Don is one of the largest waterways of the south of the Russian Plain. He served earlier and continues to serve to this day as a source of inspiration for many creative natures: artists, poets, writers, etc. The source of the Don River originates in the Tula region. Then she rushes her waves through the Lipetsk, Voronezh, Volgograd and Rostov regions. Having traveled a rather long and winding path, the Don River flows into the Taganrog Bay, replenishing the Sea of Azov with its waters.
Characteristics of the water body
Don is a river, which is a typical plain water artery in the steppe zone. Its length is 1870 kilometers, and the basin area is 422,000 square kilometers. The average water consumption under natural conditions is 900 cubic meters per second. Seventy percent of the flow occurs during the flood period. Freezing upstream begins in November and lasts until mid-April, and downstream from early December to late March. The hydrological regime of this river has undergone a significant transformation by hydraulic engineering and other types of economic activity of modern man. Nicholas, Konstantinovsky and Kochetovsky hydroelectric facilities were erected here, as well as a rather large Tsimlyansk reservoir. Shipping starts from the mouth of the Sosna River , its length is 1600 km. In the upper reaches of the Don, to the tributary of Voronezh, the waters are clean, below polluted and in some places very dirty. A popular tourist route passes through this magnificent river - Moscow-Rostov-on-Don.
Cities and tributaries
More than 5,200 tributaries flow into the Don, the main of which are Seversky Donets, Black Kalitva, Pine, Voronezh, Bityug, Ursa Major, Ilovlya, Western Manych, Khopyor and Sal. On the banks of this river are many cities and towns. The largest of them are Kalach-on-Don, Rostov-on-Don, Volgodonsk, Azov, Liski and others. Due to the high population, industrial enterprises and developed agriculture, the water withdrawal in the river by the beginning of the 90s of the last century was more than 15 km 3 / year, water use was 10 km³, of which 5.8 km³ was spent on production needs, 2, 4 km³ - for irrigation. However, by the end of the 90s, as a result of the economic crisis (reduction of production and the destruction of agriculture), water use decreased by almost one and a half times.
“Our breadwinner, father Don Ivanovich”
These are the words of an old song of the Don Cossacks who moved to the lower reaches of the river. What epithets did not endow with the Don peoples living on its shores. These are “waves of memory”, and “river of time”, and “source of inspiration”, and “quiet river Don”, and many others. The basis of all these concepts is always the source, water, spring, genus. It is no accident that the ancestors erected chapels at the source of the majestic rivers. Thus, the small fontanel, from which any water arteries begin, became a holy place. So in Novomoskovsk, where the Don originates, in 1989 a monument was erected to this great water body of our Motherland - the "Source of the Don River". It is a sculpture - two naked boys on horseback. They symbolize two brothers, two rivers - Don and Shat, flowing from Ivan Lake.
Kaleidoscope of Nations
Don is a river that has been carrying its waters for more than one thousand years. Various peoples living on its shores succeed each other, and he still runs and runs ... Various names are recorded in history that were given to him in a given era - this is Iran, and Tanais, and many others. In the third century BC, Greek settlers came to the bank of the Don River, not far from the location of modern Rostov, and founded a colony. It was named after the water body - Tanais. According to the ancient Greeks, this river divided Europe and Asia. Of course, you should not dispute this opinion, because even in the eighteenth century many Russian scientists thought so. And even the great Lomonosov M.V. in his work “On the layers of the earth” wrote that the Urals should not be considered the border between Asia and Europe, because the region of the Caucasus beyond the Don is a completely different reality. And today, despite the apparent unambiguity in this matter, no, no, and this point of view will "come out". So the version with the Caucasus has not yet gone into the annals of history.
During the first millennium of a new era, control over this region belonged first to the Huns, then they were replaced by the Khazars. In the ninth century, the Sarkel fortress was erected in the area of the modern Tsimlyansk reservoir. She defended the northwestern borders of the Khazar Kaganate until 1117. Time mercilessly dispensed with this ancient citadel, at the beginning of the last century its traces could hardly be distinguished (now these territories are flooded by the waters of the Tsimlyansk reservoir).
