home Sewerage History of the Ural Yaik River. Where does the Ural River flow? Verkhneuralsk and the memorial sign “Border of Europe and Asia”

History of the Ural Yaik River. Where does the Ural River flow? Verkhneuralsk and the memorial sign “Border of Europe and Asia”

Ural River - river of Eastern Europe. Previously it was called Yaik and originates on the steep slopes of the Southern Urals.

The great Ural River flows into the Caspian Sea, flowing through the territories of Kazakhstan and Russia.

Source of the Urals

Where does the Ural River originate? Its source is located 12 km near the village of Voznesenka in southern Russia in the Republic of Bashkortostan. This republic borders on Kazakhstan.

Memorial plaque to the Ural River photo

In appearance, the source of the river is an ordinary spring that comes out of the ground. It is conventionally believed that the stream, which is the source of the large Ural River, is a natural border between Asia and Europe. On this occasion, a memorial plaque was installed here.

Characteristics of the Ural River

The length of the river is 2,428 km. The Ural is considered the third longest river in Europe. Volga and Danube took first and second places. The area of the Ural basin is asymmetrical and amounts to 231,000 square kilometers.

The right side is half the size of the right. However, there are more right tributaries. The right tributaries are mountain rivers in nature, and the left tributaries are lowland rivers.

Regime of the Ural River

The river is 70% fed by snow. Not a large number of precipitation. During floods, the riverbed of the Urals widens noticeably. Typically, the highest river water levels occur in April-May. In early November, the river begins to freeze in the upper reaches. In the lower reaches of the Urals it freezes at the end of November. The river is freed from ice in March-April. Ice drift occurs quickly, in a short period.

Flora and fauna

The Urals are rich in fish fauna (more than 40 species). Let's take a look at the most common ones:

Migratory fish: sturgeon; beluga and stellate sturgeon; whitefish.
Semi-anadromous fish: roach; zander; bream; carp.
Resident fish: roach and silver bream; pike and bream; dace and crucian carp; kutum and sinets; ide and carp; chub and char; asp and catfish; rudd and burbot; podust and pike perch; tench and bleak; barbel and perch; gudgeon and goby; ruff and trout.

In the upper reaches of the Urals you can find grayling and taimen. Along the bed of the Urals, throughout its entire course, live a wide variety of animals, for which the Urals have become their home. So, let's get acquainted with the fauna of the Urals:

In the north of the Urals there are representatives of the tundra: reindeer.
In the south of the river there are representatives of the steppes: lizards, snakes, shrews, marmots.
The taiga is rich in predators: lynxes, ermines, sables, foxes, wolverines, wolves and bears. The following representatives of ungulates are also found here: roe deer, deer, moose.
In the river valleys you can find beavers, muskrats and otters.

Cities

The following cities are located along the course of the great Ural River: Verkhneuralsk, Magnitogorsk, Orsk, Novotroitsk, Orenburg, Uralsk, Atyrau.

Tributaries

Right tributaries of the Ural River: Sakmara; Big Dogwood; Tanalyk; Artazim; Guberlya; Irtek and Kindelya.
Left tributaries of the Ural River: Utva; Gumbeyka; Or; Suunduk; Ilek; Big Kumak; Barbasheva.

Tourism on the river

The Ural River attracts tourists. The mountainous sections of the river are quite actively used by tourists for rafting. Various sports centers are located along the river. Here they offer interesting boat excursions along the turbulent river streams.

The Ural River is unique in that one bank of it is in Asia and the other in Europe. The nature on the banks of the river is quite diverse. On the left bank, near the village of Yangelsky, you can enjoy very beautiful landscapes. It's quite hard to find better places for picnic, camping and fishing than here.

Ural river photo

Near the steep slopes, rocky cliffs were exposed for 200 meters. Tourists find ancient remains of organisms in the rocks. Rare species of plants and lichens listed in the Red Book also grow here.

Near the village of Chesnokovka is located Kyzlar-Tau (translated from Tatar as Maiden Mountain). The uniqueness of this area is considered to be the layers of red sandstones washed away by water over the years. Thousands of tourists come here to see them. There is a belief that girls came running to this area to dance in circles, and brave horsemen spied on them.

beauty of the Ural river photo

The Urals and Yaik received their modern name thanks to the decision of Great Catherine. She signed a decree renaming the Yaik River to the Ural, since the river originates from Ural mountains. The outstanding poet Pushkin mentioned the Urals in his notes as the third longest river in the old world.

The Urals are a distant land, rich precious stones, useful ore, wise people and original tales. It united many nationalities, stretching from north to south for more than 2.5 thousand kilometers. High steep cliffs, dense forests, fertile fields and clear lakes and rivers of the Urals were sung by poets, artists, and romantic bards.

The full-flowing Ural River flows from the southern end of the ridge.

History of the name

The river with the name Ural appeared on the map of Russia only in 1775 by decree of Catherine the Great. Before this, in all languages the river was called Yaik. The word came to the Turkic and Bashkir languages from the ancient Iranian daiks. The river was mentioned under this name in the 2nd century BC in the work of Ptolemy.

Some ancient sources contain other names: Daikh, Likos, Yagak, Ulusu, Dzhaikh, Zapolnaya River.

Translated, “yaik” means “spilling” or “wide”. The river's floodplain in some places is up to 10 kilometers.

In the Russian chronicle this name first appears in 1140.

On European medieval maps the river was labeled as Rhymnicus or Rhymnus.

In 1773, the Pugachev uprising broke out in the Urals. Local peasants, Bashkirs, Kazakhs and Yaik Cossacks took part - a Cossack army that settled on the banks of the Yaik in the 16th century. They founded the Yaitsky town and became related to local foreigners. The Cossacks served Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov, the first of the dynasty. But they refused to submit to the new orders of Catherine II. Having brutally suppressed the uprising, the Empress decided to forever consign the very name of the area to oblivion and ordered the town of Yaitsky to be named Ural in accordance with the name of the mountain range, the Cossacks to be named Ural, Yaik to be named the Ural River. Kazakhs and Bashkirs continue to use the old name.

Location on the map

The Urals flows through the lands of several regions of Russia:

Bashkortostan;
Chelyabinsk region:
Orenburg region.

Then it crosses the border of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

The nature of the current varies greatly depending on the surrounding landscape, time of year, and weather.

Source and tributaries

The source of the Ural River is made up of five springs ten kilometers west of the village of Voznesenka in the Republic of Bashkortostan. Behind the mountain range in the west lies the valley of the Ai River, which gives rise to the Urals. It all starts with a small spring in the Uraltau mountains at an area of 637 m above sea level on the slope of the Round Hill. It is believed that this point lies on the line dividing Eurasia into Europe and Asia. Participants of the expedition that visited here in 1973 installed a memorial plaque. It shows the Ural River schematically on the map, the most big cities marked with circles. Later, a small metal bridge was thrown across the stream, symbolizing the unification of the Western and Eastern worlds.

At the foot of the Nazhimtau and Uytash mountains, several more springs join the stream. These small springs are not the only source of recharge for the river. The Urals collects water from eight dozen tributaries. The most important of them are Sakmara and Ilek.

Sakmara begins in Bashkiria. It brings the largest amount of water to the Urals. This is a turbulent mountain river, on the banks of which people live with pleasure.

Ilek almost twice as long as Sakmara, but carries 2.5 times less water. It flows from Kazakhstan. The Ilek Valley can rival in width the valley of the Urals itself.

Two more significant tributaries - Tanalyk and Sunduk - flow not into the Urals, but into the Iriklinskoye reservoir.

Other major tributaries:

left: Or, Bolshoi Kumak, Gumbeyka, Urta-Burtya, Bolshaya Karaganka, Zingeyka;
right: Chagan, Big Kizil, Irtek, Small Kizil, Guberlya.

Although the basin area on the left side is larger, there are more tributaries on the right. These are fast mountain rivers. On the left, quiet lowland streams adjoin the Urals.

Mouth of the river

The Caspian Sea, where the great Ural River flows, is located on the divide between Asia and Europe. It is considered a sea only because of its large size. The Caspian Sea ranks first in the list of endorheic lakes in the world.

