The Kuban; Circassian: Псыжъ, ''Psyẑ'' or Псыжь, ''Psyź'' ; abq, Къвбина, ''Q̇vbina'' ; Karachay–Balkar: Къобан, ''Qoban''; Nogai: Кобан, ''Qoban'') is a river in

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eigh ...

that flows through the

Western Caucasus The Western Caucasus is a western region of the Caucasus in Southern Russia, extending from the Black Sea to Mount Elbrus. World Heritage Site The Western Caucasus includes a natural UNESCO World Heritage Site comprising the extreme western e ...

and drains into the Sea of Azov. The Kuban runs mostly through Krasnodar Krai for , but also in the Karachay–Cherkess Republic, Stavropol Krai and the

Republic of Adygea The Republic of Adygea (; russian: Республика Адыгея, Respublika Adygeya, p=ɐdɨˈɡʲejə; ady, Адыгэ Республик, ''Adıgə Respublik''), also known as the Adyghe Republic, is a republics of Russia, republic of Ru ...

. The Kuban flows north and west from its source near Mount Elbrus in the

Caucasus Mountains The Caucasus Mountains, : pronounced * hy, Կովկասյան լեռներ, : pronounced * az, Qafqaz dağları, pronounced * rus, Кавка́зские го́ры, Kavkázskiye góry, kɐfˈkasːkʲɪje ˈɡorɨ * tr, Kafkas Dağla ...

, eventually reaching Temryuk Bay in the Sea of Azov. It is navigable up to

Krasnodar Krasnodar (; rus, Краснода́р, p=krəsnɐˈdar; ady, Краснодар), formerly Yekaterinodar (until 1920), is the largest city and the administrative centre of Krasnodar Krai, Russia. The city stands on the Kuban River in south ...

. Major cities on the river are Karachayevsk, Cherkessk, Nevinnomyssk, Armavir, Novokubansk, Kropotkin, Ust-Labinsk,

and Temryuk. Despite its name,

Slavyansk-na-Kubani Slavyansk-on-Kuban (russian: Славянск-на-Куба́ни) is a town in Krasnodar Krai, Russia, located in the Kuban River delta. Population: 56,000 (1975). History Slavyansk originated in the Middle Ages as ''Copa'' or ''Copari ...

lies not on the Kuban River, but on its distributary the Protoka.

Geography and hydrology

The river originates on the slopes of Mount Elbrus and forms at the merger of its two tributaries, Ullukam and Uchkulam; from the source of Ullukam to the delta, it has a length of . Between the source and Nevinnomyssk the river flows mostly in the deep and narrow gorge, has many thresholds and rapidly changes its elevation. Near Nevinnomyssk a dam supplies water to the Nevinnomyssk channel. In its central part, until the confluence with the Bolshaya Laba, the Kuban River flows in a wide flat valley with terraced slopes. Then it bends to the west and develops a left-bank floodplain, which is wide near Ust-Labinsk. There it is winding and has many shoals and rapids. Below the mouth of Laba the river widens up to . Between the mouths of the rivers Laba and Afips the Adyghe marshes cover an area of about , and below the river Afips, about is occupied by the Zakubanskie marshes. At from the mouth, the Kuban converges with a major tributary, the Protoka, which is long. Near its mouth the Kuban narrows to and then forms a delta covering about . The delta contains numerous limans, some of which have gradually separated from the river. Until the 19th century the Kuban River discharged into both the Black and the Azov seas. However later, the rising grounds redirected the river entirely to the Azov Sea.Kuban River

Great Soviet Encyclopedia The ''Great Soviet Encyclopedia'' (GSE; ) 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 ''Bolshaya rossiyskaya e ...

(in Russian) 428: Kuban
, Freshwater Ecoregions of the World In the upper stream the river is mostly fed by glaciers and high-mountain snow (49%). Near Krasnodar, this contribution drops to 32%; meanwhile, the water supply from the subsoil water increases from 21% to 32%, and that of rainwater from 27% to 32%. The river does not freeze over because of a relatively warm climate and rapid flow in the upper part. The Kuban River is characterized by numerous (6–7 through the year) floods due to rains and thaws, both in the winter and summer. The water level used to fluctuate by up to , with the maximum in July and the minimum in February. The amplitude of these fluctuations was reduced by construction of the Nevinnomyssk channel and the Tschikskoe, Krasnodar and Shapsug reservoirs. These measures also provided water for fish farming and rice fields. The average

discharge Discharge may refer to Expel or let go * Discharge, the act of firing a gun * Discharge, or termination of employment, the end of an employee's duration with an employer * Military discharge, the release of a member of the armed forces from serv ...

