VOLGA, vOrga, a river in Russia, the long est in Europe. It rises among marshes and small lakes beside the Valdai Hills, in the gov ernment of Tver, at an elevation of about 550 feet above sea-level, and falls into the Caspian Sea by many months, at Astrakhan. Its basin has an area of about 563,300 square miles, and its entire course, including windings, is about 2,400 miles in length, while its fall from source to embouchure is only 630 feet. It flows at first southeast about 90 miles to Zubtzof, thence generally northeast past Tver to Mologa, thence east by south past Yaroslaf, Kostroma and Nijni-Novgorod, to the vicinity of Kasan. Here it turns south, flows circuitously south-south west, past Simbirsk and Saratof to Tsaritsyn and Sarepta, maldng a marked eastward bend at Samara, and thence southeast to the Caspian. At Tsaritsyn it sends off a branch, the Akhtuba, which flows parallel to the main part of the river, and is connected with it by many cross branches. Its principal affluents are the Oka and Kama, the one joining it from the south west, the other from the northeast. Some geographers have held that the Oka is really the main strcarn, being larger and having a greater drainage area than the Volga above the junction. The Volga is navigable almost from
its source, and below Nijni-Novgorod it floats quite large vessels; but its navigation is im peded by shallows and sand-banks, and in winter by ice. Passenger steamers similar to those of American rivers ply upon it. The most important river ports, in the order of traffic, are Novgorod, Tsaritsyn, Rybinsk and Astralchan. Before the war about 10,000 ves sels annually passed into the river mouth. By a judicious system of canals it communicates with the Caspian, Baltic, Black and White seas. It has a large delta of eight large and 190 smaller streams, spreading to an extreme width of 75 miles. The principal channel is on the southwest side of the delta, and is normally about four miles wide at the mouth. Several of the delta streams flow approximately paral lel to the main channel for 150 miles. from the discharge in the Caspian. The short railway from Tsaritsyn to the river Don has diverted much of the traffic from the lower Volg.a and the Caspian to the lower Don and the Sea of Azov. The banks of the Volga are fertile, and often well-timbered. The river abounds in fish, particularly sturgeon, carp and pike of extraor dinary size.