developed, excavators are produced and much more.

Although oil production is declining, oil refining and petrochemicals are switching to Siberian oil and Astrakhan gas, so the Volga region is still the largest region in the country for oil refining, chemical products, and organic synthesis.

Plastics, chemical fibers, synthetic rubber, tires (“shoes for cars”), and mineral fertilizers are produced here.

The Volga region's share in the chemical and petrochemical industry is 15.1% of the Russian one (Kazan, Balakovo, Engels, Volgograd).

Light industry has retained its importance and is expanding. These are textile (Tver, Kineshma, etc.), food (everywhere). Particularly noteworthy is the extraction and processing of table salt from Lake Baskunchak, which has long been used as the “All-Russian salt shaker”. The only mustard plastering plant in the country operates in Volgograd. The fishing and processing industry (Astrakhan) is developing successfully.

There are 67 cities along the banks of the Volga. They all stretched out along or near it. The largest of them are as follows.

Nizhny Novgorod (formerly Gorky) is the first city on the Volga and the third most populous in Russia (1 million 357 thousand inhabitants), founded in the 13th century by Prince Yuri Vsevolodovich of Vladimirov and was of great strategic importance at that time. Its location at the confluence of the Oka and Volga contributed to the development of industry and trade.

In 1817, the Makaryevskaya Fair was transferred to Nizhny Novgorod (previously it was held in the town of Makaryevo, on the left bank of the Volga), which occupied a huge area at the junction of the Oka and Volga. Now it is being reborn again.

From the middle of the 19th century the city acquired industrial importance. The Sormovo shipyard, now Krasnoye Sormovo, was built there, where sea and river hydrofoils (Raketa, Meteor, Comet) are built. Gorky's Volga cars and trucks (with the emblem of a deer figure on the hood) and GAZ (the famous GAZ cars) are known throughout the world.

There is a large river port in Nizhny Novgorod. The management of the Volga United River Shipping Company is located here. The life of many is connected with the history of this city. outstanding people Russia. The Ulyanov family lived here. This is the birthplace of A.M. Gorky, Russian inventor Kulibin, mathematician Lobachevsky and many other prominent figures. In the Archangel Cathedral of the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin there is the grave of Kuzma Minin. The Alexander Nevsky Cathedral and others are also famous.

The second largest population in the Volga region (1 million 156 thousand) is the city of Samara, founded in the 16th century as a fortress in a bend of the Volga near the confluence of the Samara River (which gave its name to the city). During the Second World War, dozens of industrial enterprises were evacuated here, turning the city into one of the largest mechanical engineering centers (airplanes, various machine tools, drills for drilling wells, electrical equipment for cars and tractors). Samara is a center for the production of bearings of all-Union importance. Metalworking and chemical industry. Samara is famous for its largest and most comfortable embankment, clad in concrete and Ural granite. Samara is the birthplace of the famous Zhiguli beer. The city is also famous for its Rossiya chocolate factory.

The capital of Tatarstan - Kazan (1 million 101 thousand people), was founded in the 12th century as a fortress and trade center, on the border of Volga Bulgaria and Russian lands. It is a large industrial center and the main center of Tatar culture in Russia. Mechanical engineering and the chemical industry are developed here. It supplies the national economy with turbo-refrigeration and electronic computers, compressors, synthetic rubber, polyethylene, film, and products household chemicals etc.

Kazan is the most university city. Scientists from Kazan University N.I. Lobachevsky, V.M. Bekhterev, A.V. Vishnevsky brought glory to Russian science. Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy studied at Kazan University. F.I. was born in this city. Chaliapin, passed his “universities” A.M. Bitter. In the former bakery where he worked, a museum named after him was opened. Gorky.

In Kazan there are many memorable places associated with the development of the labor movement, with the revolutionary events of 1917, with the liberation of Kazan from the White Guards and interventionists in 1918. Near the walls of the Kazan Kremlin there is a monument to the hero of the Soviet Union Musa Jalil, who wrote his immortal poems about fearlessness and perseverance in fascist dungeons Soviet man(“Moabite Notebook”). For these poems in 1957 the poet was awarded (posthumously) the Lenin Prize.

The Kazan river port is one of the largest on the Volga. The routes of all transit, transport and tourist lines of steamships in the central basins pass through it.

