Khrami River
Chrami at Kiratsch Muganlo, slightly above the Georgian- Azerbaijani border
The Chrami (Georgian ხრამი; Azerbaijani Anaxatır, also XRAM, in the upper reaches Kzia, georgian ქცია ) is a 201 km long right tributary of the Kura ( Mtkvari, Freestyle) in Georgia and Azerbaijan.
Course
The river has its source on the southern flank of the mountain range Trialeti in Central Georgia, in the extreme northeast of the Samtskhe - Javakheti region. It springs there in 2422 m altitude just east of the highest mountain with 2850 m of the mountain range Schawiklde and ten kilometers south of the spa town of Bakuriani. The headwaters of the river is called Kzia. They first flows in an easterly direction parallel to the main ridge Trialetischen by a partly -wide, partly gorge-like, little inhabited valley, which bypasses the endorheic Tabazkuri lake within a few kilometers north.
At the village Awranlo, already in the region of Lower Kartli, the Kzia reaches a location at 1500-1700 m altitude plateau, Zalka the plateau, where they shortly afterwards unites with several smaller tributaries and henceforth bears the name Chrami. In the small town Zalka the river to Zalka reservoir is dammed, which originated in the 1930s to 1940s.
With the dam in Zalka the Chrami leaves the plateau in a south-easterly direction through a narrow gorge, losing to in wide arcs traversed 40 kilometers about 800 meters. South of the town Tetrizqaro the terrain is flat gradually, but the Chrami continues flowing through a rocky, deep valley. It finally reaches the low - Kart Metallic level in the villages Aruchlo and Kolagiri, about halfway between Bolnisi and Marneuli.
The Chrami crosses the plane continues in an easterly direction flowing, where it holds the right of its most important tributaries Maschawera and Debed on ( Debeda ) and crosses the border with Azerbaijan. After another good seven kilometers, the river flows north of the village İkinci Şıxlı, about 30 kilometers northwest of the rayon administration center Qazax, with two arms in the Kura.
In estuaries near the Chrami is more than 50 meters wide; The flow rate is 1.2 m / s
Hydrology
The catchment area of the river covers 8340 km ².
The average discharge of the Chrami is far from the mouth, the level Red Bridge ( Azerbaijani Qırmızı Körpü, georgian წითელი ხიდი, Ziteli Chidi ) on the Georgian- Azerbaijani border 51.7 m³ / s and at a mean low water of 29.3 m³ / s a mean high water mark of 90.1 m³ / s The absolute maximum of 1260 m³ / s was fixed in 1966. The fast flowing Chrami does not freeze in winter.
Use and infrastructure
The Chrami is not navigable.
On the Zalka plateau and to a greater extent in the densely populated and agriculturally used low - Kart Lischen level, the river water is used for irrigation. For arisen channel systems that connect the Chrami and the lower reaches of its two tributaries Maschawera and Debed and the north parallel through the city Marneuli flowing, also opening into the Kura Algeti.
With the pent of the Zalka Dam water are three extends over several tens of kilometers of river below the dam hydroelectric power plants, known in the Soviet period as ChramGES cascade operated. Whose turbine is supplied with the water through pipes and tunnel systems utilizing the strong flow gap in this section. The top of the power plants is the small Dasch Paschi power plant. In the urban settlement Trialeti (formerly Caucasia German colony Rosenberg, 1941, deported the German population ) follows the power plant Chrami -1 with a capacity of 113 megawatts. It was built in 1944-1949, among others, of German prisoners of war in 1947 and delivered the first current. Next below was created from 1954 to 1963 the hydroelectric plant Chrami -2.
Not far from their origin the Kzia is crossed by the road Bakuriani - Akhalkalaki. In Zalka the road Tbilisi- Akhalkalaki - Manglisi and the leading also after Akhalkalaki railway line crossing the river. South of Marneuli cross the road and the railway line from Tbilisi in the Armenian capital of Yerevan to Chrami, as well as the branching of the latter detour via Bolnisi after Kasreti. Immediately on the right bank of the Chrami near its mouth is the most important Georgian- Armenian road border crossing Red Bridge ( Ziteli Chidi / Qırmızı Körpü ) in the course of the direct connection between Tbilisi and Baku- Ganja. By 1998, the road led over the eponymous, dating from the 17th century Red Bridge, which marks the border across the river, up to a few hundred meters above on the Georgian side of a new, approximately 250 -meter-long bridge in the TRACECA project opened.