page_title: Volga
section_title: Human history
hierarchical_section_title: Volga / Description / Human history
context_page_description: The Volga is the longest river in Europe. Flowing through Central Russia and into the Caspian Sea, it has a length of 3,531 km and a catchment area of 1,360,000 km². It is also Europe's largest river in terms of discharge and drainage basin. It is widely regarded as the national river of Russia. Due to its geographical situation the Volga played an important role in the movement of people between east and west as well as south and north. The old Russian state, the Rus' Khaganate, arose around the Volga river. Historically, it was an important meeting place of Eurasian civilizations.
  The river flows in Russia through forests, forest-steppes and steppes. Eleven of the twenty largest cities of Russia, including the capital, Moscow, are located in the Volga's drainage basin.
  Some of the largest reservoirs in the world are located along the Volga. The river has a symbolic meaning in Russian culture and is often referred to as Волга-матушка Volga-Matushka in Russian literature and folklore.
context_section_description: The area downstream of the Volga is widely believed to have been a cradle of the Proto-Indo-European civilization. The river ranges from the Caspian Sea, where especially Asian-Oriental cultures (Turkic, Caucasian and Persian) at that time were already widespread in steppe regions, to the northern lands in western Russia where in the East European Plain Slavic culture existed with Germanic and Finno-Ugric tribes. More precisely, the area around the Volga was inhabited by the Slavic tribes of Vyatichs and Buzhans, by Finno-Ugrics, Scandinavians and Balts, by Huns and Turkic peoples (Tatars, Kipchaks) in the first millennium AD, replacing the Scythians. Furthermore, the river played a vital role in the commerce of the Byzantine people. The ancient scholar Ptolemy of Alexandria mentions the lower Volga in his Geography (Book 5, Chapter 8, 2nd Map of Asia). He calls it the Rha, which was the Scythian name for the river. Ptolemy believed the Don and the Volga shared the same upper branch, which flowed from the Hyperborean Mountains. Between 2nd and 5th centuries Baltic people were very widespread in today's European Russia. Baltic people were widespread from Sozh River till today's Moscow and covered much of today's Central Russia and intermingled with the East Slavs. The Russian ethnicity in Western Russia and around the Volga river evolved to a very large extent, next to other tribes, out of the East Slavic tribe of the Buzhans and Vyatichis.  The Vyatichis were originally concentrated on the Oka river. Furthermore, several localities in Russia are connected to the Slavic Buzhan tribe, like for example Sredniy Buzhan in  the Orenburg Oblast, Buzan and the Buzan river in the Astrakhan Oblast. Buzhan (Persian: بوژان‎, also Romanized as Būzhān; also known as Būzān) is also a village in Nishapur, Iran. In late 8th century the Russian state Russkiy Kaganate is recorded in different Northern and Oriental sources. The Volga was one of the main rivers of the Rus' Khaganates culture.
  Subsequently, the river basin played an important role in the movements of peoples from Asia to Europe. A powerful polity of Volga Bulgaria once flourished where the Kama joins the Volga, while Khazaria controlled the lower stretches of the river. Such Volga cities as Atil, Saqsin, or Sarai were among the largest in the medieval world. The river served as an important trade route connecting Scandinavia, Finno-Ugric areas with the various Slavic tribes and Turkic, Germanic, Finnic and other people in Old Rus', and Volga Bulgaria with Khazaria, Persia and the Arab world.
  From 6th till 8th century the Alans settled in the Middle Volga region and in the steppes of Russias southern region in the Pontic–Caspian steppe.
  Khazars were replaced by Kipchaks, Kimeks and Mongols, who founded the Golden Horde in the lower reaches of the Volga. Later their empire divided into the Khanate of Kazan and Khanate of Astrakhan, both of which were conquered by the Russians in the course of the 16th century Russo-Kazan Wars. The Russian people's deep feeling for the Volga echoes in national culture and literature, starting from the 12th-century Lay of Igor's Campaign. The Volga Boatman's Song is one of many songs devoted to the national river of Russia.
  Construction of Soviet Union-era dams often involved enforced resettlement of huge numbers of people, as well as destruction of their historical heritage. For instance, the town of Mologa was flooded for the purpose of constructing the Rybinsk Reservoir (then the largest artificial lake in the world). The construction of the Uglich Reservoir caused the flooding of several monasteries with buildings dating from the 15th and 16th centuries. In such cases the ecological and cultural damage often outbalanced any economic advantage.
caption: Many Orthodox shrines and monasteries are located along the banks of the Volga
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