What cities are located on the Ural River. The Ural River on the map of Russia. Where it flows, where it is, source, characteristics. The main cities on the Ural River

River Ural is one of the longest rivers in Eastern Europe. By its length Ural second only to such large rivers as Volga and Danube. River Ural has many tributaries, so it is difficult to determine the exact location of the source, but the northernmost source of the river is at the foot (in 3.5 km southwest of the summit) mountains Round Hill. She is part of a mountain range Uraltau (Alabia) Republic of Bashkortostan. The nearest settlement is a village Voznesenka(population 400 people), located in the southeast in 12 kilometers. Answering the question " Where does the Ural river begin?"You can specify exactly this location.

On site the source of the Ural river beats with the keys of several springs. Territory of access to the surface of groundwater, which give rise to the river Ural, fenced with a gate. At the entrance there is a commemorative plaque with a schematic image of the river applied to it. Ural in the form of a line, and the largest settlements through which it flows, in the form of points. A commemorative plaque at the site of the source of the Urals was installed by members of an expedition that visited here in 1973. In the fenced area where it originates Ural, at first 21st century a small wrought iron bridge was erected across a small stream. On one side of the bridge there is an inscription - " Asia", and on the other - " Europe".

How to get there

You can get to the source of the Urals only in summer, in dry weather. The road to this revenge is forest, unpaved. It is heavily washed out during the rains. The source of the Ural River is one of the attractions visited annually by several hundred tourists and travelers.

Ural is a river in the Caspian Sea basin. It flows through the lands: the Republic of Bashkortostan, the Chelyabinsk and Orenburg regions, as well as the Republic of Kazakhstan. Find out where the river flows here.

The length of the river reaches 2.42 km (in terms of length, this is the third indicator in Europe after the Volga and Danube). First, the Ural flows from the Bashkir territories to the south. Here the river can be called a mountain one - the streams in the upper reaches are so strong. Then the waters flow into the Yaik swamp, from where the Urals come out wide. In some places, the width of the river reaches 5 km.

Crossing Verkhneuralsk, the Ural turns into a typical flat river, giving way to relief in the Guberlinskie mountains. Near the city of Uralsk, where the river enters into full ownership of the Kazakh steppes, its valley exceeds tens of kilometers. At the mouth, the river is divided into two branches - Yaitsky and Zolotoy, on which navigation is organized. Visit attractions.

Excursion into the history of the Urals

The old name of the hydrogeological object is Yaik. The origin of the hydronym goes back to the ancient Iranian language. Under the name Daiks, the river was designated by Ptolemaic geographers in the 2nd century AD. The mighty Ural river received its modern name thanks to the decision of Catherine the Great. Pushkin in his history of Pugachev said that Yaik, according to the decree of Empress Catherine II, was renamed the Urals, as it comes out of the mountains with the corresponding name. An outstanding Russian poet and writer also mentioned that the Ural is the third longest river in the Old World, second only to the Danube and the Volga.

In ancient European maps, the ancient hydronym Rhymnusfluvius is found. In the annals of the Russian principalities, the river was first mentioned in the middle of the 12th century. Then Prince Mstislav managed to drive the Polovtsy beyond the Volga, Don and Yaik.

Empress Catherine the Great ordered to change the name to Ural. In 1775, the tsarina suppressed a large-scale peasant unrest led by Pugachev. What prompted this decision remains a mystery. However, historians are sure that Catherine II decided to eradicate the story of Pugachev, the Bashkirs and the Yaik Cossacks, who were directly involved in the uprising. In the Kazakh and Bashkir languages, the name of the river did not change, but this in no way could affect the popularization of the new hydronym.

Ural separating two continents

Contrary to popular belief, the Ural River in its upper reaches is a natural water boundary between the Asian and European continents. The symbolic border passes in the cities: Magnitogorsk and Verkhneuralsk in the Chelyabinsk region.

In the Republic of Kazakhstan, from a geographical point of view, the border between the continents runs from the city of Orsk to the south to the Mugodzhary mountain range. Thus, it is safe to say that the Ural is a European river, and only the upper reaches of the eastern ridges of the Ural Mountains in Russia can be classified as Asia.

In early 2010, experts from the Russian Geographical Society conducted a large-scale scientific study of the river in Kazakhstan. It demonstrated that the symbolic drawing of a border line between the two continents along the channel of the Ural River, as well as along the Emba, is by no means considered the right decision. The thing is that the Ural Range south of the city of Zlatoust loses its axis and breaks up into a number of insignificant parts. Further, the mountain range generally disappears, as a result of which the main landmark disappears, along which the notorious border between Asia and Europe is determined. The conclusion of scientists is that the Ural and Emba rivers cannot symbolically divide anything, since the area through which they flow is identical.

Monuments of nature on the banks of the Urals

Nature on the banks of the Urals is as diverse as the river itself. On the left bank, near the village of Yangelsky in Bashkortostan, you can enjoy amazingly beautiful landscapes. The best place for picnics, fishing and camping in these places is hard to find. On the steep slopes, the rocky cliffs of White Stone are exposed, which stretch for 200 meters.

Curious tourists can discover ancient remains of fossil organisms in the limestone rock outcrops. Fans of rare plants will also have something to do. Rare species of lichens and plants included in the Red Book grow in this part of the Urals. This applies equally to the rich animal world.

3 km away on the right bank of the Ural River there is a mountain with an interesting name Izvoz. The picturesque area with numerous paths for tourists is included in the state nature protection program. The botanical monument contains: relic plantings, pine forests, rock outcrops to the top.

Not far from the village of Chesnokovka lies a unique natural site - Kyzlar-Tau (from the Tatars. Maiden Mountain). The peculiarity of this area is the layers of red sandstones eroded by water. Hundreds of tourists come to see them. It is believed that girls ran here to round dances, who were spied on by daredevil horsemen.

Entertainment on the Ural River

Travelers actively use the mountainous sections of the Ural River for rafting. Along the channel there are tourist sports bases, from which exciting water excursions along the indomitable streams of the Urals start. In some places you can find severe rocks cut thousands of years ago. The Ural below Orsk is considered to be the most beautiful part of the journey. Flowing into the gorge through the Guberlinsky mountains, the river looks fabulous. The surrealism of the picture is reinforced by the absence of tourists.

Worthy of attention: Orsk gates, Nikolsky section, Iriklinskoe gorge, Mayachnaya and Transverse mountains.

The obstinate river in the upper reaches often changed its course, which is why in Bashkortostan and the Chelyabinsk region you can find the ancient remains of abandoned fishing settlements at a comparative distance from the river.