The mouth formed a delta at 27 m below sea level. This is typical for slow-flowing rivers with internal drainage. The total fall of the river is 664 m. Due to irregular poor supply, the delta branches gradually become shallow and disappear. In the middle of the 18th century there were nineteen of them. A hundred years later the number was reduced to nine, and later to three:

Drag;
Zolotinsky;
Yaitsky.

The first is separated upstream of the other two. Each branch branches into two ducts. The Bukharka channel, which runs to the sea between Zolotoy and Peretask, also belongs to Zolotinsky.

River basin

The area of the Ural River basin is 231 thousand square kilometers and ranks sixth among Russian rivers. The valley's territory is distributed unevenly - two thirds are on the left bank. In the upper and middle reaches, the drainage space covers the lands of Russia and Kazakhstan. The main part of the valley is concentrated in the Orenburg region. The river collects runoff from surrounding lands over a length of 1,164 km. Here the Urals meets the most rivers.

The river bed is winding and often changes position, leaving lakes, oxbow lakes and settlements away from the main stream. Every year during floods they are refilled with water.

The southern section passes through arid areas and has few tributaries. If you look at a map, you can compare the outline of a river and valley to a tree. The crown is spreading, with many curved branches. This area is called furcating in scientific language, i.e. branched. The trunk at the base is wide and almost bare.

Mode, nature of the flow

The entire territory where the Ural River currently flows lies in the continental climate zone. In summer there is intense heat, in winter there is frost. The ice appears in November and lasts until March. The river fully lives up to its first name. The water level depends on the amount of snow by 70-80%. Shallow during the boundary period, during the melting of snow it gains up to ten times more water. With the width of the main channel being 50-170 m, during high water the width of the mouth of the Ural River can reach up to 36 km. During this short period, the main flow of the year passes through. The depth is 3-5m. Length – 2428 km. It is third in Europe after the Volga and Danube.

At the beginning of the journey, the flow moves from north to south. In the upper reaches it is a fast mountain stream, about one and a half meters deep. The bottom here is rocky. Further, in the middle part, it is sandy and pebble, silted along the shores. Alluvium from sandstone rocks eroded upstream accumulates at the mouth. After passing through the Yaitsky swamp, the river expands to five kilometers and loses its violent character. Between Verkhne-Uralsk and Magnitogorsk the nature of the current is flat. To Orsk, the slope of the riverbed is on average 0.9 m per kilometer. Then it becomes even more gentle.

Having rounded Orsk, the Urals head north-west. Below, in the territory of the Guberlinsky Mountains, rapids and rifts appear again. This 45 km long section attracts a large number of visitors with particularly beautiful views. Connecting near Orenburg with Sakmara, the river becomes calm and leisurely. It lazily moves southwest along the border of Kazakhstan and Russia, losing approximately 0.3 meters of height per kilometer of length.

On the border with Kazakhstan near the city of Uralsk, the channel returns to the southern direction and reaches the Caspian Sea in a winding or meandering way. Here the river becomes deep and wide - up to 200 m. The distance from the water surface to the bottom in some places reaches 6 m, and in the reaches up to 12 m. The banks are mostly low, although in places that coincide with the edge of the river valley they reach 20 m.

The complex nature of the river caused the death of the civil war hero Chapaev. According to one version, he drowned while swimming across a stormy stream. The village of Lbischensk, where the tragic event occurred, is located on the territory of Kazakhstan. Since the forties of the 20th century it has been called Chapaev.

Flora and fauna of the Ural River

During the boundary period, the river's floodplain is covered with dense blackberry and thorn bushes, forests and water meadows. In some lakes there is a rare relict plant - chilim, or water chestnut, listed in the Red Book.

Going on a “silent hunt” here is a real pleasure. Red-headed boletuses, crunchy milk mushrooms and other edible mushrooms grow well on soil fertilized with silt.

As you move along the coast, the nature and animals living here change. In the cold climate of the upper reaches of the Urals, reindeer are found. In the taiga, predatory fur-bearing animals have taken root: sables and stoats. Bears, lynxes, wolves, and foxes feel great. Their game runs around here: deer, roe deer, elk. Beavers, otters and muskrats settle closer to the water. The southern steppes are inhabited by small rodents, snakes, and lizards.

About 240 species of birds nest on large reservoirs, including gulls and terns.

The main pride of the Ural River is fish. More than four dozen species live and spawn here. The most popular are roach, pike, lamprey, crucian carp, ide, carp, perch, trout, ruffe, asp, sterlet, burbot and other permanent inhabitants. Stellate sturgeon, beluga and sturgeon come to spawn. From time to time you can see pike perch, roach, and bream.

Reservoirs

Iriklinskoye Reservoir

Water from the Urals is used for irrigation and electricity generation. The unstable regime of the river forced people to take care of moisture reserves. To provide water to large cities located along the river, three reservoirs were created in the Urals back in the Soviet period:

Verkhneuralskoe;
Magnitogorsk;
Iriklinskoe;

The first two reservoirs were created near the city of Magnitogorsk.

Verkhneuralskoe appeared in the sixties specifically to supply Magnitogorsk metallurgical plant. It is located between Verkhneuralsk and Magnitogorsk. Its dimensions are 23 by 3 km, the depth reaches 10 m. Therefore, the reservoir was popularly called the Upper Ural Sea. It was supposed to replace the old Magnitogorsk reservoir. Now it is a popular holiday destination. On its shores there are tourist centers and campsites, and a yacht club has been formed.

Previously, in the thirties, when the metal processing plant was just being built, the Factory Pond (Magnitogorsk Reservoir) was used for its needs. This is an artificial reservoir of channel type. It is located within the city. The area of the mirror is 33 square kilometers with a length of 24 km and an average depth of 5.5 m. Due to the wastewater discharged into it, water soon became impossible to use for technological processes. Treatment facilities were launched only in 1954. The modern Zavodskoy pond is quite clean. Locals come here for picnics. Rowing and swimming competitions are regularly held on the water.

The Iriklinskoe reservoir is the largest in the Southern Urals. Its area is 260 square kilometers, depth - up to 40 m, volume - 2160 million cubic meters, length - 415 km. It took eight years to fill from 1949. Several settlements were flooded, the oldest of which was Tanalyk, founded in 1743. In the middle of the 20th century, a hydroelectric power station operated on the reservoir until it was replaced by a state district power station in the city of Energetik. Now this artificial sea is chosen by tourists, fishermen and fishing farms. Of the many islands, the most notable are Love Island, Ust-Burlinsky, Koshar and Hanging Stone. Water is taken from it for the Orsk-Khalilovsky industrial complex and irrigation of agricultural lands. Cities from Gai to Orenburg are fed with water.

In addition to man-made ones, the Ural Valley is decorated with many natural lakes.

Border between Asia and Europe?

The riverbed of the Ural hand actually runs along the geographical border of Europe and Asia. But only in the upper and middle reaches, located on the territory of Russia. A monument to the border was erected in Orenburg. It demonstrates that one bank of the Urals is in Europe, and the other in Asia.

In fact, the dividing line runs in the Chelyabinsk region. Magnitogorsk and Verkhneuralsk stand directly on it. A memorial sign was also installed in the latter.

In Kazakhstan, the Ural is a completely European river. The channel here deviates to the west from the continental boundary, which runs from Orsk to the high Mugodzhary mountain range. To the south of it lies a sandy desert belonging to Central Asia.

River navigability

In the past, the Urals were quite deep. There was a permanent water route between Uralsk and Orenburg. But gradually the river became shallow. The Yaitsky and Golden branches of the delta are now navigable. From the sea you can freely walk to the port of Atyrau. These are mainly fishing and cargo ships. They transport commercial fish and fruits (melons and watermelons). A significant portion of the city’s and the country’s income comes from the extraction and transportation of oil, which is extracted near Atyrau.

Natural monuments in the Urals

The area in which the Ural River is located is diverse and full of natural wonders.

Picturesque places attract tourists and fishermen to Bashkortostan, where near the village of Yangelsky you can wander along the rocky coast along the White Stone cliff. Fossil remains frozen inside like pieces of antiquity. Rare lichens and plants grow here, and animals listed in the Red Book live here.

