Maly Uzen () or Kishi Uzen (, ''Kıshı Özen;'' ), also known as the Saryozen in

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a landlocked country primarily in Central Asia, with a European Kazakhstan, small portion in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the Kazakhstan–Russia border, north and west, China to th ...

, is a river in

Saratov Oblast Saratov Oblast is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject of Russia (an oblast), located in the Volga Federal District. Its administrative center is the types of inhabited localities in Russia, city of Saratov. As of the 2021 Russian cens ...

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 ...

and

West Kazakhstan Province West Kazakhstan Region (; ) is a region of Kazakhstan. The region has a population of 695,000 as of July 1st, 2024. Its administrative centre is Oral (also known as Uralsk or Ural'sk), a city of about 250,000 inhabitants. The Region was created ...

. It is long, with 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 ,Узень Большой и Малый

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 ...

The river is part of the

Kazakhstan–Russia border The Kazakhstan–Russia border is the international border between the Kazakhstan, Republic of Kazakhstan and the Russia, Russian Federation. It is the longest continuous international border in the world and the second longest by total length, ...

area. The river is used for water supply and irrigation. Water quality tests conducted in 2005 in the Russian section indicated 'moderately polluted'. A 2011 report by the

United Nations Economic Commission for Europe The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (ECE or UNECE) is an intergovernmental organization or a specialized body of the United Nations. The UNECE is one of five regional commissions under the jurisdiction of the United Nations Econom ...

listed the discharge of wastewater, surface run-off, sediments and riverbank erosion as damaging to water quality.

Course

The Maly Uzen has its sources on the western edge of the

Obshchy Syrt Obshchy Syrt (, ) is a highland ridge, or plateau ('' syrt''), in the European part of Russia. It starts north of Orenburg as a branch of the Ural Mountains and runs in a southwesterly direction to the east bank of the Volga River. River Shagan, ...

to the north of Yershov town. It flows in a roughly SSE direction over the

steppe In physical geography, a steppe () is an ecoregion characterized by grassland plains without closed forests except near rivers and lakes. Steppe biomes may include: * the montane grasslands and shrublands biome * the tropical and subtropica ...

s of the

Caspian Depression The Caspian Depression or the Caspian Lowland is a low-lying flatland region encompassing the northern part of the Caspian Sea, the largest enclosed body of water on Earth. It is the larger northern part of the wider Aral–Caspian Depressio ...

. The river runs parallel to the Bolshoy Uzen, some further east. The Maly Uzen has its mouth in lake Saryaydyn, part of the Kamys-Samar Lakes of West-Kazakhstan. Lake

Balykty Sarkyl Balykty Sarkyl (; ) is a brackish lake in Kaztal District, West Kazakhstan Region, Kazakhstan. The lake lies about southwest of Zhalpaktal village. Geography Balykty Sarkyl lies between the Maly Uzen and the Bolshoy Uzen rivers of the Ural ...

lies between the Maly Uzen and the Bolshoy Uzen. Most of the river's waters come from melting snow and its discharge is at its peak in April. Some stretches of the river usually dry up completely in the summer. At Maly Uzen village the discharge varies from . The Maly Uzen freezes over in December, and stays icebound to the end of March or beginning of April.

References

External links

* {{Rivers of Kazakhstan Rivers of Saratov Oblast Rivers of Kazakhstan International rivers of Europe Kazakhstan–Russia border