It is the third longest river in Europe, inferior in this indicator only to the Volga and Danube.

It flows through the territory of Russia (Bashkortostan, Chelyabinsk and Orenburg regions) and Kazakhstan (West Kazakhstan and Atyrau regions).

It originates in the mountains of the Southern Urals on the slopes of the Kruglyaya Sopka peak (Uraltau ridge) in the Uchalinsky district of Bashkortostan. The length is 2428 km, most of the way the river flows through the territory of the Orenburg region (1164 km), in Kazakhstan 1082 km. The water horizon is at an absolute height of 635 m.

The old name (until 1775) was Yaik. The hydronym goes back to the ancient Iranian name; under the name *Daiks the river is shown on the map of Ptolemy of the 2nd century AD. e. At present, the ancient name of the river, having undergone transcription, is official in Kazakhstan and in the Bashkir language.

A. S. Pushkin wrote in the “History of Pugachev”: Yaik, renamed the Urals by decree of Catherine II, comes out of the mountains that gave it its current name.

On old European maps, the Urals is called Rhymnus fluvius.

The first mention in Russian chronicles in 1140: Mstislav driven Polovits across the Don across the Volga beyond the Yaik.

In Russian, the name Yaik was changed to Ural in 1775 by decree of Catherine II, after the suppression of the Peasants' War led by Pugachev, in which the Bashkirs and Yaik Cossacks actively participated.

In the upper reaches to the city of Verkhne-Uralsk, it looks like a mountain river; from Verkhne-Uralsk to Magnitogorsk it has the character of a flat river. From Magnitogorsk to Orsk, it flows in rocky shores, replete with rifts. Below the confluence on the right of the river. Sakmary becomes a typical flat river with a wide winding channel, calm flow and rare rifts. After the city of Uralsk, the valley expands, and the river forms many channels and oxbows.

In the upper reaches of the Urals is shallow, the depth rarely exceeds 1-1.5 m; in the middle and especially the lower reaches - more deep-water.

In the upper reaches, aquatic vegetation is poorly developed, in the lower reaches it is well developed. The soils in the upper reaches are pebbly-sandy, in some places stony and silty, in the lower reaches they are silty-sandy, less often clayey.

The Urals freezes in the upper reaches at the beginning of November, in the middle and lower reaches at the end of November, it opens from the end of March to mid-April.

The tributaries are small, the largest are Sakmara and Ilek.

The Urals are rich in food resources, especially in the lower reaches.

The basin area is 237,000 km² and is the sixth largest among the rivers of Russia.

Several reservoirs have been built on the Ural River. The largest and most beautiful among them is Iriklinskoe.

The mouth of the Urals is divided into several branches and gradually becomes shallower.

In 1769, Pallas counted nineteen branches, some of which were distinguished by the Urals 660 meters above its confluence with the sea; in 1821 there were only nine, in 1846 there were only three: Yaitskoye, Zolotinskoye and Peretaknoye. By the end of the 50s and the beginning of the 60s of the 19th century, almost no branches with a constant flow separated from the Urals until the city of Guryev itself.

The first branch, separated from the main channel on the left, was Peretask, which was divided into channels Peretasknaya and Aleksashkin. Even lower, the channel of the Urals was divided into 2 branches - Zolotinsky and Yaitsky, and both the first and second were divided into two mouths: Big and Small Yaitsky, Big and Old Zolotinsky. From the Zolotinsky branch to the east, another branch departed, Bukharka, which flows into the sea between Peretask and Zolotoy.

The fall of the waters of the Urals is not particularly great; from the upper reaches of Orsk, it has about 0.9 meters per 1 kilometer, from Orsk to Uralsk no more than 30 centimeters per 1 kilometer, and even less below. The width of the channel is generally insignificant, but varied. The bottom of the Urals, in the upper reaches is rocky, in most of its course it is clay and sandy, and within the Ural region there are stone ridges. Under the Urals, the bottom of the river is lined with small pebbles, which are found in somewhat large sizes near the White Hills; special pebbles made of dense clay, in addition, come across in some places in the lower reaches of the Urals (in the “Burned Onion”).

The course of the Urals is quite tortuous and forms a large number of loops. The Urals, with a small fall in water, very often changes the main channel throughout, breaks new passages for itself, leaving deep reservoirs, or "oxbow lakes" in all directions.

Thanks to the changeable course of the Urals, many Cossack villages that used to be near the river later turned out to be on oxbow lakes, residents of other villages were forced to move to new places only because their old dwellings were gradually undermined and demolished by the river.

In general, the Ural valley is cut on both sides by oxbow lakes, narrow channels, widened channels, lakes, small lakes; during the spring flood, which occurs from the melting of snow in the Ural mountains, all of them are filled with water, which is kept in other next year. In spring, rivers and rivers carry a lot of melt water to the Urals, the river overflows, overflows its banks, in the same places where the banks are sloping, the river overflows by 3-7 meters. Also from the river is a water supply to the oil fields.

The largest left-bank tributaries of the Urals from the city of Orsk to the mouth of the Ilek - Kiyalyburtya, Urtaburtya, Burtya, Berdyanka, Donguz, Chernaya - are typical steppe rivers with short but violent spring floods. The last two of them - Donguz and Chernaya - practically dry up in the middle of summer due to the construction of large reservoirs on them.

The Ilek River is the largest left-bank tributary of the Urals. Below the Ilek, the Ural receives three more significant tributaries on the right: the Kindel, the Irtek, and the Chagan. The last of them flows into the Urals already outside the Orenburg region. Near the city of Orsk, the Or river flows into the Urals.

In the "Gorge" the river almost straight cuts through the Ural Range, even lower begins a 40-kilometer section of the Khabarninsky Gorge. On this segment, the Ural receives the waters of the mountain rivers Guberli with Chebakla and Kinderli on the right, and on the left - Ebita, Aituarka and Alimbet.

Source of the Ural River

Most of the tributaries flow into it from the right side, facing the Common Syrt; of them are known: Artazym, Tanalyk, Guberlya, Sakmara, Zazhivnaya, lost in the floodplain, not reaching the Urals, in the meadows between the villages of Studenovsky and Kindelinsky, Kindel and Irtek within the Orenburg region; in the West Kazakhstan region below the Irtek, several shallow rivers flow, including the Rubezhka, at the mouth of which there were the first villages of the Yaik Cossacks, the most water tributary on the right is the river. Chagan, flowing from the General Syrt.

