Biography of the rivers of Russia

Search all together the rivers of Russia make up the water fund of our country. This is a state treasure, the basis of life itself. After all, it is the river, along with reservoirs and lakes - the main sources of drinking water. Speaking of the wealth of our Motherland, we most often recall oil, gas or gold. But any source of energy is drying out sooner or later, but a new, more perfect comes to him.

A replacement can be found to any useful, any precious metal. And only water remains a constant and indispensable element of human life. Imagine for a second that you are opening a crane in the kitchen - and you cannot get water into the kettle, go to the bathroom - and you cannot wash your hands. Today, that this does not happen, workers in water utilities, races laid in large and small cities of Russia.

It is they that water from rivers, reservoirs and lakes - cleaned and ready for drinking - do not dry up in our taps. Any European country can envy Russian water wealth, not to mention the hot deserted countries of Africa or the Middle East, where water is worth its weight in gold. Nature generously awarded us: a quarter of world fresh water reserves is concentrated in Russia! But this does not mean that such wealth can be thoughtlessly flimsy.

We must carefully spend it and save the water of rivers and lakes clean! It is not easy to find the source, and the beginning of the Great River may turn out to be unpretentious. So from the spring in a swamp among the Tver forests begins its long way of the Volga. Some rivers take part of the water from a larger reservoir, such as a hangar, flowing from Lake Baikal. But whatever the source is - this is a ticket to life, the beginning of the long path along which the river is destined to go.

It is no coincidence that in the names it is often designated as “head”. Trying to find the source of the river, you may be surprised to find that sometimes its name and name of the main channel do not coincide. So, a river of Konoplyank flows from the Starkovsky swamp, so that only 12 kilometers to turn into Moscow-River. The very word "source" began in the Russian language over time to denote the beginning, the original source of something.

Starting with an inconspicuous stream, the river is replenished with waters from the surrounding lakes, accepts the water of rain and snow and searches for its path to the sea. The recess in the soil through which the river flow flows is called the channel. The channel of large rivers can reach several tens of kilometers in width, such as the channel of Ob and Lena near the mouth.

It is curious that the river grows faster than deeper than deep into it. At the same time, the depth of the channel is not constant: in the course of the course, deep reaches alternate with small rolls. The channel of the mountain river is rocky, with many thresholds and waterfalls, often it is overlapped by large stones-valuns. The plain river paves the way in hollows and hollows, and therefore its channel is often uneven, winding.

Such rivers often “speaking” names, for example, horseshoe or clamp - for the similarity of a rounded channel with a hill or a clamp. Plain rivers are often divided into sleeves. And it also happens that they find a new course, directing water along a more convenient box. The old channel of the river, which left the water, is called the old man. Observing the behavior of the river, people and about their life often say “went along the new channel” when they want to say how much has changed in it, or “everything entered their old channel”, if everything remained the same.

Depending on what soil the river flows, on its bottom there may be silt, sand or gravel. About what the river has a channel, sometimes you can learn from its name: Kamenka, Glinka, dirty, however, there is no “dirty” river from nature, because it has its own mechanism for cleansing the channel. The current takes small garbage and brushwood, the sun helps to decompose harmful substances.

River residents come to the rescue: mollusks, microorganisms that “filter” dirty water. Alas, the river can clean itself only from natural pollution. It is powerless against industrial waste, chemicals. Here she just needs the help and protection of a person. Legends about underground rivers have a very real justification. There are rivers whose channel runs through limestone or karst rocks.

The structure of the soil helps the river hide underground. This does not interfere with her course at all: she can reach the surface anywhere, and can fall into the sea underground. On its underground path, such a river often washes entire cave systems. This question is not so simple to answer this question. The water in the river is in constant movement, obeying the inexorable course of time and the change of seasons.

Therefore, the amount of river water can change significantly throughout the year - scientists talk about the inconsistency of river flow. In winter, there is an important process: moisture accumulation for a whole year. Most Russian rivers are covered with ice, and their shores with snow. Making snow, ice and spring rains - these are the main sources of replenishment of the river flow.

