The
Volga () is the largest
river in
Europe in terms of length,
discharge, and
watershed. It flows through
central Russia, and is widely viewed as the national river of
Russia. Out of the twenty
largest cities of Russia, eleven, including its capital
Moscow, are situated in the Volga's
drainage basin. Some of the largest
reservoirs in the world can be found along the Volga.
Nomenclature
The Russian hydronym "" is akin to the old
Mari name of the river - Volgydo that means "bright".
Mari people are considered as the first people in Volga. Presently Mari call the river as Юл (
Jul) that means "way" from
Tatar. The name
volgydo is cognate to
Finno-Ugric valkea meaning "white" or "bright". Russians explain Volga from slavic word for "wetness", "humidity" (влага, волога). The Russian name is transliterated as
Volga in English and
Wolga in
German.
The
Turkic people living along the river formerly referred to it as
Itil or
Atil (probably the origin of
Attila's name). In modern
Turkic languages, the Volga is known as
İdel (Идел) in
Tatar,
Idyll in ancient Chuvash-Bolgar, Атăл (
Atăl) in
Chuvash,
Idhel in
Bashkir,
Edil in
Kazakh, and
İdil in
Turkish. The Turkic peoples associated the Itil's origin with the
Kama River. Thus, a left tributary to the Kama river was named the
Aq Itil (
White Itil).
Under the Mongols, the river was known by its other Turkic name
Sarı-su ("yellow water") but Mongols used also their own name
Shar mörön ("yellow river").
The ancient and modern
Mordvin name for the Volga, Рав (
Rav), apparently reflects the ancient
Scythian hydronym
*Rhā, suppedly cognate with the ancient
Avestan and
Sanskrit names
Rañha and
Rasah for a mythical river supposed to flow around the earth. It has even been suggested that the name Russian itself might have been derived from Rasah/Rosah, the
Iranic name of the Volga River (by F.Knauer Moscow 1901). These Iranic words are all connected in their primary meaning of "dew, liquid, moisture".
Description
The Volga is the longest river in Europe. It belongs to the
closed basin of the
Caspian Sea. Rising in the
Valdai Hills above sea level north-west of
Moscow and about south-east of
Saint Petersburg, the Volga heads east past
Lake 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 below sea level. At its most strategic point, it bends toward the
Don ("the big bend"). Volgograd, formerly Stalingrad, is located there.
The
Saratov Bridge, running across the Volga, used to be the longest in Europe.
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 largest estuary in Europe, it is the only place in Russia where
pelicans,
flamingoes, and
lotuses may be found. The Volga freezes for most of its length for three months 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
Volga-Baltic Waterway 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 (downstream to upstream)
Rzhev is the uppermost town situated on the Volga (photographed circa 1910).
Reservoirs (downstream to upstream)
Several old towns, including
Kalyazin and
Mologa, were flooded by Soviet authorities in the 1940s.
A number of large hydroelectric reservoirs were constructed on the Volga during the
Soviet rule. They are:
Human history
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. The ancient scholar
Ptolemy of Alexandria mentions the lower Volga in his
Geography (Book 5, Chapter 8, 2nd Map of Asia). 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.
Many Orthodox shrines and monasteries are strewn along the banks of the Volga
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. The river
served as an important trade routeconnecting
Scandinavia,
Rus', and Volga Bulgaria with Khazaria and
Persia.
Khazars were replaced by
Kipchaks,
Kimeks and
Mongols, who founded the
Golden Horde in the lower reaches of the Volga. Later their empire broke into the
Khanate of Kazan and
Khanate of Astrakhan both of which were conquered by the Russians in the course of the 16th century
Russo-Kazan Wars. The Russian people's deep feeling for the Volga finds echoes in their culture and literature, starting from the 12th-century
Lay of Igor's Campaign.
The Volga Boatmen's Song is one of many songs devoted to the national river of Russia.
Construction of Soviet dams often involved enforced resettlement of huge numbers of people, as well as destruction of their historical heritage. For instance, the town of
Mologa was flooded for the purpose of constructing the
Rybinsk Reservoir (then the largest artificial lake in the world), and the construction of the
Uglich Reservoir entailed the flooding of several monasteries with buildings dating from the 15th and 16th centuries. In such cases the ecological and cultural damage often outbalanced any economical advantage.
20th-century conflicts
During the
Russian Civil War, both sides fielded warships on the Volga. In 1918, the Red
Volga Flotilla participated in driving the Whites eastward, from the Middle Volga
at Kazan to the Kama and eventually to
Ufa on the
Belaya River.
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, in which the
Soviet Union and the
German forces were deadlocked in a
stalemate battle for access to the river. The Volga was (and still is) a vital transport route between
Russia and the
Caspian Sea, which provides access to the oil fields of
Apsheron.
Hitler planned to use access to the oil fields of
Azerbaijan to fuel future German conquests. Apart from that, whoever held both sides of the river could move valuable
troops and
war machines, across the river, to defeat the enemy's
fortifactions beyond the river. By taking the river,
Hitler's Germany would have been able to move
supplies,
guns, and men into the northern part of Russia.
For this reason, many
amphibious assaults were brought about in an attempt to remove the other side from the banks of the river. In these battles, The Soviet Union was the main
offensive side, while the
German troops used a more
defensive stance, though most the fighting was
head on head, with no clear offensive or defensive side.
Ethnic groups
The first people along the upper Volga are
Mari (Мари) and their west ethnic group named
Merya (Мäрӹ) that came here around 1-3rd century. In the 8th and 9th centuries Slavic colonization began from
Kievan Rus'. They brought Christianity, and a part of local people took Christianity and gradually became
East Slavs; the remainder of Mari people migrated to the west far inland. In the course of several centuries they assimilated the indigenous Finnic population which included
Merya and
Meshchera peoples. The surviving peoples of
Volga Finnic ethnicity include the
Maris and
Mordvins of the middle Volga.
Apart from the
Huns, the earliest Turkic tribes arrived in the 7th century and assimilated some Finnic and Indo-European population on the middle and lower Volga. The
Christian Chuvash and
Muslim Tatars are descendants of the population of medieval
Volga Bulgaria. Another Turkic group, the
Nogais, formerly inhabited the lower Volga steppes.
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
World War II.
Navigation
The Volga has a rocky right bank
The Volga, widened for navigation purposes with construction of huge dams during the years of
Stalin's
industrialization, is of great importance to inland shipping and transport in Russia: all the dams in the river have been equipped with large (double)
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 (
Lake Ladoga,
Lake Onega),
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 (lock dimensions of 290 x 30 meters on the Volga, slightly smaller on some of the other rivers and canals) and it spans many thousands of kilometers. A number of formerly state-run, now mostly privatized, companies operate passenger and cargo vessels on the river;
Volgotanker, with over 200
petroleum tankers, is one of them.
In the later
Soviet era, up to the modern times,
grain and
oil have been among the largest cargo exports transported on the Volga. Until recently access to the Russian waterways was granted to foreign vessels on a only 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.
See also