The mountain, with the wonderful name Izvoz, used to serve as a resting place for peasants who transported ore to Beloretsk. Then there was a chapel on the top, destroyed during the Civil War. An obelisk was erected in memory of the victims. Later, pine trees were planted on the slopes and paths were laid for tourists. Now this area is protected as a natural monument.

Many tourists strive to go through the Orsk Gate, past the Nikolsky cut, look into the Iriklinskoye Gorge, admire the Transverse Mountain, go around the Noisy Roll, and fish in the backwater near Mayachnaya Mountain.

Near Chesnokovka stands the Maiden Mountain - Kyzlar-Tau. Local girls used to come to the dam at its base. They danced, played, and swam. Young guys came here to spy on them. But they tried not to catch the eye of the lively Cossack women. In addition to the legend about the brave horsemen who watched the girls play, this place is famous for its sandstone of an unusual red color.

The Treasure Coast is located on the right bank of the Urals between Orenburg and Ilek. It is rich not in precious stones, but in a unique natural landscape created by water, wind and solid deposits of chalk, flagstone, white clay, marl and ferruginous sandstones.

Main cities on the Ural River

From time immemorial people have settled on the banks of the Urals. With the development of industry, large cities grew from small settlements. The most notable of them:

Verkhneuralsk, which at the beginning of the 18th century became a stronghold for explorers of the Yaik River and a port for supplying builders of the future city of Orenburg;
Magnitogorsk, which grew up around a metallurgical plant;
Orsk, near which Orsk jasper, known for its unusual varied color, is mined near Colonel Mountain;
Novotroitsk, which grew up near the Khalilovsky mineral deposit - brown iron ore, and a processing plant;
Orenburg, an outpost on the Asian border that has become a major trading center;
Uralsk, the former Yaitsky town - the cradle of the Cossack uprising of 1773, Pugachev’s stronghold until 1775;
Atyrau is a significant port and oil capital of Kazakhstan.

The story of each of them is full of unexpected twists and interesting facts.

Fishing and rafting

Rapids sections of the Ural River attract rafting enthusiasts. Bases have been built on the banks for conquerors of the water element. The route along the gorge in the Guberlinsky Mountains is popular for rafting. Excursions are organized for cautious tourists. A route with a length of 876 km and a duration of 28 days has been developed for kayaks.

The beauty of the Ural shores cannot compete with the popular routes on the stunning Ai River or the Chusovaya River, a tributary of the Kama, famous for its stone fighters. But there are no less people who want to spend their holidays here.

Those interested in history enjoy visiting abandoned fishing villages from which the riverbed moved away many years ago. As more and more land was allocated for Agriculture, the steppes were developed, forests were cut down, water inflow decreased and flow increased. All this led to the shallowing of the river. When it became obvious that water was becoming scarcer every year, various programs to preserve the reservoir began to be implemented. However, it is too early to talk about results.

In the seventies of the 20th century, black caviar was mined here. Recently, sturgeon have decreased by a third. But despite the difficult environmental situation, the waters of the Urals are a real treasure trove for fishermen. Reservoirs support populations of different species of fish. Regular fishing from a boat and from the shore, diving and spearfishing are developing.

The Ural River, like the Ural Mountains that gave birth to it, united ancient history, scientific achievements and picturesque nature. It has become a home for the people and animals living in the surrounding area. It does not divide Eurasia; on the contrary, it unites Asia and Europe.

It is the third longest river in Europe, second only to the Volga and Danube in this indicator.

It flows through the territory of Russia (Bashkortostan, Chelyabinsk and Orenburg regions) and Kazakhstan (West Kazakhstan and Atyrau regions).

It originates in the mountains of the Southern Urals on the slopes of the Kruglaya Sopka peak (Uraltau ridge) in the Uchalinsky region of Bashkortostan. The length is 2428 km, most of the way the river flows through the territory of the Orenburg region (1164 km), in Kazakhstan it is 1082 km. The water horizon is at an absolute height of 635 m.

The old name (before 1775) was Yaik. The hydronym goes back to the ancient Iranian name; The river called *Daiks is shown on Ptolemy's map of the 2nd century AD. e. Currently, the ancient name of the river, having undergone transcription, is official in Kazakhstan and in the Bashkir language.

A. S. Pushkin wrote in “The History of Pugachev”: Yaik, by decree of Catherine II, renamed the Urals, emerges from the mountains that gave it its current name.

On old European maps the Urals are called Rhymnus fluvius.

The first mention in Russian chronicles in 1140: Mstislav drove Polovits beyond the Don beyond the Volga beyond the Yaik.

In Russian, the name Yaik was changed to Ural in 1775 by decree of Catherine II, after the suppression of the Peasant War led by Pugachev, in which the Bashkirs and Yaik Cossacks actively took part.

In the upper reaches to the city of Verkhne-Uralsk it looks like a mountain river; from Verkhne-Uralsk to Magnitogorsk it has the character of a flat river. From Magnitogorsk to Orsk it flows along rocky banks and is replete with riffles. Below the confluence of the river on the right. The Sakmara becomes a typically flat river with a wide winding channel, a calm flow and rare riffles. After the city of Uralsk, the valley widens, and the river forms many channels and oxbow lakes.

In the upper reaches of the Urals the water is shallow, the depth rarely exceeds 1-1.5 m; in the middle and especially lower reaches it is deeper.

In the upper reaches, aquatic vegetation is poorly developed, in the lower reaches it is well developed. The soils in the upper reaches are pebbly-sandy, sometimes rocky and silty, in the lower reaches they are silty-sandy, less often clayey.

The Urals freezes in the upper reaches at the beginning of November, in the middle and lower reaches - at the end of November, and breaks up from the end of March to mid-April.

The tributaries are small, the largest being the Sakmara and Ilek.

The Urals are rich in feed resources, especially in the lower reaches.

The basin area is 237,000 km² and ranks sixth in size among the rivers of Russia.

Several reservoirs have been built on the Ural River. The largest and most beautiful among them is Iriklinskoye.

The mouth of the Urals is divided into several branches and gradually becomes shallower.

In 1769, Pallas counted nineteen branches, part of which stood out from the Urals 660 meters above its confluence with the sea; in 1821 there were only nine, in 1846 - only three: Yaitskoye, Zolotinskoye and Peretasknoye. By the end of the 50s and the beginning of the 60s of the 19th century, almost no branches with a constant flow were separated from the Urals until the city of Guryev.

The first branch, separated from the main channel on the left, was Peretask, which was divided into the Peretasknaya and Aleksashkin channels. Even lower, the channel of the Urals was divided into 2 branches - Zolotinsky and Yaitsky, and both the first and second were divided into two mouths: Bolshoye and Maloye Yaitskoye, Bolshoye and Staroye Zolotinskoye. Another branch, Bukharka, flowed into the sea between Peretask and Zolotoy.

The fall of the Urals water is not particularly great; from the upper reaches to Orsk it is about 0.9 meters per 1 kilometer, from Orsk to Uralsk no more than 30 centimeters per 1 kilometer, below - even less. The width of the channel is generally insignificant, but varied. The bottom of the Urals is rocky in the upper reaches, but in most parts of its course it is clayey and sandy, and within the Ural region there are stone ridges. Near the Uralsk, the river bottom is lined with small pebbles, which are found in somewhat larger sizes at the “White Hills”; special pebbles made of dense clay, in addition, are found in some places in the lower reaches of the Urals (in the “Pogorelaya Luka”).

The current of the Urals is quite tortuous and forms big number loops The Urals, with a small drop in water, very often changes the main channel along its entire length, digs new passages for itself, leaving deep reservoirs, or “oxbow lakes,” in all directions.

Thanks to the changing flow of the Urals, many Cossack villages that were previously near the river later ended up on oxbow lakes; residents of other villages were forced to move to new places only because their old dwellings were gradually undermined and demolished by the river.

In general, the Ural valley is cut on both sides by oxbow lakes, narrow channels, wide channels, lakes, small lakes; During the spring flood, which occurs from the melting of snow on the Ural Mountains, they are all filled with water, which remains in some until next year. In the spring, rivers and streams carry a lot of melt water into the Urals, the river overflows, overflows its banks, and in the same places where the banks are sloping, the river overflows 3-7 meters. There is also a water supply from the river to the oil fields.

