History And Economy

Archaeological evidence of early settlement of the Don River basin dates from the Upper
Paleolithic (40,000–13,000 years ago). At the beginning of the 2nd century BC, tribes of
herdsmen occupied the valley of the Don and developed livestock raising and crop agriculture
there. The Tatars conquered the region during the first half of the 13th century AD. The Russian
state, expanding southward from the Grand Principality of Moscow, incorporated the Don River
basin between the middle of the 15th and 16th centuries. The famed Don Cossacks
established themselves in independent military settlements along the middle and lower Don by
the 16th century but subsequently came under tsarist control.

Since the early 1950s the Don has undergone intensive economic development. The key to this
was the creation of the huge Tsimlyansk Reservoir along its lower course. The project included
a hydroelectric station, a fish elevator, two navigation locks, an irrigation canal, a 1,580-foot
concrete dam, and an eight-mile earthen dam. By 1975 an additional 116 reservoirs, with
volumes exceeding 35 million cubic feet each, existed in the basin.

The Tsimlyansk Reservoir contributed to a rapid expansion of irrigation in the Don River basin,
which grew from about 124,000 acres (50,000 hectares) in 1950 to nearly 2.5 million acres by
1980. In the upper basin an extensive network of ponds aids irrigation; these ponds are also
used for raising fish.

The significance of the Don as a navigable waterway greatly increased with the construction of
the Volga–Don Ship Canal. The river itself is navigable from the mouth to the city of Liski (a
distance of 842 miles) and in the spring for another 150 miles upstream. Navigation in the lower
course has been facilitated greatly by the Tsimlyansk project. Navigation at the mouth of the
Don is occasionally hindered by the declines in water level induced by strong, persistent
offshore winds, while dredging operations are necessary to maintain and improve navigation in
the upper reaches. The largest ports are Kalach-na-Donu, Tsimlyansk, and Rostov-na-Donu.

The development of the Don has provided substantial economic benefits to the riverine
populations as well as to the nation, but these alterations have reduced substantially the
amount of water discharged at the river’s mouth. This decrease—estimated in 1975 to be 20
percent of the 1950 level and still rising—has come chiefly from water diversion for irrigation
and through evaporation from the artificial reservoirs; and, as a result of it, the salinity of the
Sea of Azov has risen considerably, diminishing the sea’s biological productivity and lowering
fish catches.

Aleksandr Mikhaylovich Gavrilov

Philip P. Micklin

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Russia: Rivers

…and the 1,162-mile- (1,870-km-) long Don flow south to the Black Sea, and a small
northwestern section drains to the Baltic. The longest European river is the Volga. Rising in the
Valdai Hills northwest of Moscow, it follows a course of 2,193 miles (3,530 km) to the Caspian
Sea. Outranked…

Volga-Don Canal

Volga River with the Don River at their closest point in southwestern Russia. The canal runs
from Kalach-na-Donu, on the eastern shore of the Tsimlyansk Reservoir, for 101 km (63 miles)
to Krasnoarmeysk on the Volga immediately south of Volgograd. There are 13 locks along its
route, which drops…

Russia

Russia, country that stretches over a vast expanse of eastern Europe and northern Asia. Once
the preeminent republic of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.; commonly known
as the Soviet Union), Russia became an independent country after the dissolution of the Soviet
Union in December 1991.…

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Volgograd

RUSSIA

WRITTEN BY: The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

See Article History

Alternative Titles: Stalingrad, Tsaritsyn

Volgograd, formerly (until 1925) Tsaritsyn and (1925–61) Stalingrad, city and administrative
centre of Volgograd oblast (region), southwestern Russia, on the Volga River. It was founded as
the fortress of Tsaritsyn in 1589 to protect newly acquired Russian territory along the Volga.
During the Russian Civil War (1918–20), Joseph Stalin organized the defense of the city in a
major battle against the White Russian armies, and the city was later renamed in his honour.
One of the decisive battles of World War II took place there, from August 1942 to February
1943. The German armies at the limit of their advance attempted to capture Stalingrad; after
bitter fighting during which the city was reduced to rubble, the German salient was cut off, and
an army group of some 300,000 men was annihilated. (See Stalingrad, Battle of.)

Volgograd

Volgograd, Russia.

© Denis Dryashkin/Shutterstock.com

The city was totally rebuilt after the war, and new apartment buildings and factories extend for
more than 40 miles (65 km) along the river. Steel and aluminum, engineering products, timber
goods, building materials, and foodstuffs head a long list of manufactures, joined in the 1960s
by chemicals associated with an oil refinery built in 1957. Other postwar developments include
the Volga-Don Ship Canal, opened in 1952, and a hydroelectric station immediately north of
the city. There are medical, civil engineering, teacher-training, mechanical, and municipal-
economics institutes. The University of Volgograd was opened in 1980. Pop. (2006 est.)
991,643.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

This article was most recently revised and updated by Michael Ray, Associate Editor.

