The rivers and lakes of Russia have long been the object of close attention on the part of both residents of the state and guests of near and far abroad. And the matter is not only in the exceptional beauty and riot of the colors of nature. Many come for purely educational or even scientific purposes. For example, the leading specialists of the planet in our country study the local flora and fauna, as well as the geological features of the planet.
Today, with certainty and a certain pride, we can say that the protection of rivers and lakes in Russia is under the control of the state, including local administrations.
This article is intended to answer many questions that, as a rule, sooner or later arise in all people who are interested in our country. The rivers and lakes of Russia will be considered in sufficient detail.
What is inland water?
It is impossible to talk about the rivers and lakes of Russia without considering and substantiating purely theoretical concepts. So, inland waters primarily understand rivers, swamps, lakes, glaciers and artificial reservoirs. They also include underground water. It is unlikely that anyone will deny the fact that for a person’s life their value is invaluable, without them we simply could not exist. In Russia, rivers flow that belong to the basins of the Pacific, Atlantic and Arctic oceans.
By the way, the concept of a basin should be understood as a water territory, through which both the rivers themselves and their tributaries are saturated.
The seas, rivers and lakes of Russia, or rather, their characteristic features and types of food, are directly related to the climate.
Rivers. general description
Today in Russia there are about two and a half million rivers. The volume of river runoff is 4043 km 3 / year, i.e. 237 m 3 / year per one km 2.
It should be noted that the main part of our large rivers belongs to the Arctic Ocean. For example, the largest, deepest and longest flows into it - the Ob, Lena and the Yenisei.
But if we take it in numerical terms, it turns out that about 80% of the rivers of the above amount are still related to the waters of the Pacific Ocean. Such rivers are fleeting, but are considered not very long. The largest representatives are, of course, Anadyr and Amur.
Only 5% of Russia's rivers belong to the Atlantic Ocean. They differ in the flat character of the current. The largest of them is Don.
It should be noted that the greatest river density in Russia falls on the taiga, and the smallest number of rivers is characteristic of the Caspian lowland.
Direct power supplies
As a rule, the rivers and lakes of Russia, photos of which can be seen in almost every encyclopedia of the planet, feed on three types of sources: melt snow waters, rainwater and groundwater.
This issue should be addressed in more detail. So, due to the fact that the territory of the country is located in high and temperate latitudes with a continental climate, snow cover has become the main source of food for rivers practically throughout the Russian Federation.
At the same time, it should be noted that in some areas, for example, in the Amur region, Transbaikalia, the Kaliningrad region, where there is little snow and rains, rivers with a rain type of food flow.
In mountainous areas, as a rule, in Altai and the Caucasus, glacial nutrition has become the main. As rivers approach the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, the role of rain nutrition increases.
But there are practically no rivers for which ground nutrition predominates. They are found only in Kamchatka.
By the way, the main river flow in the Russian Federation falls in the warm seasons.
Lena - the largest waterway
If we consider the rivers and lakes of Russia, then it is simply impossible not to mention Lena. It is deservedly considered one of the largest rivers in the world. Its length is 4400 km, it flows in Eastern Siberia, the Republic of Yakutia and the Irkutsk region. It is estimated that the basin area of this river is 490 thousand km 2.
By the way, it begins with a lake, which has no name, at an altitude of 1000 m above sea level, located in the west of the Baikal Range. Lena falls into the Laptev Sea.
Talking about the characteristic features, it should be noted that at the source in winter the river freezes almost to the bottom, but in summer it almost completely dries up. Surprisingly, there are even places here where its depth is not more than half a meter.
And only after saturation with the first tributaries does it become deeper and deeper. It is known that such large tributaries as Kirenga, Vitim, Aldan, Olekma, Vilyui fill the river. Behind the Yakutsk Lena becomes more than 10 km wide.
The Lena River Delta begins at a distance of 150 km from the sea. The main food is rain and snow. In the spring it is full of water, in the summer floods occur.
Depending on the territory, the river can be very heterogeneous: fast, winding and rapids, but at the same time in places even and quite calm.
Some sections of the banks of the Lena constitute strong crystalline rocks, and there are also those that are planted with birch and coniferous forests.
Ob is an amazing and unique river of Siberia
The Ob is also a very strong water stream, the largest river in the world, the longest in Russia and the second in Asia. Its length is 3650 km. It flows through Western Siberia and flows into the Caspian Sea, where an eight-hundred-kilometer bay - the Gulf of Ob - has now formed.
A river forms in Altai at the confluence of Biya and Katun. The area of its basin is 2990 thousand km 2.
The width of the Ob after the confluence of the Irtysh reaches 7 km, and the depth in this area is up to 20 m. It is worth driving to the village of Pogrebnoye to personally verify that it is in this place that the river is divided into Malaya Ob and Bolshaya.
The Ob Delta occupies an area of about 4 thousand km 2. Among the main tributaries, Tom and Irtysh should be distinguished. The river feeds mainly on meltwater; in spring, floods are typical for it.
The largest lakes in Russia
Note that throughout our country there is a huge number of large water bodies. The largest lakes are Baikal, Onega, Ladoga, Chukchi, Ilmen, Khantai, Segozero, Kuluda, Teletsk and Pskov-Chukchi.
Surely, everyone reading this article will agree that the name of the rivers and lakes in Russia is distinguished by a special melody. Well, in what other language of the world do such words occur, after the utterance of which one already wants to write poetry and make amazing stories?
By the way, it is not without pride that we note that Lake Onega, Lake Ladoga and Ilmen are one of the most famous lakes in Europe.
Baikal is a mighty giant
There are corners on the planet that can be talked about endlessly. Many seas, rivers and lakes in Russia can be attributed precisely to such places.
Take, for example, Baikal, which is considered not only the deepest lake in the world and the largest repository of world fresh water reserves, but also just a territory that is distinguished by its unique nature.
Its depth is 1640 m, and age really inspires awe - 25 million years.
Not everyone knows that this lake contains 90% of the fresh water of the Russian Federation and 20% of the total world fund of this natural resource. At first glance, it’s even hard to imagine that 336 rivers carry water in our Baikal and only one Angara flows from it.