The largest left-bank tributaries of the Urals from the city of Orsk to the mouth of Ilek - Kiyalyburtya, Urtaburtya, Burtya, Berdyanka, Donguz, Chernaya - are typical steppe rivers with short but stormy spring floods. The last two of them - Donguz and Chernaya - practically dry up in the middle of summer due to the construction of large reservoirs on them.

The Ilek River is the largest left-bank tributary of the Urals. Below Ilek, the Ural receives three more significant tributaries on the right: Kindelyu, Irtek and Chagan. The last of them flows into the Urals outside the Orenburg region. Near the city of Orsk the Or River flows into the Urals.

In the “Gorge” the river cuts almost straight through the Ural ridge, and even lower down the 40-kilometer section of the Khabarninsky Gorge begins. In this section, the Ural receives the waters of the mountain rivers Guberli with Chebakla and Kinderli on the right, and on the left - Ebita, Aituarka and Alimbet.

Source of the Ural River

Most of the tributaries flow into it from the right side, facing the General Syrt; of these are known: Artazim, Tanalyk, Guberlya, Sakmara, Zazhivnaya, lost in the floodplain, not reaching the Urals, in the meadows between the villages of Studenovsky and Kindelinsky, Kindelya and Irtek within the Orenburg region; in the West Kazakhstan region, several shallow rivers flow below the Irtek, including Rubezhka, at the mouth of which were the first settlements of the Yaik Cossacks; the most watery tributary on the right is the river. Chagan, flowing from General Syrt.

On the left flow the rivers Or, Ilek, Utva, Barbasheva (Barbastau) and Solyanka, noticeable only in the spring and drying up in the summer. Contrary to general delusion The Ural River is a natural water border between Asia and Europe only in its upper reaches in Russia.

The border passes through the cities of Verkhneuralsk and Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk region. In Kazakhstan, the geographical border between Europe and Asia runs south from Orsk along the Mugodzhary ridge.

Thus, the Ural River is an inland European river; only the Russian upper reaches of the river east of the Ural Range belong to Asia.

Preliminary results of the expedition of the Russian Geographical Society in Kazakhstan carried out in April - May 2010 showed that drawing the border between Europe and Asia along the Ural River, as well as along the Emba, does not have sufficient scientific grounds.

The fact is that south of Zlatoust the Ural ridge, having lost its axis, breaks up into several parts, then the mountains gradually disappear altogether, that is, the main landmark when drawing the border disappears. The Ural and Emba rivers do not share anything, since the terrain they cross is identical. And the entire West Kazakhstan and Atyrau regions of Kazakhstan and half of the Aktobe region are part of Europe.

This factor became decisive in the admission of the Kazakhstan Football Federation to UEFA in 2002.

Natural monuments

The most beautiful geological and landscape natural monuments on the Ural River:

1. Iriklinskoe gorge.

The dam site in the Iriklinsky gorge, which is a narrowing of the Ural valley about 250 meters wide, composed of volcanic rocks - tuffs and lavas of Devonian age, was chosen back in 1932 by Leningrad hydraulic engineers. Topographically, this is the most favorable place for the construction of dams, and volcanic rocks have low permeability, which played a decisive role in the construction of the hydroelectric complex. As a result of filling the bed to the level of 245 meters, a narrow reservoir 73 kilometers long was formed with three large bays in the southern part. The longest of them is Suunduk Bay - 43 kilometers.

2. Orsk Gate.

To the west of Orsk, having taken Or and Kumak on the left, the Urals, contrary to all laws, rushes into the mountains. His further path to the west is blocked by the stone wall of the Guberlinsky Mountains. But the Urals turns sharply to the southeast, bypassing the mountain range. Rounding the first ridge of the Guberlinsky Mountains, the river travels about 6 kilometers. Above it to the right is a hundred-meter-high cliff, to the left is a low bank overgrown with floodplain forest. The Urals here are wide and deep, the current is calm, almost imperceptible, it looks like a narrow and long mountain lake.

But now the deep reach ends. The sound of falling water is heard. Ahead is the Week-Say roll. Here the river bed is a pile of huge boulders and rock fragments. To the right are cliffs that drop straight into the water. The majestic bastion rock approaches on the left; it is composed of very strong rocks - amphibolites and gabbro. The valley here turns into a relatively narrow gorge, and the river flows quickly between two stone walls. Soon the gorge gives way to gentle hills, but it is still a long way to reach the plain. In search of a breakthrough to the west, the Urals again changes its direction and flows north. But his direct path is again blocked by the high mountain Ak-Bik.

At an altitude of about 120 meters, the mountain has a horizontal ledge-terrace 100-120 meters wide. This ledge is the ancient channel of the Urals. About a million years ago, the destroyed Ural Mountains began to gradually rise, and the river was forced to deepen its channel, crashing into the towering Guberlinsky Mountains. This is how the Orsk Gate was formed - the exit of the Urals to the west. Near the mouth of Guberli, the landscape becomes especially picturesque. Peaked hills and jagged cliffs run down to the river, dissected by deep, shadowy gorges. Between the ridges and rocks, streams of rocky screes, composed of fragments of rocks and boulders, slide down. This mountainous country is cut through by deep canyons of the Guberlya, Tonatar, Ebita rivers and their tributaries. The bottoms of the canyons are densely overgrown with black alder, aspen, birch, and viburnum. Sometimes the dark green beards of Cossack juniper creep down from the slopes. But it’s enough to climb up, and the vast expanse of feather grass of the ancient plateau will appear before your eyes. This is the natural phenomenon of the Guberlinsky region of the Ural basin: rocky mountains below, flat steppe above. It is not difficult to find this unique landscape of the Southern Urals on the map. It is located in the north of the Aktobe region, where a small section of the Ural River serves as the border between Kazakhstan and the Russian Federation.

3. Mount Transverse.

Below the village of Khabarnogo, a narrow section of the Ural River valley begins, which is called the Khabarninsky Gorge. The narrowing begins from the mouth of the Plakunki stream, where the Utes Rest House is located. From here begins one of the most wonderful stretches in the Urals. To the right, a black-green ridge of a transverse mountain hangs over it; the ridge stretches along the coast for 4 km. The Urals here are wide and deep, the current is calm, almost imperceptible, it looks less like a river, and more like a long mountain lake. When the long reach ends, the rocks retreat from the right bank and the opposite side of the river becomes mountainous. At the turn, you can hear the sound of boiling water - the Noisy rapids are ahead. Those rafting on the river here must be extremely careful and steer the boat or raft close to the bushes on the left bank.

4. Mount Mayachnaya.

Between the Giryalsky ridge (many local historians and most travelers consider it the first Ural mountain on the way from Orenburg to Orsk) and Mount Verblyuzhka on the right bank of the Urals, another hill rises - Mount Mayachnaya. It is a round hill, cut by an extensive network of ravines and hollows with smooth outlines almost to the very top. The absolute elevation of the hill is 284.8 m, and the relative elevation above the Urals is 158 m. The foot of the riverine slope of Mount Mayachnaya is strewn with boulders with a diameter of up to 40-50 cm. At the foot of Mount Ural, an extensive riverbed Mayachnaya backwater forms, which is a valuable spawning ground for bream, carp, asp, pike perch, as well as white fish.

5. Nikolsky open-pit mine.

2 km west of the village of Nikolsk. Geological natural monument, area – 8.0 hectares. A low cliff above the Ural River and above its floodplain with a length of about 800 m. In the cliff there are layers of sandstones, clay-argillites, and clayey limestones steeply falling to the east. This section is the stratotype of the Orenburg stage of the Upper Carboniferous, which was identified by V.E. Ruzhentsev (1945). In terms of its exposure, completeness and paleontological characteristics, it is one of the best sections of coal deposits in the Southern Urals, as evidenced by numerous finds of faunal remains. The most common species found in the section are ammonites, conodonts, and fusulinids. Accumulations of fauna are often contained in loaf-shaped limestone nodules. The section contains interlayers of coarse clastic rocks, in which individual fragments reach a size of 1 m. These are conglomerate-breccias, which are also called olistostromes. The olistostromes are thought to have formed as a result of underwater landslides on the seafloor. The Orenburg stage completes the section of the Carboniferous system and is borderline with deposits of the Permian system. Based on collections of the fauna of the Nikolsky section, the position of the Carboniferous-Permian boundary is largely substantiated. In the summer of 1991, the section was examined by domestic and foreign geologists at the international congress on the Permian system.

