Pripyat (river)
Template:Short description Template:Infobox river
The Pripyat or PrypiatTemplate:Efn is a river in Eastern Europe. The river, which is approximately Template:Convert long,<ref name="statistics">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> flows east through Ukraine, Belarus, and into Ukraine again, before draining into the Dnieper at Kyiv Reservoir.
Name etymologyEdit
Max Vasmer notes in his etymological dictionary that the historical name of the river mentioned in the earliest East Slavic document, the Primary Chronicle, is Pripet' ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}), and cites the opinion of other linguists that the name meant "tributary", comparing with Greek and Latin roots. He also rejects some opinions which were improperly based on the stem {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} -pjatTemplate:', rather than original {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}.<ref>Max Vasmer, Etymological dictionary of the Russian language, article "Припять" in Russian translation</ref>
The name may also derive from the local word pripech used for a river with sandy banks.<ref name="Room">Template:Cite book</ref>
GeographyEdit
The Pripyat begins in the Volhynian Upland, between the villages of Template:Ill and Template:Ill in Volyn Oblast, Ukraine. 204 km downstream, it crosses the border of Belarus, where it travels 500 km through Polesia, Europe's largest wilderness, within which lie the vast sandy wetlands known as the Pripet Marshes, a dense network of swamps, bogs, rivers and rivulets within a forested basin. For the last 50 kilometers the Pripyat flows again in Ukraine and flows several kilometers south of Chernobyl into the Kyiv Reservoir.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
The length of the river is 775 km, and the area of the watershed is 114,300 km2.<ref name=":0">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The width of the floodplain varies from 4 to 15 km over the course of the river, with occasional flooding reaching 30 km.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Template:Convert of the whole river length lies within Belarus, with the rest in Ukraine.<ref name="statistics" />
The Pripyat is navigable up to Pinsk, where the Dnieper-Bug Canal leads to the Bug River.<ref name=":0" />
The Pripyat passes through the exclusion zone established around the site of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. The nearby city of Pripyat, Ukraine (population 45,000), which was named after the river, was completely evacuated after the Chernobyl disaster.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
The Pripyat is known for its numerous oxbow lakes and channels.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Dredging for E40 waterwayEdit
Dredging of the river started in 2020 to enable the E40 waterway to pass through the area. The dredging raised concerns about radioactive contamination around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, as the river comes within Template:Convert of the nuclear reactor.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
See alsoEdit
NotesEdit
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ReferencesEdit
- Припять, Great Soviet Encyclopedia
- Pripyat // Dictionary of Contemporary Geographical Names / Rus. geogr. oh Moscow center; By common. Ed. acad. V. M. Kotlyakova. Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences. - Yekaterinburg: U-Factorium, 2006.
- Joint River Management Program. Final Report: River Pripyat Basin (February 2004)
BibliographyEdit
- (in Russian, English and Polish) Ye.N.Meshechko, A.A.Gorbatsky (2005) Belarusian Polesye: Tourist Transeuropean Water Mains, Minsk, Four Quarters,
- (in Belarusian, Russian and English) T.A.Khvagina (2005) POLESYE from the Bug to the Ubort, Minsk Vysheysha shkola, Template:ISBN.
External linksEdit
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