From the left, the Or, Ilek, Utva, Barbasheva (Barbastau) and Solyanka rivers flow, which is noticeable only in spring and dries up in summer. Contrary to popular belief, the Ural River is a natural water border between Asia and Europe only in its upper reaches in Russia.

The border passes in Verkhneuralsk and Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk region. In Kazakhstan, the geographical border between Europe and Asia runs south from Orsk along the Mugodzhary ridge.

Thus, the Ural River is an internal European river, only the Russian upper reaches of the river east of the Ural Range belong to Asia.

Preliminary results of the expedition of the Russian Geographical Society conducted in April - May 2010 in Kazakhstan showed that drawing the border between Europe and Asia along the Ural River, as well as along the Emba, does not have sufficient scientific grounds.

The fact is that south of Zlatoust, the Ural Range, having lost its axis, breaks up into several parts, then the mountains gradually disappear altogether, that is, the main landmark disappears when drawing the border. The Ural and Emba rivers do not share anything, since the terrain they cross is identical. And the West Kazakhstan and Atyrau regions of Kazakhstan as a whole and half of the Aktobe region are included in Europe.

This factor became decisive when the Football Federation of Kazakhstan was admitted to UEFA in 2002.

Monuments of nature

The most beautiful geological and landscape natural monuments on the Ural River:

1. Iriklinskoe gorge.

The target of the dam in the Iriklinsky gorge, which is a narrowing of the Ural valley about 250 meters wide, composed of volcanic rocks - tuffs and lavas of Devonian age, was chosen back in 1932 by Leningrad hydraulic engineers. Topographically, this is the most successful place for the construction of dams, and volcanic rocks have low permeability, which played a decisive role in the construction of the hydroelectric complex. As a result of filling the bed to the level of 245 meters, a narrow reservoir 73 kilometers long was formed with three large bays in the southern part. The longest of them is Suduk Bay - 43 kilometers.

2. Orsk Gate.

To the west of Orsk, having taken Or and Kumak on the left, the Urals, contrary to all laws, rushes into the mountains. The further way to the west is blocked by the stone wall of the Guberlinsky mountains. But the Ural turns sharply to the southeast, bypassing the mountain range. Rounding the first ridge of the Guberlinsky mountains, the river passes about 6 kilometers. To the right above it is a hundred-meter cliff, to the left is a low bank overgrown with floodplain forest. The Ural here is wide and deep, the current is calm, almost imperceptible, it looks like a narrow and long mountain lake.

But here comes the deep end. The sound of falling water is heard. Wick-Say roll ahead. Here the river bed is a heap of huge boulders and rock fragments. To the right are cliffs that break right into the water. The majestic bastion rock approaches from the left; it is composed of very strong rocks - amphibolites and gabbro. The valley here turns into a relatively narrow gorge, and the river flows quickly between two stone walls. Soon the gorge is replaced by gently sloping hills, but it is still far from reaching the plain. In search of a breakthrough to the west, the Urals again changes its direction and flows to the north. But the high mountain Ak-Bik again blocks his direct path.

At a height of about 120 meters, the mountain has a horizontal ledge-terrace 100-120 meters wide. This ledge is the ancient channel of the Urals. About a million years ago, the destroyed Ural mountains began to gradually rise, and the river was forced to deepen its course, crashing into the rising Guberlinsky mountains. This is how the Orsk Gate was formed - the exit of the Urals to the west. Near the mouth of the Guberli, the landscape becomes especially picturesque. Peaked hills and jagged rocks, dissected by deep shady gorges, run down to the river. Between the ridges and rocks, streams of scree, composed of fragments of rocks and boulders, slide down. This mountainous country is sawn through by deep canyons of the rivers Guberlya, Tonatar, Ebita and their tributaries. The bottoms of the canyons are densely overgrown with black alder, aspen, birch, viburnum. Sometimes the dark green beards of the Cossack juniper creep down from the slopes. But it is enough to go upstairs, and the boundless feather grass expanse of the ancient plateau will appear before your eyes. Such is the natural phenomenon of the Guberlinsky region of the Ural basin: rocky mountains - below, flat steppe - above. It is not difficult to find this unique landscape of the Southern Urals on the map. It is located in the north of the Aktobe region, where a small section of the Ural River serves as the border between Kazakhstan and the Russian Federation.

3. Mount Transverse.

Below the village of Khabarnogo, a narrow section of the Ural River valley begins, which is called the Khabarninsky Gorge. The narrowing begins from the mouth of the Plakunka stream, where the Utyos Rest House is located. From here begins one of the most remarkable stretches in the Urals. To the right, a black-green ridge of a transverse mountain hangs over it, the ridge stretches along the coast for 4 km. The Ural here is wide and deep, the current is calm, almost imperceptible, it looks more like a long mountain lake than a river. When the long stretch ends, the rocks recede from the right bank and the opposite side of the river becomes mountainous. At the turn, the noise of seething water is heard - in front of the roll-threshold Noisy. Those rafting down the river here should be extremely careful and lead the boat or raft close to the bushes of the left bank.

4. Mount Lighthouse.

Between the Giryalsky Ridge (many local historians and most travelers consider it the first Ural mountain on the way from Orenburg to Orsk) and Mount Verblyuzhka on the right bank of the Urals, another hill rises - Mount Mayachnaya. It is a round hill, cut by a branched network of dens and hollows with smooth outlines almost to the very top. The absolute height of the hill is 284.8 m, and the relative elevation above the Urals is 158 m. The foot of the riverine slope of the Mayachnaya mountain is dotted with boulders up to 40-50 cm in diameter. zander, as well as white salmon.

5. Nikolsky section.

2 km west of the village of Nikolsk. Geological monument of nature, area - 8.0 ha. A low cliff above the Ural River and over its floodplain, about 800 m long. In the cliff there are layers of sandstones, clay-argillites, clayey limestones steeply falling to the east. This section is the stratotype of the Orenburg Stage of the Upper Carboniferous, which was distinguished by V.E. Ruzhentsev (1945). In terms of its exposure, completeness and paleontological characteristics, it is one of the best sections of the Carboniferous deposits of the Southern Urals, as evidenced by numerous finds of faunal remains. Ammonites, conodonts, and fusulinids occur most often in the section. Accumulations of fauna are often contained in loaf-shaped limestone concretions. The section contains layers of coarse clastic rocks, in which individual fragments reach a size of 1 m. These are conglomerate breccias, which are also called olistostromes. It is believed that olistostromes were formed as a result of underwater landslides on the seafloor. The Orenburg stage completes the section of the Carboniferous system and is borderline with deposits of the Permian system. On the basis of fauna collections from the Nikolsky section, the position of the Carboniferous-Permian boundary was substantiated to a large extent. In the summer of 1991, the section was examined by domestic and foreign geologists of the international congress on the Permian system.