of the Kuban River is at its maximum near

at about . It was formerly higher by some but was lowered by the reservoir construction. The average discharge near Armavir is , and it formerly varied between before the filling of the Krasnodar Reservoir in the 1980s. The annual outflow to the Azov Sea is about of water, 8 million tonnes of sediments and 4 million tonnes of dissolved salts. The average turbidity is 682 g/m³. Water salinity increases toward the delta; it normally varies between 50 and 400 mg/L and may reach 1000 mg/L in some areas. All major tributaries flow into the Kuban from the left and originate in the

. Those tributaries include the Bolshoy Zelenchuk, Maly Zelenchuk, Urup, Laba, Belaya and Pshish. The main tributaries of the Kuban are, from source to mouth: * Teberda (left) *

Maly Zelenchuk Malý or Maly may refer to: People * Arturo Maly (1939–2001), Argentine actor * Dominik Malý (born 1996), Slovak footballer * Gerő Mály (1884–1952), Hungarian actor * Jakub Malý (1811–1885), Czech writer * Josef Malý (1894–1943), Cz ...

(left) *

Bolshoy Zelenchuk The Bolshoy Zelenchuk (russian: Большой Зеленчук) is a river in the North Caucasus, Russia. It is a left tributary of the Kuban into which it flows at Nevinnomyssk. It is long, and has a drainage basin of .Urup (left) * Laba (left) * Belaya (left) *

Pshish Pshish (russian: Пшиш; ady, Пщыщ) is a river in Krasnodar Krai and the Republic of Adygea of Russia. It is a left tributary of the Kuban. It is long, with a drainage basin A drainage basin is an area of land where all flowing su ...

(left) * Apchas (left) * Psekups (left) * Afips (left)

Flora

The river flows through three types of landscape: mixed forests of the Caucasus in the south, Crimean Submediterranean forests in the central part, and

steppe In physical geography, a steppe () is an ecoregion characterized by grassland plains without trees apart from those near rivers and lakes. Steppe biomes may include: * the montane grasslands and shrublands biome * the temperate grasslan ...

in the north. The

Caucasus mixed forests The Caucasus mixed forests is a temperate broadleaf and mixed forests ecoregion in the Caucasus Mountains, as well as the adjacent Lesser Caucasus range and the eastern end of the Pontic Mountains. Geography The ecoregion covers an area of ...

are rich in tree species; at mid-elevation, they are dominated by Georgian oak (''Quercus iberica''),

hornbeam Hornbeams are hardwood trees in the flowering plant genus ''Carpinus'' in the birch family Betulaceae. The 30–40 species occur across much of the temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Origin of names The common English name ''hornb ...

(''Carpinus caucasica''), sweet chestnut ('' Castanea sativa'') and Oriental beech ('' Fagus orientalis''). Higher forests are coniferous and consist of fir ('' Abies nordmanniana'') and spruce ('' Picea orientalis''). The Crimean Submediterranean forests are also coniferous, dominated by fir and spruce. The vegetation of the delta mostly consists of thickets of reeds, grassweed, sedges, bur-reed and cattail. Less frequent are tape-grasses,

grass rush ''Butomus'' is the only known genus in the plant family Butomaceae, native to Europe and Asia. It is considered invasive in some parts of the United States. Taxonomy The Butomaceae family has been recognized by most taxonomists as a pl ...

, arrowhead and other water-hungry plants. The estuaries have rich underwater vegetation in the form of stoneworts algae, pondweed,

hornworts Hornworts are a group of non-vascular Embryophytes (land plants) constituting the division Anthocerotophyta (). The common name refers to the elongated horn-like structure, which is the sporophyte. As in mosses and liverworts, hornworts have ...

, lilies and other species. The total area of such vegetation is . Some estuaries contain thickets of

lotus Lotus may refer to: Plants *Lotus (plant), various botanical taxa commonly known as lotus, particularly: ** ''Lotus'' (genus), a genus of terrestrial plants in the family Fabaceae **Lotus flower, a symbolically important aquatic Asian plant also ...

which was brought to the area from Africa.

