Compared to other Russian economic and geographical regions, the Volga EGP is distinguished by its particularly advantageous characteristics, which include the central position between the European and Asian parts of the country. Very often, in the context of a favorable transit position, the Volga region is considered simultaneously with the Urals, on the territory of which the border between Europe and Asia passes. By a large number of parameters, the EGPs of the Urals and the Volga region are similar, but there are significant differences. Both regions are important in terms of transport communications between parts of the country that are remote from each other.
So different Volga: EGP, natural conditions and resources
The Volga region stretches from north to south for almost one and a half thousand kilometers, from the confluence of the Volga with Kama to the mouth in the Astrakhan region, where the great river flows into the Caspian Sea.
In most of the region there is a climate favorable for agriculture, fertile or chernozem soils are common. However, in its southern part, the climate becomes noticeably drier, the soil poorer, and farming takes on risky features. This is due to the fact that steppe winds blowing from Central Asia and summer dry winds that can destroy the entire crop reign in the southern reaches of the Volga.
EGP of the Volga region: minerals
The position of the Volga region is also advantageous in that there are numerous deposits of minerals such as oil, gas, sulfur, nitrate on its territory. Moreover, we can talk about a fairly uniform distribution throughout the Volga. Oil fields are located in both Tatarstan and the Astrakhan region.
However, the oil-bearing strata of the region have been greatly depleted during production and occupy second place in the country after the West Siberian oil-bearing province. Under such conditions, newly discovered gas condensate deposits are of great importance.
Another important resource of the Volga region is sulfur, large deposits of which are located in the Samara, Saratov and Ulyanovsk regions, as well as the Republic of Tatarstan. It is mainly extracted from dolomites, marls and limestone clays, as well as limestones, which make up one of the most common rocks of the Volga region.
Initially, sulfur production was carried out mainly in the territory of Tatarstan. This was due to the shallow depths of the useful material, which often finds itself directly on the surface or immediately below a small layer of alluvial rocks.
Region population
Despite the fact that the majority of the population in the vast region is Russian, it is historically multinational, multilingual, and culturally diverse.
In a broad sense, such regions as the Republic of Mordovia, Tatarstan, Bashkiria, Perm Territory, Samara, Volgograd and Astrakhan Region are referred to the Volga Region, which means that its population speaks dozens of languages, since numerous nationalities have historically lived in the region. However, Russian is still the language of the majority.
Transport infrastructure
In itself, the EGP of the Volga region has the potential for using it for transit, directed both from south to north and from west to east. On the territory of the Volga economic region there are such large transport hubs as Astrakhan with its port and Kazan with a large railway station.
Numerous oil and gas pipelines also pass through the territory of the district, delivering raw materials from Western Siberia to the processing enterprises of Tatarstan and Bashkiria, in which they also produce their own.
Another important and long-used transport route is the Volga - a river that for many centuries has provided communication between the north of the East European Plain and the Caspian region. With the introduction of numerous hydraulic structures and canals, transit from countries with access to the Caspian Sea became possible. Today, ports from the Caspian Sea can be accessed to the Baltic and North Seas using the transport systems of the Volga-Baltic and White Sea-Baltic river routes, as well as a network of canals around Moscow.
Environmental problems and solutions
However, the active use of the advantageous EGP of the Volga region led to the fact that environmental problems began to appear more and more often in the region caused by intensive river shipping and a large number of industrial enterprises on the banks of the river.
Today, the issue of excessive regulation of the Volga runoff, which led to the active construction of dams for hydroelectric power plants in the middle of the 20th century, is becoming increasingly acute.
Thus, characterizing the EGP of the Volga according to the plan, it is worth indicating the following features:
- diversity of natural resources;
- transit position at the crossroads of significant transport routes;
- favorable climate;
- high-quality transport infrastructure.