6. The White Stone tract in the floodplain of the Ural River. On the left bank of the Ural River, northeast of the village of Yangelsky. Geological monument of nature. On the steep slopes of the Ural River, the White Stone cliffs are exposed, stretching for 150-200 meters. In the rock outcrops of organogenic limestones, there are remains of fossil organisms, as well as natural communities, including rare and protected species of lichens, plants and animals.

7. Mount Izvoz. 3 km from the city of Verkhneuralsk, on the right bank of the Ural River. A botanical monument of nature, including man-made pine plantations, picturesque rock outcrops on the top of the mountain, as well as artificial park structures.

8. Kyzlar-Tau (Maiden Mountain). River break. Ural near the village Garlic.

Rafting on the Ural River

In some places along the banks of the Urals you can find rocks.

The Ural River is especially beautiful after Orsk. Here the river flows into the gorge along the Guberlinsky mountains, the length of this section is about 45 kilometers. Here - excellent fishing, healthy climate, air saturated with steppe herbs. In some places in the Urals you can even meet rocks.

Due to the fact that the river often changes its winding course, many oxbow lakes have formed in the Ural valley. Some of the oxbow lakes are rich in fish. It often happened that the settlements based on the banks of the river eventually turned out to be far away from it - the river "left" to the side. The shores are predominantly steep, clayey.

The largest tributary of the Urals, the Sakmara River, is also interesting for tourist rafting.

The government of the Orenburg region is pinning its hopes on the development of water tourism on the Ural River. In particular, a water route for kayaks with a total length of 876 kilometers has been developed (523 km from Iriklinsky to Orenburg, 352 km from Orenburg to Ranniy). Rafting on this route is designed for 28 days. However, it is not necessary to raft, you can just come on the weekend to the banks of the Ural River, relax after a hard day and go fishing.

SIGHTS OF THE URAL RIVER

alabaster mountain

The next mountain on the left bank of the Urals is Alabaster, located 75 km by land and 147 km by water above Uralsk. The mountain is half eaten by a quarry - alabaster has been mined here for a long time. To the east of the former quarry stretches a high slope with marl screes. His middle part thickets of thick oaks for these places, as well as birch, aspen, poplars with bird cherry, viburnum, goat willow in the undergrowth.

Three kilometers below the Alabaster Mountain, the Ural is washed by the not so high Dolinsky Yar, composed of sandstones, flagstones, and conglomerates. Numerous oaks and birches climb along its slopes. We sail along the Urals for another 30 km and on the left bank near Aula-Aksai we again notice chalk outcrops. But the chalk and marl slopes reach their greatest height somewhat lower, on the Kitayshinsky Yar. Below the mouth of the Rubezhka River and the village of Rubezhinsky, where the navigable section of the Urals begins, another hill appears on the left bank. The river washes it twice. For the first time, immediately after the impetuous reach of Uporny Yar, where the Urals, hitting a high sheer marl scree, makes a turn of almost 180 °. Here the river reaches the fastest rift below Orenburg, Saurkin, and splits into two channels. After 5 km, on the way of the Urals, there is a second high marl cliff - Polousov Yar. Both Yar-cliffs - Saurkin and Polousov rise above the river by more than 50 m. Their slopes are complicated by giant landslides. In a kind of amphitheater between them lies the natural phenomenon of the Ural valley - the Krasnoshkolny relic forest. One of the slopes of this huge amphitheater is overgrown with a magnificent oak forest, under the cover of which hazel, or hazel, and a forest apple tree are sheltered. The herbage of the oak forest consists of bracken fern, May celandine lily of the valley.

treasure coast

This seemingly inconspicuous tract on the banks of the Urals deserves the most careful attitude. Folk wisdom called it the Treasure Coast for a reason - this is one of the most remarkable places on the entire right-bank slope of the Ural valley from Orenburg to Ilek. If before the mouth of the Ilek the steep bank near the Urals is right, then below the Ilek the left bank is much more often steep, which belongs entirely to the Ural region. In the Ilek-Uralsk section, the river washes away at least six hills with salt domes at their core, and chalk, marl, white clay, ferruginous sandstones and flagstones on the surface. These. the uplands form a single chain of small mountains stretched along the junction of the Common Syrt and the Caspian lowland. The Urals manage to break through this chain and rush to the south only to the south of Uralsk, leaving the dome seventh in a row from Ilek - Chalk Hills on the right.

The first on the way of the Urals is the Utvinsky Cretaceous Island. It is located slightly above the mouth of the Utva River, 6-10 km northeast of the village of Burlin, Ural Region. During the spring flood, Utvinsky Island is surrounded on all sides by water, from the north by the Urals, from the west and southwest by Utva, from the south and east by Lake Bumakol and chalk channels connecting it with the Urals. Only by mid-June is the overland road to this unusual island usually established.

At the foot of the ancient ravines

The steep shores in the Urals are called ravines, and the high san of them with outcrops of bedrock are known among local residents under the names such and such a mountain, such and such a forehead, coast. These are usually remarkable in landscape geological terms steep slopes of the river valley, which have the value of unique natural monuments. One of them is located on the right bank of the Urals between the villages of Pervaya and Vtoraya Zubochistka, Perevolotsky District, Orenburg Region.

The steep and high coast of the Urals here is complicated by several cirque-like landslides, which were formed as a result of downslope displacements of blocks of sandy-argillaceous deposits associated with the activity of groundwater. But there is something else interesting here. On this segment, the Ural lobe crosses a subsided section of the earth's crust with a width of about 1 km. On both sides, this is a lowering of the boundary by layers of Permian red-colored and variegated rocks inclined in different directions. In mountainous countries, such phenomena are called grabens; as a result of them, rocks are on the same horizon different ages and composition. This kind of graben was formed not in the mountains, but on the plains - in a depression, the sides of which are composed of dense Permian and Triassic rocks that formed more than 200 million years ago. Here, gray and white clays, marge, sandstones of the Cretaceous and Paleogene periods have been preserved from erosion. Their age is from 50 130 million years.

The geological structure of the Ural coast is complicated in this area by landslide processes. As a result, the coastal slopes of each other are replaced by variegated sandy clays of various shades, marls, calcareous tuffs, ocher scree. It seems that all the colorful ranges of yellow, gray-green, brown, red colors were collected by nature in this kind of collection of sedimentary rocks.

