Bolshoy Uzen River

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The Great Usen (Russian Большой Узень / Bolshoi Usen; Kazakh Қараөзен / Qaraösen / " Black River " or Үлкенөзен / Ülkenösen / " Big River ") is a 650 km long river in the southeast of the European part of Russia, in the north- western Kazakhstan.

Course

The Great Usen rises in altitude of 120 m in the western part of the ridge Obschtschi Syrt, about 15 kilometers east of the settlement of Gorny and 40 kilometers south of the city Pugachev. It first flows in predominantly southern to south-westerly, then in a south-easterly direction through the steppes east of the Volga. After almost two thirds of its course, the river crosses the border with Kazakhstan. At the edge of the Caspian Sea basin, where the landscape is gradually given features of a semi-desert, the river in the area of ​​Qamys Samar Lakes loses ( kasach. Қамыс - Самар көлдері; Russian Kamysch - Samarskije lakes or Kamys - Samarskije Lakes ). The brackish to very saline lakes were once considered rich in fish, but are now largely dried up or cause only episodic water. Reason, in particular the use of the water of the main tributaries of the Great Usen and the further west approximately parallel flowing little Usen, for the irrigation of agricultural land before reaching the basin of the lakes.

In the middle reaches of the river about 50 to about 100 meters in places, is wide and about 2 feet deep, in the lower reaches reaches the width still about 25 meters. The flow rate is 0.1 m / s

The most important tributaries of the Great Usen are Altata, Tschertanla and Muchor, all from the left.

Most of the larger towns on the river are on the Russian section: the villages Noworepnoje and Orlov Gai in Rajon Yershov, the small town ( and Rajonverwaltungszentrum ) Nowousensk and the large Selo ( also Rajonzentrum ) Alexandrov Gai. The most significant town on the Kazakh section is Schalpaqtal (formerly Furmanowo ).

Hydrology

The catchment area of the river comprises 15.6 thousand km ². The mean annual runoff in the middle reaches at Nowousensk is 7.3 m³ / s During the year, the water supply is highly variable; during spring flood during snowmelt maximum of 393 m³ / s were measured, whereas the flow in the hot and dry summers leads very little water and can dry in sections. From late November to April freezes the river.

The water supply is also heavily modified by human intervention: already the headwaters of the Great Usen is supplied by a branch channel of the Saratov channel water from the left Volga tributary Big Irgis. Further below is multiple connection via ducts to the Little Usen, other channels result in some endorheic basin of smaller lakes. All of these channels are used for water level regulation and irrigation.

Use and infrastructure

The Great Usen deemed not navigable. In its middle course it is navigable at high water level for smaller vehicles, but is not used as a waterway because of its isolated location.

To a considerable extent, the waters of the Great Usen for the irrigation of agricultural land is used mainly in Russia, to a lesser extent on the Kazakh section.

At the upper reaches of the Great Usen is east of the city Yershov of the railway Saratov - Oral (Uralsk ) - Sol - Ilezk and her following regional road 1R236 crossed. The middle reaches of the river follows the railway line that runs from Krasny Kut on Nowousensk to Alexandrov Gai. This was in 1895 by the Ryazan Uralsker railroad as a narrow gauge railway ( 1000 mm gauge ) opened and rebuilt in the 1920s to broad gauge.

On the eastern side parallel to the lower and middle reaches of the river, the natural gas pipeline " Central Asia - Center", the north crossed it by Nowousensk and leaves towards Saratov runs.

History

The area on the Great Usen was fought during the Russian Civil War and was known because it was one of the areas of operation of the troops of the legendary commander Vasily Chapaev red. The Dmitri used under Chapaev as Commissioner Furmanov later described in his novel Chapaev taking the Staniza Slomichinskaja on the Great Usen. The town was renamed to honor Furmanows in a row in Furmanowo, received after the independence of Kazakhstan in the 1990s however, the Kazakh name Schalpaqtal ( kasach. Жалпақтал ).

Between 1919 and 1921, was taken as one of the first " large buildings of communism" Soviet Russia the continuation of the railway line to Alexandrov Gai in the direction of the oil deposits in the area of the mouth of the Emba into the Caspian Sea in attack. The Algemba ( Alexandrov Gai - Emba ) called railway line with a parallel pipeline should follow on its western section of the Great Usen on another good 150 kilometers. After the abandonment of the project, in which in particular were killed by diseases up to 35,000 forced laborers employed, it has been taken up again several times, so the end of the 1920s, during the Second World War and most recently from the 1970s. Was finally completed only one railway line ( north-east of Atyrau ) to Inderbor ( Inderborski ) on the Ural River, the crossing should be there in the opposite direction of Maqat. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union is the construction of the track, which would significantly shorten the distance from Central Russia in the Central Asian republics, no longer on the agenda. The already heaped railway embankment at the site of the planned crossing of the Great Usen is clearly visible ( Lage49.8938949.1479 ).