The environmental degradation of the Volga has attracted international attention. Although the delta of the Volga has thousands of individual streams serving as filters to cleanse the waters, this natural process does not trap all the pollutants carried in the waters. Especially vulnerable has been the sturgeon, the source of the Russian delicacy caviar. Pollutants from the Volga entering the Caspian Sea have damaged the immune system of thousands of seals and greatly reduced the fish catch. The construction of dams along the river has made it difficult for fish to reach spawning grounds and chemical changes in the water from pollutants have damaged the fishing industry. Industrial wastes, runoff of agricultural chemicals, and infusions of silt from deforested lands have seriously endangered the river. The Volga has been subjected to a great degree of pollution from a variety of sources. Because of Russia’s increased connection with the European Union, negotiations have been underway to allow access to the Volga and other Russian inland waterways by other European countries. The Volga reaches Moscow via the Moscow Canal and the Moscow River. Petersburg and the Baltic Sea is possible through the Volga-Baltic waterway, which links the river with Lakes Ladoga and Onega in the north.
Vogla river etymology series#
The dams and reservoirs have transformed the Volga into a series of expansive lakes.īoats on the Volga can reach the Black Sea through the Volga-Don Canal, and access to St. There are hundreds of ports and industrial docks along its course, and eight major complexes with dams, hydroelectric generating plans, and reservoirs line its bustling banks. Currently, the Volga carries nearly 70 percent of all cargo on Russia’s inland waterways. An important transportation route in Russia for centuries, the Volga has been compared to the Great Lakes in North America for its key role in economic development. The vast Volga watershed embraces 40 percent of the Russian population, 45 percent of the country’s industry, and half of Russia’s major agricultural sector.
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The Volga is fed by more than 200 tributaries and drains a watershed comprising 40 percent of European Russia, that portion of the country reaching from its western boundaries to the Ural Mountains. The Volga River, long characterized as “Mother Volga” and renowned as the cultural heart of Russia, rises in the Valdai Hills northeast of Moscow and runs 2,300 miles in a sweeping arc to the south before reaching its complex delta on the Caspian Sea.