Lakes of the Ural floodplain

There are many wonderful landscape features near the lakes of the Ural floodplain. For example, the habitat of the most ancient and amazing relic that has survived to this day, the chilim, has been preserved here. Its continuous thickets, covering the water surface with rosettes of leaves, have been preserved on the lakes of the Ural floodplain below Orenburg: Bespelyukhin, Orekhovy, Bolshoi Orlovo. Old Ural, Linden, Nuts, Jilimny, Forpostno and many others. Several names have been assigned to this plant: chilim, rogulnik, and among the people it is also known as water or devil's walnut, horned walnut, live anchor, water chestnut. Fossilized remains of chilim fruits have been found in deposits of the Cretaceous period. This means that it has been inhabiting the fresh water bodies of the Earth for more than 70 million years. But at present, chilim thickets have been preserved in few places.

It is noteworthy that, forming continuous thickets on one of the lakes, it no longer settles on neighboring lakes, and sometimes even for tens or hundreds of kilometers around. The foregoing testifies to the relic nature of the chilim preserved only under certain environmental conditions.

AT last years chilim lakes in Mordovia, Bashkiria, the Altai Mountains, the Far East and many other regions of our country have been taken under protection. Chilim is listed in the Red Book.

We find a description of this mountain by P. S. Pallas, who visited here in 1769. He wrote: “Beyond the Or river, a mountain range begins, in which the best rocks of jasper stone are visible. The layers in this mountain, as well as in the jasper mountains lying near Yaik, for the most part descend into the depth from the western to the eastern side. The local flask has a lot of different colors. The best jasper, especially in a large collapse, is sometimes coffee-colored, sometimes white with red and yellowish stripes. There are also pieces on which herbs and trees are depicted. There are Kyrgyz graves on every hill. Nowhere can you find the best pieces of local jasper as on these graves, and it seems that the action of the sun produced a color much better outside than inside the stone.

In the vicinity of Orsk already at that time there were several quarries. Academician A.E. Fersman, describing the minerals of the Soviet Union in the book “Journey for the Stone”, placed six pieces of stone on the title of the book, namely Or jasper, to which the scientist devoted many enthusiastic lines: “It is difficult to give an exhaustive description of this jasper - its pattern is so diverse and coloring, we know over two hundred varieties of jasper in this region, and the best drawings and colors refer specifically to the jaspers of this deposit ... It seems to me that we have ended up in a wonderful art gallery. Not every artist will be able to convey such combinations of tones and colors that nature itself scattered here with a generous hand. It’s like a stormy sea: its greenish waves cast a reddish glow of dawn, here is a white edge of foam, and here are rocky shores ... ”and further:“ ... Or jaspers are undoubtedly the national wealth of the country. In addition to Mount Colonel, along the Urals there are a number of other places where jasper is born. Many of them are still not widely known; they contain the future glory of the Trans-Ural jasper belt.

According to one version (thanks to Furmanov's book and especially the film Chapaev), it was in the waves of the Urals that Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev died. However, some historians doubt this and insist that Chapaev died in battle, and was buried somewhere on the river bank.

V. Pelevin in the novel "Chapaev and Emptiness" metamorphoses the Urals (in which the historical Vasily Chapaev drowned) into a "Conditional River of Absolute Love".

- "Ural-batyr" (Bashk. Ural batyr) - Bashkir epic (kubair).

There are many lakes, oxbow lakes, and rivers in the floodplain of the Urals. And around the forest, impassable, overgrown with blackberry, prickly blackthorn, the berries of which are still called Cossack grapes here, and a trip along this river will be simply unforgettable. There are also mushrooms: aspen mushrooms, boletus mushrooms, milk mushrooms. Beautiful Ural, swift. Krutoyars are interspersed with sands, rifts - with wide and deep stretches with blockages of writhings, suvods, backwaters, sometimes going far into the steppe.

Up to thirty species of fish are found in the river: sturgeon, stellate sturgeon, zander, herring, bream, carp, catfish, pike, chub, carp, beluga, white salmon, carp, vobla, roach, kutum, dace, ide, rudd, asp, tench, podust, minnow, barbel, bleak, blue bream, char, burbot, perch, ruff, goby. The locals do not even consider pike to be a fish. A trifle, if they are caught, then in the fall, for drying, when the flies disappear, and in early spring - then any love, because the first. Fishing here has its own specifics.

Fishing on the Ural River will bring a lot of joy. In past centuries and until recently, the Ural River was famous for its sturgeons. According to some data, in the late 1970s, the share of the Ural River in the world production of sturgeon was 33 percent, and in the production of black caviar - 40 percent.

In 1981 -1983. The conditions and efficiency of sturgeon spawning upstream of the city of Uralsk were studied by the Orenburg Laboratory of Landscape Reclamation and Nature Protection. Observations have shown that almost all non-silted areas of the river bottom with solid ground in spring serve as a spawning ground for sturgeons. It was found that spawning is most effective in large fields of channel and beach Mechnik, gravel and cemented shell rock, where the flow velocity in high water reaches 2 m/s, preventing silting of the soil and laid eggs. On the 315-kilometer section of the river from Uralsk to Ilek, the expedition studied several types of spawning grounds. The most common of them were riverbed beaches. As is well known, they are formed along convex coasts, where thick strata of coarse-grained material accumulate.

The excess of beaches above the low water level of the river reaches 4 m, the width is 40-120 m. The length of the Ural beaches, depending on the radius of the bend, ranges from 200-300 m to 2 km. The longest beaches in the Ilek-Uralsk section are Kambavsky Sands (below the village of Yanvartseva) and Trekinsky Sands (above the city of Uralsk). The most valuable in terms of quality are Verkhnekirsanovskiy and Aksuatskiy beaches with a dense pebble coating, located respectively at the 179th and 36th kilometers above Uralsk. But now sturgeons in the Urals have become a rarity.


White salmon in the Urals

Belorybitsa - representative salmon fish, very close to the whitefish. It reaches 120 cm in length and 20 kg of weight. In its appearance, it somewhat resembles the well-known asp. The white salmon is a predator, but in the Urals it hardly eats. The whitefish enters the river for spawning no more than twice in a lifetime. She lives up to 11 years. The closest relative of the white fish - nelma lives in the basin of the Arctic Ocean. It was from there, according to scientists, that at the end of the Ice Age, along the chains of lakes, she moved through the Kama and the Volga to the Caspian Sea and, having changed somewhat, became a whitefish. White salmon is the most valuable commercial fish, but now its catch is prohibited everywhere.