The largest city in the Lower Volga region is Volgograd, known since the end of the 16th century under the name Tsaritsyn (from the Tsaritsa River, which flows into the Volga). The city stretches along the right bank of the Volga for 80 km from the dam of the Volgograd hydroelectric station to the locks of the Volga-Don Canal. It arose at the closest point to the two great rivers of the Russian Plain, the Volga and the Don, and developed as a center of trade, timber transshipment, mining and processing of the Volga fish wealth.

Today's Volgograd is a large industrial center of the Volga region. It has developed metallurgy (the Red October plant), mechanical engineering, including the largest tractor-building plant, chemical oil refining, light industry, food and other industries. Volgograd is a major transport hub.

Volgograd (Tsaritsyn and Stalingrad), as mentioned above, is connected with the history of Russia during the Civil and World Wars. Volgograd residents honor the memory of the fallen heroes both during the defense of Tsaritsyn and during great battle near Stalingrad. A monument was created on Mamayev Kurgan - the ensemble “To the Heroes of the Battle of Stalingrad”.

The second most populous city in the Lower Volga region is Saratov (874 thousand inhabitants). It first became a center for the processing of agricultural products, especially grain. Then machine-building, shipbuilding, nail and wire factories appeared, later large oil refineries, chemical plants, the largest technical glass plant in Europe (used in the construction of the Kremlin Palace of Congresses in Moscow), and a large-panel house-building plant were built. Mobile power plants, refrigerators, and light and food industry products are produced.

Saratov - major center science, culture, education. Saratov is the birthplace of N.G. Chernyshevsky (there is a museum and a monument to him), writer K.A. Fedina. A.N. was born in the Saratov province. Radishchev (marble bust), P.I. Yablochkov, inventor of the light bulb. Here, at the industrial technical school, Yu.A. studied. Gagarin. The city has an astronaut embankment. Among the fields in the Saratov region, a high obelisk was built, where the world's first cosmonaut, Yu.A., landed after circling the globe. Gagarin. This year, April 12 marks the fortieth anniversary of his flight (Cosmonautics Day).

In Saratov there is the oldest university in the Volga region, an art gallery created by the artist Bogolyubov, one of the largest in Russia.

The modern Volga city of Togliatti is located on the left bank of the Kuibyshev reservoir, the population is 722.6 thousand inhabitants. The largest enterprise in Tolyatti is the Volzhsky Automobile Plant (VAZ). The Zhiguli passenger car plant produces cars of three names: Zhiguli, Niva, Lada.

Equipment for the cement, mining, and chemical industries is produced here. Nitrogen fertilizer and synthetic rubber plants were built. Togliatti is one of the largest elevators, a highly mechanized river port, which is connected by high-speed lines to other cities. Today Togliatti is the largest industrial center of the Middle Volga region.

Ulyanovsk is a large river port on the Kuibyshev reservoir, with a population of 667.4 thousand people. This ancient city (until 1924 - Simbirsk) was founded as a fortress in 1648. Being in the center of the Middle Volga region, it more than once found itself in the whirlpool of historical events. Stepan Razin's troops stood and fought here. Simbirsk peasants joined Pugachev’s troops, and during the Civil War, Simbirsk was captured by the White Guards. Commander of the Iron Division G.D. Guy, after the liberation of Simbirsk, sent Lenin a telegram known to everyone: “... The capture of your hometown is the answer to your one wound...” (Simbirsk is Lenin’s birthplace).

The city has many historical monuments and monuments outstanding personalities(Lenin, Karamzin, Goncharov, etc.).

Ulyanovsk is a major automotive manufacturing center (UAZ). A whole family of trucks (vans, ambulances) is produced here. They produce cutting machines, sprinklers, washing machines, shoes, furniture, and knitwear. The Ulyanovsk port is connected to dozens of ports in other cities. The cargo and passenger flow of this city is very large.

Astrakhan is the southernmost of the Volga cities. In the past, it was the capital of the Astrakhan Tatar Khanate. In 1717, Peter I made Astrakhan the capital of the Astrakhan province. Its landmark is the five-domed Assumption Cathedral, built in the times of Peter the Great with a white Kremlin built from the stone of Sarai - the capital city of the Golden Horde, which stood on Akhtuba.

Currently, Astrakhan is an important port and the main fishing center for fish breeding, extraction and processing. A fish canning refrigeration plant is known, where fish is cut, frozen, salted, smoked, canned, etc.

Mechanical engineering and metalworking enterprises play an important role in the economy of Astrakhan. Seiners and tankers are built here, refrigeration equipment, pulp, cardboard, paper are produced, salt mining and woodworking are developed. A canal has been dug in the delta to enter the Volga from the sea, but not all ships can come close to Astrakhan. At sea, about a hundred kilometers from the coast, their cargo is reloaded onto smaller ships and transported to Astrakhan.