6. The White Stone tract in the floodplain of the Ural River. On the left bank of the Ural River, northeast of the village of Yangelsky. Geological natural monument. On the steep slopes of the Ural River, the White Stone cliffs are exposed, stretching for 150-200 meters. Rocky outcrops of organogenic limestone contain remains of fossil organisms, as well as natural communities, including rare and protected species of lichens, plants and animals.

7. Mount Izvoz. 3 km from Verkhneuralsk, on the right bank of the Ural River. A botanical natural monument, including man-made pine plantings, picturesque rocky outcrops on the top of the mountain, as well as artificial park structures.

8. Kyzlar-Tau (Maiden Mountain). River break Ural near the village Chesnokovka.

Rafting on the Ural River

In some places along the banks of the Urals you can find rocks.

The Ural River after Orsk is especially beautiful. Here the river flows into a gorge through the Guberlinsky Mountains, the length of this section is approximately 45 kilometers. There is excellent fishing, a healthy climate, and air rich in steppe grasses. In some places in the Urals you can even find rocks.

Due to the fact that the river often changes its winding bed, many oxbow lakes have formed in the Ural valley. Some of the oxbow lakes are rich in fish. It happened more than once that settlements, founded on the bank of the river, over time they found themselves far away from it - the river “went” to the side. The banks are predominantly steep and clayey.

The largest tributary of the Urals, the Sakmara River, is also interesting for tourist rafting.

The government of the Orenburg region pins its hopes on the development of water tourism on the Ural River. In particular, a water route for kayaks with a total length of 876 kilometers has been developed (from Iriklinsky to Orenburg - 523 km, from Orenburg to Ranny - 352 km). Rafting along this route is designed for 28 days. However, it is not necessary to go rafting; you can simply come to the banks of the Ural River on weekends, relax after hard everyday life and go fishing.

ATTRACTIONS OF THE URAL RIVER

Alabaster Mountain

The next mountain on the left bank of the Urals is Alabaster, located 75 km by land and 147 km by water above Uralsk. The mountain is half eaten by a quarry - alabaster was mined here for a long time. To the east of the former quarry stretches a high slope with marly screes. Its middle part is overgrown with powerful oaks for these places, as well as birch, aspen, poplars with bird cherry, viburnum, and goat willow in the undergrowth.

Three kilometers below the Alabaster Mountain, the Ural is washed by the not so high Dolinsky Yar, composed of sandstones, flagstones, and conglomerates. Not many oak and birch trees climb its slopes. We sail through the Urals for another 30 km and on the left bank near Aula-Aksai we again notice chalk outcrops. But the chalk and marly slopes reach their greatest heights somewhat lower, on the Kitayshinsky Yar. Below the mouth of the Rubezhka River and the village of Rubezhinskoye, where the navigable section of the Urals begins, another hill appears on the left bank. The river washes her away twice. The first time is right behind the rapid reach of the Uporny Yar, where the Urals, hitting a high steep marly scree, makes a turn of almost 180°. Here the river reaches the fastest rapid below Orenburg, Saurkin, and breaks into two channels. After 5 km on the path of the Urals there is a second high marly cliff - Polousov Yar. Both ravine cliffs - Saurkin and Polousov - rise above the river by more than 50 m. Their slopes are complicated by giant landslides. In a kind of amphitheater between them lies the natural phenomenon of the Ural valley - the Krasnoshkolny relict forest. One of the slopes of this huge amphitheater is overgrown with a magnificent oak forest, under the cover of which there are hazel, or hazel, and a forest apple tree. The oak forest herbage consists of bracken fern and lily of the valley, May celandine.

Treasure Coast

This tract, inconspicuous at first glance, on the banks of the Urals deserves the most careful attitude. It was not without reason that popular wisdom called it the Coast of Treasures - this is one of the most remarkable places on the entire right-bank slope of the Ural valley from Orenburg to Ilek. If up to the mouth of the Ilek the steep bank near the Urals is on the right, then below the Ilek the left bank, which entirely belongs to the Ural region, is much more often steep. In the Ilek-Uralsk section, the river washes away at least six hills, which have salt domes in their core, and on the surface there is chalk, marl, white clay, ferruginous sandstones and flagstones. These. the hills form a single chain of small mountains stretched along the junction of General Syrt and the Caspian lowland. The Ural manages to break through this chain and rush south only south of Uralsk, leaving the seventh dome from Ilek - Chalk Hills on the right.

The first on the path of the Urals is the Utvinsky chalk island. It is located slightly above the mouth of the Utva River, 6-10 km northeast of the village of Burlin in the Ural region. During the spring flood, Utvinsky Island is surrounded by water on all sides, from the north by the Urals, from the west and southwest by Utva, from the south and east by Lake Bumakol and the chalk channels connecting it with the Urals. Only by mid-June is a land road to this unusual island usually established.

At the foot of the ancient ravines

Precipitous banks in the Urals are called ravines, and the high ones with outcrops of bedrock are known among local residents under the names such-and-such mountain, such-and-such forehead, shore. These are usually steep slopes of the river valley, remarkable in landscape geological terms, having the significance of unique natural monuments. One of them is located on the right bank of the Urals between the villages of Pervaya and Vtoraya Zubochistka, Perevolotsky district, Orenburg region.

The steep and high coast of the Urals here is complicated by several cirque-shaped landslides, which were formed as a result of downslope displacements of blocks of sandy-clayey sediments associated with the activity of groundwater. But there is something else that is interesting here. In this segment, the Ural lobe is crossed by a lowered area earth's crust width is about 1 km. On both sides there is a decrease in the limitation of layers of Permian red-colored and variegated rocks inclined in different directions. In mountainous countries, such phenomena are called grabens; as a result, rocks appear on the same horizon of different ages and composition. This kind of graben was formed not in the mountains, but on the plains - in a depression, the sides of which are composed of dense Permian and Triassic rocks formed more than 200 million years ago. Here, gray and white clays, mergues, and sandstones of the Cretaceous and Paleogene periods have been preserved from erosion. Their age ranges from 50 to 130 million years.

The geological structure of the Ural coast is complicated by landslide processes in this area. As a result, the coastal slopes are replaced by variegated sandy clays of various shades, marls, calcareous tuffs, and ocher screes. It seems that nature has collected all the colorful gamuts of yellow, gray-green, brown, and red into this unique collection of sedimentary rocks.

Lakes of the Ural floodplain

There are many wonderful landscape features near the lakes of the Ural floodplain. For example, the habitat of the most ancient and amazing relic that has survived to this day, the chilim, has been preserved here. Its continuous thickets, covering the watery surface with rosettes of leaves, have been preserved on the lakes of the Ural floodplain below Orenburg: Bespelyukhin, Orekhovoy, Bolshoi Orlovo. Old Ural, Lipov, Oreshki, Dzhilimny, Forpostno and many others. Several names have been assigned to this plant: chilim, rogulnik, and among the people it is also known as water or devil’s nut, horned nut, live anchor, water chestnut. Fossilized remains of chilim fruits were found in Cretaceous deposits. This means that it has inhabited the fresh water bodies of the Earth for more than 70 million years. But at present, chilim thickets have been preserved in a few places.

It is noteworthy that, having formed continuous thickets on one of the lakes, it no longer settles on neighboring lakes, but sometimes even tens or hundreds of kilometers around. The above indicates the relict nature of chilim, preserved only under certain environmental conditions.

IN last years Chilim lakes in Mordovia, Bashkiria, and the Altai Mountains were taken under protection, Far East and in many other areas of our country. Chilim is listed in the Red Book.

We find a description of this mountain in P.S. Pallas, who visited here in 1769. He wrote: “Beyond the Or River begins a mountain range in which you can see best breeds jasper stone. The layers in this mountain, just like in the jasper mountains lying near Yaik, mostly descend into the depths from the western to the eastern side. The local flask has many different colors. The best jasper, especially in large spread, has a color that is either coffee or white with red and yellowish stripes. There are also pieces depicting grass and trees. There are Kyrgyz graves on every hill. Nowhere can you find the best pieces of local jasper as on these graves, and it seems that the action of the sun produced a much better color on the outside than on the inside of the stone.”

