Bureya is a river in the Far East of Russia. It is quite long - it stretches for more than 500 kilometers. This river is interesting both geographically and historically. The site of ancient people was found here, gold was mined. In the upper reaches, rafting is carried out along it, there is also a hydroelectric power station and a reservoir.
General information
Where is the Bureya River? The riverbed passes through the lands of two subjects of the Russian Federation - the Khabarovsk Territory and the Amur Region. The mouth of the Bureya River is located on the Amur River (its left tributary). The Amur River, flowing along the border between Russia and China, in turn flows into the Pacific Ocean. Thus, one can easily answer the question of which ocean basin the Bureya River belongs to.
And its source is the confluence of two rivers of the same name - the Left and Right Bureya. The sources of the rivers, the confluence of which forms the beginning of the Bureya, are located, respectively, in the Aesop and Dusse-Alin mountain ranges.
The total length of the river is approximately 0.623 thousand kilometers, and ifcount together with the length of the Right Bureya (from its source), then 0.739 thousand kilometers. The area of the Bureya basin is 70.7 thousand square kilometers.
Hydrological feature
The main left tributaries are such rivers as the river. Tyrma and r. Urgal, and the main right tributaries - such as the river. Tuyun and r. Nieman.
Water consumption (measured near the village of Kamenka) is 0.89 thousand cubic meters per second, and during flood times this figure can increase to 18 thousand cubic meters per second.
The greatest contribution to the river's nutrition is made by rainwater, due to which, in three summer months, there are several floods (up to seven). During these periods, the river water level can rise by ten meters. Amur, Bureya and Zeya are rivers with summer floods.
River name
The most common assumption is that the river got its name from the Evenk word berya, which means big, huge.
The Bureya River in history is also known as the Fast (Amur Cossack campaigns of the seventeenth century).
Interesting Features
- The Bureya river basin is extremely rich in lakes. Hydrologists count about one and a half thousand lakes within this territory, the total area of which is more than fifty square kilometers. A significant part of the lakes are glacial. The most famous lakes Karbokhon, oz. Medvezhye, oz. Mining.
- The area where the river flows is rich in deposits of both iron ore and coal.
- In the upper reaches of the river. Bureya shows the character of a mountain river, and in the lower and middleparts are flat. In the upper reaches, the current is very fast, averaging three and a half meters per second.
- A lesser known name for the river is Burkhanovka. It is associated with the less widespread religion of Burkhanism.
- Gold was mined at the head of the river. The first batches of gold were mined in the seventies of the nineteenth century.
- An ancient people's site was found on the banks of the Bureya River, dating back to the early Neolithic period. The objects found by archaeologists are attributed to the Gromatukha culture, which became widespread in the 11th-14th millennia BC.
In the river basin there is a sanatorium bearing the romantic name "White Mountains". Extreme tourists in the river basin will find both routes for light rafting (in the area of the Bureya itself) and rafting routes of increased complexity (in the area of its tributaries).
Hydropower plants
A hydroelectric power station of the same name (Bureya hydroelectric power station) has been built on the Bureya River, and a second one is already under construction, which is called the Nizhnebureyskaya hydroelectric power station by its location.
The dam of the Bureya hydroelectric power station, which blocked the flow of the Bureya near the village of Talakan, formed a significant Bureya reservoir. Its width is five kilometers, with a length of 254 kilometers. Its area is 750 square kilometers, and its volume reaches 21 cubic kilometers. During the construction of the Nizhnebureiskaya hydroelectric power plant, the Nizhnebureiskoyereservoir, which will be located near the village of Novobureisky.
Reserve and reserve
The reserve of the same name is located in the Bureya basin. It occupies 358 thousand hectares in the upper reaches of the river. The Dublikansky reserve is also located nearby.
Animals and flora
The flora is represented mainly by conifers. There are several species of fir, spruce, cedar (including elfin cedar), and many other plants. There is also such a rare plant as the Dahurian rhododendron, a shrub with beautiful pink flowers (in Russia it was called wild rosemary).
Among animals, such species as elk, musk deer, roe deer, capercaillie, wild grouse, hazel grouse and many others are most widespread. Among predatory and omnivorous species, bear, wolf, lynx, sable and so on can be noted.
The ichthyofauna of the river is quite poor. Among the available fish, first of all, grayling can be noted, which makes it possible to live and breed unhindered by the purity of the waters of Bureya.
