Ukraine: The Land and Its People. An Introduction to Its Geography.

We now come to the main river of the Ukraine, the majestic Dnieper. To the Ukrainian people the Dnieper bears the same significance as the “Matushka Volga” to the Russians, the Vistula to the Poles, and the Rhine to the Germans. The Dnieper is the sacred river of the Ukraine. Like a divinity it was honored by the old Polans, the founders of the ancient Ukrainian state of Kiev; Slavutitza was the name given it by the Ukrainians of the monarchy. It was esteemed as a father and provider by the brave Zaporog Cossacks, the champions of Ukrainian liberty. For many centuries the Dnieper has played an important part in the folk-lore and literature of the Ukraine, in traditions and fairy-stories and folk-tales and in thousands of folk-songs; since ancient times it has been sung by all Ukrainian poets, from the unknown bard of the epic of Ihor, to the greatest of all Ukrainian poets, Taras Shevchenko, and so on, down to the youngest generation of the poets of the Ukraine. To them all, the Dnieper is the symbol of the Ukraine, of its life, and of its past. Not without cause did Shevchenko ask to be buried on the mountain shore of the Dnieper, “that I may see the endless plains and the Dnieper and the crags of its banks and hear the rushing of the Rushing One.” For no one is able to repeat the impressions which fill the soul of every Ukrainian when he looks down from this beautiful observation point of Shevchenko’s grave upon the majestic river below. How many thoughts, then, arise about the glorious, and yet so unspeakably sad, past of the Ukraine, about its miserable present and the great future toward which the nation tends, amid great difficulties, as does the Dnieper toward the Black Sea over the porohs. And we do not wonder that the Dnieper has become the national sanctuary of the Ukraine. With this river are connected all the important events of the historical life of the Ukraine. The Dnieper was the father of the ancient Ukrainian empire of Kiev; by way of the Dnieper a higher culture made its way into the Ukraine; on the Dnieper the Ukrainian Cossack element developed, which, after centuries of subjugation, gave the Ukrainians a new government. The Dnieper River has, since hoary antiquity, been the most important channel of intercourse between the North and the South of Eastern Europe; it has been the means of connecting the Ukraine with the sea and the cultural realm of Southern Europe. Its present importance, despite the low grade of culture in Eastern Europe, and despite Russian mismanagement, is great, and is growing rapidly. And if in the future the river is made accessible to sea-going vessels and becomes a road for large-scale navigation, its significance may become almost incalculable.

The Dnieper is the third largest river in Europe, after the Volga and the Danube. The length of its course is more than 2100 km. The region it drains includes 527,000 sq. km., not much less than the whole of France. Among the streams of the globe the Dnieper ranks thirty-second.

If the Dniester possesses some of the properties of a Central European river, namely, mountainous country at its source and many mountain tributaries; if the Boh is a genuine plateau river; the Dnieper, on the other hand, is the real type of a river in Eastern Europe. It rises in White Russia near the village of Clozove. A little swamp, which was formerly a small lake, situated at a height of 256 m., forms the source of the river. Because of this small height of the source, the Dnieper has, as, in fact, all the Eastern European rivers have, a very insignificant incline and an average speed of current of 0.4 m. per second. The source of the Dnieper lies near the sources of the Dvina and the Volga, as well as the source streams of the Neva.

Near its source the Dnieper is a small, muddy streamlet, which seeks its way southward in a flat valley, three miles wide, between swamps and moors. But quickly its volume increases, and, as near the source as Dorogobuz, the river becomes navigable for smaller vessels. Here it suddenly turns to the west, both valley slopes, but especially the left one, become higher and steeper, the valley narrows down to ½ km. But after a short stretch it becomes wide and swampy again at Smolensk. The depth of the river is very irregular, the pools (plessa) attaining a depth of 5 meters, the rapids often less than ½ meter. From Smolensk to Orsha the Dnieper Valley again becomes hardly 1 kilometer wide, between high banks. On the left bank picturesque, rocky precipices appear. At Orsha the Dnieper turns to the south, retaining this direction as far as Kiev. Down to Shclov the Dnieper Valley remains narrow, with steep slopes, then it widens slowly but steadily. The depth of the river reaches 10 meters, but many shoals, great morain boulders and broken sandstone make navigation difficult. Below Mogilev the spurs of the White Russian and Central Russian plateaus withdraw from the Dnieper and show only on the left side. The river reaches the low plain of the Polissye and flows in majestic turns thru swamps and meadows which are dotted with old river beds. In this section of its course the Dnieper receives the Druch and the voluminous, navigable Beresina on the right, and the navigable Soz on the left. The Dnieper receives an especially great amount of water from the Beresina. River navigation is doubled below its entrance, mainly because of innumerable rafts which are traveling to the treeless South Ukraine and the Black Sea from the forests of White Russia.

