Ukraine, the land and its people

by Stepan Rudnytskyi

Still, the rapids of the Dnieper are even now a great hindrance to navigation. Within the porohi section, steamboat navigation is altogether impossible, and the smaller rowboats or sailboats can risk it only during the spring floods, and then only the down-trip. Only the rafts can pass thru the porohi at low-water time, altho with great danger. The up-stream trip is almost impossible, even in the smallest vessel, altho, at one time, everyone who desired to join the Zaporog Cossacks was required to undertake this daring enterprise.

The Russian government has attempted, indeed, to make the rapids of the river navigable, and has caused a navigable canal to be formed at each fall, thru blasting of the rock ledges. But these canals have been planned in so impractical and even faulty a manner that the river pilots (lotzmani) still use the old “Cossack paths” to a great extent (the Cosachi khody) to bring river boats and rafts thru the porohi.

The width of the river in the rapids section remains unchanged—1 to 1¾ kilometers. Only at its exit from the porohi, at the so-called Wolf’s Throat (Vovche horlo), the river narrows down to 160 meters. The quiet sections between separate rapids are usually very wide and as much as 30 meters deep.

Of genuine rapids (porohi), according to the pilots, who are direct descendants of the Zaporog Cossacks, there are nine; of the larger sabori (ledges of rock which do not obstruct the entire width of the river), six. The first rapids [[78]]below Katerinoslav are the Kaidac rapids (Kaidazki porih), with four ledges of rock. Then follow the Yazeva Sebora, the Little Sursky porih, with two ledges, the dangerous Lokhanski porih with three ledges, and the Strilcha Sabora, with the great rocks of Strilcha skela and Kamin Bohatir. The next rapids, Svonez and the far-sounding Tiahinska Sabora, allow vessels easy passage, but after passing thru the Dnieper the pilot must exert all his strength. Even from the Svonez rapids on, one can hear the terrible roaring and rumbling of the largest of the porohi, the Did (grandfather) or Nenassitetz (insatiable). Masses of white foam cover it completely, the water shoots down over the twelve ledges of rock with the speed of an arrow. The vessel groans and creaks, but flies thru the porih in three minutes, if it can only escape the dangerous rock of Krutko or the terrible whirlpool of Peklo (the Hell). Or it may happen that the ship is dashed to pieces in the Voronova Sabora, which is full of dangerous reefs.

After the Did and the insignificant Kriva Sabora, comes the Vnuk (grandchild) or Vovnih, whose four ledges, covered with great billows and masses of foam, holds many hidden dangers for the sailor. But “after overcoming the Grandfather and the Grandchild, don’t go to sleep, for the Awakener will wake you”—meaning the next following Porih Budilo (Awakener) which also is dangerous for ships. We then come past the Tavolzanska Sabora, where the beautiful crag (Snieva skela) rises, to the next to the last porih, Lishni (the Dispensable), with two insignificant edges of rock, which offer but slight dangers. The last porih, however, which bears the name of Vilni (free) or Hadiuchi (serpent falls), is very dangerous for ships and rafts, for the channel winds in serpentine twists thru the six ledges, and the pilot must exercise all his skill in order to steer the ship entrusted to him safely thru the dangerous channel. After this follows the narrow [[79]](160 m.) “Wolf’s-Throat” (Vovche horlo), with three great rocks; the small Javlena Sabora, three dangerous “Robber Rocks” (Kameni Rosbiyniki), and two granite precipices, Stovli (Pillars), and we come into the Zaporog country (Zaporoze).

Here the Dnieper valley widens and numerous islands appear in the stream. The upper ones, for example, Khortizia and Tomakivka, which were once the site of the first Zaporog Sich, are high, rocky, and overgrown with forest. Further south the steep left-hand valley slope recedes far from the river and the so-called Veliki Luh begins. It is a labyrinth of flat forest and reed-covered alluvial islands, river branches, old river beds, lakes and swamps. Here were located the hunting and fishing grounds of the Zaporog Cossacks; here was their dwelling place, wonderfully fortified by nature and surrounded by an inaccessible wilderness of forests and waters, and the center of their military state; of the century-old oaks of the Veliki Luh, the Zaporogs built their ships, in order to pay their daring visits to the lord of Islam in his own capital. But the glorious days are past, the warlike life and activity has disappeared, and strange colonists, whom the Russian Government has sent here to settle, now occupy the ground on which the second Ukrainian state originated.

