Oka River

This article is about a river in western Russia. For the river in Siberia with the same name, see Oka River (Siberia). For other uses, see Oka.

Oka River
Oka river between Serpukhov and Kashira cities in Moscow region. Its width there is about 200 m (220 yd).
Mouth	Volga River
Basin countries	Russia
Length	1,500 km (932 mi)
Avg. discharge	1,300 cubic metres per second (46,000 cu ft/s)
Basin area	245,000 square kilometres (95,000 sq mi)

Map of the Volga watershed with the Oka highlighted

The confluence of the Oka with the Volga in Nizhny Novgorod.

The Oka riverbank in Nizhny Novgorod.

The Oka River in Moscow Oblast, near Serpukhov.

Oka (Russian: Ока́, IPA: [ɐˈka]) is a river in central Russia, the largest right tributary of the Volga. It flows through the regions of Oryol, Tula, Kaluga, Moscow, Ryazan, Vladimir, and Nizhny Novgorod and is navigable over a large part of its total length, as far upstream as to the town of Kaluga. Its length exceeds 1,500 kilometres (930 mi). The Russian capital Moscow sits on one of the Oka's tributaries—the Moskva River.

Name and history

Max Vasmer connects the name of the river to the Gothic аƕа, Old High German aha, Latin aqua, which all mean either "water" or "river" (cf. Aa River).^[1] Oleg Trubachev traces the origin of the name to the Baltic languages: it was the Baltic tribe of Galindians that lived in the western part of the Oka basin prior to the arrival of the Slavs.

Historically, the river gave its name to the Upper Oka Principalities, situated upstream from Tarusa. One of the largest Russian cities, Nizhny Novgorod, was founded to protect the Oka's confluence with the Volga. The Qasim Khanate, a Muslim polity, occupied the middle reaches of the Oka (around the city of Kasimov) in the 15th and 16th centuries.

Before the construction of the railways in the mid-19th century, and the Moscow Canal in the 1930s, the Oka, along with its tributary Moskva, was an important transportation route connecting Moscow with the Volga River. Due to the Oka's and Moskva's meandering course, the travel was not particularly fast: for example, it took Cornelis de Bruijn around 10 days to sail from Moscow down these two rivers to Nizhny Novgorod in 1703.^[2] Traveling upstream may have been even slower, as the boats had to be pulled by burlaks.^[3]

Landmarks

The banks of the river are dotted with historical and cultural sites, including the medieval monasteries of Murom, the mosques and minarets of Kasimov, the fortified kremlins of Kolomna and Serpukhov, the memorial houses of Vasily Polenov and Sergey Yesenin, the excavated ruins of Old Ryazan, and the Oka Shukhov Tower.

The Prioksko-Terrasny Biosphere Reserve lies along the left bank of the river opposite the town of Pushchino and is known for its wisent breeding nursery.

Main tributaries

• Ugra
• Zhizdra
• Upa
• Protva
• Nara
• Moskva
• Pra
• Osyotr
• Pronya
• Para
• Moksha
• Tyosha
• Klyazma

Cities and towns on the Oka

• Oryol
• Belyov
• Chekalin
• Kaluga
• Aleksin
• Tarusa
• Serpukhov
• Stupino
• Kashira
• Protvino
• Pushchino
• Kolomna
• Ryazan
• Kasimov
• Murom
• Pavlovo
• Navashino
• Gorbatov
• Dzerzhinsk
• Nizhny Novgorod

References

1. ^ Vasmer's Etymological Dictionary, trans. by Oleg Trubachev, vol. 3, p. 127.
2. ^ Bruin, Cornelis de (1725), Voyage au Levant: c'est-à-dire, dans les principaux endroits de l'Asie Mineure, dans les isles de Chio, Rhodes, Chypre, etc., de même que dans les plus considérables villes d'Egypte, de Syrie, et Terre Sainte., 3, J.-B.-C. Bauche le fils, pp. 233-247, http://books.google.com/books?id=ctUWAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA250 
3. ^ Bruin 1725, p. 240

External links

• Oka at GEOnet Names Server
• Media related to Oka River at Wikimedia Commons

Coordinates: 56°20′N 43°59′E / 56.333°N 43.983°E / 56.333; 43.983