The Pyana () is a river in

Nizhny Novgorod Oblast Nizhny Novgorod Oblast () is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject of Russia (an oblast). Its administrative center is the types of inhabited localities in Russia, city of Nizhny Novgorod. It has a population of 3,119,115 as of the 2021 Ru ...

and the

Republic of Mordovia Mordovia ( ),; Moksha and officially the Republic of Mordovia,; ; is a republic of Russia, situated in Eastern Europe. Its capital is the city of Saransk. As of the 2010 Census, the population of the republic was 834,755. Ethnic Russians ( ...

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 of the

Sura A ''surah'' (; ; ) is an Arabic word meaning 'chapter' in the Quran. There are 114 ''suwar'' in the Quran, each divided into verses (). The ''suwar'' are of unequal length; the shortest ''surah'' ( al-Kawthar) has only three verses, while the ...

History and etymology

Pyana translates from Russian into ''drunken''. The original name of the river was likely Piana, and, like many other old Russian geographical names, might be of Uralic origin (compare Finnish ''pieni'' meaning ''small''). The most likely reason for the transformation of Piana to Pyana was the

Battle on Pyana River The Battle on Pyana River () took place on August 2, 1377 on the Pyana River between the Golden Horde under Arab Shah (Arapsha) and an alliance of Russian principalities led by Prince Ivan Dmitriyevich, made up of the Pereyaslavl, Yaroslavl, ...

. The battle was fought on 2 August 1377 between the

Blue Horde The Blue Horde ( Mongolian: ''Хөх орд/khökh ord''; Tatar: ''Күк Урда/Kük Urda''; Turkish: ''Gök Ordu'') was a crucial component of the Mongol Empire established after Genghis Khan's demise in 1227. Functioning as the eastern par ...

Khan Khan may refer to: * Khan (surname), including a list of people with the name * Khan (title), a royal title for a ruler in Mongol and Turkic languages and used by various ethnicities Art and entertainment * Khan (band), an English progressiv ...

Arapsha (Arab-Shah Muzaffar) and joint Russian troops under

Knyaz A , also , ''knjaz'' or (), is a historical Slavs, Slavic title, used both as a royal and noble title in different times. It is usually translated into English language, English as 'prince', 'king' or 'duke', depending on specific historical c ...

Ivan Dmitriyevich. Awaiting the battle, the Russian Army lost discipline with drunkenness being a norm. They were unexpectedly attacked from all sides and crushed by the Mongols, forcing retreat to and across the Pyana. Many soldiers, and the Knyaz himself, drowned while crossing it. This explanation is further supported by the original text of the chronicles of the battle, where the writer first calls the river Piana, then notes the ironical similarity of the words piana and pyana (in a sense of drunkenness) and further uses Pyana as the river name.

Geography and hydrology

The river is long, and has a drainage basin of .«Река ПЬЯНА»
Russian State Water Registry It freezes over in November and thaws in April. The average discharge 65 km from its mouth is 25 m³/s and can vary between 10 and 1,500 m³/s. The river's banks contain numerous

karst Karst () is a topography formed from the dissolution of soluble carbonate rocks such as limestone and Dolomite (rock), dolomite. It is characterized by features like poljes above and drainage systems with sinkholes and caves underground. Ther ...

caves.Пьяна

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 ...

(in Russian) The Pyana is remarkable in its shape: it runs to the north-west and then turns 180° south-east, making a nearly closed loop (see map) before turning north and merging with the Sura.

Human activities

The towns of Perevoz and

Sergach Sergach () is a town and the administrative center of Sergachsky District in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, Russia, located on the Pyana River (Sura's tributary), southeast of Nizhny Novgorod, the administrative center of the oblast. Population: His ...

are located on the Pyana. The river is navigable in its lower reaches. On the river banks there is Ichalkovsky Natural Reserve of 936 ha area which is protected by the state since 1963. There is a

hydroelectric station Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies 15% of the world's electricity, almost 4,210 TWh in 2023, which is more than all other renewable sources combined and also m ...

near the village of Ichalkovo with the annual production of 600 MW. Its construction was started after World War II, but completed only in the 1990s.Каникулы для ГЭС
Nizhegorodskie News, 3 April 2007 (in Russian)

References

{{commonscat, Pyana River Rivers of Mordovia Rivers of Nizhny Novgorod Oblast