In the vicinity of Orsk there were already several quarries at that time. Academician A.E. Fersman, describing the minerals of the Soviet Union in the book “Journey for Stone,” placed six pieces of stone on the title of the book, specifically Orsk jasper, to which the scientist devoted many enthusiastic lines: “It is difficult to give an exhaustive description of this jasper - its patterns are so varied and coloring, we know over two hundred varieties of jasper in this area, and the best designs and colors belong specifically to the jaspers of this deposit... It seems to me that we are in a wonderful art gallery. Not every artist will be able to convey such combinations of tones and colors that nature itself has scattered here with a generous hand. It’s like a stormy sea: its greenish waves shimmer with the reddish glow of dawn, here is the white edge of foam, and here are the rocky shores...” and further: “... Orsky jaspers are undoubtedly the national wealth of the country.” In addition to Mount Colonel, along the Urals there are a number of other places where jasper is born. Many of them are not yet widely known; they contain the future glory of the Trans-Ural jasper belt.

According to one version (thanks to Furmanov’s book and especially the film “Chapaev”), it was in the waves of the Urals that Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev died. However, some historians doubt this and insist that Chapaev died in battle and was buried somewhere on the river bank.

V. Pelevin in the novel “Chapaev and Emptiness” metamorphoses the Urals (in which the historical Vasily Chapaev drowned) into the “Conventional river of absolute love.”

- “Ural-batyr” (Bashk. Ural batyr) - Bashkir epic (kubair).

There are many lakes, oxbow lakes, and rivers in the Ural floodplain. And all around there are forests, impassable, overgrown with blackberries, thorny thorns, the berries of which are still called Cossack grapes here, and a hike along this river will be simply unforgettable. There are also mushrooms: boletus, boletus, milk mushrooms. The Urals are beautiful and swift. The steep yars are interspersed with sands, the rifts are interspersed with wide and deep reaches with heaps of cramps, waterways, and backwaters, sometimes extending far into the steppe.

Up to thirty species of fish are found in the river: sturgeon, stellate sturgeon, zander, herring, bream, carp, catfish, pike, chub, crucian carp, beluga, whitefish, carp, roach, roach, kutum, dace, ide, rudd, asp, tench, Podust, gudgeon, barbel, bleak, bluegill, char, burbot, perch, ruff, goby. Local residents don’t even consider pike to be fish. Trifles, if they are caught, are caught in the fall, for drying, when the flies disappear, and in the early spring - then all sorts of fish, because the first. Fishing here has its own specifics.

Fishing on the Ural River will bring a lot of joy. In past centuries and until recently, the Ural River was famous for sturgeon. According to some data, at the end of the 1970s, the Ural River's share in world sturgeon production was 33 percent, and in black caviar production - 40 percent.

In 1981 -1983 The conditions and efficiency of sturgeon spawning above the city of Uralsk were studied by the Orenburg Laboratory of Landscape Reclamation and Nature Conservation. Observations have shown that almost all non-silted areas of the river bottom with hard soil in the spring serve as spawning grounds for sturgeon. It was found that spawning is most effective in large fields of riverbed and beach Mechnik, crushed stone and cemented shell rock, where the flow speed during high water reaches 2 m/s, preventing siltation of the soil and deposited eggs. On a 315-kilometer stretch of the river from Uralsk to Ilek, the expedition studied several types of spawning grounds. The most common of them were riverine beaches. They are formed, as is known, along convex shores, where thick layers of coarse material accumulate.

The excess of the beaches above the low-water level of the river reaches 4 m, the width is 40-120 m. The length of the Ural beaches, depending on the radius of the bend, ranges from 200-300 m to 2 km. The longest beaches on the Ilek-Uralsk section are Kambavskie Sands (below the village of Yanvartseva) and Trekinskie Sands (above the city of Uralsk). The most valuable in terms of quality are the Verkhnekirsanovsky and Aksuatsky beaches with a dense pebble surface, located respectively 179 and 36 kilometers above Uralsk. But now sturgeon in the Urals have become rare.

Belorybitsa in the Urals

Whitefish is a representative of salmon fish, very close to whitefish. It reaches 120 cm in length and 20 kg in weight. In its appearance it somewhat resembles the well-known asp. The whitefish is a predator, but in the Urals it hardly feeds. The white fish enters the river to spawn no more than twice in its life. She lives until she is 11 years old. The closest relative of the white fish, nelma, lives in the Arctic Ocean basin. It was from there, according to scientists, that at the end of the Ice Age it moved along chains of lakes across the Kama and Volga to the Caspian Sea and, having changed somewhat, became a whitefish. White fish is a valuable commercial fish, but now its fishing is prohibited everywhere.

Through the efforts of scientists and fish farmers, it was possible to maintain its numbers artificially. At the foot of the Volgograd hydroelectric power station dam on the Volga, gravel spawning grounds have been built for white fish. The only natural spawning grounds for this fish are in the Urals.

One of the little-known inhabitants of the Urals and its tributaries is the lamprey. It belongs to the oldest class of cyclostome fish. It has a snake-like body, about 0.5 m long, weighing up to 260 g. The lamprey has a number of features that are not characteristic of other fish species. Her mouth is a deep funnel-suction cup; at the bottom there is a tongue, which, like a piston, either extends or retracts. The tongue serves as a drill to penetrate the fish's skin. The lamprey has a third eye, the parietal one, located near the nasal opening. There is no lens in it; with its help, lampreys perceive only light. They inherited this organ from their ancestors, which were widespread in the Silurian and Devonian periods, that is, more than 400 million years ago. Thus, the lamprey can be considered a kind of “living fossil”.

Sevruga in the Urals

The most numerous sturgeon of the Urals is the stellate sturgeon. The Ural-Caspian fisheries produce up to 70% of the world's stellate sturgeon catches. The main spawning grounds for stellate sturgeon are located in the lower reaches of the river. A small amount of sturgeon rises above Uralsk, reaching Ilek and even Rassypnaya. Stellate sturgeon is represented mainly by the spring form. It spawns later than other sturgeons at water temperatures above 12-14° C. The average length of the Ural stellate sturgeon is about 120-140 cm, weight is about 10-15 kg.

The only resident species of sturgeon in Uralsk is the sterlet. It is found throughout the lower and middle reaches of the river - very rarely everywhere. The usual dimensions of the Ural sterlet are: length about 60 cm, weight 2.5 kg.

Migratory fish in the Urals

It takes a lot of time to restore strength and develop a new portion of reproductive products for re-entering the river to spawn: females - 5-6 years, males - 3-4 years. Therefore, despite the long life expectancy (up to 30 years or more), each breeder can enter the river only a few times in its life. Every year, huge hordes of migratory fish flock to the Urals. Their advanced detachments reach Ilek, Orenburg and even Orsk.

Ichthyological observations 1981 - 1983 It has been established that the largest sturgeon specimens rise to the middle of the river reach. This means that the middle reaches of the Urals are of decisive importance for the conservation of large-sized sturgeon specimens.

The largest fish in the Caspian basin is beluga. In the 20s of our century, fish weighing up to 12 c were caught in the Urals. In former times, larger specimens were also caught. The usual weight of belugas spawning above Uralsk is 150-300 kg for females and 50-90 kg for males. To this day, beluga whales weighing 600 kg or more are still found.

Sturgeons reached their greatest numbers in the Caspian Sea basin, where 5 of the 23 species of sturgeon in the world are represented - beluga, sturgeon, thorn and stellate sturgeon, which have mastered the food resources of the sea, where they spend most of their lives, Sterlet, which is a marine species, that is, never does not leave the river. Beluga, sturgeon, thorn and stellate sturgeon of the Caspian Sea are migratory fish. They regularly migrate from the Caspian Sea to rivers to breed. Migratory fish are divided into winter and spring races.

Winter fish enter the river in summer and autumn, and after overwintering, they spawn.

Spring fish enter the river in winter and spring and spawn in the same year. Migratory fish in the river, as a rule, do not feed or feed very little. Overcoming the river current during spawning migrations, a long stay in the river and the spawning process itself lead to severe depletion of the producers. It has been established that stellate sturgeon and sturgeon lose up to 30% of their weight during spawning migration, and beluga - up to 50% of their weight. And, as a rule, the greater the energy reserves of a particular individual, the larger it is, the higher along the river it can and tends to rise.

