The Neva River is one of the most beautiful rivers in Russia. Most people are familiar with it thanks to the beautiful St. Petersburg, located on its banks. As you know from a school geography course, the Neva is one river that originates in Lake Ladoga, and here is its source. In the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea is the Neva Bay, where the Neva flows, and there is its mouth.
Neva
A river flows through the area Leningrad region and the city of St. Petersburg. Its length is 74 km, the length in a straight line from the source of the Neva to its mouth is 45 km. The depth averages from 8 to 11 m, the deepest mark is 24 m. The Neva carries its waters along a plain called the Neva Lowland. The banks slope steeply to the water, their height is 4-5 m, at the mouth of the river they are flatter - 3-4 m. The place where the Neva flows is the Gulf of Finland; as already mentioned, it originates in Lake Ladoga.
The width of the river is on average 600 m, the widest point reaches one kilometer. Compared to other low-lying bodies of water, it is quite fast-flowing. The current speed is more than 1 m per second. The Neva River bends quite sharply in three places.
- At the Ivanovo rapids. An approximately three-kilometer stretch of river with shallow depths, frequent shallows and high current speeds of up to 4 m per second. It is located near the town of Otradnoye.
- Near Ust-Slavyanka - a historical district of St. Petersburg.
- At the Smolny Institute. This historical building is a monument to the era of early classicism, built according to the design of the architect D. Quarenghi. Currently the governor's residence.
The Neva, with a length of 75 km, is one of the largest, deepest and deepest rivers in Europe. Due to the uniform flow of water from Lake Ladoga(source) there are practically no spring floods on the river.
Neva Delta - St. Petersburg
The city of St. Petersburg was founded and built in a low-lying and swampy place. To drain the swamps, it was necessary to dig one hundred and one canals and a large number of ponds. The soil removed by digging the canals was used to raise the level of the islands. Over time, many of them lost their significance and were covered with earth. Now the number of islands has been reduced to 59.
Neva Bay, where the Neva flows, is located in the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea. At its confluence, the river forms a branched delta with many islands connected by channels. St. Petersburg is actually located on these islands. The most famous islands are Zayachiy and Vasilyevsky. On the first is Peter-Pavel's Fortress, on the second are the famous St. Petersburg sphinxes and the stock exchange building.
Emperor Peter I had a dream to divide the largest of the islands, Vasilievsky, at the mouth of the Neva with canals, making it look like a corner of Amsterdam. The ruler's dreams were not destined to come true. An associate of Emperor Peter I, A. Menshikov, squandered the funds available in the treasury. For a long time, people refused to settle on the island because there were no roads. Its mass settlement was possible only after the construction of bridges across the Neva.
The area of the water artery basin of St. Petersburg is about 5 thousand km 2, including Lakes Onega and Lake Ladoga. It is distinguished by its complex hydrological network. The basin includes about 26.3 thousand lakes and 48.3 thousand rivers. 26 rivers and small streams flow directly into the Neva. Its main tributaries are: on the right side - Izhora, Slavyanka, Mga, Tosna, Murzinka, on the left - Chernaya Rechka and Okhta.
Etymology of the name
There are several versions of the origin of the name of the river. The first one is Finnish, from the word “neva”, which translates as treeless swamp. Translated from the Sami word “nеvе” means small, fast. The second version is based on the Swedish word “ny(en)” - new. There is also a Slavic hypothesis about the origin of the name Neva. From the chronicles it is known that Lake Ladoga, which is the source of the Neva, was called Nevo in the old days, which meant “new”. Apparently, the tribes that previously inhabited these lands were eyewitnesses of the water leaving the banks of the reservoir and the birth of the river.
St. Petersburg floods
The city is located in low-lying and swampy areas, on islands connected by channels, rivers and canals. During strong autumn winds blowing from the southwest, water rushes into the Gulf of Finland, where the Neva flows, and from there it flows through the river and channels into the city. Floods occur frequently and sometimes have catastrophic consequences. Near St. Isaac's Square there is a stele with marks of all known floods. The highest mark is at 4.21 m. This flood occurred in 1824 and was reflected in the work of A.S. Pushkin "The Bronze Horseman".