From the mouth of the Soz numerous low islands appear in the bed of the Dnieper. The river divides into numerous branches. The entire trough lying between the Dnieper and the Pripet is a labyrinth of river branches, lakes, old river beds, swamps and fens. Thru the Pripet the volume of the Dnieper River increases twofold, and very seldom flows along in a single bed.

The tributaries on the right side, the Teterev and the Irpen, bring the Dnieper the first remembrances of the Ukrainian plateau country, and soon its spurs appear on the right river bank. The Dnieper presses against this bank and forms the picturesque precipices above which glisten the gilded domes of the ancient churches of Kiev. Here the Dnieper receives the largest of its tributaries on the left, the navigable Desna. Thus the formation of the Dnieper River is completed, its source-rivers, the Pripet, Beresina, the upper Dnieper, the Desna and the Soz have united to build a majestic stream. Its normal average width is 600–850 meters near Kiev. During the spring floods, however, the width of the river exceeds 10 km.; from the high, right bank one can barely see the woods of the left. All the islands, sand-banks, swamps, meadows, river branches and old river beds disappear beneath an interminable mass of yellowish water, rolling slowly toward the south. Deep into the valleys of the tributary streams the high-water enters, and receding, leaves behind a layer of fertile river mud. Not without reason did Herodotus compare the Dnieper with the Nile.

The floods generally occur but once a year—in the spring, when the snows melt. In this respect the Dnieper differs from the Dniester and is similar to all the other rivers of Eastern Europe. In the early summer, at the time of the greatest precipitation in the Dnieper country, small floods occur only occasionally, because the rain-water is stored up in the many swamps and moors of the upper Dnieper country. The spring high-water originates in the great masses of snow, which remain lying all thru winter, melting and flowing off all at once in the spring. After an ice-drift lasting 5–12 days, the high-water comes and lasts a month and a half. It attains its highest level in the middle of April; at this time the water stands at 3.2 meters above normal at Mogilev, 2.2. meters at Kiev, 2.6 meters at Kreminchuk, 2 meters at Kherson, 0.3 meters at the delta. The spring floods are at present becoming greater and more irregular, consequently more dangerous, too, than they have been previously. The progressive destruction of forests has contributed most to this condition.

From Kiev down, the Dnieper River turns in a flat curve to the southeast and retains this direction as far as Katerinoslav. The right bank remains steadily high, torn by gorges and crowned with rock formations, with numerous niches, which betray former places of contact of the river bends. The view, defended especially by Russian scholars, that the mountain bank of the Dnieper, like that of all other Eastern European rivers, originated thru the influence of the rotation of the earth (Baer’s Law), notably does not apply to the Dnieper, for the plain on the left very distinctly crosses over to the right shore at three places; at the mouth of the Stuhna below Kiev, between the mouth of the Ross and Cherkassi, and north of Chihirin. Recent movements of the crust of the earth, by elevating the Dnieper Plateau in huge sections, prepared the ground for the mountainous shores; the resulting steep declivities were attacked and transformed by the river current, aided by an effective simultaneous action of the winds.

The left bank of the river is very flat, taken up by swamps, lakes, old river beds and wooded fens. Great wildernesses of reeds cover the swampy banks of the numerous river arms. Great masses of sand brought by the tributaries on the left side are thrown up by the steppe winds and from dune landscapes in various places.

The tributaries of the Dnieper River in this section are of far less importance than the above mentioned northern ones. From the right side the river receives the plateau streams Stuhna, Ross and Tiasmin, from the left the Trubez, the Supo, the Sula with the Udai, the Psiol with the Khorol, and Holtva, Vorskla and Orel. All these rivers increase the volume of the main stream only to a slight degree. The width of the river at the point where it flows along in a single bed is regularly 1 km. on the average; at the narrowest part, to be sure, only 150 meters. Where the river branches off into several forks, however, the complete width, even at the time of low-water, is more than 4 km., at high-water over 8 km. The depth of the river, too, is very changeable. The tributaries on the left side bring great masses of sand to the main river bed, forming great banks of sand, which slowly move downward and cause great changeability of the depth. Over such banks of sand the depth of the river is hardly 1½ meters, but attains a depth of 12 meters where the river flows in a narrow bed.

