Ukraine, the land and its people

by Stepan Rudnytskyi

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 [[73]]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 [[74]]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 [[75]]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 [[76]]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 [[77]]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.