In St. Petersburg on the Neva, floods occur between September and December. They cause significant damage to the city. The last very dangerous flood, when the water mark along the Kronstadt water gauge was 220 cm, happened in 2007. In 2011, the construction of a complex of protective structures in Neva Bay was completed. It was deployed during the surge on December 28, 2011. This helped to avoid a very dangerous flood; according to experts, the water level could have risen to 281 cm. If they had not managed to close the dam, the city would have suffered multi-billion dollar damage.
Cities on the Neva
There are four cities in total on the banks of the Neva. This is primarily St. Petersburg, located on the Neva Bay of the Gulf of Finland. In addition, on the river there are Otradnoye, Kirovsk, Shlisselburg, located at the exit of the Neva from Ladoga. There are numerous small settlements on the banks.
Otradnoye
Before the revolution, the village of Otradnoye was a countryside holiday destination for residents of the capital. Beautiful places, fresh air and a clean river attracted city residents here in summer time. Now Otradnoye, with a population of 25.3 thousand people, is a fairly large industrial center, which has its own shipbuilding plant "Pella", the confectionery association "Lubimy Krai", "Lenrechport", OJSC "Nevsky Electroshield Plant", etc. The city, which received in 1970 year, its status as a result of the annexation of the villages of Ivanovskoye and Ust-Tosno, has a history of more than five hundred years.
It is located 18 km from the Rybatskoye metro station, which is part of the territory of St. Petersburg.
Kirovsk
Kirovsk was founded in 1931 on the high left bank of the Neva as a city for the builders of the Kirov State District Power Plant. Distance from St. Petersburg - 35 km. Currently it is an industrial city with a population of 26 thousand people. Here is the Ladoga plant, a house-building plant, a branch of the Okeanpribor concern and many others. The M18 highway passes through Kirovsk, connecting the city of St. Petersburg with Murmansk. The city bears the name of the outstanding figure of the Soviet Union Sergei Mironovich Kirov. It has a pier and the Nevdubstroy railway station.
Shlisselburg
The city of Shlisselburg was founded as a fortress. It was founded in 1323 by Prince Yuri of Novgorod at the exit of the Neva from Ladoga on Orekhovy Island and was called “Oreshek”. The fortress was wooden; 25 years later the Novgorodians laid stone walls. It played an important strategic role and opened the way to the sea for Novgorod.
More than once “Oreshek” withstood the siege of the Swedes, but in 1613 it was captured by them and received a new name - Noteburg, which translated from Swedish meant the city of nuts. After 89 years locality was recaptured by Peter I. He gave it its modern name.
A settlement with the same name was formed on the left bank of the river, which in 1780 was given the status of the city of Shlisselburg. Now its population is 15 thousand people. The road N135 Shlisselburg - Kirovsk - Petersburg is built to St. Petersburg. The distance to the Northern capital is about 50 km.
The Neva is crushed by a slab of ice,
And forgotten by the snow-covered city.
But here and there they grinned angrily
On the Neva ice the fangs of the island -
Those are frozen words of noisy waters,
I'm offended by winter oblivion...
Everything seems to have died under the ice,
And shackled not by sleep, but by winter death.
But the sun creeps across the firmament
A silent, dazzling cat,
Touching the plates with your paw or tail,
Painting light on an ice easel...
Submissive to frost and snow
The river boats' idols were frozen,
And they look like helpless guards,
Placed by the Neva here and there,
To myself, and maybe to bridges,
Those who have not fallen into the state of nirvana.
From the book "Off-Season" 2013, publishing house "Lubavitch".
Reviews
Nadya (can I do that?), You travel through my poems, and I rejoice at every word you write addressed to me. Even if you noticed some inaccuracies in the poems, I think it would be a very objective poetic view.