From the many-branched mouth of the Konka (also named Kinska voda) the Dnieper River turns toward the southwest, which direction it retains until it disembogues into the sea. From this point on, the river nowhere flows in a single bed; an enormous number of side arms branch off from the main arm or unite with it. The broad river valley, whose right bank continues to be high and rocky for a time, is taken up by the plavni formation and winds like a broad band of freshly growing verdure thru the steppe, which stretches out dry and golden-brown in the hot midsummer. [[80]]After receiving, as its last tributary, the steppe-river Inhuletz, it empties with nine arms into its liman, below Kherson. Of these arms only two are navigable for larger vessels, and the immense Dnieper liman is at most only 6 meters deep. The river brings down great masses of sand and mud, and fills up its liman so rapidly that strenuous dredging is necessary, in order to make it possible for small sea-vessels to reach the harbor of Kherson.

The Dnieper River brings the Black Sea, on the average, 2000 cu. m. of water per second. It is navigable, even for large river boats, along a stretch of 1900 km. The ice-cover lasts 100 days at Kiev; 80 days in the lower part of its course.

The tributaries of the Dnieper are very numerous and important; their total length is over 13,000 km. Of those on the right, the Pripet River is the most important. It gathers in all the waters of the Polissye and is the typical river of that district. Its length exceeds 650 km. Rising in the northern spurs of the Volhynian Plateau, very close to the course of the Buh, it immediately reaches the Polissian Plain and becomes a navigable river over 50 m. wide and about 6 m. deep. In the main axis of the Polissian basin the Pripet turns eastward and becomes about 100 m. wide. The incline of the river is very slight, the number of turns and river arms enormous. Between swampy woods and moors the river forms labyrinths of delicate, intricate waterways and stagnant pools. Near Mosir, where the river turns to the southeast, its width reaches 450 m., its depth 10 m. Of quite the same type are the tributaries of the Pripet: the Turia, Stokhod, Stir with the Ikva, the Horin with the Sluch, the Ubort and the Uz on the right; the Pina, Yassiolda, Sluch and Ptich on the left. All of them are navigable along great stretches. The remaining right-hand tributaries of the Dnieper, the Teterev and the Irpen, have the Polissian character [[81]]only near their mouth, otherwise they are purely plateau rivers with rocky beds. The Teterev is able to transport rafts of logs, while the other rivers of the Dnieper Plateau, as for example, the Ross (altho greater than the Teterev) and the Tiasmin, are entirely unfit for navigation, as a result of their rocky beds and their small volume in summer. The last large Dnieper tributary, the steppe-river Inhuletz, altho barely 100 km. shorter than the Pripet, is, for the same reasons, only capable of carrying logs in the last 150 km. of its much-twisted course.

Of the left-hand tributaries of the Dnieper only the northern ones possess a sufficient volume of water to be navigable. The Soz, which is 550 kilometers in length, becomes as wide as 150 meters, and is navigable for a stretch of nearly 360 kilometers. The Desna is the longest of all the Dnieper tributaries (1000 km.). It rises near Yelnia, on the Central Russian Plateau, and flows in a broad symmetrical valley, which it floods in places every spring to the extent of 10 kilometers. The normal width of the river at low-water is 160 meters; the depth is 6 meters. Despite many shallows and sand-banks, the Desna is capable of bearing rafts along a stretch of 250 kilometers, and is navigable for 700 kilometers even for the larger river boats. Of the Ukrainian tributaries of the Desna, the most important is the Sem, which is 650 km. long and navigable for 500 kilometers.