The Mama () is a river in

Irkutsk Oblast Irkutsk Oblast (; ) is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject of Russia (an oblast), located in southeastern Siberia in the basins of the Angara River, Angara, Lena River, Lena, and Nizhnyaya Tunguska Rivers. The administrative center is ...

and

Buryatia Buryatia, officially the Republic of Buryatia, is a republic of Russia located in the Russian Far East. Formerly part of the Siberian Federal District, it has been administered as part of the Far Eastern Federal District since 2018. To its nort ...

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 a left

tributary A tributary, or an ''affluent'', is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream (''main stem'' or ''"parent"''), river, or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries, and the main stem river into which they ...

of the

Vitim Vitim () is the name of several inhabited localities in Russia. Modern localities * Vitim, Sakha Republic, an urban locality (an urban-type settlement) in Lensky District of the Sakha Republic * Vitim, Republic of Buryatia, a rural locality (a ...

, the second largest in basin area after the

Tsipa The Tsipa () is the largest tributary of the Vitim in Buryatia, Russia. It is long, and has a drainage basin of . Maksim Perfilyev was the first Russian to reach the Tsipa in 1640. Perch, pike, lenok, grayling, taimen and whitefish are also ...

. The river has a length of and 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 . The total length of the river including the Left Mama is . The

Mamsko-Chuysky District Mamsko-Chuysky District () is an administrative district, one of the thirty-three in Irkutsk Oblast, Russia.Charter of Irkutsk Oblast Municipally, it is incorporated as Mamsko-Chuysky Municipal District.Law #63-oz The area of the district is . It ...

of Irkutsk Oblast is named after rivers Mama and

Chuya The Chuya (; , ''Çuy'') is a river in the Altai Republic in Russia, a right tributary of the Katun ( Ob's basin). The Chuya is long, and its drainage basin covers . The river freezes in October or early November and thaws in late April. The t ...

. The settlements of Bramya,

Slyudyanka Slyudyanka ( rus, Слюдянка, p=slʲʉˈdʲankə) is a town and the administrative center of Slyudyansky District of Irkutsk Oblast, Russia, located at the southern tip of Lake Baikal, south of Irkutsk, the administrative center of the o ...

, Lugovsky, Zarya and

Mama Mama(s) or Mamma or Momma may refer to: Roles *Mother, a female parent * Mama-san, in Japan and East Asia, a woman in a position of authority *Maternal uncle, in some parts of South Asia Places * Mama, Russia, an urban-type settlement in the Mam ...

are located by the river.

Course

The river basin is located on the slopes and foothills of the

Upper Angara Range The Upper Angara Range () is a mountain range in Buryatia and Irkutsk Oblast, Russia, part of the Stanovoy Highlands.Google Earth The Baikal–Amur Mainline passes at the foot of the southern side of the range. Geography The range stretches from ...

. Rivers Left Mama ''(Levaya Mama)'' and Right Mama ''(Pravaya Mama)'', which form the Mama river, have their sources in the heights of the range, at the first and at about the second. They are fast-flowing mountain rivers, with

rapids Rapids are sections of a river where the river bed has a relatively steep stream gradient, gradient, causing an increase in water velocity and turbulence. Flow, gradient, constriction, and obstacles are four factors that are needed for a rapid t ...

and waterfalls. After the confluence the Mama flows roughly northeastwards across a fragmented

floodplain A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river. Floodplains stretch from the banks of a river channel to the base of the enclosing valley, and experience flooding during periods of high Discharge (hydrolog ...

slightly

meandering A meander is one of a series of regular sinuous curves in the channel of a river or other watercourse. It is produced as a watercourse erodes the sediments of an outer, concave bank ( cut bank or river cliff) and deposits sediments on an inn ...

among rocky banks. The river is navigable downstream from the confluence of the Bramya, a small tributary. Finally the Mama meets the lower course of the Vitim from its mouth in the Lena.Mama - Water of Russia
/ref> The river is located in an area marked by

permafrost Permafrost () is soil or underwater sediment which continuously remains below for two years or more; the oldest permafrost has been continuously frozen for around 700,000 years. Whilst the shallowest permafrost has a vertical extent of below ...

. Most of the territory adjacent to the river is covered by

larch Larches are deciduous conifers in the genus ''Larix'', of the family Pinaceae (subfamily Laricoideae). Growing from tall, they are native to the cooler regions of the northern hemisphere, where they are found in lowland forests in the high la ...

taiga Taiga or tayga ( ; , ), also known as boreal forest or snow forest, is a biome characterized by coniferous forests consisting mostly of pines, spruces, and larches. The taiga, or boreal forest, is the world's largest land biome. In North A ...

and

Siberian pine ''Pinus sibirica'', or Siberian pine, in the family Pinaceae is a species of pine tree that occurs in Siberia from 58°E in the Ural Mountains east to 126°E in the Stanovoy Range in southern Sakha Republic, and from Igarka at 68°N in the l ...

in the upper reaches, crowned by golets bare summits. The main tributaries of the Mama are the long Konkudera, the long Kaverga and the long Bolshoi Ugli.

References

{{reflist

External links

Мама (река)
Article in

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 ...

Rivers of Buryatia Rivers of Irkutsk Oblast