Ilim River

BW

The Ilim (Russian Илим ) is a 589 km long right tributary of the Angara River in Siberia (Russia, Asia).

The Ilim rises approximately 800 meters above sea level in the southeastern part of the Central Siberian highlands and flows through it along its entire length in a usually narrow valley in a northerly direction, approximately parallel to the Angara and upper reaches of the Lena. Here, the flow always remains on the territory of the Irkutsk Oblast. 40 km south of the city of Ust- Ilimsk (Russian Ustje Ilima for Ilim - mouth ) opens the Ilim in the Angara. Since 1977, the Angara is dammed at Ust- Ilimsk to Ust- Ilimsker Reservoir, and with it the lower reaches of the Ilim to above Zheleznogorsk - Ilimski ( water level at 296 m).

The catchment area of ​​30,300 km ² includes Ilim. The mean monthly water levels at the village Sotnikowa (52 km above the mouth ) was before the impoundment of the Ust- Ilimsker reservoir 139 m³ / s The main tributaries are right Kotschenga and tuba as well as of the left Tschora.

The Ilim freezes from late October to early May.

From the 17th to the 19th century, the Ilim part of the Lena - Treidelroute was (Russian Lenski Wolok ), which connected via Ilim, Muka Kuta and the Angara River to the Lena. The shipping was thereby made ​​more difficult by the Simacha rapids (Russian Simachinski porog ) eight kilometers above the mouth of Ilim. Since the Überstauung these and other rapids is the Ilim for larger ships in the area of ​​Ust- Ilimsker dam navigable (on a good 200 km to Schestakowo at Zheleznogorsk - Ilimski ). In Schestakowo ( station Sredneilimskaja ) and the Baikal - Amur Mainline crosses on a 450 -meter-long bridge over the river. This is the only railway bridge over the Ilim; the 50- km downstream of the bridge over the road Bratsk - Ust- Kut is the only road bridge.