In Europe, the Volga is the largest river, but in Russia it is largest is only in fifth place.In the Tver Region in the Valdai Hills there is a village Volgoverkhovye.Beside him is a chapel - this is the place from which originates the Volga River.
before our era lived while the Egyptians, the Greeks and the Slavs called it Ra, the embodiment of the sun-god, and the places where it occurs, - the sacred country Irij (Paradise).
In the Middle Ages it as the place where originates the Volga River, is in Russia, received the Russian name, which stands for "wetland" or "flowing stream".But living downstream of the Turks gave it the name "Itil" that is "infinite", the "river of rivers".
total it overcomes the way to 3530 km.And if the beginning of the Volga River - a tiny boggy stream, and the first bridge across its length of only 3 meters, then after 10 km it flows into Lake Sterzh, once the first of the Upper Volga lakes, which have now been converted into a single reservoir.After a chain of former lakes, the river is overflowing and flowing to Tver in its original channel.Just below the dam begins another, it is often referred to as the Moscow Sea.However, to Volgograd River is a few man-made lakes, and only on the Caspian lowlands Volga acquires its natural course 500 km long.But before falling into the Caspian Sea, it forms a plurality of arms constituting the vast delta (about 19,000 square km).
Today Volga different stately, measured current, in other places it is hard to notice.While earlier, when it had no dams and reservoirs, like her was steeper, with rifts.The memory of this was only in the names of coastal towns and villages but in the old tradition.But in the downstream reservoirs and places it can be dangerous, unlike places originates.
Volga River has more than two hundred tributaries, that are themselves full-flowing rivers and large.For example, the flow of the Kama - the largest, deepest, and it is even more than the length of her "mother."And all the Volga basin has more than 150 thousand a more or less large rivers (whose length is over 10 km)
According to the guides, the Volga is accessible to virtually every corner of the world.And being near the chapel, which dates back the Volga River, this does not say.
with absolute precision can only say that really take a cruise from Moscow to Nizhny Novgorod, St. Petersburg and Astrakhan.In the capital can be reached through the Moscow Canal.In the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea will take you via the Volga-Don canal.And the Volga-Baltic way will lead you to the Baltic Sea, while the White Sea-Baltic and North Dvina path will bring to the White Sea.
In addition to the river you can make cruises, Volga is the source of large fish stocks.It inhabits about 70 species, most of which are commercial.This herring and sturgeon, and roach and sturgeon sturgeon, pike and bream with.No wonder there tend fishermen from all places of our vast country, and abroad too.
And if you decide to travel, start with those places where the Volga River originates, where it is still only a small stream, which after a few hundred kilometers becomes the great Russian river, is striking in its beauty and majesty.