The Pripyat or Prypiat is a river in

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural and socio-economic connotations. Its eastern boundary is marked by the Ural Mountain ...

. The river, which is approximately long, flows east through

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...

, and into Ukraine again, before draining into the

Dnieper The Dnieper or Dnepr ( ), also called Dnipro ( ), is one of the major transboundary rivers of Europe, rising in the Valdai Hills near Smolensk, Russia, before flowing through Belarus and Ukraine to the Black Sea. Approximately long, with ...

Kyiv Reservoir The Kyiv Reservoir (), locally the Kyiv Sea (), is a large Reservoir (water), water reservoir located on the Dnipro River in Ukraine. Named after the city of Kyiv, which lies to the south, it covers an area of within the Kyiv Oblast. The reserv ...

Name etymology

Max Vasmer Max Julius Friedrich Vasmer (; ; 28 February 1886 – 30 November 1962) was a Russian and German linguist. He studied problems of etymology in Indo-European, Finno-Ugric and Turkic languages and worked on the history of Slavic, Baltic, ...

notes in his etymological dictionary that the historical name of the river mentioned in the earliest East Slavic document, the ''

Primary Chronicle The ''Primary Chronicle'', shortened from the common ''Russian Primary Chronicle'' (, commonly transcribed ''Povest' vremennykh let'' (PVL), ), is a Rus' chronicle, chronicle of Kievan Rus' from about 850 to 1110. It is believed to have been or ...

'', is ''Pripet (), and cites the opinion of other linguists that the name meant "tributary", comparing with Greek and Latin roots. He also rejects some opinions which were improperly based on the stem ''-pjat'', rather than original . The name may also derive from the local word ''pripech'' used for a river with sandy banks.

Geography

The Pripyat begins in the

Volhynian Upland The Volhynian Upland () is an Upland (geology), upland in western Ukraine, with its small northwestern part stretching into eastern Poland. The Podolian Upland and the Volhynian Upland are sometimes grouped together as the Volhynian-Podolian Upla ...

, between the villages of and in

Volyn Oblast Volyn Oblast () or simply Volyn (), is an administrative divisions of Ukraine, oblast (province) in northwestern Ukraine. It borders Rivne Oblast to the east, Lviv Oblast to the south, Poland to the west and Belarus to the north. Its Capital city ...

, Ukraine. 204 km downstream, it crosses the border of

, where it travels 500 km through

Polesia Polesia, also called Polissia, Polesie, or Polesye, is a natural (geographic) and historical region in Eastern Europe within the East European Plain, including the Belarus–Ukraine border region and part of eastern Poland. This region shou ...

, Europe's largest wilderness, within which lie the vast sandy wetlands known as the

Pripet Marshes __NOTOC__ The Pripet Marshes or Pripyat Marshes (), also known as Pinsk Marshes (), the Polesie Marshes, and the Rokitno Marshes, are a vast natural region of wetlands in Polesia, along the forested basin of the Pripyat River and its tributaries f ...

, a dense network of swamps, bogs, rivers and rivulets within a forested basin. For the last 50 kilometers the Pripyat flows again in Ukraine and flows several kilometers south of

Chernobyl Chernobyl, officially called Chornobyl, is a partially abandoned city in Vyshhorod Raion, Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine. It is located within the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, to the north of Kyiv and to the southwest of Gomel in neighbouring Belarus. ...

into the Kyiv Reservoir. The length of the river is 775 km, and the area of the watershed is 114,300 km². The width of the

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 ...

varies from 4 to 15 km over the course of the river, with occasional flooding reaching 30 km. of the whole river length lies within

, with the rest in Ukraine. The Pripyat is navigable up to

Pinsk Pinsk (; , ; ; ; ) is a city in Brest Region, Belarus. It serves as the administrative center of Pinsk District, though it is administratively separated from the district. It is located in the historical region of Polesia, at the confluence of t ...

, where the Dnieper-Bug Canal leads to the Bug River. The Pripyat passes through the

exclusion zone An exclusion zone is a geographic area in which specific activities are prohibited by an authority. The United States Department of Defense defines an exclusion zone is a territory where an authority prohibits specific activities in a specific g ...

established around the site of the

Chernobyl nuclear disaster On 26 April 1986, the no. 4 reactor of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, located near Pripyat, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union (now Ukraine), exploded. With dozens of direct casualties, it is one of only two nuclear energy accidents rated ...

. The nearby city of Pripyat, Ukraine (population 45,000), which was named after the river, was completely evacuated after the

Chernobyl disaster On 26 April 1986, the no. 4 reactor of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, located near Pripyat, Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union (now Ukraine), exploded. With dozens of direct casualties, it is one of only ...

. The Pripyat is known for its numerous

oxbow lakes An oxbow lake is a U-shaped lake or stream pool, pool that forms when a wide meander of a river is meander cutoff, cut off, creating a free-standing body of water. The word "oxbow" can also refer to a U-shaped bend in a river or stream, whether ...

and channels.

Dredging for E40 waterway

Dredging of the river started in 2020 to enable the E40 waterway to pass through the area. The dredging raised concerns about radioactive contamination around the

Chernobyl nuclear power plant The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (ChNPP) is a nuclear power plant undergoing decommissioning. ChNPP is located near the abandoned city of Pripyat in northern Ukraine, northwest of the city of Chernobyl, from the Belarus–Ukraine border, a ...

, as the river comes within of the nuclear reactor.

Notes

References

Припять

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 ...

* Pripyat // Dictionary of Contemporary Geographical Names / Rus. geogr. oh Moscow center; By common. Ed. acad. V. M. Kotlyakova. Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences. - Yekaterinburg: U-Factorium, 2006. * Joint River Management Program. Final Report: River Pripyat Basin (February 2004)

Bibliography

* (in Russian, English and Polish) Ye.N.Meshechko, A.A.Gorbatsky (2005) ''Belarusian Polesye: Tourist Transeuropean Water Mains'', Minsk,

Four Quarters 4 (four) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 3 and preceding 5. It is a square number, the smallest semiprime and composite number, and is considered unlucky in many East Asian cultures. Evolution of the Hi ...

, * (in Belarusian, Russian and English) T.A.Khvagina (2005) ''POLESYE from the Bug to the Ubort'', Minsk

Vysheysha shkola Vysheysha shkola () is a state-owned publishing house in Minsk, Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland t ...

, .

External links

Pripyat: Radioactive pollution, 2003
{{Authority control Belarus–Ukraine border Chernobyl Exclusion Zone International rivers of Europe Rivers of Belarus Rivers of Brest region Rivers of Gomel region Rivers of Ukraine