Between Kiev and Kreminchuk, the majestic character of the Dnieper River is most apparent. The slight incline here causes a current of only one-third the speed of the current of the Volga. With an impressive calm the waters of the Dnieper flow along; it seems as tho the mirror-like mass of water were motionless. But soon, above the mouth of the Psiol, the speed of the current is suddenly tripled, so that the steamboats must exert their entire force in the up-stream trip. The low left bank begins slowly to rise; the river valley, up to this point, wide almost beyond reach of the eye, becomes narrow, the river forks and islands gradually disappear, and at the mouth of the Samara both banks approach the stream with steep precipices. The direction of the river becomes southerly and the section begins where the Dnieper breaks thru the granite ledge of the Ukrainian horst, the famous section of its rapids.

Here the Dnieper assumes all the characteristics of a plateau river. The river valley becomes so narrow that at high-water the river spreads over the entire valley bottom. The settlements take refuge on the heights of the steep bank. The granite-gneiss sub-layer appears in steep precipices and high picturesque rock formations on the valley slopes. We are confronted with the same cañon-like valley on the Dnieper, then, as on the Dniester in the Podolian Plateau. Yet there are certain fundamental differences. The river valley is at most 100 meters deep, and the granite slopes do not form compact valley sides such as we see in the yars of the Dniester. At every moment the steep decline is broken by numerous gorges, picturesque foothills; and jutting cliffs lend to the river landscape of the Dnieper Valley, at this point, a variety unknown in the yar of the Dniester.

The section of the Dnieper River from the mouth of the Samara to Veliki Luh, at the mouth of the Konca, forms a river country which is the only one of its kind in Eastern Europe. It is the section of the Dnieper rapids. The post-tertiary elevation of the Ukrainian horst, at this point, has forced the river to dig its bed into the hard granite and gneiss rocks. Despite great masses of water, the river has not succeeded in equalizing its incline. For this reason, we find in its bed innumerable rocky islands, ledges of rock, separate cliffs and great boulders. In a wild, roaring torrent, the current beats against these obstacles, creating deep pools and dangerous vortices. But not at all places was the river destined to saw thru the obstacles in its way. At many points solid ledges of rock lie right across the river. Its mass of water falls down over these granite steps in immense foam-wreathed billows and seethes about innumerable boulders, remains of already parted ledges. The dull roaring and rumbling can be heard, even by day, for several miles. These are the rapids of the Dnieper—the “porohi” and “zabori.”

The porohi are not real waterfalls or cataracts; the incline of the river in this section is 35 meters for a stretch of 75 km., and is, therefore, too slight for regular falls. The greatest incline attained within this stretch of river is 6%. Therefore, only the individual branches of water between boulders form small falls, while the main channel only shoots along down-stream in a long, foam-covered streak, over the inclined surface of the ledges. In summer, the depth above the rock ledges is barely 1½ meters, while in the spring even the highest reefs of the rapids disappear beneath the masses of the high-water.

Still, the rapids of the Dnieper are even now a great hindrance to navigation. Within the porohi section, steamboat navigation is altogether impossible, and the smaller rowboats or sailboats can risk it only during the spring floods, and then only the down-trip. Only the rafts can pass thru the porohi at low-water time, altho with great danger. The up-stream trip is almost impossible, even in the smallest vessel, altho, at one time, everyone who desired to join the Zaporog Cossacks was required to undertake this daring enterprise.

The Russian government has attempted, indeed, to make the rapids of the river navigable, and has caused a navigable canal to be formed at each fall, thru blasting of the rock ledges. But these canals have been planned in so impractical and even faulty a manner that the river pilots (lotzmani) still use the old “Cossack paths” to a great extent (the Cosachi khody) to bring river boats and rafts thru the porohi.

The width of the river in the rapids section remains unchanged—1 to 1¾ kilometers. Only at its exit from the porohi, at the so-called Wolf’s Throat (Vovche horlo), the river narrows down to 160 meters. The quiet sections between separate rapids are usually very wide and as much as 30 meters deep.