URAL RIVER IN ORENBURG REGION

The largest river in the Orenburg region is the Ural (in ancient times Yaik), the main part of its flow is formed in the Orenburg region. Two other large rivers - Sakmara and Ilek - originate in Bashkiria and Kazakhstan, respectively, but flow into the Urals within the Orenburg region. The Ural is the main water artery of the Orenburg region.

The Ural River crosses the Orenburg region from east to west, flowing through 10 districts of the region for 1164 km. Main feature The river is uneven flow. During the spring flood, the Ural turns into a huge watercourse, filling the entire floodplain 6–8 km wide. The first two large Orenburg tributaries of the Urals, Tanalyk and Suunduk, currently flow into the Iriklinskoye reservoir, forming bays of the same name.

The Tanalyk River, 225 km long, originates in the spurs of the Urals, then crosses Irendyk. The average water flow in Tanalyk does not exceed 1.0 m3/s.

In the area of the city of Orsk, two more significant tributaries, the Bolshoi Kumak and the Or, flow into the Urals from the left. Throughout the entire length from the Iriklinsky reservoir to the mouth of the Sakmara, the Ural receives only one significant tributary from the right - the Guberlya. The largest left-bank tributaries of the Urals from the city of Orsk to the mouth of Ilek - Kiyalyburtya, Urtaburtya, Burtya, Berdyanka, Donguz, Chernaya - are typical steppe rivers with short but stormy spring floods. The last two of them - Donguz and Chernaya - practically dry up in the middle of summer due to the construction of large reservoirs on them.

The Ilek River is the largest left-bank tributary of the Urals (623 km). Its sources are located in the Mutojar Mountains. In terms of drainage area (41 thousand km2), Ilek is one third larger than Sakmara, but carries 2.5 times less water than the most abundant tributary of the Urals (the annual flow rate is 1569 m3). The Ilek River has a wide, well-developed valley with two terraces above the floodplain. The size of the Ilek valley is sometimes not inferior to the Ural valley. The Ilek floodplain is replete with numerous channels and oxbow lakes.

Below Ilek, the Ural receives three more significant tributaries on the right: Kindelyu, Irtek and Chagan. The last of them flows into the Urals outside the Orenburg region. Near the city of Orsk the Or River flows into the Urals. In the “Gorge” the river cuts almost straight through the Ural ridge, and even lower down the 40-kilometer section of the Khabarninsky Gorge begins. In this section, the Ural receives the waters of the mountain rivers Guberli with Chebakla and Kinderli on the right, and on the left - Ebita, Aituarka and Alimbet.

On the map, the Ural basin resembles a tree bent in one direction with a thick trunk in the middle and very short branches. Only the right tributary, the Sakmara River, flowing for a long distance parallel to the Urals, has a relatively dense branched network of tributaries.

The Ural River is not navigable, its width is 50-170 m, its depth is 3-5 m, the flow speed is 0.3 m/s, the bottom is sandy, there are no fords. The banks are predominantly steep, the height of the cliffs is 5-9 m. The Ural floodplain is wide - 10-12 km, meadow, with significant tracts of forest, a large number of forests, sparse bushes, cut by numerous rivers, oxbow lakes and channels, and many lakes.

In ancient sources the names of the Ural River are found - Likos, Daiks, Daikh, Dzhaikh, as well as Ruza, Yaik, Yagak, Yagat, Ulusu, Zapolnaya River. The name of the river Yaik and its consonant names Daiks, Daikh, Yagak, etc. have been found for about two thousand years.

Now it is difficult to say what the word “Daix” meant in the time of Ptolemy, when the Iranian-speaking Sarmatian tribes were still roaming the Urals basin. The Russian form “Yaik” is first found in the Russian chronicle of 1229. It is considered to be a derivative of the common Turkic base “Zhaik” with the meaning “wide river bed” or “spreading widely.”

The Sakmara River is the largest tributary of the Urals. The length of Sakmara within the Orenburg region is about 380 km. In the upper reaches of the Sakmara it is a typical mountain river with steep banks and narrow terraces, in the middle and lower reaches its valley is wide, asymmetrical with well-defined two terraces and a populated floodplain.

The Ural is a river in the Caspian Sea basin. It flows through the lands of the Republic of Bashkortostan, Chelyabinsk and Orenburg regions, as well as the Republic of Kazakhstan. Find out where the river flows here.

The length of the river reaches 2.42 km (this is the third longest in Europe after the Volga and Danube). First, the Urals flows from the Bashkir territories to the south. Here the river can be called a mountain one - the flows in the upper reaches are so strong. Then the waters flow into the Yaitsky swamp, from where the Urals emerge wide. In some places the width of the river reaches 5 km.

Crossing Verkhneuralsk, the Ural turns into a typical lowland river, giving way to relief in the Guberlinsky Mountains. Near the city of Uralsk, where the river enters into full possession of the Kazakh steppes, its valley exceeds tens of kilometers. At the mouth, the river divides into two branches - Yaitsky and Zolotoy, on which navigation is organized. Visit the attractions.

Excursion into the history of the Urals

The old name of the hydrogeological object is Yaik. The origin of the hydronym goes back to the ancient Iranian language. The river was designated by Ptolemaic geographers in the 2nd century AD under the name Daiks. The mighty Ural river received its modern name thanks to the decision of Catherine the Great. Pushkin in his history of Pugacheva said that Yaik, according to the decree of Empress Catherine II, was renamed the Urals, since it comes out of the mountains with the corresponding name. The outstanding Russian poet and writer also mentioned that the Ural is the third longest river in the Old World, second only to the Danube and Volga.

The ancient hydronym Rhymnusfluvius is found in ancient European maps. In the chronicles of the Russian principalities, the river was first mentioned in the mid-12th century. Then Prince Mstislav managed to drive the Polovtsians beyond the Volga, Don and Yaik.

Empress Catherine the Great ordered the name to be changed to Ural. In 1775, the Tsarina suppressed large-scale peasant unrest under the leadership of Pugachev. What prompted this decision remains a mystery. However, historians are confident that Catherine II decided to eradicate the story of Pugachev, the Bashkirs and the Yaik Cossacks, who took direct part in the uprising. In the Kazakh and Bashkir languages, the name of the river did not change, but this in no way could influence the popularization of the new hydronym.

The Urals separating two continents

Contrary to popular belief, the upper Ural River represents a natural water boundary between the Asian and European continents. The symbolic border passes in the cities of Magnitogorsk and Verkhneuralsk in the Chelyabinsk region.

In the Republic of Kazakhstan from geographical point In view, the border between the continents runs from the city of Orsk south to the Mugodzhary mountain range. Thus, we can say with confidence that the Ural is a European river, and only the upper reaches of the eastern ranges of the Ural Mountains in Russia can be considered Asia.

At the beginning of 2010, experts from the Russian Geographical Society conducted a large-scale Scientific research rivers in Kazakhstan. It demonstrated that the symbolic drawing of the border line between the two continents along the bed of the Ural River, as well as along the Emba, is by no means considered the right decision. The whole point is that the Ural ridge south of the city of Zlatoust loses its axis and breaks up into a number of insignificant parts. Further, the mountain range disappears altogether, as a result of which the main landmark by which the notorious border between Asia and Europe is determined disappears. The scientists' conclusion is that the Ural and Emba rivers cannot symbolically share anything, since the terrain through which they flow is identical.

Natural monuments on the banks of the Urals

The nature on the banks of the Urals is as diverse as the river itself. On the left bank, near the village of Yangelsky in Bashkortostan, you can enjoy amazingly beautiful landscapes. It is difficult to find a better place for picnics, fishing and camping in these places. The steep slopes expose the rocky White Stone cliffs, which stretch for 200 meters.

Curious tourists can discover ancient remains of fossil organisms in limestone rocky outcrops. Lovers of rare plants will also have something to do. Rare species of lichens and plants included in the Red Book grow in this part of the Urals. This equally applies to the rich animal world.

3 km on the right bank of the Ural River there is a mountain with interesting name Delivery The picturesque area with numerous trails for tourists is included in the state nature conservation program. The botanical monument contains: relict plantings, pine forests, rocky outcrops to the top.

