The Niemen is a river flowing through three states

The Niemen is a river that originates in the south of the Minsk Upland. It flows through Lithuania, Byelorussia and the Kaliningrad region. Its total length is 937 kilometers, and the catchment area is 98,000 square kilometers. At the bottom, the Niemen is a natural natural boundary between the Russian Federation and Lithuania. The river is considered to be the cleanest water stream in Belarus. The reason for this is the low population density and the absence of industrial enterprises along the coast and in the basin. The Niemen is the largest river in Lithuania, the third largest in Belarus and the 14th in Europe. Flows into the Curonian Lagoon of the Baltic Sea. It's a lagoon between the mainland and the scythe. On its shore is the Lithuanian city of Klaipeda.

Hydrology and hydrography of the Neman

The Niemen is a river with mixed water supply. But in the upper reaches it is mainly snow, in the lower reaches - rain. The basin of the water flow has a high lake content of 2.5%. Water consumption per year (average) is 678 m ³ / s. Spring floods last a long time - from the middle of March, April and May. Floods are typical for autumn and winter. In the summer - the low water. Ledostav - in late November - early December, but in warm winters, temporary breakdowns of the river and ice drift are possible. The source is on the Belorussian ridge, at an altitude of 176 meters. These are 2 small rivulets: Losh and Nemanets. To the borders with Lithuania from these places are 459 kilometers.

But the Neman is unstable. The river in its upper reaches has a flat character. And at the intersection of moraine ridges, the valley of the water stream narrows sharply to one and a half kilometers and cuts to a depth of 40 meters. Here the bed of the bed is rapids and rocky. In the lacustrine-glacial lowlands, the Neman Valley extends to 20 kilometers. The bottom becomes sandy, there are islands in the river, and in the floodplain of the old man. The banks of the Neman are always asymmetric. The width of the river in the upper reaches is no more than 40 meters, in the middle - no more than 150 meters, in the lower reaches - up to 400 meters.

History of Neman

Scientists believe that the river in these places existed more than 1 million years ago. The constant convergence of the Scandinavian glaciers did not interfere with the life of the water stream, as soon as they receded, he reappeared. On the banks of the Neman, people first appeared about 12 thousand years ago. In the 10th century the Slavs settled in the upper reaches, and the ancestors of the Lithuanians settled in the lower reaches. The name of the river has the Baltic roots and is translated as "home", "our", "your". For the first time the Neman is mentioned in the Ipatiev Chronicle in connection with the erection on the river of the monastery in the XIII century. But the water flow was included by Ptolemy in the "Map of European Sarmatia" as early as the 2nd century AD.

Interesting events and facts related to Neman

The artistic description of the Neman River can be found in the works of such writers and poets as Adam Mitskevich, Yanka Luchina, Vladislav Syrokomlya and Yakub Kolas. She devoted a lot of songs, including the most famous folk work "Neman - a wonderful river". During the Great Patriotic War the river became a symbol of the combat brotherhood of Russian and French pilots, which was expressed in the name of the famous squadron "Normandy - Neman". The Polish pianist Czeslaw Nemin took a scenic pseudonym in honor of the water flow on the banks of which he grew up.

He took part in the shooting of the movie "Three in a boat, not counting a dog" Neman. The river turned into the English Thames. At the Russian fortress of Kovno, standing on the border, on 4 bridges crossing the Napoleon's army attacked the Russian state in 1812. To such large cities as Kaunas, Sovetsk and Grodno, the river Neman gave life.

Shipping

The Niemen is a navigable river. Regular communication is established on the stretch between the Belarusian city of Grodno and the Lithuanian Druskininkai. The lower course of the river was cut off by the Kaunas hydroelectric power station (1959), which is not equipped with a sluice. During "high water" ships with building materials, timber and other goods can rise above the confluence of the Berezina inflow into the Neman. Shipping is possible from April to October. Also from Neman you can go to the Vistula and the Dnieper through the canals. During the summer, pleasure boats and river cruises take place along the river.

The tributaries and channels of the Neman

With the Dnieper river , the Oginsky channel, which was built at the end of the 18th century, unites the river . This waterway was built in order that small ships could get from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea . The Nemunas with the Vistula connects the Augustow canal, erected in the first half of the XIX century. It is an architectural monument and is under the protection of UNESCO. The tributaries of the Neman River are numerous - about 180. The largest of them are Merkis with a length of 206 km; Vilia (its length is 510 km); Shchara (325 km); Shushupe (298 km); Zelvianka (170 km); Havya (100 km). Virtually all the streams flow from the marshes. In the XX century, in the lower reaches of the marsh, the swamps were dried for peat extraction. The streams of the tributaries began to deepen and level, which significantly violated the hydrological regime of both the tributaries and the Neman itself.

Nature of the Neman River

On the banks of the Nemunas there is mainly a mixed forest, in which the prevalence of coniferous trees is noted. The main massifs are located on the Berezina River. This is the Grodno Forest, Nalibokskaya Pushcha. The Niemen is very attractive to fishermen. Bream, pike, crucian carp, perch, bleak, pike perch and roach are found here. Fishermen for biting on the Neman do not complain ever. After the end of spawning in the beginning of June, lovers of active tourism, mainly canoeists, descend on the water. There are ready routes from local travel agencies, but you can go on your own. The length of the route from Lida (it is here, as a rule, the routes start) can be up to 150 kilometers. Neman is attractive for all kinds of tourism: water, bicycle, horse or foot. The banks of the river are rich in natural, architectural, historical and archaeological sights.