Through the efforts of scientists and fish farmers, it was possible to maintain its numbers artificially. At the foot of the dam of the Volgograd hydroelectric power station on the Volga, gravel spawning grounds are poured for the white salmon. The only natural spawning grounds for this fish are in the Urals.

One of the little-known inhabitants of the Urals and its tributaries is the lamprey. It belongs to the oldest class of cyclostomes. She has a snake-like body about 0.5 m long, weighing up to 260 g. Lamprey has a number of features that are not characteristic of other fish species. Her mouth is a deep funnel-suction cup, at the bottom of it there is a tongue, which, like a piston, either extends or retracts. The tongue serves as a drill that pierces the skin of the fish. The lamprey has a third eye, the parietal, located near the nasal opening. There is no lens in it; with its help lampreys perceive only light. They inherited this organ from their ancestors, widespread in the Silurian and Devonian periods, that is, more than 400 million years ago. Thus, the lamprey can be considered a kind of "living fossil".

Stellate sturgeon in the Urals

The most numerous sturgeon in the Urals is the stellate sturgeon. The Ural-Caspian fisheries produce up to 70% of the world's stellate sturgeon catches. The main spawning grounds for stellate sturgeon are located in the lower reaches of the river. A small amount of stellate sturgeon rises above Uralsk, reaching Ilek and even Rassypnaya. The stellate sturgeon is represented mainly by the spring form. It spawns later than other sturgeons at water temperatures above 12-14°C. The average length of the Ural sturgeon is about 120-140 cm, weight is about 10-15 kg.

The only living sturgeon species in Uralsk is the sterlet. It occurs throughout the lower and middle reaches of the river - very rarely everywhere. The usual dimensions of the Ural sterlet are: length about 60 cm, weight 2.5 kg.

Anadromous fish in the Urals

It takes a lot of time to restore strength and develop a new portion of reproductive products for re-entering the river for spawning: females - 5-6 years, males - 3-4 years. Therefore, despite the long life span (up to 30 years or more), each producer can enter the river only a few times in his life. Every year, huge hordes of migratory fish rush to the Urals. Their forward detachments reach Ilek, Orenburg and even Orsk.

Ichthyological observations 1981 - 1983 it was established that the largest specimens of sturgeons rise to the middle of the river reach. This means that the middle course of the Urals is of decisive importance for the conservation of large-sized sturgeon specimens.

The largest fish in the Caspian basin is the beluga. In the 20s of our century, fish weighing up to 12 centners were caught in the Urals. In former times, larger specimens were also caught. The usual weight of belugas spawning above Uralsk is 150-300 kg for females and 50-90 kg for males. Belugas weighing 600 kg or more are still found to this day.

Sturgeons have reached the greatest abundance in the Caspian Sea basin, where 5 out of 23 species of sturgeon fish of the world are represented - these are beluga, sturgeon, spike and stellate sturgeon, which have mastered the food resources of the sea, where they spend most of their lives, Sterlet, which is a non-water species, that is, never does not leave the river. Beluga, sturgeon, thorn and stellate sturgeon of the Caspian are anadromous fish. They regularly migrate from the Caspian Sea to the rivers for breeding. In anadromous fish, winter and spring races are distinguished.

Winter crops enter the river in summer and autumn, and after overwintering, they spawn.

Spring birds enter the river in winter and spring and spawn in the same year. Anadromous fish in the river usually do not feed or feed very little. Overcoming the river current during spawning migrations, prolonged stay in the river and the spawning process itself lead to severe exhaustion of producers. It has been established that stellate sturgeon and sturgeon lose up to 30% during spawning migration, and beluga - up to 50% of their weight. And, as a rule, the more energy reserves a particular individual has, the larger it is, the higher up the river it can and tends to rise.

URAL RIVER IN ORENBURG REGION

The largest river in the Orenburg region is the Ural (in ancient times, Yaik), the main part of its flow is formed in the Orenburg region. Two other large rivers - Sakmara and Ilek - originate in Bashkiria and Kazakhstan, respectively, but flow into the Urals within the Orenburg region. The Ural is the main water artery of the Orenburg region.

The Ural River crosses the Orenburg region from east to west, flowing through 10 districts of the region for 1164 km. Main Feature river is uneven flow. In the spring flood, the Urals turns into a huge watercourse, filling the entire floodplain 6–8 km wide. The two first large Orenburg tributaries of the Urals, Tanalyk and Suunduk, currently flow into the Iriklinskoye reservoir, forming bays of the same name.

The Tanalyk River, 225 km long, originates in the spurs of the Urals, then crosses the Irendyk. The average water flow in Tanalyk does not exceed 1.0 m3/s.

In the area of ​​the city of Orsk, two more significant tributaries Bolshoi Kumak and Or flow into the Urals on the left. Throughout the entire length from the Iriklinsky reservoir to the mouth of the Sakmara, the Ural receives only one significant tributary on the right - Guberlya. The largest left-bank tributaries of the Urals from the city of Orsk to the mouth of the Ilek - Kiyalyburtya, Urtaburtya, Burtya, Berdyanka, Donguz, Chernaya - are typical steppe rivers with short but violent spring floods. The last two of them - Donguz and Chernaya - practically dry up in the middle of summer due to the construction of large reservoirs on them.

The Ilek River is the largest left-bank tributary of the Urals (623 km). Its origins are in the Mutojar mountains. In terms of catchment area (41 thousand km 2), the Ilek is one third larger than the Sakmaru, but carries 2.5 times less water than the most abundant tributary of the Urals (the annual flow rate is 1569 m 3). The Ilek River has a wide, well developed valley with two floodplain terraces. The size of the Ilek valley is sometimes not inferior to the Ural one. The Ilek floodplain abounds with numerous channels and oxbow lakes.

Below the Ilek, the Ural receives three more significant tributaries on the right: the Kindel, the Irtek, and the Chagan. The last of them flows into the Urals already outside the Orenburg region. Near the city of Orsk, the Or river flows into the Urals. In the "Gorge" the river almost straight cuts through the Ural Range, even lower begins a 40-kilometer section of the Khabarninsky Gorge. On this segment, the Ural receives the waters of the mountain rivers Guberli with Chebakla and Kinderli on the right, and on the left - Ebita, Aituarka and Alimbet.

On the map, the Ural basin resembles a tree bent to one side with a thickened trunk in the middle and very short branches. Only the right tributary - the Sakmara River, which flows for a long distance parallel to the Urals, has a relatively dense branched network of tributaries.