Not far from the village of Chesnokovka lies a unique natural site - Kyzlar-Tau (from the Tatars, Devichya Gora). The peculiarity of this area is considered to be the water-eroded layers of red sandstones; hundreds of tourists come to see them. It is believed that girls ran here for round dances and were spied on by daredevil horsemen.

Entertainment on the Ural River

Travelers actively use the mountainous sections of the Ural River for boating. Along the riverbed there are tourist sports centers, from which exciting water excursions along the indomitable streams of the Urals start. In some places you can find rugged rocks carved thousands of years ago. The Ural region below Orsk is rightfully considered the most beautiful part of the trip. Flowing through the gorge through the Guberlinsky Mountains, the river looks fabulous. The surrealism of the picture is reinforced by the absence of tourists.

Worthy of attention: Orskie Gate, Nikolsky section, Iriklinskoe gorge, Mayachnaya and Poperechnaya mountains.

The obstinate river in the upper reaches often changed its course, which is why in Bashkortostan and the Chelyabinsk region you can find ancient remains of abandoned fishing settlements at a comparative distance from the river.

The length of the Ural River is 2428 km. It is the third longest river in Europe, second only to the Volga and Danube. Flows into the Caspian Sea.

The Ural is one of the few rivers that has changed its name in our time. Before the uprising of Emelyan Pugachev, this river was called Yaik. To erase any memory of what happened, Empress Catherine II in 1775 ordered to rename the river from which the bloody rebellion began. This is how Yaik turned into the Ural. “For complete oblivion of the unfortunate incident that followed on Yaik” - this is how the reasons for changing the name were justified in the decree. Let me remind you that the Yaik Cossacks took an active part in that uprising.

The Ural River near Novobairamgulovo in Bashkiria

The toponym Yaik meant “overflowing, flooding” in Turkic, and the modern name was given according to the region. On Ptolemy's map in the 2nd century AD, the river was marked under the name Daiks. In Russian written sources (in chronicles) it was first mentioned as Yaik in 1140. The modern name of the river in the Bashkir language is Yaiyk, in Kazakh it is Zhaiyk.

The Ural River begins in the Uchalinsky district of the Republic of Bashkortostan on the eastern slope of the Ural ridge. Three main sources flow from the bridge between the mountains Nazhim (816 m) and Kruglaya Sopka (1016 m). Near one of the springs on the slope of Mount Nazhim there is a cast-iron slab with the text: “The Ural River begins here.” Flowing into a swampy valley, the headwaters form a common stream.

It is interesting that in 1717, the first gold expedition, led by Colonel Dmitry Ugrimov, later the Tyumen governor, worked on the Ural River (then Yaik).

The Ural River near its beginning. View from Mount Kalkan, Republic of Bashkortostan

The river flows through the territory of the Republic of Bashkortostan, Chelyabinsk and Orenburg regions and Kazakhstan. Most of it falls in the Orenburg region (1164 km), where the river flows from east to west. Despite the name associated with the Ural Mountains, the river already in the upper reaches acquires a flat character. The width of the valley reaches 2–2.5 km. 7-8 km below the city of Orsk, the valley narrows, forming the so-called Orskie Gate. There are beautiful rocks along the banks here. The Ural River crosses the jasper belt, thanks to which in some places on the banks you can collect a collection of jasper.

The area of the river basin is 231,000 km2. The average water flow at the mouth is 400 m 3 /s. The average volume of annual flow is 12.6 km 3 . It is fed by snow; more than 80% of the annual runoff occurs in the spring. During high water, the river overflows its banks, overflowing 5–8 km in places, and up to 20–25 km in the lower reaches. The sharp unevenness of the flow is leveled out by the Magnitogorsk and Iriklinsky reservoirs.

Embankment of a pond on the Ural River in Magnitogorsk with graffiti

The river often changes its course, washing away the banks and forming oxbow lakes. Some settlements in the past were founded on the banks of the river, and over time they found themselves away from it, or even completely washed away by the advancing river. The bottom in the upper reaches is rocky, in the middle and lower reaches it is predominantly clayey and sandy.

The most significant tributaries (in Russia): right - Mindyak, Maly Kizil, Yangelka, Bolshoi Kizil, Khudolaz (Tuyalyas), Bolshaya Urtazymka, Tanalyk, Guberlya, Sakmara; left - Gumbeyka, Zingeyka, Bolshaya Karaganka, Suunduk, Bolshoi Kumak, Or, Ilek.

Largest settlements: the cities of Verkhneuralsk, Magnitogorsk ( Chelyabinsk region), Orsk, Novotroitsk, Orenburg (Orenburg region), Uralsk, Atyrau (Kazakhstan).

Shipping is not developed. Although in the past there was water transport from Orenburg to Uralsk. Despite its great length, the river is shallow. By the way, one of the brightest impressions we had from visiting the city of Orenburg was right on the banks of the Ural River. I was surprised that the townspeople actively swim in the Urals right in the city center. Very rare for large cities due to severe pollution of rivers. Despite the fact that, upon approaching Orenburg, the river already covers a very long distance, in the summer it is not wide and shallow. In some places you can cross from one bank to the other.

The Ural River in the city of Orenburg

According to evidence, the river used to be much deeper. Shallowing is associated with the construction of reservoirs, plowing of steppes and destruction of forest belts.

M.V. Malakhov wrote in the 19th century:

“The Ural River, with its flow, serves as a continuation of the Ural Mountains, like the border between Europe and Asia. This is the ancient Yaik, a name that was banned and, as it were, cursed for the fame that the Cossack uprising under the leadership of Pugachev had previously received. This was the reason why the ancient name was forgotten. In terms of the length of its course, the Ural is one of the largest rivers in Europe, but not in terms of the abundance of water. Born on the Asian side of the mountains in the Kalganau gorge, the Ural receives its first inflows from gorges protected from rain winds. The average moisture precipitation in the form of rain and snow in the upper basin of the Urals probably does not exceed 40 cm, decreasing gradually from north to south; Upon entering the plain, the river cuts through countries where rainfall annually does not reach 25 cm and most of the water evaporates. Its bed, formed by clay sediments, is almost everywhere more than 100 meters wide, sometimes reaching 175 meters.”

In the past, the river was famous for its fish resources, especially sturgeon. P.S. Pallas in the 18th century wrote in his book about the fish wealth of the river:

“The Yaik River usually contains sturgeon, beluga, thorns (a special genus of sturgeon, which are so named due to their smoothness and sharp nose), stellate sturgeon, sterlet, catfish, carp and white fish, and among the small and simple fish are pike, pike perch, and bershik , bream, chub, sabrefish and a lot of small fish... All these fish move in herds, and especially sturgeon sturgeon there are such an unspeakable number in Yaik that under Guryev you can clearly see the darkness of them in the water. All the Cossacks assure that before this, near the Yaitsky town, due to the strong pressure of the fish, breaks were made in the fishing rod or fence that was drawn across the river, and they were forced to put cannons on the shore to drive the fish away by firing.”

Now this fish is scarce; it is found only in the lower reaches. Although even now you can catch it by ear. In the Urals there are perch, bream, ide, crucian carp, roach, asp, chub, and dace.

Sometimes water tourists raft down the river. You can simply relax on the banks of the Urals. The picturesque Iriklinskoe reservoir was created on the river. But the Ural River is especially beautiful below Orsk, where it approaches the Guberlinsky Mountains.

A conventional border between Europe and Asia is drawn along part of the Ural River. In some places on the river there are obelisks symbolizing this border (Orenburg, Verkhneuralsk, Magnitogorsk, Kizilskoye, Novobairamgulovo).

Sign "Europe - Asia" in the village of Kizilskoye, Chelyabinsk region

Obelisk "Europe - Asia" on the bridge over the Urals in the city of Orenburg

In 1919, during the Civil War, commander Vasily Chapaev died on the banks of the Ural River. Thanks to the book by D.A. Furmanov's "Chapaev" and the Soviet film of the same name, as well as numerous anecdotes, he is one of the most famous historical figures of the Civil War.

Sources:

Korepanov N.S. In early Yekaterinburg (1723 - 1781) - Yekaterinburg, 1998.