It so happened that the name Kolyma is used to denote a whole region uniting the Magadan region and Yakutia, which, by the will of fate, became the center of the punitive system of the country of soviets.
It was here that the most terrible camps were located, and the name of this great beautiful river of northeastern Russia is still associated with cruel repression. But we will talk about the amazing hydronym - the powerful full-flowing river Kolyma, which brings life to all - and the tribes that have long settled on its banks, and to us today, who cannot imagine the existence of Russian travelers without these lands discovered.
A bit of history
For the first time, the Kolyma River (Halyma in Yakut) was mentioned in the report of the Pomors, explorer Mikhaila Stadukhin, who led the expedition, the result of which was the discovery of new lands in the basins of the Indigirka and Alazeya (1639), as well as the foundation in 1644 in the lower Kolyma winter hut. He also gave a description of the unfriendly natives - warlike Chukchi, who protected their own way of life and were in no hurry to provide hospitality to anyone. The Yukagirs, Tungus, Chukchi, Evenki, who settled on these shores and settled in harsh places, were engaged in fishing, hunting, and later sled dog breeding.
The fortified Nizhnekolymsky winter hut became the starting point for subsequent expeditions and hikes in the difficult task of finding uncharted territories. From 1647-1648, land and water expeditions were undertaken to supplement the terrain with relevant descriptions.
The famous polar explorer Dmitry Laptev, who arrived as part of the Great Northern Expedition, in 1741 described the upper reaches of the river and erected at the mouth of the Kolyma River, or rather its right channel Kamennaya Kolyma, a special building - an identification lighthouse, which later became a support for many research projects. From here the famous campaigns of Wrangel, Billings and other, no less famous sailors set off. Such is the story of the discovery of these places, inhospitable, harsh, but attracting and conquering with unusual northern beauty. We will figure out where the Kolyma river is born, where it carries its waters, what path it makes and what it encounters on it.
origin of name
Scientists have not yet agreed on the origin of the name (Kolyma). Evens - the indigenous inhabitants of these places, called it Kulu, which in translation from Turkic means a river. Today, this name is preserved only at the right source of Kolyma. Mikhailo Stadukhin calls her Kovyma, and later familiar to modern man - Kolyma. Nobody was able to prove the etymological connections between Kulu and Kolyma, and the controversial hypotheses about the Yukagir origin of the name also have no evidence base.
Probably, an amazing name will remain a mystery - the Kolyma River. Where is its beginning, we learn further.
The origins
Kolyma is formed by two sources connecting on the Okhotsk-Kolyma Plateau: the Ayan-Yuryakh River, descending between the rocks of the Khalkan Range and the Kulu River, which appeared from the confluence of two rivers at the granite spurs of Suntar-Khayat. It is from here that the river begins moving north to the Arctic Ocean.
Where does the Kolyma river flow
The river basin with its numerous tributaries spread over the vast territory of the Magadan Region, Khabarovsk Territory, Yakutia, it affects some areas of Chukotka and Kamchatka. Paving its way to the ocean through permafrost, skirting the rocky mountains, the Kolyma River flows into the East Siberian Sea with 3 powerful estuaries:
• East - navigable Stone Kolyma, which has a solid 20-kilometer wide. The length of the mouth is 50 km and the depth is almost 9 m.
• Middle - Pokhodskaya Kolyma, a sleeve 25 km long, 0.5 to 2 km wide and 3.5-4.5 m deep.
• Western - Chukchi Kolyma, which is also very impressive in size: 60 km long, 3-4 km wide and 8-9 m deep.
The length of the delta at the base is about 110 km, and its area extends to almost 3 thousand square meters. km
Length and Features
What is the length of the river? Kolyma has a length of 2129 km, and if you count from the source of Kenelichi - the river, which is the right tributary of Kulu, then it increases to 2513 km. Almost 1400 km of Kolyma flows through the expanses of the Magadan region, the rest of its path lies in Yakutia, and its sources are in the Khabarovsk Territory.