Only a small part of its strength draws the river from underground sources: usually about a third of river runoff accounts for groundwater.In the summer, water is mainly consumed: the river will grow, and sometimes completely dry out. The drop in water level seriously interferes with shipping. So, on the northern river Sukhona, one of the tributaries of the North Dvina in the hot summer, the volume of water is reduced by almost 20 times, then the opened lears force vessels to stop.

During the summer downs, the river was nicknamed Sukhona. The terrible word “drought” threatens the crop failure and hunger, from which rural residents suffered in the recent past. Today, scientists are talking about general climate warming. There are less precipitation, the rivers are forced to make. But a person, not wanting to depend on the whims of the weather, came up with a way to deal with the fluctuations in the amount of water in rivers and lakes.

Artificial water tanks - reservoirs that give drinking water to many large cities of Russia appeared. The reservoirs helped to solve another problem - spring floods, when there is more water in the river than a constant channel can accommodate. The width of the Don during the period of melting snow increased, it happened, in eighty and more times.

In the spring, the water level in the Northern Dvina rises by meters. The level of water on the upper Volga increased in the same amount before building the dam on Vasuz. It seems that most Russian rivers behave, spreading during the floods of many kilometers, flooding coastal forests and fields, and sometimes settlements. The coastal strip, which is annually poured with melt snow and rainwater, is called a floodplain.

Often the floodplain occupies a rather large area. So, the Volga-Akhtuba floodplain in the lower reaches of the main Russian river in width reaches in places 35 kilometers. In the spring, almost all of it hides under water, turning into a chain of lakes, a duct and islands in summer. Ducks nest on floodplain meadows, and fish spawns during flooding. These are very fertile soils rich in a large amount of organic substances, so the grass here is juicy, and the shrubs are thick.

But the village or city located in the floodplain, spring waters can bring many troubles. In Moscow, the name “Nagatinskaya floodplain” between Novinsky and Kolomensky has still been preserved. This territory was often flooded 70 years ago during spring spills, and the soil here was swampy and little suitable for life. But after the construction of the Perervinsky hydroelectric complex and the drainage canal in the years, the appearance of the floodplain changed a lot.

Now the flood does not threaten the surrounding shores and people living on them. Spring floods and residents of other areas of Moscow, located near the river, do not notice. The cascade of reservoirs near Moscow helped to resolve the fluctuations of river flow. Salt is always contained in water, even if it is not felt. The river washes salt from the soil and the rocks through which it seeps.

Scientists calculated that a liter of ordinary river water contains one tenth gram of sodium chloride - table salt. This salt is constantly delivered to the sea. As a result, its number is calculated every year by millions of tons. It is known, for example, that Amu Darya and Syr Darya annually bring 33 million tons of dissolved salts to the Aral Sea! In the sea, as in a huge reservoir, salt accumulates and concentrates.

The active process of evaporation helps this: there is no salt in the couple, all of it remains in sea water. The city or street can change its name, as it was, for example, with St. Petersburg, which became Petrograd temporarily, then for a long time was Leningrad until he returned to the name given in honor of Peter I. But all this time Neva remained Neva. Rivers and lakes almost never change their names.

Dnieper, Don, Volga - we call these rivers in the same way as our distant ancestors. Observing nature, people tried to consolidate their knowledge in the transparent names of the rivers. The river Crush is named for its winding direction, fast, Gremyachka - for a quick flow, and ostida and melt - for cold water. Admiring the reflection of trees, herbs and flowers in water, people often selected the names for rivers by plant names.

Many among the river names of peculiar tips. The hunter knew exactly what beast can be found on the shores of the Bobrovka River, Bobrichs or Bobryanka all of them are located in the Oka basin. It is clear to the fisherman what kind of fish is caught in the river Ershovka or Karasevka, a leine or somovka.