Of genuine rapids (porohi), according to the pilots, who are direct descendants of the Zaporog Cossacks, there are nine; of the larger sabori (ledges of rock which do not obstruct the entire width of the river), six. The first rapids below Katerinoslav are the Kaidac rapids (Kaidazki porih), with four ledges of rock. Then follow the Yazeva Sebora, the Little Sursky porih, with two ledges, the dangerous Lokhanski porih with three ledges, and the Strilcha Sabora, with the great rocks of Strilcha skela and Kamin Bohatir. The next rapids, Svonez and the far-sounding Tiahinska Sabora, allow vessels easy passage, but after passing thru the Dnieper the pilot must exert all his strength. Even from the Svonez rapids on, one can hear the terrible roaring and rumbling of the largest of the porohi, the Did (grandfather) or Nenassitetz (insatiable). Masses of white foam cover it completely, the water shoots down over the twelve ledges of rock with the speed of an arrow. The vessel groans and creaks, but flies thru the porih in three minutes, if it can only escape the dangerous rock of Krutko or the terrible whirlpool of Peklo (the Hell). Or it may happen that the ship is dashed to pieces in the Voronova Sabora, which is full of dangerous reefs.

After the Did and the insignificant Kriva Sabora, comes the Vnuk (grandchild) or Vovnih, whose four ledges, covered with great billows and masses of foam, holds many hidden dangers for the sailor. But “after overcoming the Grandfather and the Grandchild, don’t go to sleep, for the Awakener will wake you”—meaning the next following Porih Budilo (Awakener) which also is dangerous for ships. We then come past the Tavolzanska Sabora, where the beautiful crag (Snieva skela) rises, to the next to the last porih, Lishni (the Dispensable), with two insignificant edges of rock, which offer but slight dangers. The last porih, however, which bears the name of Vilni (free) or Hadiuchi (serpent falls), is very dangerous for ships and rafts, for the channel winds in serpentine twists thru the six ledges, and the pilot must exercise all his skill in order to steer the ship entrusted to him safely thru the dangerous channel. After this follows the narrow (160 m.) “Wolf’s-Throat” (Vovche horlo), with three great rocks; the small Javlena Sabora, three dangerous “Robber Rocks” (Kameni Rosbiyniki), and two granite precipices, Stovli (Pillars), and we come into the Zaporog country (Zaporoze).

Here the Dnieper valley widens and numerous islands appear in the stream. The upper ones, for example, Khortizia and Tomakivka, which were once the site of the first Zaporog Sich, are high, rocky, and overgrown with forest. Further south the steep left-hand valley slope recedes far from the river and the so-called Veliki Luh begins. It is a labyrinth of flat forest and reed-covered alluvial islands, river branches, old river beds, lakes and swamps. Here were located the hunting and fishing grounds of the Zaporog Cossacks; here was their dwelling place, wonderfully fortified by nature and surrounded by an inaccessible wilderness of forests and waters, and the center of their military state; of the century-old oaks of the Veliki Luh, the Zaporogs built their ships, in order to pay their daring visits to the lord of Islam in his own capital. But the glorious days are past, the warlike life and activity has disappeared, and strange colonists, whom the Russian Government has sent here to settle, now occupy the ground on which the second Ukrainian state originated.

From the many-branched mouth of the Konka (also named Kinska voda) the Dnieper River turns toward the southwest, which direction it retains until it disembogues into the sea. From this point on, the river nowhere flows in a single bed; an enormous number of side arms branch off from the main arm or unite with it. The broad river valley, whose right bank continues to be high and rocky for a time, is taken up by the plavni formation and winds like a broad band of freshly growing verdure thru the steppe, which stretches out dry and golden-brown in the hot midsummer. After receiving, as its last tributary, the steppe-river Inhuletz, it empties with nine arms into its liman, below Kherson. Of these arms only two are navigable for larger vessels, and the immense Dnieper liman is at most only 6 meters deep. The river brings down great masses of sand and mud, and fills up its liman so rapidly that strenuous dredging is necessary, in order to make it possible for small sea-vessels to reach the harbor of Kherson.

The Dnieper River brings the Black Sea, on the average, 2000 cu. m. of water per second. It is navigable, even for large river boats, along a stretch of 1900 km. The ice-cover lasts 100 days at Kiev; 80 days in the lower part of its course.