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World War II: The Germans’ summer offensive in southern Russia, 1942

…wheel southeastward against Stalingrad (Volgograd); and List’s Army Group A, from the front
south of Kharkov, with Kleist’s 1st Panzer Army, struck toward the lower Don to take Rostov
and to thrust thence northeastward against Stalingrad as well as southward into the vast oil
fields of Caucasia. Army Group…

Volgograd

Volgograd, oblast (region), southwestern Russia, lying athwart the lower Volga and Don rivers.
The Volga is flanked on the west by the Volga Upland, which is continued south of Volgograd
as the Yergeni Upland. West of the Khoper and Don are additional low uplands. Between the…

Russia

Russia, country that stretches over a vast expanse of eastern Europe and northern Asia. Once
the preeminent republic of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.; commonly known
as the Soviet Union), Russia became an independent country after the dissolution of the Soviet
Union in December 1991.…

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Volga River

RIVER, RUSSIA

WRITTEN BY: Pavel Sergeyevich Kuzin Philip P. Micklin

LAST UPDATED: Aug 6, 2019 See Article History

Alternative Titles: Etil, Itil, Ra, Reka Volga

Volga River, Russian Volga, ancient (Greek) Ra or (Tatar) Itil or Etil, river of Europe, the
continent’s longest, and the principal waterway of western Russia and the historic cradle of the
Russian state. Its basin, sprawling across about two-fifths of the European part of Russia,
contains almost half of the entire population of the Russian Republic. The Volga’s immense
economic, cultural, and historic importance—along with the sheer size of the river and its basin
—ranks it among the world’s great rivers.

The Dnieper, Don, and Volga river basins and their drainage network.

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Rising in the Valdai Hills northwest of Moscow, the Volga discharges into the Caspian Sea,
some 2,193 miles (3,530 kilometres) to the south. It drops slowly and majestically from its
source 748 feet (228 metres) above sea level to its mouth 92 feet below sea level. In the
process the Volga receives the water of some 200 tributaries, the majority of which join the
river on its left bank. Its river system, comprising 151,000 rivers and permanent and
intermittent streams, has a total length of about 357,000 miles.

Volga River

Volga River near Ulyanovsk city, Russia.

Olegivvit

Physical Features

The river basin drains some 533,000 square miles (1,380,000 square kilometres), stretching
from the Valdai Hills and Central Russian Upland in the west to the Ural Mountains in the east
and narrowing sharply at Saratov in the south. From Kamyshin the river flows to its mouth
uninterrupted by tributaries for some 400 miles. Four geographic zones lie within the Volga
basin: the dense, marshy forest, which extends from the river’s upper reaches to Nizhny
Novgorod (formerly Gorky) and Kazan; the forest steppe extending from there to Samara
(formerly Kuybyshev) and Saratov; the steppe from there to Volgograd; and semidesert
lowlands southeast to the Caspian Sea.

Volga River

Volga River, near Mariinsky Posad, Chuvashiya republic, Russia.

Verdlanco

Physiography

The course of the Volga is divided into three parts: the upper Volga (from its source to the
confluence of the Oka), the middle Volga (from the confluence of the Oka to that of the Kama),
and the lower Volga (from the confluence of the Kama to the mouth of the Volga itself). The
Volga is a small stream in its upper course through the Valdai Hills, becoming a true river only
after the entrance of several of its tributaries. It then passes through a chain of small lakes,
receives the waters of the Selizharovka River, and then flows southeast through a terraced
trench. Past the town of Rzhev, the Volga turns northeastward, is swelled by the inflow of the
Vazuza and Tvertsa rivers at Tver (formerly Kalinin), and then continues to flow northeastward
through the Rybinsk Reservoir, into which other rivers, such as the Mologa and the Sheksna,
flow. From the reservoir the river proceeds southeastward through a narrow, tree-lined valley
between the Uglich Highlands to the south and the Danilov Upland and the Galich-Chukhlom
Lowland to the north, continuing its course along the Unzha and the Balakhna lowlands to
Nizhny Novgorod. (Within this stretch the Kostroma, Unzha, and Oka rivers enter the Volga.) On
its east-southeastward course from the confluence of the Oka to Kazan, the Volga doubles in
size, receiving waters from the Sura and Sviyaga on its right bank and the Kerzhenets and
Vetluga on its left. At Kazan the river turns south into the reservoir at Samara, where it is joined
from the left by its major tributary, the Kama. From this point the Volga becomes a mighty river,
which, save for a sharp loop at the Samara Bend, flows southwestward along the foot of the
Volga Hills in the direction of Volgograd. (Between the Samara Bend and Volgograd it receives
only the relatively small left-bank tributaries of the Samara, Bolshoy Irgiz, and Yeruslan.) Above
Volgograd the Volga’s main distributary, the Akhtuba, branches southeastward to the Caspian
Sea, running parallel to the main course of the river, which also turns southeast. A floodplain,
characterized by numerous interconnecting channels and old cutoff courses and loops, lies
between the Volga and the Akhtuba. Above Astrakhan a second distributary, the Buzan, marks
the beginning of the Volga delta, which, with an area of more than 7,330 square miles, is the
largest in Russia. Other main branches of the Volga delta are the Bakhtemir, Kamyzyak, Staraya
(Old) Volga, and Bolda.