XIII - XVI centuries
In the thirteenth century, the Don (river) survived the invasion of the Golden Horde, which destroyed all nomadic settlements. However, a hundred years later, trade began to resume here again. Whole string of ships reached the city of Tan, at that time the Genoese colony (present Azov) - it was a slave center. In the period from the fifteenth to sixteenth centuries in the lower reaches of the Don began to emerge Cossacks. So, in 1570 it won the championship among other similar entities - in seniority. Over time, it became the most numerous of all existing Cossack troops. Don daredevils were well organized and represented a fairly serious force, forcing to reckon with themselves. Thus, they became a constant headache for the Romanov dynasty, because it was in this environment that the spirit of rebellion, liberty, and a heightened sense of justice arose.
XVII-XVIII centuries
From 1670 to 1671, the Don (river) experienced a Cossack rebellion, raised by Stepan Razin. This rebellion was truly "meaningless and merciless", accompanied by robbery and violence. However, even after the execution of Razin on Bolotnaya Square in Moscow, Don did not find peace. Just six years after these events, a new riot broke out here, led by Kondraty Bulavin. He was provoked by an active search for fugitive serfs. After the uprising was suppressed, the Don army lost part of their lands, some Cossacks moved to the Kuban, beyond the Danube, and others - to Romania and Turkey. Serfs were returned to the owners.
Twentieth century
During the Soviet Union, this river was one of the main waterways of the industry under construction. Donbass, a region located on the banks of the Seversky Donets, the right tributary of the Don, gained great strength. In addition to coal mines already operating here since the late nineteenth century, machine-building and metallurgical plants, food and light industry enterprises, and chemical plants began to be built. And in 1948, construction began on the Tsimlyansk hydroelectric station and reservoir.
Description of the shipping capabilities of the majestic river
Shipping Don begins from Voronezh and to the Sea of Azov. And the river works tirelessly. This waterway is one of the largest in the European part of the country, after such giants as the Volga and the Urals. The Don River is usually divided into three sections: Upper, Middle and Lower. So, the first of them stretches from the source to the confluence of the tributary of the Silent Pine. Further to the town of Kalach-on-Don is the Middle. And finally, the last stretch is located between the Tsimlyansk reservoir and the Taganrog Bay. In general, this river is difficult to navigate, because its path is quite winding, respectively, and the overview is not ideal. In addition, there are shallow areas. And in the region of the Lower Don, skippers have to make very tricky turns: instrument readings and a warning tone are not all, just one wrong steering wheel movement, and you may encounter a ship arising from a turn. Here is such a river Don. Rostov-on-Don gives rise to a delta of 340 square kilometers. The channel here is divided into numerous channels and branches, which are called locally - Eriki and Girla, among them the largest - Kalancha, Kuterma and Dead Donets. In winter, the river is covered with a thick layer of ice; on average, ice formation can last three and a half months. During floods, the water level rises significantly, although for the most part the coasts are steep, but low-lying places also exist. So spring spills on the Don are a common occurrence.
Channel History
The idea of connecting two powerful water arteries (Volga and Don), and hence the Azov and Caspian Seas, by a channel visited the Turkish Sultan Selim II, who went to Astrakhan in the sixteenth century. However, he could not realize it. After this plan, Peter the Great caught fire, but the Northern War distracted him from this venture. Later (until 1917), Russian engineers prepared more than thirty canal construction projects, but these plans were also not destined to come true for various reasons. And in the days of the Soviet Union, this project was implemented. In 1952, in record time (in just four years), the construction of the shipping Volga-Don Canal was completed. It was built on a site from Volgograd to Kalach-on-Don, in this place the rivers come together for a minimum distance of 80 km. Not a single hydraulic structure of the world of this scale was created in such a short time. As a result of the canal commissioning, Volga and Don got access to five seas: the Azov, Baltic, White, Caspian and Black. Simultaneously with the construction of this hydraulic structure, the Tsimlyansk reservoir with a hydroelectric power station was erected.
Don River Fish
Nominally on this river there are more than seventy species of fish. However, in recent decades, as a result of a significant deterioration in the ecology of the region (oil spills, garbage, the intensive distribution of blue-green algae), many of them have become very rare. This is a sturgeon, sterlet, beluga. In addition, the catfish population is becoming smaller and thinner. So, twenty years ago there were specimens whose weight was 10 kg. Now catching a catfish weighing 2-3 kg is a great success. Most often you can find pike, crucian carp, bream, rudd, bleak, burbot, oatmeal. What a fishing! The Don River is the richest in fish downstream, but the pollution here is also great.