Chara River

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Position of Chara ( Чара ) in the catchment area of the Oljokma

Mineral charoite

The Chara (Russian Чара ) is a 851 km long left tributary of the Oljokma in eastern Siberia (Russia, Asia).

Course

The Tschara entfließt which is situated in 975 m altitude on the southern flank of the 3000 m high Kodargebirges lake Bolschoye Leprindo ( Big Leprindosee ) in the north of the Trans-Baikal region. It flows through strongly meandering in a northeasterly direction the Upper Tscharasenke, a basin that extends over more than 100 kilometers between the Kodargebirge the north and the only little lower Kalargebirge in the south. Here the Tschara passed the so-called Chara Sands ( Tscharskije peski ), a 37 km ² area of ​​sand dunes.

Later, the river turns northwards to north-westerly direction and cuts through many rapids forming the main ridge of Kodargebirges. Subsequently, the Tschara flows through large arches the low mountain range on the eastern edge of the Patomhochlandes and reaches the Irkutsk Oblast.

In the lower reaches, now already in the Republic of Sakha ( Yakutia), the river turns again to the east and flows eventually about 25 kilometers southeast of Oljokminsk in 126 m altitude in the lower reaches of Oljokma, only about 25 kilometers above its confluence with the Lena.

Most important tributaries are Shuya (length 337 km ) and Molbo (334 miles) from the left and the Tokko (446 miles) from the right.

Hydrographic

The catchment area of ​​87,600 km ² comprises Chara. In estuaries near the river reaches a width of over 500 meters at a depth of about 4 meters; The flow rate is 1.2 m / s

The Tschara freezes from late October to mid-May and leads from May to September floods. The water flow in estuary near is the annual average about 900 m³ / s, above the mouth of Tokko still 639 m³ / s. At a minimum of 42 m³ / s in March and a maximum of 2352 m³ / s in June

Infrastructure and economy

The Chara is navigable for 416 kilometers from the mouth of the Shuya.

The through by the Tschara area has been inhabited overall very thin. At the headwaters of the Baikal - Amur Mainline (BAM ) follows at about 100 kilometers between stations Leprindo and Ikabja the river. The railway line runs close to the river at the origin Leprindosee and crossed it in front of the station and urban-type settlement of Novaya Chara ( 1755 line kilometers from Taischet ). Nearby is the village of Chara, administrative center is the Rajons Kalarski the Trans-Baikal region. In the BAM area also extend practically the only roads in the carrying out of the Chara region.

A few towns there are again only in the lower reaches of the river, including the village Tokko above the mouth of the creek of the same name.

After Tschara the rare mineral or rock coveted jewelry charoite is named, which was discovered in 1948 in the area between Chara and Tokko and known only from the 1970s outside the Soviet Union.

In the area of the upper catchment area of the Tschara there are some significant ore deposits, as one of the world's largest copper deposits (estimated at 20 million tonnes of copper ) in the same Udokangebirge, the eastern continuation of the Kalargebirges.