Mechanical engineering, mainly automobile manufacturing, is well developed in Naberezhnye Chelny.

All the leading fundamental industries of the Volga region are located in port cities, which the Volga connects and unites into a single communication. The Volga provides the entire region with water, hydropower, and cheap transport, thereby being the economic axis of the Volga region. Its importance for the economy of this region is equivalent to the importance of the spine for the human body.

The Volga is also interesting to us as a tourist route for water travel, replete with unique historical monuments. These are world-famous kremlins in Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, Astrakhan, memorials in Ulyanovsk and Volgograd, a unique nature reserve in Astrakhan.

6. Problems of the Volga (Volga region). Improving the economic situation on the Volga and its tributaries

The role of the Volga region in the Russian economy is great, but the burden of this region with acute problems is also great. The Volga's catchment area is huge. It is 1 million 350 thousand km2. It receives wastewater from industrial enterprises, including the VLK, city sewage water, and wastewater contaminated with pesticides from the vast fields of the Volga region. The Volga is also polluted by water transport (port drains, oil leaks, etc.). All this causes great damage to fisheries, especially sturgeon fish, which have always been the glory of Russia. Therefore, it is necessary to improve cleaning methods Wastewater using both mechanical and chemical and biochemical methods, to protect water resources from depletion (very high evaporation from twenty thousand square kilometers of the Volga reservoirs) by reducing the consumption of fresh water for technical purposes (reusing waste water after its preliminary purification).

To restore fish stocks, fish hatcheries have been built. They release young sturgeon, beluga, and stellate sturgeon into the river. Black Sea mullet were transported by plane to the Caspian Sea. (To feed the fish, it was transported ringworm, especially for sturgeon and beluga).

But it is not only the water of the Volga and its melting fish stocks that require improvement, but also the lands of the Volga region, the air basins of the Volga cities, saturated with chemical enterprises, oil refining, metallurgy, etc.

To solve the environmental problems of this area, the Federal Target Program “Renaissance of the Volga” was developed and adopted. The program is designed for 15 years (1996-2010).

As a result of the implementation of the measures provided for in the program, the discharge of contaminated wastewater into water bodies; The use of drinking water for industrial needs will be reduced by 40%, the specific consumption of raw materials and energy resources will be reduced by 20%, atmospheric emissions from stationary sources will be reduced by almost 2 times and there will be 2 times more fish in the Volga reservoirs.

At all times of the existence of Russia, the Volga has been and remains a great Russian river, on which the life of the entire Volga region largely depends.

We are Russians. We are the children of the Volga.

For us the meanings are complete

Its slow waves

Heavy as boulders.

Russia's love for her is imperishable.

They are drawn to her with all their souls

Kuban and Dnieper, Neva and Lena,

Both Angara and Yenisei.

I love her all in the threads of light,

All surrounded by willow trees...

But the Volga for Russia is

Much more than a river.

And I live young and loud,

And I will forever make noise and bloom,

As long as you, Russia, exist.

E. Yevtushenko.

Bibliography

1. Alekseev A.I., Nikolina V.V. Geography: population and economy of Russia. - 1999.

2. Geography of Russia: Textbook. / Ed. A.V. Darnitsky. - 1994.

3. Medvedev A.. Shaburov Yu. Moscow - a port of five seas. - 1985.

4. Muranov A. Greatest Rivers world.- 1968.

5. Verkhotin. Electric power system of the USSR.

6. Soviet encyclopedic dictionary. 3rd ed. - 1984.

7. Soviet historical encyclopedia. T.3.- 1963. Fishing bases on the Volga (Astrakhan region)

Volga and why it has no equal in Europe? Where does it flow and where does the channel become the deepest? All this will be discussed in the article.

The beginning of the way

The source of the river flows from a swamp near the village of Volgoverkhovye in the Tver region. From here the Volga flows into small lakes (Verkhity, Sterzh, Vselug, Peno, Volgo). The first city that you can meet if you move along the river from its source is Rzhev. On the territory of the Tver region, about one hundred and fifty tributaries flow into the Volga.

The river is usually divided into three sections:

Upper Volga - from the source to the confluence of the Oka.

Middle Volga - from the mouth of the Oka to its confluence

Lower Volga - from the mouth of the Kama to the Caspian Sea.

At each subsequent section, the river becomes more and more full-flowing.

