KUBAN, a river of southern Russia, rising in the western glaciers of Elburz. Kiukurtli glacier, lower termination 9,114 ft., and Ullukam glacier, 9,73o ft., are the sources of the western Kuban. Its important tributary, the Teberda flows from a glacier west of the Klukhor pass. Kuban is a Tatar name ; the river is called Kuman by the Nogai, Kubin by the Abkhasians and Psi shche (old water) by the Cherkess. It is the Hypanis of Herodo tus and Strabo, and the Vardanes of Ptolemy. Its length is about 50o m. and its drainage area 2 , 48o sq.m. Its left bank tributaries, the Teberda, Great and Little Zelenchuk, Urup, Great and Little Laba, Bielaya, Pshchekha, Aphins, Adagum, Pshishch and Pse kups rise as mountain torrents rushing through the narrow forested gorges of the Caucasus, and later water the wide, treeless plains, from i,000 to 2,000 ft. high, south of the main river. Its right hand tributaries are short and unimportant. Upon entering the
steppe region south of Stavropol the river turns north-west and then west and enters the Kyzyl-tash gulf of the Kerch district of the Black sea. In its lower course the Kuban forms a wide, low, rush-grown delta, a swampy malarial area, where the wild boar is found. Although the river lies farther south than the river Po in Italy, it is frozen from December to February. It is subject to floods three times in the year, in spring and midsummer from the melting of the mountain snows, and in autumn from the rains ; Krasnodar and the Taman region suffer severely at these times, when the river may increase to half a mile in width instead of the normal 700 ft. It is navigable for steamers from the delta to its confluence with the Laba, a distance of 73 m. There are naphtha beds south of the river near the delta.