Fauna

The wide delta of Kuban, with its abundant estuaries, is especially rich in

plankton Plankton are the diverse collection of organisms found in water (or air) that are unable to propel themselves against a current (or wind). The individual organisms constituting plankton are called plankters. In the ocean, they provide a cr ...

and benthos. There are about 400 species of zooplankton, including rotifers,

copepod Copepods (; meaning "oar-feet") are a group of small crustaceans found in nearly every freshwater and saltwater habitat. Some species are planktonic (inhabiting sea waters), some are benthic (living on the ocean floor), a number of species have p ...

s, cladocerans, mollusks, worms, etc., providing abundant food for fish. The fish fauna of the Kuban differs from that of the nearby Don and Volga rivers and contains more than 65 species from 16 families. They are dominated by the genera '' Gobio'', '' Romanogobio'', '' Squalius'' and ''

Chondrostoma ''Chondrostoma'' (from the Ancient Greek roots (''khondros'') 'lump' + (''stoma'') 'mouth' = 'lump-mouth') is a genus of ray-finned fish in the family Cyprinidae. They are commonly known as nases, although this term is also used locally to den ...

'' and contain species and genera such as carp, Prussian carp, roach, bream,

silver bream Silver bream is the common name of several species of fish: * '' Blicca bjoerkna'' (white bream), freshwater species of cyprinids from Europe and Western Asia * ''Acanthopagrus australis'' (surf bream), marine and freshwater species of sea bream fro ...

, pike, perch, ruffe, '' Chalcalburnus'', '' Sprattus'', '' Mugil'' and others. Some species such as silver carp and grass carp were acclimatized in the last decade. Endemic species include the Kuban barbel (''Barbus kubanicus''), ''Gobio kubanicus'', Little Kuban gudgeon (''Romanogobio parvus''), Kuban long-barbelled gudgeon (''R. pentatrichus''),

Kuban nase Kuban's nase or Kuban nase (''Chondrostoma kubanicum'') is a species of freshwater fish in the family Cyprinidae. It is found in the Kuban River drainage in the North Caucasus region in Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, i ...

(''Chondrostoma kubanicum''), ''Sabanejewia kubanica'', ''Oxynoemacheilus merga'' and Aphips chub. Kuban barbel and Kuban nase are the only species of their genera within the Kuban basin. They prefer mountainous streams with a rapid flow and sandy or rocky bottom on which they spawn. After the construction of the Krasnodar Dam in the 1980s, the Kuban barbel became rare in the lower Kuban. On the contrary, Kuban nase moves downstream to lower sections or larger tributaries in winter. It is rather sensitive to the water quality, especially turbidity. Its population also declined after the construction of the Krasnodar Dam, but is still large in the middle and upper parts of the Kuban and its tributaries. The Kuban gudgeon and Little Kuban gudgeon are restricted to the sections with moderately fast flow and gravel or sandy bottoms; they are abundant in the middle part of the river. The Kuban gudgeon is unusual by having five anal branched rays. Aphips chub (''Squalius aphipsi'') occurs in southern tributaries of Kuban and is hiding in small pools in the summer. It spawns in rapid streams deep with a pebble or rocky bottom. It does not migrate much, but it moves downstream in winter to find deeper pools and returns upstream in summer. This species is abundant throughout the whole river. Before the construction of dams, the River had migratory stocks of sturgeons ('' Acipenser gueldenstaedtii'', '' A. stellatus'', '' Huso huso'') and cyprinids ('' Alburnus mento'', '' Vimba vimba''). These species have low presence nowadays. The delta of the Kuban River and its estuaries are a popular resting ground for various migratory birds, especially waterfowl such as wild geese, ducks, cormorants, pelicans, swans and gray herons. Also abundant are birds of prey, such as falcons, as well as foxes and wild cats. Muskrats were brought to the watershed in the 20th century for commercial fur production.

Geological history

Tens of thousands of years ago, the Azov Sea was much larger and covered the delta of the Kuban River. Deposition of silt by the Kuban gradually pushed out the sea and shaped the delta with numerous limans and shallow estuaries. Frequent eruptions of the mud volcanoes contributed to this deposition process. There are about 25 mud volcanoes in the area and some are still active.Kuban - the major river of the region
(in Russian)

Human activities

The

ancient Greeks Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cult ...

called the river ''Hypanis''. Kuban River gave its name to the Kuban Cossacks who settled in its basin in the 18th–19th centuries. During the Russian conquest of the Caucasus it was part of the North Caucasus Line. The delta of Kuban is an important rice-growing region of Russia. Also developed here is fishery with the major commercial species including perch, roach and chalcalburnus. The river is navigated up to Krasnodar where it feeds the Krasnodar Thermal Power Plant.

Notes

References

External links

* {{Authority control Rivers of Adygea Rivers of Karachay-Cherkessia Rivers of Krasnodar Krai Rivers of Stavropol Krai Bodies of water of the Sea of Azov Kuban Ramsar sites in Russia