Travel Guide Volga

The longest river in Europe (3 690 km) takes its source northwest of Moscow from the Valdaï plateau near Seliger Lake. A hyphen between the Baltic Sea, the sea of Azov, the White Sea, the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, it flows into a vast delta, after crossing the towns of Tver, Rybinsk, Yaroslavl, Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, Simbirsk, Samara, Saratov, Engels, Volgograd and Astrakhan.A centrepiece of the Russian fluvial System linking the five seas, the Volga is marked by numerous dams allowing active navigation, irrigation and electricity production. Half of all Russian river freight passes through its course, which is also used to irrigate the southern steppes. Normally, the river is navigable from March until mid-December. There may be floods in the early months of summer, while the low level of water at the end of summer may disrupt the movement of ships.The Greek philosopher Ptolemy mentions the Volga for the first time in the th century comparing his greatness to that of the Nile. Until the th century, Slavs used the river as a way of trade with the Middle East. In the th and th centuries, at the peak of the prosperity of the kingdom of Kiev, small merchant villages formed on the banks of the Volga River, and the surrounding lands were cultivated.When Ivan the Terrible conquered Kazan and Astrakhan in the sixteenth century, the river became entirely Russian. Since then, Russians have seen that as long as the Volga remains intact, the country is not conquered.The first steam vessels appear on the river at the beginning of the th century. The great upheavals occur in the th century with the socialist conquest of electricity, which requires the creation of dams, locks, hydroelectric power stations and artificial lakes.We will sail on a 400 km portion of the famous Volga whose majesty appears to be in the heart of every Russian.