Mighty Amur

Khabarovskiy cliff and its vicinity, is where the Far Eastern center began its growth, as it was rendered habitable long ago. We know practically nothing about its ancient and the earliest inhabitants. We can assume that many tribes and nations lived there during past millenniums.

There was a Nanayan nomad camp at the place of the future Khabarovsk before Russian explorers came. Aborigines lived on both banks of Amur. Signs on old geographical maps show their settlements. The famous researcher of Siberia and the Far East, Richard Karlovich Maak, who participated in the first Amur floating down this great Far Eastern river in 1855, described the future Khabarovsk vicinity. “There is an immense area of water, merging with the horizon in front of us. The view is wonderful: the sun is brightly reflected on absolutely calm water, filling it with golden light, there are sea-gulls in the air, our eyes meet only mirrors of water and clear sky”. He also told about cliff Byri with small nearby village. “Rocky ledge Byri”, mentioned by Maak, is the Khabarovskiy cliff.

Maak was the first Russian and European scientist, who described the Amur, its banks and closest vicinity, the wealth of local nature, the people and their business. Recordings in his diary of July, 1885 are considered the first scientific-cognitive reporting about the location of the future town, which would appear a hundred years later on the Amur bank and occupy 50 kilometers.

One evening he went back along the bank to cliff Byri to visit the village of natives, located near it. He wrote: “During this trip I was certain that Amur is rich in fish, I shot some sturgeons with my gun; huge sturgeons jumped out of the water and disappeared again, flapping their wide tails. Sturgeons and a lot of other fish were swimming near our feet between the stones, they were playing under the sun, splashing the water and leaving quickly disappearing circles on the surface of the river”.

The scientist observed this pageant near the present-day plant “Daldiesel”.

Read two quotations from the diary of R. K. Maak, traveler-naturalist, geographer and geologist:

“… Перед нами открылась необозримая площадь воды, сливавшаяся с горизонтом. Вид был прекрасный: солнце ярко отражалось в совершенно покойной воде, обливая ее золотистым светом, в воздухе вились чайки, и взоры встречались только с зеркалом воды и с ясным небом”.

“Во время этой прогулки я имел случай убедиться, как обилен Амур рыбою, и убил из ружья несколько осетров; огромные калуги беспрестанно выскакивали из воды и снова скрывались, взмахнувши своим широким хвостом; у наших ног, между каменьями, плавали осетры и множество различной рыбы играло на солнце, беспрестанно всплескивая воду и оставляя на поверхности реки быстро расходившиеся круги”.

Now try to describe your own impressions of Amur in Russian, then translate them in English.

Two banks of one river: Russia and China. Problems of ecology

The Amur river runs through 3 different regions: the Chitinskaya and Amurskaya Oblasts and the Khabarovskiy Krai. As one of the greatest rivers of this country the Amur is divided into 3 parts: the upper, the middle and the lower Amur. The total length of the Amur river is 27 hundred miles. The distance from Khabarovsk to the Pacific Ocean is 600 miles and it takes 44 hours to reach the estuary by ship. The Amur with its tributaries Shilka and Onon is the longest river in Russia.

In 1858 the Russian-Chinese Treaty on border was signed and then Trans-Amur Territories discovered and populated by Russians were annexed to Russia. Navigation on the Amur was opened the same year, 1858. The growth of population in the territory and construction of the Transsiberian Railroad resulted in the intensive development of the Amur fleet.

To date the two countries’ territories, those of Russia and China, have been separated by the Amur for the space of two thousand kilometers. So, Russians and Chinese are currently united not only by trade and friendship, but also by this great river, which used to be one of the least transformed by man rivers of our planet is now under the threat of an environmental disaster.

Due to the growth of various industries and to dumping of huge amounts of industrial wastes in the waters of this boundary river, the Amur becomes very much polluted and needs to be protected.

Two expeditions to the Amur middle reaches organized by the Institute of Aquatic and Ecological Problems under the Far Eastern branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Amur-side Geographic Society in 1998 provided the researchers with an opportunity to make an assessment of the present-day state of the natural environment of the river and to identify problems of the biological and aquatic resources and vegetation conservation in a situation of intensive economic activities. The expeditions participants unanimously concluded that the Amur eco-system has approached a dangerous borderline and will deteriorate to such an extent that it will have to be reproduced and not protected. And that will be more costly and more complicated to do.

In June and July of 1998, when the Sungary river was in severe flood, the Aquatic and Ecological Problems Institute specialists reported various harmful agents getting into the Amur in gigantic quantities. Dirty and poisonous ribbons of foam, oil patches, all kinds of household wastes floated on the surface of the muddy yellow water. The chemical compounds, while being accumulated in the various aquatic organisms, turn into dangerous sources of water pollution and fish poisoning in the Amur.

On the Chinese bank of the river a sand is extracted on the foreland, the trees are cut down, the lands are ploughed up to the very riverside and fertilizers are applied in big amounts in the fields. The dikes (дамбы) that protect the river banks from washing out and the fields – from flooding, negatively and destructively affect the river. They sometimes stretch for dozens of kilometers along the Chinese bank. Interfering with the natural watercourse dikes contribute to more active washing out of the banks in the other sections and increase the watercourse instability. As a result, navigable paths shift from one arm of the river to the other, the rifts get shallow and new islands are formed in the river. All this not only makes the navigation difficult, but also impedes the development of the borderline relationship between the two countries. The problem of Russian-Chinese cooperation in ensuring ecological safety of one of the richest and the most beautiful rivers in the world is currently extremely important. In the new millennium the people’s welfare on both river banks is subject to what priority its solution will be given.

Answer the questions:

1. What is the total length of the Amur river?

2. What is the distance from Khabarovsk to the Pacific Ocean?

3. When was the Russian-Chinese Treaty on the Amur River borderline signed?

4. When was the navigation on the Amur opened?

5. For what length are Russia and China separated along the Amur river?

6. What expeditions to the Amur middle reaches were made in 1998?

7. What did happen to the river in June and July of 1998?

8. Why is the Amur river much polluted?

9. What problems harmful to the river ecology do occur on the Chinese bank?

10. What measures should be taken to ensure an ecological safety of the Amur river?