Don River (Russia)

Catchment area of ​​the Don

River Don in the Voronezh Oblast

The river Don in Rostov-on- Don

The Don (Russian Дон ) is a 1870 km long tributary of the Azov Sea in the southwest of the European part of Russia.

River

The sources of the northernmost headwaters of the Don are located about 150 km south of Moscow on the central Russian plate. From there the water of the river flows towards south and later to the southeast. After the confluence of the Bitjug and Chopjor the Medveditsa and Ilowlja open a. Then, and only about 40 km from the Volga bend in Volgograd, where the river penetrates furthest to the east, the water of the Dons reservoir flows into the large Zimljansker to this to flow through to the southwest. About the Volga - Don canal, which opens into the reservoir in the northeast, has the river system of the Don here a navigable route to the Volga, the Caspian Sea, the White Sea and the Baltic Sea. About 150 km to the confluence of the coming from Ukraine Seversky Donets and only slightly below Rostov-on- Don opens the Don as part of an approximately 340 -acre estuary in the Sea of ​​Azov. But on his entire life, he also absorbs water from coming in particular from Russia watercourses.

Unlike its 1870 km river length, of the 1360 km are navigable, the linear distance of the northern sources of the estuary in the south due to the many river bends just 700 km.

History

The Greek name for the Don was Tanaïs. He was the Migration Period and the Middle Ages as the eastern border of Europe (see, for example, Jordanes, Snorri Sturluson ). The present name is Don as well as the names of rivers Dnieper, Dniester, Seversky Donets and Danube, possibly Iranian or Celtic origin. The names of Iranian-speaking Scythians and could therefore Sarmatians, as also originate from the Celts of Eastern Europe. A detailed linguistic mapping is hardly possible, because both the Celtic as well as the Indo- Iranian languages ​​and the word "river" both altiranisch ( Avestan ) as well as on Celtic " Danu " is and penetrated both tribes up to Don and Danube.

Tributaries

The major tributary of the Don are downriver considered:

  • Bystraja Sosna
  • Voronezh
  • Bitjug
  • Chopjor (979 miles)
  • Medveditsa
  • Ilowlja
  • Chir
  • Seversky Donets ( 1053 km ) Aidar (264 km)

Reservoir

By far the largest reservoir of the Dons is the Zimljansker Reservoir (2700 km ², 23.9 km ³).

Cities -on-Don

The largest city on-Don Rostov-on- Don is known are also Nowomoskowsk ( headwaters ) and Voronezh ( east of Kharkov).

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