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How the Neva freezes.
Huge barges, the size of a three-story house, float a hundred meters from my window less and less often. The luxurious hair of the poplar tree nearby, on the shore, has turned yellowish, and it, noticeable only at the foot, is beginning to lose its leaves. Distances decrease, the air becomes empty and transparent, and cold is already seeping into the room through the old frame.
The newspapers wrote that the navigation season is closing and soon the thirteen main drawbridges will finish their thousand-odd drawdowns, and the inconvenience for those who like to drive at night will cease until the next season...
The Neva is a sovereign river, only 74 kilometers long, full of water, in terms of water flow it is almost like the Volga in the Nizhny Novgorod region, at the confluence of the Oka, and if you consider that its width is much smaller, you can understand the full power of the flow. In depth, the Neva is not inferior to the Volga, and even surpasses it; in the fairway it reaches 24 meters, and is navigable along its entire (entire!) length! By the way, is there another similar phenomenon in the world? The deep, strong river has only two small tributaries and flows into a shallow, fresh sea.
The Neva has no source, or rather the source is Lake Ladoga, in which it immediately, powerfully originates, then to the very mouth, practically without being replenished in its short, powerful current, breaking up into three large navigable branches, it flows into the Gulf of Finland.
And the Neva floods not with the spring flood, but with the autumn “inflating” of water from the Baltic.
So, the Neva freezes unusually. Usually all rivers freeze from the shore: first in narrow tributaries, then from the banks to the rapids (places of the most intense flow) and then completely. Well, of course, with the exception, which only confirm the rule, and with the exception of the springs on them, which do not freeze in the most severe frosts, forming ice slides with water breaking out here and there...
First, huge dry cargo ships and nimble technical vessels disappear from the Neva. For some time, private plastic containers were moving back and forth. The water darkens, as it darkens in all Russian reservoirs in late autumn and becomes cold. The river is completely empty. Only seagulls and ducks remaining for the winter brighten up her loneliness a little. After some time, rare, fragile pieces of ice appear, torn somewhere from the already freezing calm surface of Ladoga, carefully carried to the sea by the bored Neva. There are more ice floes, they become thicker and thicker, but their area is comparable to each other, as if they were released according to an unknown pattern. Then they swim completely, pushing, carried by a powerful current. Neva no longer treats them with care. Pushes ashore, crushes, in wild rage, on the stone supports of bridges, indifferent to any passions. The ice is still moving, forming jams here and there. Ice jams are becoming longer in duration and larger in size. Impatient ice floes, striving against all odds to reach the sea, press against their slowed-down companions, piling up hummocks that resemble many times enlarged shards of broken window glass, swept away by a broom on the floor and, for some reason, not removed by the hostess.
The biggest jam has already happened somewhere in the lower reaches and the arriving ice floes only increase its area and in the distance, clearly visible from my window, the border of the water and the surface is completely covered with ice. Before our eyes, it is moving higher and higher upstream, and in one night the continuously growing ice floes will hide the entire rebellious river under their accumulation. Rising against each other, sticking out in all directions, transparent, frozen; here and there they will move a little and freeze again. Here and there, randomly, islands remain clean water, it does not freeze for a long, long time and turns icy black, floating in the even colder air like boiling water, then the frost will take its toll, and where it slows down the water will freeze. This is how you get the picture: hummocks - ice blocks sticking out chaotically in all directions and even crawling far onto the shore, limited in their expansion only by steep banks and trunks of coastal trees, small areas of thin smooth ice and black ones, here and there, seemingly bottomless , rapids.
You can’t skate or ski on such ice, and even on foot in the most severe frosts you won’t get to the other side without risking your health and life. Not for salary, but to walk on the royal river with your feet.
As winter progresses, the sharp edges will be smoothed out significantly, everything will be dusted with snow, but the battlefield of the elements will be visible until spring.
So if you are passing through (and I have been like this more than once before) you will see an icy windfall instead of a frozen surface, don’t be surprised: this is how the Neva freezes...
