The Ubort (Russian and Ukrainian: Уборть; , ''Ubarć'') is a river in

Zhytomyr Oblast Zhytomyr Oblast (), also referred to as Zhytomyrshchyna (), is an Administrative divisions of Ukraine, oblast (province) in northwestern Ukraine. The administrative center of the oblast is the city of Zhytomyr. Its population is approximately H ...

(

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 ...

) and Gomel Region (

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 ...

), a right tributary to the

Pripyat Pripyat, also known as Prypiat, is an abandoned industrial city in Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine, located near the border with Belarus. Named after the nearby river, Pripyat (river), Pripyat, it was founded on 4 February 1970 as the ninth ''atomgrad'' ...

in 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 ...

river basin. It is long, and has a drainage basin of . The Ubort is fed mostly by melting snow (~70%) and peaks during the spring run-off, usually mid-March to early May, and maintains an even, albeit lower, flow during the summer months. It can freeze as early as mid-November or as late as January, and the ice breaks up as early as mid-February or as late as mid-April.

Course

The Ubort originates in the hills above and south of the village of Andreyevichi in Zhytomyr Oblast. It arises at elevation 207 m., from a series of small creeks flowing westward off of the Simony Hills, elevation 222 m, and northeastward off of the Marynivka Hills, elevation 225 m. The river flows north past Yemilchyne and

Olevsk Olevsk (, ; ; ) is a city in Korosten Raion, Zhytomyr Oblast, Ukraine. As of January 2022 its population was approximately History Olevsk was first mentioned in 1488. In 1641 Olevsk was granted Magdeburg city rights by Polish King Władysław ...

, thence across the international border into Belarus near Borovoye (Баравое). It then flows northeast and north past Lelchytsy, and Moiseyevichi, before entering the Pripyat at

Pyetrykaw Pyetrykaw or Petrikov (; ; ) is a town in Gomel Region, Belarus. It serves as the administrative center of Pyetrykaw District. At the 2009 census, its population was 10,591. As of 2025, it has a population of 10,278. Geography Pyetrykaw is loc ...

. The mouth of the river is at an elevation of 120 meters. The principle tributaries of the Ubort are the 67 km Perga (Перга) with its mouth at in Ukraine, and the 58 km Svidovets (Свидовець) with its mouth at in Belarus. The river has a low incline dropping only 87 meters over its 292 kilometer length. The result is a meandering river with many swamps and oxbox lakes. The area of its

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, ...

is . The average annual flow of water at the mouth of the Ubort is 24.4

Cubic metres per second Cubic metre per second or cubic meter per second in American English (symbol m3s−1 or m3/s) is the unit of volumetric flow rate in the International System of Units (SI). It corresponds to the exchange or movement of the volume of a cube with ...

History

The name appears in Latin as ''Hubort'' in a 1412 survey document. Some maps in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries mark it as the ''Олевская'' (''Olevskaya'') or in Polish ''Olewsko'', as being of the town of Olevsk. The origin of the name ''Ubort'' is obscure, but seems to be related to the use of boards (''ubort'') in making artificial hollow trees for honey bees. In July 1941, between 30 and 40 Jews from

were taken to the Ubort River, where they were humiliated and tortured; some of them were murdered in the

pogrom A pogrom is a violent riot incited with the aim of Massacre, massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe late 19th- and early 20th-century Anti-Jewis ...

. It was contaminated during 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 ...

References

Books

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ubort River Rivers of Belarus Rivers of Gomel region Rivers of Zhytomyr Oblast