The Don River (Russia) is one of the greatest in the European part of the country. The catchment area is 422 thousand square meters. km By this indicator in Europe, the Don is second only to the Danube, the Dnieper and the Volga. The length of the river is approximately 1870 km.
History
The Don River was formerly called Tanais. The ancient Greeks invented a legend according to which a young man with that name drowned in this pond because of unhappy love. Researchers connect the origin of the name “Don” with the Scythian-Sarmatian word “danu”, meaning “river, water”.
Ancient Greek authors often called Tanais either the Don River or the Seversky Donets. The latter was then closer to the civilized world, therefore, for example, Ptolemy considered the Don (Hirgis) a tributary of the Sevetsky Donets (Tanais). At the mouth of the Tanais River, a Greek colony of the same name was created.
Ritter left interesting information in the book Vorhalle. It turns out that the Sea of Azov did not exist in antiquity, and the Don River flowed into the Black Sea in the area of the Kerch Strait. According to the researcher Peytinger, at the source of the Don is an inscription stating that it is "The Tanais River, separating Europe from Asia."
The Normans in their sagas call Don Vanaquisle. Count Potocki collected many legends and myths about this river. Dmitry Ivanovich Donskoy in 1380 defeated the Tatar-Mongol army on the Kulikovo field, at the place where the Nepryadva River flows into the Don, for which he received his sonorous nickname.
It is known that from time immemorial the city of Tana was located at the mouth of the Don. It was built by colonists from Greece and was subordinate to the Bosporus kingdom. This flowering merchant city belonged either to the Genoese or to the Venetians. Only in 1475 Tana was conquered by the Turks and renamed to Azov (Azof). After that, all the trade and embassy affairs of the Russian state with Constantinople and the Crimea were carried out mainly along the Don River.
Don is the cradle of the Russian fleet: the military, which arose through the efforts of Peter the Great in 1696, and the merchant, which appeared under Catherine the Great in 1772.
Source
The Don River in the Tula region originates. Its source is a small trickle Urvanka flowing in the park of the city of Novomoskovsk. At the beginning of the river there is a symbolic monument called "Source of the Don". The reservoir in this architectural complex is of artificial origin, it is powered from the local water supply.
Previously, Lake Ivan was considered the source of the river, but it is usually not communicated with the Don. The beginning of the river is sometimes called the Shat reservoir, which is located north of Novomoskovsk, Tula region, but it is fenced off from the Don by a railway dam.
The nature of the riverbed and valley
The Don has a valley and riverbed character typical of lowland rivers. The river changes direction four times, enveloping several geological obstacles. Its channel has a longitudinal profile and a weak slope decreasing towards the mouth, the magnitude of which is 0.1 degrees. The general direction of the Don course is from north to south. For almost its entire length, the river is surrounded by a developed valley, has a wide flood plain and a great many branches. In the lower reaches, the Don reaches a width of 12-15 km. In the vicinity of the town of Kalach-on-Don, the river valley is compressed by spurs of the Volga and Central Russian Uplands. In this small area near the river there is no floodplain.
The river valley has an asymmetric structure. The right bank of the Don is quite high, in some places reaches 230 meters, the left - low and gentle. The flow of the river is calm and slow. No wonder the river was nicknamed the "Quiet Don". Local Cossacks respectfully refer to the river as the "Don Father". Hydrograph researchers consider the river one of the oldest in the European part of Russia.
The mouth of the Don
Don flows into the Sea of Azov - Taganrog Bay. Starting from the city of Rostov-on-Don, the river creates a delta, whose area is 540 square meters. km At this point, the riverbed breaks up into many channels and branches. The largest of them are Yegurcha, Perevoloka, Bolshaya Kuterma, Bolshaya Kalancha, Stary Don, Dead Donets.
Mode
With a large catchment area, the Don is characterized by relatively low water content. This is because the river basin is completely located within the steppe and forest-steppe zones. The water content of the Don is much lower than that of the rivers of the Northern region (Pechora, Northern Dvina), approximately 900 m 3 / s.
The Don’s water regime is also typical of rivers flowing in the steppe and forest-steppe climatic zones. The river food is mainly snow (up to 70%), as well as ground and rain. In the spring, Don is characterized by high floods, while in the rest of the year its level is quite low. From the end of the spring rise to the next flood, the flow rate and water level fall.