“Neva, Neva, we will never tire of admiring you!
We sing with our souls about our own, about our dear wonderful city above the Neva!”
(Song “Neva, Neva, it’s not for nothing that Leningraders love you!”
to poems by S. Fogelson and music by V. Solovyov-Sedoy)
It is quite difficult to imagine the city of St. Petersburg without its magnificent landmark - the Neva River.
These two components will never be separated from each other, because we say St. Petersburg and imagine the stormy, rebellious, but so majestically beautiful Neva, which at first sight amazes with its strength, power and beauty.
When the conversation turns to the Neva River itself, we immediately imagine St. Petersburg with its inexhaustible beauty of narrow streets, the solemnity of architectural buildings, the murmur of numerous rivers and canals, and, of course, with its unique energy that penetrates almost any person forever, filling his heart with love and joy.
Yes, undoubtedly, the Neva River is inseparable from its city of St. Petersburg, it is one whole, combining solemnity and beauty, mystery and openness, joy and light, but such pleasant sadness.
"The city is sleeping, shrouded in darkness..."
The city is sleeping, shrouded in darkness,
The lights flicker a little...
There, far away, beyond the Neva,
I see the glow of dawn.
In this distant reflection,
In these reflections of fire
Awakening is lurking
Sad days for me...
"How can you look at the Neva..."
How can you look at the Neva,
How dare you climb onto bridges?..
It’s not for nothing that I have a sad reputation
Ever since I saw you.
Black angels' wings are sharp,
Soon there will be a final trial,
And raspberry bonfires,
They bloom like roses in the snow.
Griffin of the University Embankment. Vasilyevsky Island. Saint Petersburg.
Neva River - brief information
- Length - 74 km, of which 32 km are in St. Petersburg
- Average width - 200-400 meters, the widest part - 1000-1250 m - in the delta at the Nevsky Gate of the Sea Trade Port, the narrowest part - 210 m - opposite Cape Svyatka at the beginning of the Ivanovo Rapids
- Depth - from 4 m at the Ivanovo rapids to 24 meters at the Liteiny Bridge
- The banks are not steep, but immediately go deeper, which allows ships to approach close to the shores
- The Neva River has a basin with an area of 281,000 sq. km, on the territory of which there are 50,000 lakes, the largest of which are Ladoga and Onega, and 60,000 rivers flow, the total length of which is 160,000 km. There is only one other similar system in the world - the Great Lakes in North America
Oreshek Island, Shlisselburg Fortress
The source of the Neva River is located at the Shlisselburg Bay, where the Shlisselburg Fortress, unique in its architecture, was founded on Oreshek Island in 1323 by Prince Yuri Danilovich, the grandson of Alexander Nevsky.
Peter and Paul Fortress
House of Peter I St. Petersburg, Petrovskaya embankment, 6.
Palace Bridge and panorama of the Admiralty Embankment.
Having passed 74 km from Lake Ladoga to the Gulf of Finland, forming a vast delta, the Neva flows into the Gulf of Finland.
At the mouth of the river is St. Petersburg, which is often called the Venice of the North and an open-air museum.
Novo-Mikhailovsky Palace.
Admiralteyskaya Embankment
Main Admiralty.
St. Petersburg Naval Institute.
Pier - Lieutenant Schmidt Embankment.
Lieutenant Schmidt embankment - the right bank of the river. Bolshaya Neva, from the Lieutenant Schmidt Bridge to the 23rd line of Vasilyevsky Island.
The building of the College of Foreign Affairs.
House of E. P. Cazalet - Tenishev Mansion.
Sailboat "Young Baltic". Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Monument to Krusenstern. Lieutenant Schmidt embankment. Vasilyevsky Island. Saint Petersburg.
Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
University embankment.
University embankment in the 19th century.
Spit of Vasilyevsky Island.
Palace of Emperor Peter II.
Buildings of the Kunstkamera and the Academy of Sciences.