The Ural River is not navigable, its width is 50-170 m, the depth is 3-5 m, the flow speed is 0.3 m/s, the bottom is sandy, there are no fords. The shores are mostly steep, the height of the cliffs is 5-9 m. The floodplain of the Urals is wide - 10-12 km, meadow, with significant forests, a large number of pegs, rare shrubs, indented by numerous rivers, oxbow lakes and channels, many lakes.

In ancient sources, the name of the Ural River is found - Likos, Daiks, Daih, Dzhaikh, as well as Ruza, Yaik, Yagak, Yagat, Ulusu, Zapolnaya River. The name of the river Yaik and consonant with it Daiks, Daih, Yagak and so on. have been dating for about two thousand years.

Now it is difficult to say what the word "Daiks" meant in the time of Ptolemy, when the Iranian-speaking tribes of the Sarmatians were still roaming in the Ural basin. The Russian form "Yaik" is first found in the Russian chronicle of 1229. It is considered a derivative of the common Turkic base "Zhaik" with the meaning "wide riverbed" or "widely overflowing".

The Sakmara River is the largest tributary of the Urals. The length of Sakmara within the Orenburg region is about 380 km. In the upper reaches of the Sakmara it is a typical mountain river with steep banks and narrow terraces, in the middle and lower reaches its wide, asymmetric valley with well-defined two terraces and a populated floodplain.

and Atyrau region)

Source uraltau ridge mouth Caspian Sea Length 2428 km Pool area 231,000 km²

Ural- a river in Eastern Europe. Passes through the territory of Russia, Kazakhstan. ancient name Yaik(from head. Yaiyk, yaymak- expand) (refusal. Zhaiyk). Currently, the ancient name of the river is official in Kazakhstan, and is also used in Bashkiria. The river was renamed by decree of Catherine the Second, after the suppression of the Peasant War led by Pugachev, in which the Yaik Cossacks took an active part.

It originates in the mountains of the Southern Urals (Uraltau ridge) in Bashkiria. It flows into the Caspian Sea. Tributaries: Sakmara, Chagan (right); Or, Ilek (left). The Iriklinskaya hydroelectric power station was built on the river.

The Ural River may have been shown on a 2nd century AD Ptolemy map, under the name Daiks. On old maps, the Urals is called Rhymnus fluvius. Its top lies in the southern spurs of Karatysh, and comes from the top of the mountain called Kalgan-Tau (that is, the extreme, remaining, last Ural Range). At the beginning, the Ural flows from north to south, meeting the elevated plateau of the Kazakh steppe, it turns sharply to the northwest, after Orenburg it changes direction to the southwest, near the city of Uralsk the river makes a new sharp bend to the south and in this main direction, meandering sometimes to the west, sometimes to the east, flows into the Caspian Sea. The mouth of the Urals is divided into several branches and gradually becomes shallower. In 1769, Pallas counted 19 branches, some of which were distinguished by the Urals 66,000 meters above its confluence with the sea; in 1821 there were only 9, in 1846 there were only three: Yaitskoe, Zolotinskoe and Peretasknoe. By the end of the 50s and the beginning of the 60s of the 19th century, almost no branches with a constant flow separated from the Urals until the city of Guryev itself. The first branch, separated from the main channel on the left, was Peretask, divided into channels - Peretasknoy and Aleksashkin. Even lower, the channel of the Urals was divided into 2 branches - Zolotinsky and Yaitsky, and both the first and the second were divided into 2 mouths: Big and Small Yaitsky, Big and Old Zolotinsky. From the Zolotinsky branch to the east, another branch of Bukharka departed, flowing into the sea between Peretask and Zolotoy. The Ural basin ranks sixth in size and is equal to 219,910 sq. km. km. The length of the river itself is estimated at 2379 km. The water horizon is at an absolute height of 635 m.

The fall of the waters of the Urals is not particularly great; from the headwaters to the city of Orsk, it has about 3 ft. per verst, from the city of Orsk to the city of Uralsk no more than 1 ft., below - even less. The width of the channel is generally insignificant, but varied. The bottom of the Urals, in the upper reaches is rocky, in most of its course it is clay and sandy, and within the Ural region there are stone ridges. Under the city of Uralsk, the bottom of the river is lined with small pebbles, which are found in somewhat large sizes near the White Hills; special pebbles made of dense clay, in addition, come across in some places in the lower reaches of the Urals (in the “Burned Onion”). The course of the Urals is quite tortuous and forms a large number of loops. The Urals, with a small fall in water, very often changes the main channel throughout, breaks new passages for itself, leaving deep reservoirs, or "oxbow lakes" in all directions. Thanks to the changeable course of the Urals, many Cossack villages that used to be near the river later turned out to be oxbow lakes, the inhabitants of other villages were forced to move to new places only because their old ashes were gradually undermined and demolished by the river. In general, the Ural valley is cut on both sides by oxbow lakes, narrow channels, widened channels, lakes, small lakes; during the spring flood, which occurs from the melting of snow in the Ural mountains, all of them are filled with water, which is kept in others until the next year. In spring, rivers and rivers carry a lot of melt water to the Urals, the river overflows, overflows its banks, in the same places where the banks are sloping, the river overflows by 3-7 meters. The Urals are not very navigable.

tributaries

Most of the tributaries flow into it from the right side, facing the Common Syrt; of them are known: Artazym, Tanalyk, Guberlya, Sakmara, Zazhivnaya, lost in the floodplain, not reaching the Urals, in the meadows between the villages of Studenovsky and Kindelinsky, Kindel and Irtek within the Orenburg region; in the West Kazakhstan region below the Irtek, several shallow rivers flow, including the Rubezhka, at the mouth of which there were the first villages of the Yaik Cossacks, the most water tributary on the right is the river. Chagan, flowing from the Common Syrt.

Fishing

The Ural is the only river in the world intended exclusively for fishing in the middle and lower parts of the course; below the city of Uralsk, under which the “uchug” is arranged, all navigation is prohibited in the Urals, except for spring time. Even the most crossings across the Urals are limited to a few places: two bridges near the city of Uralsk and ferry crossings near the cities of Guryev, Kulagin and in several other places - and all this in order to avoid the possibility of scaring the fish. Most of what has been said is true to this day, the Urals are still unpredictable in their spring floods, periodically washing up new islands before people's eyes, leaving the old channel and moving to a new one. The Ural River, due to its unregulated downstream, remains the main spawning river for sturgeon in the Caspian Sea. In the lower reaches, they are commercially captured and bred. Also, the pre-estuary space, where the waters of the Urals and the sea mix and where its salinity is low, is the main food base for numerous partials.