The area of the river basin is very impressive - 643 thousand square meters. km On the left bank lies the Kolyma Valley, which naturally separates the Kolyma and Indigirka basins. The structural composition of the highlands includes multiple inclusions of crystallized igneous rocks belonging to the Mesozoic period, which ensures the presence of gold deposits in these areas. The turbulent nature of the mountainous upper reaches of the river with dangerous rapids is gradually replaced on the plain Kolyma lowland with a confidently calm course. The channel is extremely winding, forms a huge number of sleeves. Some places along the coasts are very interesting - water erodes lava cliffs, exposing the so-called “tal”, ancient loose deposits are fertile places for archaeological research, in which mammoth bones were found. In some places, the banks are swampy or covered with viscous silt that can destroy an animal and even a person.
After the Kolyma Upland, the path of the river was laid along the expanses of Yakutia - the main gold-bearing vein of the Russian republic. Here, the left-bank side of the Kolyma gradually passes from the lowland plain to the northern tundra.
Kolyma River: tributaries
On the right side of the river, in the direction to the northwest, granite-slate Kolyma mountains stretch, covered with wonderful coniferous vegetation. Here all the right tributaries of the Kolyma - Bakhapcha, Buyunda, Balygychan, Sugoi, Korkodon, Berezovka, Kamenka, Omolon, Small and Big Anyuy - begin. Left tributaries - Seymchan, Taskan, Yasachnaya, Popovka, Zyryanka, Ozhogin, Cededem and others. It is not for nothing that in ancient legends composed by the indigenous peoples of Eastern Siberia, the Kolyma River was compared with a mother with many children, who cherished, nurtured and raised 35 children. So many tributaries - more or less significant rivers - are at Kolyma.
According to legend, an aging mother river gave the children a command: to be generous, full-flowing, fishing, to take care of people living nearby. Only one tributary of Omolon was supposed to become a support to herself. And in fact, this inflow is freed from ice in the spring before everyone else, feeding Kolyma.
Winding path to the ocean
Curving in all directions, the Kolyma River holds a path from southwest to northwest, sometimes abruptly going sideways and making a huge knee. So, to the left tributary of Shumikhi, Kolyma keeps its way to the northeast, then goes to the southeast, gradually aligns the direction to the north to the place where the Zyryanka River flows into it. So, wriggling and turning around, Kolyma runs to the Vyatkina tract, from where it again turns to the southeast, and then changes direction north-west to the city of Srednekolymsk and again turns to the northeast.
This direction is preserved from the main tributary of the Omolon, but after the confluence of the Anyuya River, it turns to the north-west, preserving this direction right up to the bay in the Arctic Ocean.
This tortuous flow contributes to the formation of multiple ducts. For example, below the Verkhnekolymsk, the Shipanovskaya channel created a fairly large Shipanovsky island, and in the lower reaches of the mouth of the Konyaeva River, several small channels formed a whole scattering of islands, now called the Common Islands. Zakhrebetnaya, which departed from the main channel in the area of the Kresty tract, connects with Kolyma near Nizhnekolymsk, creating a huge elongated island 110 km long and with a width varying from 10 to 20 km.
Hydrological characteristics
Kolyma is a river of mixed nutrition, mainly snow and rain with a gradation of 47% and 42%. 11% falls on replenishment by underground waters. In summer, the water level drops markedly, rising only during prolonged rains. Short-term floods also occur. The water temperature in the river is stably low, usually not rising more than 10-15 ° C, and only in quiet, shallow areas pierced by the summer sun, by the end of July it can warm up to 20-22 ° C. Kolyma freezes in October, in the cold years - at the end of September. Ice freezing is preceded by ice drift, the formation of sludge and the occurrence of glitches, the duration of which is from 2 days to a month.
The Kolyma River is freed from ice by the beginning of the calendar summer. The ice drift can last from 2 to 18 days, it is often accompanied by impressive congestion.
Shipping
Starting from the mouth of the Bahapchi River, Kolyma becomes navigable. However, the regular movement of vessels is carried out from the port of Seymchan. The duration of the active navigation period is 4-5 months. The main ports of Kolyma are Seymchan, Zyryanka, Chersky.
