The Chara (; , ''Çaara'') is a left tributary of the

Olyokma The Olyokma (, , ; , ) is a tributary of the Lena in eastern Siberia. The river gives its name to the Olyokma-Chara Plateau, located to the west of its western bank. History In the summer of 1631, Russian pioneer Pyotr Beketov entered the Oly ...

Eastern Siberia Eastern Siberia is a part of Siberia that incorporates the territory located between the Yenisei River in the west and the Pacific Ocean divides in the east. Its area is equal to 7.2 million sq. km.Galina Samoylova (Г. С. Самойлова)В� ...

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

. It is long, and has a

drainage basin A drainage basin is an area of land in which all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, ...

of . Together with the Olyokma, river Chara gives its name to the

Olyokma-Chara Plateau The Olyokma-Chara Plateau (; ) is a mountainous area in the Sakha Republic and Irkutsk Oblast, Far Eastern Federal District, Russia.Google Earth A small section is in Kalarsky District, northernmost Zabaykalsky Krai. Charoite, a rare mineral, ...

(Олёкмо-Чарское плоскогорье), located to the east of its eastern bank.

History

The region is famous for a peculiar mountain where charoite has been mined for decades. This intensely purple mineral, named after the river, is only found here and was discovered in the 1940s when a rail tunnel was constructed. Part of the Russian governmental debt was paid in charoite and slabs of this now expensive ornamental material were stored in basements of houses of the Hungarian capital city, Budapest.

Course

The Chara begins as an outflow of Bolshoye Leprindo lake in the Kodar Mountains,

Stanovoy Highlands The Stanovoy Highlands () or Stanovoy Uplands is a mountain range in the Transbaikal region of Siberia, Russia. Geography The Stanovoy Highlands are a mountainous area between the Patom Highlands to the north and the Vitim Plateau to the south. ...

in northern

Zabaykalsky Krai Zabaykalsky Krai is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject of Russia (a krai), located in the Russian Far East. Its administrative center is Chita, Zabaykalsky Krai, Chita. As of the Russian Census (2010), 2010 Census, the population was ...

. It flows through the Chara Basin between the Kodar and Kalar Mountains, passing the ''Chara Sands'', a area of active sand dunes. It joins the left bank of the Olyokma not far from its mouth in the Lena. The Chara has 103 tributaries over in length. The most important are the Apsat and the Zhuya from the left and the Tokko from the right. The Sen River flows into the left bank of the Chara from the northern end of lake Nichatka.Чара (река)

Great Soviet Encyclopedia The ''Great Soviet Encyclopedia'' (GSE; , ''BSE'') is one of the largest Russian-language encyclopedias, published in the Soviet Union from 1926 to 1990. After 2002, the encyclopedia's data was partially included into the later ''Great Russian Enc ...

References

Stanovoy Highlands Rivers of Buryatia {{FarEast-Russia-river-stub

History

Course

See also

References