Elk, roe deer are found in the forests in the floodplain of the Urals, wild boars, wolves, foxes, and hares are found in abundance. To the village of Kotelnikovo, West Kazakhstan region, the floodplain vegetation disappears and the river begins to flow in an absolutely bare clay desert, and so on to the Caspian Sea

Border between Asia and Europe

Contrary to popular belief, the Ural River is a natural water border between Asia and Europe only in its upper reaches in Russia. In Kazakhstan, the geographical border between Europe and Asia runs south from Orsk along the Mugodzhary ridge and the Emba River to its confluence with the Caspian. Thus, the Ural River is a 100% internal European river, only in the Russian upper reaches its left bank belongs to Asia. And the West Kazakhstan and Atyrau regions of Kazakhstan as a whole and half of the Aktobe region are included in Europe. This factor became decisive when the Football Federation of Kazakhstan was admitted to UEFA in 2002.

Links

See what "Yaik (river)" is in other dictionaries:

    Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language by Max Fasmer encyclopedic Dictionary

    The river of the Caspian Basin, which in its lower reaches forms the border between Europe and Asia, flows from the Ural Range. and to the south separates the latter from the natural continuation of its Mugodzhar mountains. U. with its tributaries irrigates the Orenburg province ... Encyclopedic Dictionary F.A. Brockhaus and I.A. Efron

Ural, or Yaik - a river flowing through the territories of Russia and Kazakhstan. This is the third longest water flow in Europe (the Volga and Danube are the leaders in this indicator). Its length is 2428 km, and the basin area is 231 thousand square meters. km. The Ural is a river flowing into the Caspian Sea. Its source is located on the Uraltau ridge in Bashkortostan.

When was the Yaik River renamed Ural?

This happened in 1775, after the Peasant War was suppressed, the leader of which was E. Pugacheva. Yaik Kazakhs and Bashkirs actively participated in this war. What the Yaik River is now called is the merit of Catherine II - it was she who issued a decree on renaming the water stream in order to erase any memories of the uprising.

In general, for the first time the name Yaik was mentioned in Russian chronicles in 1140, and the ancient name of the river, according to Ptolemy's map, sounds like Daix. This word of Turkic origin means "wide", "spread".

Geography

As already mentioned, the Ural (Yaik) River originates in Bashkiria, on the slope of the Round Hill of the Uraltau Ridge. At first, the water flow flows from north to south, and then, having met the plateau of the Kazakh steppe on the way, it turns to the northwest. Further, beyond Orenburg, the direction becomes south-western, and near the city of Uralsk, the river again bends to the south. In this southerly direction, meandering now to the east, now to the west, the Ural flows all the way to the Caspian Sea.

The water fall in the river is not very large: from the upper reaches to the city of Orsk - 0.9 m per 1 km, from Orsk to Uralsk - 30 cm per 1 km, and even less below. The channel width is insignificant, but varied. In the upper reaches, the bottom of the Urals is rocky, under the Urals it is lined with small pebbles, while in the rest of the bottom, as a rule, it is sandy and clayey.

The current is quite winding, forming many loops. With a small fall in water, the river often changes its main channel throughout its length, digs new passages, leaving oxbow lakes (deep reservoirs) in all directions. Due to such a changeable current, at one time many Cossack settlements were forced to move to other places, since their dwellings were gradually undermined and demolished by water.

The climate in the region is mostly continental, with characteristic strong winds. Precipitation is relatively low, no more than 540 millimeters per year, so the river lacks a stable source of water supply.

Between Europe and Asia

Not everyone knows that the Ural (Yaik) is a river that is a natural border between two parts of the world. Geographically, in Russia the border runs in the Chelyabinsk region, in the cities of Magnitogorsk and Verkhneuralsk, and in Kazakhstan - along the Mugodzhary ridge. The Urals are inland European, only the upper reaches east of the Ural Range can be attributed to Asia.

However, there is another opinion on this matter. In 2010, in Kazakhstan, in the Ustryut desert, an expedition of the Russian Geographical Society was carried out. The results showed that the Ural River does not divide anything, since it crosses an identical area, and drawing the border between Europe and Asia along it is unreasonable from a scientific point of view. The fact is that to the south of the city of Zlatoust, the Ural Range loses its axis and falls apart. Then the mountains gradually and completely disappear, thus, the main landmark for drawing the border disappears.

Shipping

Previously, the river was navigable up to Orenburg. During the Soviet Union, water transport ran between Uralsk and Orenburg. However, as a result of constant changes in natural conditions (destruction of forests, plowing of steppes), the Urals became much shallower, and this process continues to this day. Every year ecological expeditions are held here, options for saving the river are discussed. But while the Urals are getting shallow, so now it is not very navigable.

Monuments of nature

Ah, how beautiful the Urals (Yaik)! The river abounds in landscape and geological natural monuments. The most famous of them:

1. Tract White stone. This unique formation is located on the left bank, near the village of Yangelskoye, and is a rocky outcrop of limestone, which was formed 350 million years ago, during the Carboniferous period. Rare species of lichens, animals and plants, remains of fossil organisms are found here.

2. Mount Izvoz. It is located on the right bank, three kilometers from Verkhneuralsk. This botanical monument is interesting for its picturesque rocky outcrops, man-made pine plantations and artificial park structures.

There are other equally beautiful monuments: the Orsk Gate, the Maiden's Mountain, the Nikolsky section, the Iriklinskoye Gorge.

The most picturesque section of the river begins below the city of Orsk, where it flows through the gorge of the Guberlinsky Mountains. Tourist rafting is often organized here.

Fishing

Ural (Yaik) is a river rich in fish: pike perch, sturgeon, catfish, roach, stellate sturgeon, bream, carp, pike, vobla, crucian carp, dace and many other vertebrates are found here. In past centuries, the Urals was famous for its sturgeon species, they even say that in the 1970s 33% of the world's sturgeon production was caught on the river. Now such a fish has become a rarity here, but all the same - fishing in the Urals is good, hardly any fisherman will be left without a catch!

It is believed that during civil war drowned in the waves of the Urals (although there are many versions of his death to this day, and it is not known for certain which of them is true).

Several reservoirs have been created on the river. The largest is Iriklinskoe.

The Ural is a fast-flowing river, during the period of full water the speed of the current reaches 10 km / h.

The source of the Urals is a spring gushing from the ground at an altitude of 637 meters above sea level. This place is marked with a memorial sign.