The magnitude of fluctuations in the water level in the Don over the entire length is significant and is 8-13 meters. The river flows very much in the floodplain, especially in the lower reaches. Usually, Don has two flood waves. The first appears at the time of melt, snow water from the lower part of the river (Cossack, or cold water), the second occurs due to the inflow from the upper Don (warm water). If snowmelt is late, both waves merge, and then the flood is stronger, but less long.
The Don River is covered with ice in late autumn or early winter. At the end of March, the river opens in the lower part, then the ice breaks along its entire length and in the upper reaches.
Hydrographic division of the river
Describing the Don River is not an easy task, because it is the third largest among all rivers in the European region of Russia. Hydrographically, the Don is usually divided into three sections: Upper, Middle and Lower.
From the source to the confluence of the Tikhaya Sosna River in the Voronezh Region, the Upper Don flows. Here it has a narrow valley and a winding, with rifts, channel.
The middle section of the Don is from the mouth of the Silent Pine to Kalach-on-Don. At this point, the river valley expands greatly. The Middle Don ends with a reservoir built in the area of the village of Tsimlyanskaya.
The Lower Don flows from the city of Kalach-on-Don to the mouth. Behind the Tsimlyansk reservoir, the river has a wide (from 12 to 15 km) valley and a spacious flood plain. The depth of the Don in some places reaches fifteen meters.
The largest tributaries of the river are Voronezh, Ilovlya, Medveditsa, Khoper, Bityug, Manych, Sal, Seversky Donets.
Using
At a distance of 1590 kilometers from the mouth to the city of Voronezh, the Don River is navigable. The largest ports are located in the cities of Azov, Rostov-on-Don, Volgodonsk, Kalach-on-Don, Liski.
In the vicinity of the city of Kalach Don approaches the Volga - is located about 80 kilometers from it. Two great Russian rivers are connected by the Volga-Don navigable canal, the construction of which became possible after the creation of the Tsimlyansk reservoir.
In the area of the village of Tsimlyanskaya a dam was built along the ridge 12.8 km long. The hydraulic structure raises the river level by 27 meters and forms the Tsimlyansk reservoir, stretching from the village of Golubinskaya to the city of Volgodonsk. The capacity of this reservoir is 21.5 km 3, the area is 2600 km 2. A hydroelectric power station is operating at the dam. Water from the Tsimlyansk reservoir irrigates the Salsk steppes and other steppe spaces of the Volgograd and Rostov regions.
Below the Tsimlyansk hydroelectric station, at a distance of about 130 kilometers, the depth of the Don River is supported by hydroelectric facilities with locks and dams: Kochetkovsky, Konstantinovsky and Nikolaev. The oldest and most famous of them is Kochetkovsky. It is located 7.5 kilometers below the place where the Don River receives a tributary of the Northern Donets. The waterworks was built in 1914-1919 and reconstructed in 2004-2008.
The depth necessary for shipping in the Don below the Kochetkovsky hydroelectric complex is maintained by systematic excavation from the bottom of the river (excavation).
Fauna in the river basin
The Don River is rich in fish. Among small species there are asp, rudd, roach, perch. In addition, large and medium-sized fish species are found in the river: pike, catfish, zander, bream. However, due to river pollution and a strong recreational load, the fish stocks of the Don are constantly decreasing.
On the banks of the river, in swamps, water frogs, toads, comb and ordinary newts are found. The inhabitants of the places where the Don River is located are the water and common snakes, the marsh turtle and the green toad. The latter live not only along the river, but also in the meadows that grow in its basin.
Intensive plowing of the fields around the Don led to the fact that in this area such species as marmots, saigas, steppe antelopes, wild horses disappeared. Back in the 60-70s of the last century, near the tributaries of the river you could meet baibaks, roe deer, wild boars and muskrat. Now in the Don basin rodents live: mouse, ground squirrel, big jerboa, river beaver. Small predators are also found: forest and steppe ferrets, weasels, minks and river otters. Bats live in the river basin.
Over the past 100-150 years, the number of birds nesting near the river has been greatly reduced. Swans, geese, eagles, golden eagles, peregrine falcons, beehives, osprey, white-tailed eagles disappeared. Rest on the Don River is traditionally associated with duck hunting. Among the surviving birds are waders and ducks, crows, and thrush-like reeds. Less common are storks, herons and bell cranes. In the season of flight of birds you can see the goose, gray goose and others.