The tributaries of the Dnieper are very numerous and important; their total length is over 13,000 km. Of those on the right, the Pripet River is the most important. It gathers in all the waters of the Polissye and is the typical river of that district. Its length exceeds 650 km. Rising in the northern spurs of the Volhynian Plateau, very close to the course of the Buh, it immediately reaches the Polissian Plain and becomes a navigable river over 50 m. wide and about 6 m. deep. In the main axis of the Polissian basin the Pripet turns eastward and becomes about 100 m. wide. The incline of the river is very slight, the number of turns and river arms enormous. Between swampy woods and moors the river forms labyrinths of delicate, intricate waterways and stagnant pools. Near Mosir, where the river turns to the southeast, its width reaches 450 m., its depth 10 m. Of quite the same type are the tributaries of the Pripet: the Turia, Stokhod, Stir with the Ikva, the Horin with the Sluch, the Ubort and the Uz on the right; the Pina, Yassiolda, Sluch and Ptich on the left. All of them are navigable along great stretches. The remaining right-hand tributaries of the Dnieper, the Teterev and the Irpen, have the Polissian character only near their mouth, otherwise they are purely plateau rivers with rocky beds. The Teterev is able to transport rafts of logs, while the other rivers of the Dnieper Plateau, as for example, the Ross (altho greater than the Teterev) and the Tiasmin, are entirely unfit for navigation, as a result of their rocky beds and their small volume in summer. The last large Dnieper tributary, the steppe-river Inhuletz, altho barely 100 km. shorter than the Pripet, is, for the same reasons, only capable of carrying logs in the last 150 km. of its much-twisted course.

Of the left-hand tributaries of the Dnieper only the northern ones possess a sufficient volume of water to be navigable. The Soz, which is 550 kilometers in length, becomes as wide as 150 meters, and is navigable for a stretch of nearly 360 kilometers. The Desna is the longest of all the Dnieper tributaries (1000 km.). It rises near Yelnia, on the Central Russian Plateau, and flows in a broad symmetrical valley, which it floods in places every spring to the extent of 10 kilometers. The normal width of the river at low-water is 160 meters; the depth is 6 meters. Despite many shallows and sand-banks, the Desna is capable of bearing rafts along a stretch of 250 kilometers, and is navigable for 700 kilometers even for the larger river boats. Of the Ukrainian tributaries of the Desna, the most important is the Sem, which is 650 km. long and navigable for 500 kilometers.

All the other left-hand tributaries of the Dnieper flow in broad valleys, with high right slopes and low left slopes, covered with stagnant waters, marshy meadows and areas of sand. But, altho they all look very imposing at the time of the spring floods, yet, neither the Sula with its high wooded banks, nor the Psiol with its 670 km. of length, neither the Vorscla flowing along between sandbanks and dunes, nor the Orel sliding slowly along with its twisted course—none of these have any significance for navigation. Only the steppe-river Samara, flowing between granite banks, is capable of floating rafts along a short stretch. There was a time, however, in which all these rivers were navigable, even for ships of considerable size. Great old anchors and wreckage of ships, which are found in the beds and banks of these rivers, are sufficient proof of this fact. The cause of the present condition may be sought in the destruction of forest in the drainage country. The spring floods, increased from this cause, develop considerable destructive activity, filling up the river bed with masses of sand and mud, floating brushes and stumps of trees. The decreased volume of water in the dry season, due to the drying up of the swamps and springs, can not transport these deposits further, and the river becomes unfit for any sort of navigation.

The Don (Din) is the fourth in the series of rivers of Europe. It is over 1800 kilometers long, but the country it drains is smaller in area by 100,000 square kilometers than that of the Dnieper. Hardly one-fourth of the Don country belongs to the Ukraine, and even less of its course. For this reason it was long considered as a border stream of the Ukraine on the east, until the past century extended the boundaries of Ukrainian territory into the Kuban region and to the Caspian Sea.

The Don rises in Lake Ivan-Ozero, which has also an outlet to the Aka on the Central Russian elevation of ground. Its valley is at first deeply cut, its bed rocky. Then the valley widens and becomes symmetrical, the left bank becomes flat and swampy, covered in places by wide areas of sand. In the source region the direction of the river is south as far as Korotniak, then the river turns to the southeast, forms a sharp bend at the mouth of the Ilovla, approaching to within 60 km. of the Volga. Then the Don repeats on a small scale the direction of the course of the Dnieper, turns toward the southwest, and disembogues in thirty arms, of which only three are navigable and only one accessible to sea-vessels, into the Sea of Azof. Its delta region is very rich in fish and is growing very rapidly. The general volume of the Don is twice as small as that of the Dnieper and is subject to many vacillations. During the spring floods the water-level reaches 6–7 m. above the normal and the river becomes as much as 10 km. wide. At the time of low-water, on the other hand, the river, despite its width (in the lower part of its course) of 200 to 400 m. and depths of 2–16 m., is full of sandbanks and shallows, so that navigation on the Don is but slightly developed, altho more than 1300 km. of its course may be considered fit for floating rafts of logs and 300 km. for ships. The freezing-time lasts on the average 100 days.