Katun River

The Katun in the upper reaches

Catchment area of ​​the Katun in orange

Katun near the village Chemal

Flat banks and gravel bars

Some headwater streams (in the picture the Kutscherla ) have a white of the glacier milk colored water

The Katun (Russian Катунь ) is the 688 km long left frontal flow of the Ob in the south of Western Siberia (Russia). It is eponymous for the lapped by him on three sides Katun chain in the center of the High Altai or Russian Altai.

The river has its origin about a kilometer away from the Russian- Kazakh border on the southern flank of the 4506 m high Belukha, the highest peak of Altai and Siberia all. He entfließt there the Gebler glacier.

Next Katun flows west, and after traveling about 60 km towards north to circumnavigate the Katun Mountain Range in an elongated, semi-circular arch. Just north of the 120 km long massif occurred to him the milky - white glacier waters of Kutscherla and Akkem. Due to the high valleys of this water-rich tributaries of the main access passes to the three highest peaks.

Then ( approximately at river kilometer 300) turns the Katun his final run to the north and swings in a striking one longitudinal valley, from where a large tributary draining the border mountains of Mongolia. In Inja, where the highway M52 crosses the valley, coming from the southeast, the water of the chuya added. The relatively straight longitudinal valley is now so tight that otherwise the Katun following highway has to avoid in a western valley of the breakthrough by a rugged mountain country.

Before the Katun emerges from the mountains, it passes Chemal and Ust- Sjoma, from where the M52 again can follow the river and about 70 km further Maima, a suburb of Gorno- Altaisk, the capital of the Autonomous Republic of Altai. Approximately 100 km down the valley to the Katun below Bijsk combined with the slightly smaller Bija Ob.

Expeditions

1826 traveled to the Baltic German Alexander von Bunge with Carl Friedrich von Ledebour the Altai Mountains, where Bunge traveled further, to 1829, he reached the sources of the " Katunja ". The research results of this journey are described in " Karl Friedrich von Ledebour trip through the Altai Mountains and the Kirghiz steppe Dzungarian ... " (Berlin, 1829-30 ). Furthermore Ledebour testify Publications "Flora altaica " ( 1829-33 ) and " Icones plantarum Novarum vel imperfecte cognitarum Floram rossicam, Imprimis altaicam, illustrantes " ( 1829-34 ) of this expedition.

The Gebler glacier is named after the German - Russian physician, naturalist and explorer Friedrich August von Gebler (* 1782 in Zeulenroda, † 1850 in Barnaul ), of which the first detailed description of the Belukha - region ( 1836) and many other parts of the Russian Altai comes from.