First among equals

Descriptions of the Volga River often begin with an indication of its greatness. Indeed, it has no equal in all of Europe. Its length exceeds 3.5 thousand kilometers, and the basin area occupies more than a million square kilometers. the largest in Europe. It includes about 500 branches and covers an area of ​​19 thousand m2.

The Volga basin is a third of the territory of our country. It extends from to the Urals. The Volga flows through a picturesque area: first through forest zone, then through the forest-steppe and, finally, across the steppe.

The wealth of the river is not only in the huge resource of fresh water and electricity. Volga - source large number species of commercial fish. Among them are carp, sturgeon, catfish, sterlet, and pike. In the river delta, not far from Astrakhan, there is a nature reserve. Here you can meet flamingos and pelicans, see white cranes, Siberian Cranes and Egyptian herons, and admire the lotus.

In which direction does the Volga River flow?

As it moves towards the delta, the river changes direction several times. After the source it moves to the southeast. The first turn occurs in the area of ​​​​the city of Zubtsova (approximately 371 km from the source). Now the Volga flows to the northeast. The river returns to its original direction in the Tver region.

Again it turns to the northeast near the city of Dubna and flows through the Tver and Yaroslavl regions. Only in the section from Rybinsk to the village of Tunoshna does the water flow move to the southeast. Then she returns to the previous direction. A little later the river begins to move east. The Volga makes a rather sharp turn in the area of ​​the city of Yuryevets, Ivanovo region - here it changes its direction to the south. After Gorodets, the river again moves to the southeast.

In its middle course, the Volga changes direction several times, but mainly flows to the southeast. The next rather sharp turn of the channel occurs already in the Samara region, not far from here, the river begins to move west, smoothly changing direction in the area of ​​​​the village of Pecherskoye to the southwest. A new turn is taking place not far from Volgograd. Here the flow of the Volga River returns to the southeast direction. This is how its movement remains until the mouth. Actually, the short answer to the question in which direction the Volga River flows is simple: in the southeast.

Volga today

Throughout the history of the formation and development of our country, the river played a big role. And today it has not lost its significance. In the Volga region, since the beginning of this century, industrial enterprises have been built and launched, and agriculture has been increasing its momentum.

One of the significant indicators economic significance rivers - tourism development. Cruises on the Volga are gaining popularity every year. All larger number Vacationers are wondering in which direction it flows and where it can be reached. Since the mid-2000s, the increase in the flow of tourists has been 20%. This indicator clearly indicates that the Volga will continue to be great.

The largest of all European rivers, the Volga, in Russia ranks only fifth in size, ahead of the rivers of Siberia and the huge Amur. In total, the Volga covers a distance of 3,500 kilometers. Almost along its entire length it is navigable, and about 3,000 kilometers is a tourist route along the river.

During its history, it changed its name twice. Initially, in ancient times, its name was Ra, then, already in the Middle Ages, the river was called Itil. The Volga begins on the Valdai Hills, from a tiny stream. It’s hard to even believe that after 3.5 thousand kilometers this thin trickle will turn into a powerful water flow, replenishing the volume of the Caspian Sea by 8000 cubic meters every second.

Its waters cover an area equal in size to two Frances or five United Kingdoms. And there is no need to even talk about the importance of the river in the life, economy and culture of Russia. It is simply impossible to imagine the history of the peoples inhabiting the shores without it. Basically, the Volga is distinguished by its calm disposition, quiet and measured flow. The majestic movement of its waters is, in some places, difficult to even notice. Previously, when there were no dams and reservoirs, the character of the river was steeper. There were also rifts and pitfalls. But the memory of them now remains only in legends and the names of coastal villages and cities. However, in areas of reservoirs and in the lower reaches of the Volga it can be dangerous. A sad example and lesson of how one cannot neglect the power of poetry is the tragedy of the motor ship Bulgaria... More than two and a half hundred of its tributaries are large in themselves deep rivers. One of them, the largest, Kama, is even larger than itself both in length and in depth. More or less large rivers, the length of which exceeds 10 kilometers, in the Volga basin there are more than 150 thousand.

Guidebooks convince you that you can get to almost anywhere in the world by water from here. But it’s realistic to take a cruise from Moscow to St. Petersburg, or in the other direction - Nizhny Novgorod and Astrakhan. The Moscow Canal leads to the capital. The Volga-Baltic Waterway connects it with the Baltic Sea. To Black and Sea of ​​Azov for a relaxing holiday. In summer, the water warms up to +25 degrees, and where the water thickness is not very large, the temperature reaches +30.