Rzhev

Rzhev on the Volga River, Russia.

Stepashin F.W.

Rybinsk Reservoir

Rybinsk Reservoir on the upper Volga River, northwestern Russia.

Dmitry A. Mottl

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Hydrology

The Volga is fed by snow (which accounts for 60 percent of its annual discharge), underground
water (30 percent), and rainwater (10 percent). The natural, untamed regime of the river was
characterized by high spring floods (polovodye). Before it was regulated by reservoirs, annual
fluctuations in level ranged from 23 to 36 feet on the upper Volga, from 39 to 46 feet on the
middle Volga, and from 10 to 49 feet on the lower Volga. At Tver the average annual rate of
river flow is about 6,400 cubic feet (180 cubic metres) per second, at Yaroslavl 39,000 cubic
feet per second, at Samara 272,500 cubic feet per second, and at the river’s mouth 284,500
cubic feet per second. Below Volgograd the river loses about 2 percent of its waters in
evaporation. More than 90 percent of annual runoff occurs above the confluence of the Kama.

Climate

The climate of the Volga basin changes significantly from north to south. From its source to the
Kama confluence, it lies within a temperate climatic zone characterized by a cold, snowy winter
and a warm, rather humid summer. From the Kama to below the Volga Hills, hot, dry summers
and cold winters with little snow prevail. Toward the south and east, temperatures increase and
precipitation decreases. The average temperatures in the river’s upper reaches range from 19
°F (−7 °C) to 6 °F (−14 °C) and those of July from 62 °F (17 °C) to 68 °F (20 °C), while on its
lower reaches at Astrakhan corresponding temperatures are 19 °F (−7 °C) and 77 °F (25 °C).
Annual rainfall ranges from 25 inches (635 millimetres) on the northwest to 12 inches on the
southeast. Evaporation of precipitation ranges from 20 inches in the northwest to eight inches
in the southeast. The upper and middle courses of the Volga begin to freeze at the end of
November, the lower reaches in December. The ice breaks up at Astrakhan in mid-March, at
Kamyshin at the beginning of April, and everywhere else in mid-April. The Volga is generally
free of ice for about 200 days each year and for about 260 days near Astrakhan. As great
masses of water accumulated within the reservoirs constructed during the Soviet period,
however, the temperature regime of the Volga was so changed that the duration of ice
increased on the headwaters of the reservoirs and decreased on the stretches below the dams.

The Economy

Dams and reservoirs

A string of huge dams and reservoirs now line the Volga and its major tributary, the Kama River,
converting them from free-flowing rivers to chains of man-made lakes. All the reservoir
complexes include hydroelectric power stations and navigation locks. The uppermost complex
on the Volga, the Ivankovo, with a reservoir covering 126 square miles, was completed in 1937,
and the next complex, at Uglich (96 square miles), was put into operation in 1939. The Rybinsk
Reservoir, completed in 1941 and encompassing an area of about 1,750 square miles, was the
first of the large reservoir projects. Following World War II, work continued below Rybinsk. The
reservoirs at Nizhny Novgorod and Samara were both completed in 1957, and the Cheboksary
Reservoir, located between them, became operational in 1980. The huge reservoir at Samara,
with an area of some 2,300 square miles, is the largest of the Volga reservoir system; it not only
impounds the waters of the Volga but also backs water up the Kama for some 375 miles. The
Saratov and Volgograd reservoirs (completed in 1968 and 1962, respectively) are the last such
bodies on the Volga itself. The chain on the Kama consists of three reservoirs, the newest of
which—the Lower Kama Reservoir—became operational in 1979. There are a total of eight
hydroelectric stations on the Volga and three on the Kama, which combined have an installed
generating capacity of some 11 million kilowatts of power.

