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NEVA RIVER

Neva
Origin Lake Ladoga
Mouth Gulf of Finland
Basin countries Russia, Finland, Belarus
Length 74 km (46 mi)
Source elevation 4 m (13 ft)
Avg. discharge 2,600 m³/s (91,832 ft³/s)
Basin area 282,000 km² (108,880 mi²)

Neva (Russian: Нева́) is a river in northwestern Russia flowing from Lake Ladoga through the city of Saint Petersburg to the Gulf of Finland. Despite its modest length, it is the third largest river in Europe in terms of average discharge (after the Volga and the Danube).

Contents

Geography

The length of the Neva is 74 km. 28 km of these are with the city boundaries of Saint Petersburg, while the rest are within Leningrad Oblast. It flows southwest from lake Ladoga, reaches its southernmost point, and turns northwest into the Gulf of Finland. Average width is 400—600 m, maxinum width: 1200 m. Maximum depth: 24 m. The Neva's basin includes Lake Ladoga and Lake Onega, the two largest lakes in Europe, and spans over a large area of Northwestern Russia and southern Finland.

Neva delta

The islands in the Neva delta formed by both natural armlets and artificial canals are occupied by the historical part of Saint Petersburg. The largest armlets are

The most significant canals and small rivers are

Among the notable islands are

Tributaries

The Neva has 26 tributaries. The major ones are:

Cities and towns along the Neva

History

In the Middle Ages the wide and navigable river had great importance as a link between the Baltics and the Volga portages leading to the Orient. It was a site of the famous Battle of the Neva (1240). Alexander Nevsky, Prince of Novgorod, won this battle, saving Russia from invasion, and took his title Nevsky (meaning 'Of the Neva') from this event.

During the 16th century the mouth of the Neva was the site of the Swedish fortress Nyen, and the inlet to the Ladoga of the Russian fortress Oreshek, later renamed Shlisselburg. The former was replaced with the Peter and Paul Fortress (Петропавловская Крепость — Petropavlovskaya Krepost') in 1703. Standing on the Hare Island (Заячий Остров — Zayachii Ostrov), the fortress is considered the first structure of present-day St Petersburg.

Navigation

The Neva is the most northwestern part of the Volga-Baltic Waterway, the connection between the Volga River and the Baltic Sea. This waterway is navigable for even the largest inland vessels, and it is an important part of the inland shipping connection between St. Petersburg and Moscow. Many passenger vessels share this waterway with large transport ships. [1]

Trivia

Grigori Rasputin drowned in the Neva in 1916.

Neva was the name of a 200-foot-long (61-meter), three-masted sloop-of-war, the first Russian ship to circumnavigate the globe in 1804 under the command of Lieutenant Commander Urey Fedorovich Lisianski. The Russian poet Anna Akhmatova included the Neva in many of her poems.

The central avenue of Saint Petersburg, Nevsky Prospekt, takes its name from the Neva River.

See also

External links

  • Weblog with pictures of the Neva