The Siverskyi Donets River

Rivers, like people, are born, grow and gather strength, find their path in life and their protecting banks, have their own character and interests, work and rest, feel care and suffer from pain. Their tributaries, like a person's friends, strive to meet, so as to overcome obstacles together. Sometimes abysses seize them, but after the whirlpools follow little islands of well-being and prosperity. The Siverskyi Donets is the largest river in the east of Ukraine and the seventh largest on the country's territory.

 

The Siverskyi Donets river. Sviatohirsk, Donetsk region.

This watercourse, 1,050 kilometres long, owes its existence to a spring in the village of Podolkhy in the north of the Belgorod region. At the source of the river -- which flows through the territory of the Russian Federation, then through three regions of Ukraine, and empties into the Don -- a recreational zone has been created with a chapel, a little bridge and gazebos. At the spring, enclosed in a pipe, people rejoice at the coming into the world of the watercourse as at the birth of a child; they hold folk festivals and immerse themselves in a bathing pool. Further on the Siverskyi Donets flows among gullies and chalk hills, forming from a stream into a river, which has been dammed several times to create reservoirs. In Belgorod, for the water supply of the regional centre, the so-called Belgorod Sea was put into operation in 1985. The huge reservoir is no longer used for drinking supply, but noticeably feels all the negative consequences of urbanisation. By eyewitness accounts, its banks are strewn with rubbish.

Striving southward, roughly 100 kilometres from its source as the crow flies, the Siverskyi Donets crosses the border of Russia and Ukraine. The upland of the Donets Ridge with its hard rocks shapes the riverbed and directs it in a south-easterly direction.

 

The Siverskyi Donets. Izium, Kharkiv region.

It flows through feather-grass steppes and picturesque valleys, skirting the jutting slopes, hurrying nowhere and not striving in turbulent torrents to carry its waters faster to the Don. Its bends, which outwardly resemble horseshoes, are covered with green floodplain expanses of broadleaf and pine forests.

 

The surface of the water is quiet and calm; in some stretches the speed of the current is practically nil. Spilling across the undulating valley, widening and deepening its bed, the river forms islands and oxbow lakes.

 

Across the whole area of the catchment about 1,000 rivers and nameless streams flow into the Siverskyi Donets, 11 of them more than 100 kilometres long.

 

The channel of this water artery lies within industrial regions, and so for decades industrial waste water has entered the river.

 

In water samples taken by laboratories, the norms for the content of petroleum products, aluminium, zinc, sulphates, nitrites and other harmful substances and chemical compounds are exceeded. On the territory of the Kharkiv region the water is polluted by the sewage facilities of Kharkiv, Balakliia and Izium.

 

The Siverskyi Donets. Izium, Kharkiv region.

The industrial Donetsk land, not rich in reserves of fresh water, needs large volumes of this precious resource. Flowing through the Sloviansk district, the bearer of drinking water fills the Siverskyi Donets -- Donbas canal with life-giving water. The enterprises and mines of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions are unable to ensure effective treatment of their industrial effluents, and toxic substances inevitably enter the blue artery of eastern Ukraine.

 

An especially substantial contribution to the destruction of the water resource is made by Lysychansk and Sievierodonetsk.

 

Winters with little snow and dry summer months have significantly affected the water level.

 

In the "Sviati Hory" National Nature Park the watercourse with its riverside pine forest magnetically draws tourists and holidaymakers.

 

Lovers of kayak trips have taken a liking to stretches of the blue ribbon for their water journeys. On the shore numerous entertainment centres, holiday bases and health camps have been built, which undoubtedly affects the sanitary state of this beloved river.

 

Human activity and ecological pollution have led to the disappearance of many representatives of the flora and fauna that inhabited the basin of the Siverskyi Donets.

 

Lovers of fishing can no longer boast of a rich catch, as was the case a few years ago.

 

From the viewing platform on the chalk mountain, enchanting landscapes over the river and the historical-architectural reserve open up at any time of year.

 

On the bank of the Siverskyi Donets stands the Holy Dormition Sviatohirsk Lavra, an Orthodox spiritual centre. According to church records, the first monks came here as far back as the 15th-16th centuries.

An archival photo from the 1950s

The monastery was founded in the 17th century, and in 2004 the cloister received the status of a lavra.

 

Winding and forming oxbow lakes, the river once again crosses the Ukrainian-Russian border in the area of Donetsk in the Rostov region. The stretch before the mouth is characterised by the appearance of branches, secondary channels and bends. The weary river, cutting through the strata of the ridge and crossing the limestone ranges, overcomes the final stage before its meeting with the Don.