"Nurse"! The Volga is a "rich expanse"! Volga - “the great river of the Russian land”! With whatever epithets the Russian man bestowed upon his mighty rukka, which from time immemorial had served his interests over a vast extent, more than 3,000 years ago, capturing the that with an extensive network of its tributaries is an immense region of one third of the entire European Russia. Next to this, the idle, purely platonic question, which has arisen more than once in the minds of writers, seems insignificant next to this, regarding whether the Volga or Oka flows below Nizhny Novgorod, in other words: Does the Oka flow into the Volga, or the Volga into the Oka. It is true that the Oka, at a distance from its source to Nizhny Novgorod, flows about 1,400 versts, and the Volga from its source at the village of Volgoverkhovye is only 1,188 versts; It is also true that up to 50 rivers flow into the Oka, making up a total water line of more than 7000 versts in length, while the Volga, before connecting with the Oka, receives 387 tributaries, the total length of which is 6000 versts; It is also true that the Oka basin covers more than 4 and a half thousand square meters. miles, the Volga basin to Nizhny is only 4200 sq. miles; The mountain heights of the right bank of the Oka, starting from Kolomna and Ryazan, do not end at Nizhny Novgorod, but form the far right bank of the Volga, accompanying it for almost 2000 miles, and to the Nizhny Volga from the very source there are no such hilly banks.
It would seem that all these arguments involuntarily incline the question - “Oka or Volga” - the answer in favor of the first river; but beyond the Volga, along its 1200-meter length to Nizhny, carries a much larger mass of water than the Oka on its 1400-verst length with the mass of its tributaries. You don't have to look far for proof; one only has to compare the constantly appearing shallows of the Oka with the comparatively wide and deep bed of the Volga, at least from Rybinsk to Nizhny; It is worth comparing any of the Oka steamships with passenger steamships going up the Volga.
The reasons for the phenomenon are clear. The Volga flows through snowy and cool winds, it spends relatively little water on evaporation and is heavily nourished; exactly the opposite phenomenon is represented by the Eye. In addition, as V. A. Ragozin rightly notes, people collect a huge amount of reserve spring water for the Volga (up to 100 cubic fathoms) to maintain a navigable horizon in it; for the Oka, such rich food is not required.
The Volga began to take its beginning in the Ostashkovsky Uufzd of the Tver province, verets
4 meters from the border of Novgorod province, near the village of Volgoverkhovye. Lakes, swamps and the swamps spread there over an immense space. Sometimes they pre-detail
Chapel.
shifting bogs, under the enticing green carpet of which lie the deepest lakes; In some places these swamps are covered to this day with the remains of the famous “Volkonsky Bor” in the old days; The swamps stretch there sometimes for 80, sometimes for 40 versts. Among these swamps there is one, which differs from its brothers only in that on its surface there is a small wooden chapel, in which a prayer service is held annually on August 6th. This chapel is the beginning of the greatest river in Europe, the mighty beauty of the Volga. At first a stream, then a small river, interspersed with swamps, then a medium-sized river, and finally—
[fragment illegible in the scan of the first edition]
*) “Volga”, op. V. Ragozina etc.
Eight versts below the source of the Volga there flows a small lake called Bolshoy Verkhid; further along its path there are a number of quite significant lakes: Sterzh, Ovseluk, Peno and Volgo; The first tributaries - streams - flow into it there, the largest of which is called Runa. 4 versts below Lake Volgo there is a rather remarkable hydraulic structure—a lock of a very complex system, called the Upper Volga Beishlot. With the help of beishlot shields that retain water, all four lakes (Sterzh, Ovseluk, Peno and Volgo) in the spring are united into one and throughout the entire 80-verst length of the Volga, from its source to