Navigation

The Volga, navigable for some 2,000 miles, and its more than 70 navigable tributaries carry
more than half of all Soviet inland freight and nearly half of all the passengers who use Soviet
inland waterways. Construction materials and raw materials account for about 80 percent of
the total freight; other cargoes include petroleum and petroleum products, coal, foodstuffs,
salt, tractors and agricultural machinery, automobiles, chemical apparatus, and fertilizers. The
major ports on the Volga are Tver, Rybinsk, Yaroslavl, Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, Ulyanovsk
(formerly Simbirsk), Samara, Saratov, Kamyshin, Volgograd, and Astrakhan.

The Volga is joined to the Baltic Sea by the Volga–Baltic Waterway, which, in turn, is joined to
the White Sea (via Lake Onega) by the White Sea–Baltic Canal; to the Moscow River, and
hence to Moscow, by the Moscow Canal; and to the Sea of Azov by the Volga–Don Ship Canal.
The river has thus become integrated with virtually the entire waterway system of eastern
Europe.

Barge on the Volga-Don Canal, Russia.

© Alexander Chelmodeev/Shutterstock.com

Environmental changes

Although the extensive development of the Volga has made a major contribution to the Soviet
economy, it also has had adverse ecological consequences. The system of dams and
reservoirs has blocked or severely curtailed access for such anadromous species as the beluga
sturgeon (famous for the caviar made from its roe) and whitefish (belorybitsa), which live in the
Caspian Sea but spawn in the Volga and other inflowing rivers, and it has fundamentally altered
the habitat of the nearly 70 species of fish native to the river. These changes—along with
pollution by industrial and municipal effluents and by agricultural runoff—have led to
deterioration of the major Volga fisheries. Water loss by impoundment and evaporation and by
diversion (chiefly for irrigation) have diminished discharge at the mouth of the Volga compared
with natural conditions, and this has contributed to an almost steady decline in the level of the
Caspian Sea since 1930. Intensive efforts to alleviate these man-made influences, however,
have been under way for a number of years. For example, some three-fifths of the Caspian
sturgeon are now bred artificially rather than in their natural spawning grounds.

Fishing for beluga sturgeon in the Volga River, Volgograd, Russia.

Jonathan Wright/Bruce Coleman Inc.

Study And Exploration

The Volga was known to the Alexandrian geographer Ptolemy (2nd century CE), to the Slavs,
and to the Arab geographers of the 10th and 11th centuries. Information on it is contained in
the Kniga bolshomu chertyozhu (1627; “Book of the Great Chart”) and in a hydrographic
description of 1636. Its flow was first measured below Kamyshin by the Englishman John Perry
in 1700. Two pioneer Russian navigators, Makeyev and Gavril Andreyevich Sarychev, surveyed
the stretch between Tver and Nizhny Novgorod in 1782–83; in 1809–17 and 1829 the Maritime
Bureau surveyed the delta and measured its depth; and from 1875 to 1894 the river was
investigated from the Rybinsk to the Volga mouth. Investigations of the upper Volga were made
from 1896 to 1901, and in 1894 the upper reaches of the Volga, Oka, Syzran, and other rivers
were also examined. Many institutes carried out hydrographic and hydrometric research during
and after the Soviet period, and more than 500 points have been established to monitor the
water levels of the Volga.

Pavel Sergeyevich Kuzin

Philip P. Micklin

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Russia: Rivers

…longest European river is the Volga. Rising in the Valdai Hills northwest of Moscow, it follows
a course of 2,193 miles (3,530 km) to the Caspian Sea. Outranked only by the Siberian rivers,
the Volga drains an area of 533,000 square miles (1,380,000 square km). Separated only by
short overland…

Russia: The Russian Plain

…before descending abruptly to the Volga River. Small river valleys are sharply incised into
these uplands, whereas the major rivers cross the lowlands in broad, shallow floodplains. East
of the Volga is the large Caspian Depression, parts of which lie more than 90 feet (25 metres)
below sea level. The…

river: Variation of stream regime

Spring maxima in the Volga headwaters are not followed by peak flows in the delta until two
months later. The October seasonal peak on the upper Niger becomes a December peak on
the middle river; the swing from tropical-rainy through steppe climate reduces volume by 25
percent through a…

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Canals and inland waterways

WATERWAY

WRITTEN BY: Christopher Marriage Marsh Ernest Albert John Davies

See Article History

Alternative Title: inland waterway