View of the University Embankment. Kunstkamera and Peter and Paul Fortress
Playful kiss)) Mytninskaya embankment on Petrogradsky Island. Neva River. Gangway of the "Flying Dutchman" restaurant-landing stage. Saint Petersburg
Night Neva River. The smallest pier. Lieutenant Schmidt embankment on Vasilievsky Island. In the distance is the English Embankment of the second Admiralty Island. Saint Petersburg
That same bridge, that same palace))) Neva River at night. Raised Palace Bridge. Across the river on the left is the Hermitage. Saint Petersburg
Night Neva. The Main Admiralty building. Admiralteyskaya embankment, 2. St. Petersburg
Cake for two))) Birzhevoy Square. Spit of Vasilyevsky Island. Neva River. In the distance - Palace Embankment. Saint Petersburg
true Petersburgers eat smelt.
Eyewitnesses say that the water in the Neva boiled like a cauldron and reversed the flow, barges and ships were tossed like chips, and sailboats washed up on the embankment. Palace Square was flooded with water and it, together with the Neva, became a huge lake, and under the rubble on the 9th line of Vasilievsky Island, corpses of people and livestock accumulated. Distraught people clung to lampposts and climbed trees. A resident of one of the houses on the Vyborg side saved a baby who was trapped in a box that washed up to the porch of his house. Funny incidents also happened. The husband and wife managed to survive by floating on the door that was torn off by the storm. The husband had a chicken in his hands, and the wife had a dog.
For a long time the cause of this disaster could not be explained. At first it was believed that the westerly wind was driving water from the Gulf of Finland and raising the river level. Under Peter the Great, they began to build canals so that water would flow into these channels and the water level in the Neva would decrease. The excavated soil was used to raise the foundations of buildings. After the flood of 1777, canals began to be built more actively and Obvodnoy and Ekaterininsky, Kryukov and other channels appeared. But the built canals did not affect the water level and served only as transport arteries. Only at the end of the 19th century did scientists determine that the cause of floods were long waves that appeared in the Baltic Sea in autumn, passing through the bay in 7-9 hours and raising the level of the Neva by 2 - 2.5 meters in the absence of wind. When there was wind, the waters rose even higher - to a catastrophic level of 3 - 4 meters.
For reference: a flood is considered to be a rise in water level more than 160 cm above normal. A rise of water up to 210 cm is considered dangerous, up to 299 cm - especially dangerous and more than 300 cm - catastrophic. Since 1703, there have been more than 300 floods, the largest of which was in 1824, when the water level rose 421 cm above normal. In 1924 the water rose to 380 cm, in 1777 - to 321 cm and in 1955 - to 293 cm.
To protect St. Petersburg from floods, the construction of a unique set of protective structures began in 1979 - a dam connecting the shores of the Gulf of Finland and passing through Kronstadt. Since the mid-90s, due to a lack of financial resources, the construction of the dam was frozen and resumed only in 2006. The facility was commissioned in August 2011. This unique hydraulic structure helps prevent catastrophic floods with water rising up to 5 meters. In addition to its main task, the dam is part of the ring road (Ring Road).
White Nights are one of the unofficial symbols of the city.
When the evening dawn converges with the morning and twilight lasts all night, the famous white nights begin.
White Nights are the calling card of St. Petersburg. On white summer nights the wings of St. Petersburg bridges rise and caravans of ships pass along the Neva. And then it seems that the whole city is floating into the unknown.
Houses float like ships from distant lands,
Without disturbing calm thoughts
The night is white, today you are my ocean,
I like your big soul.
In the 19th century, bright summer nights in the capital were romanticized and given a mystical meaning. Pushkin, Dostoevsky and other classics of Russian literature wrote about the white nights.
N. Gogol, continuing his artistic study of this phenomenon, wrote: “...on a white night the city seems immersed in “dreaming” and “thoughtfulness”...
In the modern city, numerous events are dedicated to them, such as the Stars of the White Nights arts festival and the White Night Swing jazz festival.
