Matthew Janney

‘Mother Volga’ has always been Russia’s lifeblood

The magnificent river has not only fed Russia’s population for centuries but has been crucial to its expansion, says Janet Hartley

‘Barge Haulers on the Volga’ by Ilya Repin (1870-73). Credit: Getty Images 
issue 16 January 2021

‘Without this river the Russians could not live,’ remarked Robert Bremner in his work, Excursions in the Interior of Russia. The year is 1840. The river in question, the Volga, the 2,000 mile-long meandering waterway stretching from the forests of north-west Russia to the steppes by the Caspian. At the time of Bremner’s survey, half of the Russian empire’s fish was caught in the single stretch of river by Astrakhan, the Volga’s final pit stop before flowing out to sea.

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